Loe raamatut: «Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art and Science», lehekülg 5

IV. – DR. CARTWRIGHT

In the summer of 1784 a number of gentlemen were chatting, after dinner, in a country house at Matlock in Derbyshire. Some extensive cotton-mills had recently been set up in the neighbourhood, and the conversation turned upon the wonderful inventions which had been introduced for spinning cotton. There were one or two gentlemen present connected with the "manufacturing interest," who were very bitter against Arkwright and his schemes.

"It's all very well," said one of the grumblers, "but what will all this rapid production of yarn lead to? Putting aside the ruin of the poor spinners, who will be starved because they haven't as many arms as these terrible machines, you'll find that it will end in a great deal more yarn being spun than can be woven into cloth, and in large quantities of yarn being exported to the Continent, where it will be worked up by foreign weavers, to the injury of our home manufacture. That will be the short and the long of it, mark my words."

"Well, but, sir," remarked a grave, portly, middle-aged gentleman of clerical appearance, after a few minutes' reflection, "when you talk of the impossibility of the weaving keeping up with the spinning, you forget that machinery may yet be applied to the former as well as the latter. Why may there not be a loom contrived for working up yarn as fast as the spindle produces it. That long-headed fellow Arkwright must just set about inventing a weaving machine."

"Stuff and nonsense," returned the "practical man" pettishly, as though it were hardly worth while noticing the remarks of such a dreamer. "You might as well bid Arkwright grow the cloth ready made. Weaving by machinery is utterly impossible. You must remember how much more complex a process it is than spinning, and what a variety of movements it involves. Weaving by machinery is a mere idle vision, my dear sir, and shows you know nothing about the operation."

"Well, I must confess my ignorance on the subject of weaving," replied the clergyman; "but surely it can't be a more complex matter than moving the pieces in a game of chess. Now, there's an automaton figure now exhibiting in London, which handles the chess men, and places them on the proper squares of the board, and makes the most intricate moves, for all the world as if it were alive. If that can be done, I don't see why weaving should baffle a clever mechanist. A few years ago we should have laughed at the notion of doing what Arkwright has done; and I'm certain that before many years are over, we shall have 'weaving Johnnies,' as well as 'spinning Jennies.'"

Dr. Cartwright, for that was the clergyman's name, confidently as he foretold that machine-weaving would be devised before long, little dreamt at that moment that he was himself to bring about the fulfilment of his own prediction. A quiet, country clergyman, of literary tastes, a scholar, and poetaster, he had spent his life hitherto in the discharge of his ministerial duties, writing articles and verses, and had never given the slightest attention to mechanics, theoretical or practical. He had never so much as seen a loom at work, and had not the remotest notion of the principle or mode of its construction. But the chance conversation at the Matlock dinner table suddenly roused his interest in the subject. He walked home meditating on what sort of a process weaving must be; brooded over the subject for days and weeks, – was often observed by his family striding up and down the room in a fit of abstraction, throwing his arms from side to side like a weaver jerking the shuttles, – and at last succeeded in evolving, as the Germans would say, from "the depths of his moral consciousness," the idea of a power-loom. With the help of a smith and a carpenter, he set about the construction of a number of experimental machines, and at length, after five or six months' application, turned out a rude, clumsy piece of work, which was the basis of his invention.

"The warp," he says, "was laid perpendicularly, the reed fell with the force of at least half a hundredweight, and the springs which threw the shuttle were strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a slow rate, and only for a short time. This being done, I then condescended to see how other people wove; and you will guess my astonishment when I compared their easy modes of operation with mine. Availing myself of what I then saw, I made a loom in its general principles nearly as they are now made. But it was not till the year 1787 that I completed my invention."

Having given himself to the contrivance of a loom that should be able to keep pace in the working up of the yarn with the jenny which produced it, solely from motives of philanthropy, he felt bound, now that he had devised the machine, to prove its utility, and bring it into use. To have stopped with the work of invention, would, he conceived, have been to leave the work half undone; and, therefore, at no slight sacrifice of personal inclination, and to the rupture of all old ties, associations, and ways of life, he quitted the ease and seclusion of his parsonage, abandoned the pursuits which had formerly been his delight, and devoted himself to the promotion of his invention. He set up weaving and spinning factories at Doncaster, and, bent on the welfare of his race, began the weary, painful struggle that was to be his ruin, and to end only with his life. "I have the worst mechanical conception any man can have," wrote his friend Crabbe, "but you have my best wishes. May you weave webs of gold." Alas! the good man wove for himself rather a web of dismal sack-cloth, sore and grievous to his peace, like the harsh shirts of hair old devotees used to vex their flesh with for their sins. The golden webs were for other folk's wear, – for those who toiled not with their brain as he had done, but who reaped what they had not sown.

He had invented a machine that was to promote industry, and save the English weavers from being driven from the field, as was beginning to be the case, by foreign weavers; and masters and men were up in arms against him as soon as his design was known. His goods were maliciously damaged, – his workmen were spirited away from him, – his patent right was infringed. Calumny and hatred dogged his steps. After a succession of disasters, his prospects assumed a brighter aspect, when a large Manchester firm contracted for the use of four hundred looms. A few days after they were at work, the mill that had been built to receive them stood a heap of blackened ruins.

Still, he would not give up till all his resources were exhausted, – and surely and not slowly that event drew nigh. The fortune of £30,000 with which he started in the enterprise melted rapidly away; and at length the day came when, with an empty purse, a frame shattered with anxiety and toil, but with a brave, stout heart still beating in his breast, Cartwright turned his back upon his mills, and went off to London to gain a living by his pen. As he turned from the scene of his misfortunes, he exclaimed, —

 
"With firm, unshaken mind, that wreck I see,
Nor think the doom of man should be reversed for me."
 

The lion that has once eaten a man has ever after, it is said, a wild craving after human blood. And it would seem that the faculty of invention, once aroused, its appetite for exercise is constant and insatiable. Cartwright having discovered his dormant powers, could no more cease to use them than to eat. A return to his quiet literary ways, fond as he still was of such pursuits, was impossible. An inventor he was, and an inventor he must continue till his eye was glazed, and his brain numbed in death. When a clergyman he set himself to study medicine, and acquired great skill and knowledge in the science, solely for the benefit of the poor parishioners, and now he gave himself up to the labours of invention with the same benevolent motives. Gain had not tempted him to enter the arena, – discouragement and ruin were not to drive him from it. The resources of his ingenuity seemed inexhaustible, and there was no limit to its range of objects. Wool-combing machines, bread and biscuit baking machines, rope-making machines, ploughs, and wheel carriages, fire-preventatives, were in turn invented or improved by him. He predicted the use of steam-ships, and steam-carriages, – and himself devised a model of the former (with clock-work instead of a steam-engine), which a little boy used to play with on the ponds at Woburn, that was to grow up into an eminent statesman – Lord John Russell. To the very last hour of his life his brain was teeming with new designs. He went down to Dover in his eightieth year for warm sea-bathing, and suggested to his bathman a way of pumping up the water that saved him the wages of two men; and almost the day before his death, he wrote an elaborate statement of a new mode he had discovered of working the steam-engine. Moved by an irresistible impulse to promote the "public weal," he truly fulfilled the resolution he expressed in verse, —

 
"With mind unwearied, still will I engage,
In spite of failing vigour and of age,
Nor quit the combat till I quit the stage."
 

In 1808 he was rewarded by Parliament for his invention of the power-loom, and the losses it brought upon him, by a grant of £10,000. He died in October 1823.

V. – SIR ROBERT PEEL

Cartwright's power-loom was afterwards taken in hand and greatly improved by other ingenious persons – mechanics and weavers. "The names of many clever mechanics," says a writer in the Quarterly Review, "who contributed to advance it, step by step, through failure and disappointment, have long been forgotten. Some broke their hearts over their projects when apparently on the eve of success. No one was more indefatigable in his endeavours to overcome the difficulties of the contrivance than William Radcliffe, a manufacturer at Mellor, near Manchester, whose invention of the dressing-machine was an important step in advance. With the assistance of an ingenious young weaver in his employment, named Johnson, he also brought out the dandy-loom, which effects almost all that can be done for the hand-loom as to motion. Radcliffe was not, however, successful as a manufacturer; he exhausted his means in experiments, of which his contemporaries and successors were to derive the benefit; and after expending immense labour, and a considerable fortune in his improvements, he died in poverty in Manchester only a few years ago."

To the Peel family the cotton manufacture is greatly indebted for its progress. Robert Peel, the founder of the family, developed the plan of printing calico, and his successors perfected it in a variety of ways. While occupied as a small farmer near Blackburn, he gave a great deal of attention to the subject, and made a great many experiments. One day, when sketching a pattern on the back of a pewter dinner-plate, the idea occurred to him, that if colour were rubbed upon the design an impression might be printed off it upon calico. He tested the plan at once. Filling in the pattern with colour on the back of the plate, and placing a piece of calico over it, he passed it through a mangle, and was delighted with seeing the calico come out duly printed. This was his first essay in calico-printing; and he soon worked out the idea, patented it, and starting as a calico-printer, succeeded so well, that he gave up the farm and devoted himself entirely to that business. His sons succeeded him; and the Peel family, divided into numerous firms, became one of the chief pillars of the cotton manufacture.

To such perfection has calico-printing now been brought, that a mile of calico can be printed in an hour, or three cotton dresses in a minute; and so extensive is the production of that article, that one firm alone – that of Hoyle – turns out in a year more than 10,000 miles of it, or more than sufficient to measure the diameter of our planet.

It was a favourite saying of old Sir Robert Peel, in regard to the importance of commercial wealth in a national point of view, "that the gains of individuals were small compared with the national gains arising from trade;" and there can be no doubt that the success of the cotton trade has contributed essentially to the present affluence and prosperity of the United Kingdom. It has placed cheap and comfortable clothing within the reach of all, and provided well-paid employment for multitudes of people; and the growth of population to which it has led, and consequent increase in the consumption of the various necessaries and luxuries of life, have given a stimulus to all the other branches of industry and commerce. From one of the most miserable provinces in the land, Lancashire has grown to be one of the most prosperous. Within a hundred and fifty years the population has increased tenfold, and land has risen to fifty times its value for agricultural, and seventy times for manufacturing purposes. From an insignificant country town and a little fishing village have sprung Manchester and Liverpool; and many other towns throughout the country owe their existence to the same source. These are the great monuments to the achievements of Arkwright, Crompton, Peel, and the other captains of industry who wrought this mighty change, and the best trophies of their genius and enterprise.

The Railway and the Locomotive

I. – "THE FLYING COACH."

It is the grey dawn of a fine spring morning in the year 1669, and early though it be, there are many folks astir and gathering in clusters before the ancient, weather-stained front of All Souls' College, Oxford. The "Flying Coach" which has been so much talked about, and which has been solemnly considered and sanctioned by the heads of the University, is to make its first journey to the metropolis to-day, and to accomplish it between sunrise and sunset. Hitherto the journey has occupied two days, the travellers sleeping a night on the road; and the new undertaking is regarded as very bold and hazardous. A buzz rises from the knots of people as they discuss its prospects, – some very sanguine, some very doubtful, not a few very angry at the presumption of the enterprise. But six o'clock is on the strike – all the passengers are seated, some of them rather wishful to be safe on the pavement again – the driver has got the reins in his hand – the guard sounds his bugle, and off goes the "Flying Coach" at a rattling pace, amidst the cheering of the crowd and the benedictions of the university "Dons," who have come down to honour the event with their presence. Learned, liberal-minded men these "Dons" are for the times they live in; but only fancy what they would think if some old seer, whose meditation and research had were to come forth and tell them, that before two centuries were over men would think far less of travelling from Oxford to London in one hour than they then did of doing so in a day, by means of a machine of iron, mounted upon wheels, which should rush along the ground, and drag a load, which a hundred horses could not move, as though it were a feather. Roger Bacon had prophesied as much four centuries before; the Marquis of Worcester was propounding the same theory at that very day, and yet who can blame them if they treated the notion as the falsehood of an impostor, or the hallucination of a lunatic?

 
"Pierced the future, far as human eye could see,
Seen the vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be,"
 

In these days when railways traverse the country in every direction, and are still multiplying rapidly, when no two towns of the least size and consideration are unprovided with this mode of mutual communication – when we step into a railway carriage as readily as into an omnibus, and breakfasting comfortably in London, are whisked off to Edinburgh, almost in time for the fashionable dinner hour, – it requires no little effort to realize the incredulity and contempt with which the idea of superseding the stage-coach by the steam locomotive, and having lines of iron railways instead of the common highways, was regarded for many years after the beginning of the present century. Even after the practicability of the project had been proved, and steam-engines had been seen puffing along the rails, with a train of carriages attached, even so late as 1825, we find one of the leading periodicals – the Quarterly Review– denouncing the gross exaggeration of the powers of the locomotive which its promoters were guilty of, and predicting that though it might delude for a time, it must end in the mortification of all concerned. The fact was, said the writer, that people would as soon suffer themselves to be fired off like a Congreve rocket, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going at such a rate – the rate of eighteen miles an hour, which people now-a-days, accustomed to dash along in express trains at two or three times that speed, would deem a perfect snail-pace.

The "railway" had the start of the locomotive by a couple of centuries, and derives its parentage from the clumsy wooden way-leaves or tram-roads which were laid down to lessen the labour of dragging the coal-waggons to and from the place of shipment in the Newcastle colleries. These were in use from the beginning of the seventeenth century, but it was not till the beginning of the nineteenth that the locomotive steam-engine made its appearance. Watt himself took out a patent for a locomotive in 1784, but nothing came of it; and the honour of having first proved the practicability of applying steam to the purposes of locomotion is due to a Cornishman named Trevithick, who devised a high-pressure engine of very ingenious construction, and actually set it to work on one of the roads in South Wales. At first, therefore, there was no alliance between the engine and the rail; and though afterwards Trevithick adapted it to run on a tram-way, something went wrong with it, and the idea was for the time abandoned. There was a long-headed engine-man in one of the Newcastle collieries about this time, in whose mind the true solution of the problem was rapidly developing, but Trevithick had nearly forestalled him. The stories of these two men afford a most instructive lesson. A man of undoubted talent and ingenuity, with influential friends both in Cornwall and London, Trevithick had a fair start in life, and every opportunity of distinguishing himself. But he lacked steadiness and perseverance, and nothing prospered with him. He had no sooner applied himself to one scheme than he threw it up, and became engrossed in another, to be abandoned in turn for some new favourite. He was always beginning some novelty, and never ending what he had begun, and the consequence was an almost constant succession of failures. He was always unhappy and unsuccessful. If now and then a gleam of success did brighten on his path, it was but temporary, and was speedily absorbed in the gloom of failure. He found a man of capital to take up his high-pressure engine, got his locomotive built and set to work, brought his ballast engine into use, and stood in no want of praise and encouragement; and yet, one after another his schemes went wrong. Not one of them did well, because he never stuck to any of them long enough. "The world always went wrong with him," he said himself. "He always went wrong with the world," said more truly those who knew him. His haste, impatience, and want of perseverance ruined him. After actually witnessing his steam engine at work in Wales, dragging a train of heavy waggons at the rate of five miles an hour, he lost conceit of his invention, went away to the West Indies, and did not return to England till Stephenson had solved the difficulty of steam locomotion, and was laying out the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The humble engine-man, without education, without friends, without money, with countless obstacles in his way, and not a single advantage, save his native genius and resolution, had won the day, and distanced his more favoured and accomplished rival. It was reserved for George Stephenson to bring about the alliance of the locomotive and the railroad – "man and wife," as he used to call them – whose union, like that of heaven and earth in the old mythology, was to bear an offspring of Titanic might – the modern railway.