The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-27
LORD TOM BRASSEY.
One of the Greatest Authori-
ties on Marine Questions.
WHAT HE DID FOR THE NAVY.
Yachting Not an Amusement With Him
"A Follower of Mr. Gladstone
Through Thick and Thin.


to wealth, to make things complete he has
to look out for some aristocratic ancestors.
If the late Thomas Brassey had been told
in his youth that he was descended from
Robert de Bresey, who came over with
William the Conqueror, he would have
wondered what sort of joke was being
played on him. Yet no sooner was his
SON created Lord Brassey of Buckley
than the people, who make business
of supplying pedigrees to those who
pay for them traced the family
lineage back to the Norman knight,
through all sorts of highly connected
branches. The Heralds' College fur
nished a coat of arms to suit, and the
newly made peer proudly took his place
among the historic nobility of England.
Meanwhile there are those living who can
remember his lordship's father when he
was plain Tom Brassey, of Liverpool, and
when he was not at all ashamed to do
hard days work for fair days wage.
That he was in his youth NAVY" as
has been reported, may or may not be
true; but it is certain that he rose from
yerv small beginnings and made his for
tune by the removal of earth. A NAVY
nowadays means any sort of strong Ia
borer who handles a pick and shovel,
especially ON railway works; but In
Thomas Brassey's youth it had
special significance which explains the Or
gin of the word itself. The canals by
which the goods traffic of Great Britain
was then carried ON were formerly called
the system of 'internal navigation" and
the officials who supervised them were
popularity nicknamed ''infernal navvies. !"
Thence the men employed in cutting them
were called navvies. and when railways
superseded canals, the laborers who made
them, being the same class who had dug
the canals, were also called navvies.
Thomas Brassey was simply navy with
a talent for making estimates and organ
izing work. He became a sub-contractor
during the railway mania and ended by
getting some of the biggest and most
profitable contracts in England into
his hands. He was partner
for some time with Sir Samuel Nor
ton Peto, the king of contractors in
his day; but he had the shrewdness to
avoid those speculative ventures which
brought Sir Samuel to grief, and when
most of the great contractors went to
smash. Thomas Brassey managed to keep
all he had made and to add to it steadily.
He was very rich man by the time when
his three sons were in their teens, and he
sent them to Oxford and gave them every
and encouragement to take a
high position in society. They all three
fulfilled his expectations, two of them get
ting into parliament and marrying into
the nobility, and one OF them becoming
himself peer of the realm. This is q
striking instance of how, in a single gen.
Grafton, in England, humble family may
rise to the first rank.
1t must be said for the Brasseys that
they have fairly earned all they have
gained. They are all men of decided abil-
ity and of great strength of character, and
the secret of their success lies in doing
thoroughly whatever they undertake.
Lord Brassey, in particular, has shown
this tnoroughness in a very remarkable
way-all the more remarkable because he
has not kept in one groove, as his father
did, but has fearlessly measured himself
against other men in several departments
of life. Even at college he showed this
strong versatility, for at the age of % he
took his degree with honors, both in law
an d history. Then he studied law regu-
larIy and was called to the bar
at Lincoln's Inn, not with any idea of
practicing. but merely to fit himself for a
public career. From early youth he had a
laundering for the sea, and as it was i'm
possible for him to enter the navy. he took
10 yachting IN such a thorough-going
style that he obtained a masters certifi-
cate from the board of trade, which no
amateur sailor had ever before done. But
this was only an incident. He threw him
self with extraordinary energy into all
matters connected with seafaring, and at
the age of 20, when most rich young men
are devoted to pleasure, he was returned
to the house of commons from Davenport,
a very influential maritime constituency.
At the next election he was returned
for Hastings, another seaport. which
he represented for eighteen years,
and during that time he made
himself the greatest authority to
parliament upon nautical questions. In
1850 he was made civil lord OF the admir-
atty in the Gladstone ministry, and four
years later he undertook the important
post of secretary of the admiralty. 1t is
not too much to say that he revolution
lied the naval administration of the coun-
try, and that the pre-eminence of Great
Britain as naval power today is largely
owing to him. 1t was he who established
the naval reserve, by which the flower of
the mercantile marine and the fishermen
are placed at the service of the empire in
case OF war, and also the Naval Artillery
Volunteers, a brigade which he him
self commands. He gave his attention
not only to the navy, but also to merchant
shipping, for the benefit of which he has
done almost as much as MIR. Plimsoll,
though not IN such pugnacious way. He
n n srNaar Il =
sea, and is the first yachtsman who ever
sailed his own vessel round the world.
Yachting with him has never been a mere
amusement, but each OF his VOYAGES was
taken with q definite object and has re-
suited in some practical good to his coun-
try. The course OF the Sunbeam in fact.
was watched with as much interest as II
she had been q man-of-war on special SER
vice, and Lord Brassey's published letters
from the various points he touched at
were much more valuable than official dis
patches.
This many-sided man is. indeed. a
vo!uminous and vigorous writer, and his
works on the navy, merchant shipping,
labor questions and trade form quite a con
siderable library. He has no pretension to
literary style. but he writes in pIain.
straightforward way that makes his books
both popular and valuable for reference
1t IS wonder how he has ever found the
time 10 produce as much as he has, and OF
such solid material. The explanation OF
II Is that he is a tremendously hard worker,
and that he knows how TO make Others
Work for him SO as to spare his own time
as much rs possible. He won't have any.
thing 10 do with anybody who is not will
Ing TO work ike a horse; and he never
wastes himself on details or hack work
Whlch can be done just as well or better by
somebody else.
In politics Lord Brassey has been all
along an answering follower of Mr.. Glad.
stone. and NJ the general election of iSs6,
the most critical period nj Mr. Glads-onaiq