TELFORD, Thomas, a very able and distinguished engineer, was born in the parish of Westerkirk and county of Dumfries, on the 9th of August 1757. His father, who followed the occupation of a shepherd, died before the close of that year; and the orphan boy was thus left to the sole care of his mother, whose maiden name was Janet Jackson. She survived till the year 1794, and had the high satisfaction of seeing him already entered upon a very prosperous career. In his correspondence with her, he is said to have written all his letters in printed characters, that she might be able to read them without assistance. His very limited education he received at Westerkirk school; and, during the summer season, was employed by his uncle as a shepherd boy. This occupation left him abundant leisure for reading; and his early and eager love of knowledge he was enabled to gratify by the kindness of some individuals, who accommodated him with the loan of books. At an early age, he quitted Westerkirk school and the care of his uncle’s flock, in order to learn the trade of a mason in the neighbouring town of Langholm. After the completion of his apprenticeship, he continued for some time to work as a journeyman. Langholm bridge, over the river Esk, was partly reared by hands which were destined for more scientific occupations.

At this early period of his life, he was remarkable for his elastic spirits and gay humour. In his native district of Eskdale, he was long remembered as “laughing Tom.” His favourite pursuits were not yet scientific, but literary, and he even aspired at the reputation of a poet. He was a contributor to the Weckly Magazine; and one of his compositions, entitled Eskdale, a Poem, appeared with the name of the author in a provincial miscellany.^[1. The Poetical Museum; containing Songs and Poems on almost every subject, mostly from periodical Publications. Hawick, 1784, 12mo. Eskdale occurs at p. 2G7, where it is introduced with this notice of the author: “Thomas Telford, author of the following Poem, was bred a mason at the village of Langholm, on the banks of the Esk; a young man of no education but common reading, assisted by some few books lent him by the neighbouring gentlemen." Langholm, it is to be remarked, is not a village, but a market-town, containing about 2000 inhabitants. An improved edition of the poem was printed at Shrewsbury. It is inserted in the appendix to the Life of Telford, p. 655. An “Epistle to Mr Walter Ruddiman,” signed EMale Tarn, and dated at Langholm, is subjoined to “Two Scots Poems; the Silver Gun, in three cantos, and Hallow-E'en. By John Main.” Glasgow, 1783, 4to. This epistle, which is commendatory of the Dumfries poet, was first printed in the year 1779 in the Weckly Magazine, vol. xliv. p. 151. Telford acknowledged himself to be the anthor. In the last edition of the principal poem, be is mentioned with commendation as a poet as well as engineer. See Mayne’s Siller Gun, p. 78, 227. Lond. 1836, 16to. ] ' It is an imitation of Pope’s Windsor Forest, and at least displays some command of poetical language and imagery. He subsequently wrote many verses; and from a poetical epistle which he had addressed to Burns, some extracts were printed by Dr Currie.

Telford at length quitted Eskdale, and sought for better employment in Edinburgh, where he is said to have continued, with unremitting application, to study architecture on scientific principles. In the mean time, however, he must have earned his daily bread by the labour of his hands. Here he remained till the year 1782, when he was emboldened to try his fortune in London. He had now reached the age of twenty-five, and seems to have acquired new confidence in the resources of his own talents. In his descriptive poem, two Eskdale families have each received their mead of praise; and to two individuals belonging to those families he owed many obligations.

Who has not heard of Johnstone’s sounding name. Or Pasley’s, shining in the rolls of fame?

Mr John Pasley, a wealthy merchant, was the brother of Sir Thomas Pasley, and the uncle of Sir John Malcolm. He was remarkable, even in a proverbial degree, for his anxious attention to the welfare of the Eskdale youth who repaired[7:21:171] to the metropolis.^[2. The son of an unprosperous farmer had been recommended to him by his kind-hearted relations at Burnfoot; and as the young man had not been trained to business of any kind, he thought the best way of serving him was to procure him a clerkship in a man of war. He accordingly lost no time in writing to his brother Admiral Pasley; but the admiral informed him that he had no employment for any such person. The application was immediately renewed. An answer was returned, that he really had no employment for the young man, and could not make employment for him. Even this answer was not received as final. One letter followed another so rapidly, that at length the admiral wrote to this effect: “For God’s sake, send me S. I.. and let me see if any thing can be done for him.” This young man speedily became a purser; and at the termination of the first French war, retired from the service in very prosperous circumstances. ] This ingenious young man, then a journeyman mason, he received with his habitual kindness, and not only treated him with hospitality, but, we have every reason to believe, rendered him very important services, and greatly contributed to his subsequent advancement. In his account of his own life, it is observable that Telford makes not the slightest allusion to his benefactor. As to his occupation, he states that he was fortunate in being employed at the quadrangle of Somerset-place, where he acquired much practical information, both in the useful and ornamental branches of architecture. After a residence of two years in London, he was engaged in superintending the building of a house in the dock-yard at Portsmouth, intended for the resident commissioner. For this appointment we suppose him to have been indebted to the influence of Mr Pasley, exercised through his brother the admiral. “During the three years,” he remarks, “that I attended the building of the commissioner’s house, and of a new chapel for the dock-yard, I had an opportunity of observing the various operations necessary in the foundations and construction of graving docks, wharf-walls, and similar works, which afterwards became my chief occupation.”’

Having terminated his engagement at Portsmouth in 1787, he was employed by Sir William Pulteney to superintend some alterations in Shrewsbury Castle, which he wished to fit up as a temporary residence. This baronet likewise belonged to Westerkirk, being a younger son of Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall. For several years he practised at the Scotish bar, but by his marriage with Frances Pulteney, niece to the carl of Bath, he acquired a princely fortune; and being a man of penurious habits, he continued till the end of his life to accumulate riches, which his only child, created countess of Bath, was miserably incapable of enjoying. It is more than probable that Telford had been recommended to him by Mr Pasley; and to this new connexion he was indebted for a very favourable opening of his career as a civil engineer. He was appointed surveyor of the public works in the rich and extensive county of Salop; and this office he retained till the time of his death. His chief attention was thus devoted to building and repairing bridges; but, as an architect, he was likewise employed in superintending the erection of churches and other edifices. His politics did not coincide with those of his patron. “Telford in his youth,” says Mr Rickman, “is known to have been tinctured with the then fashionable doctrines of democracy, while the strong mind of his patron derided and detested the flimsy tissue, as might be expected from his penetration and experience. A dangerous rupture was once likely to ensue, when Telford rather improperly transmitted some of the political trash of the day under his patron’s frank;^[3. It was most probably addressed to his intimate friend Andrew Little, who kept a private and very small school at Langholm, and who completely agreed with him in his political creed. Telford did not neglect to send him a copy of Paine’s Right, of Man; and as he was totally blind, he employed one of his scholars to read it in the evenings. Mr Little had received an academical education before be lost his sight; and, aided by a memory of uncommon powers, he taught the classics, and particularly the Greek classics, with much higher reputation than any other schoolmaster within a pretty extensive circuit. Two of his pupils read all the Iliad, and all or the greater part of Sophoclea After hearing a long sentence of Greek or Latin distinctly recited, be could generally construe and translate it with little or no hesitation. He was always much gratified by Telford’s visits, which were not infrequent, to his native district. ] but the latter pardoned him, after due animadversion.”

Telford’s progress in his professional career, though not uncommonly rapid, was steady and certain; and every new opportunity of exerting his talents contributed to extend a reputation which at length became unrivalled. In 1790 he was employed by the British Fishery Society to inspect the harbours at their several stations, and to devise a plan for an extensive establishment in the county of Caithness; and after an interval of three years he was intrusted with the management of the Ellesmere Canal. In 1803 the parliamentary commissioners for making roads and building bridges in the Highlands, as well as the commissioners for the Caledonian Canal, appointed him their engineer. Under the former board, eleven hundred and seventeen bridges were erected, and nine hundred and twenty miles of new roads were made; and under the latter board was completed the Caledonian Canal, a work of great labour and expense. Under the road commissioners on the Carlisle, Glasgow, and Lanarkshire roads, thirty bridges were erected; one of them having a span of a hundred and fifty feet, and another being a hundred and twenty-two feet high. In both parts of the kingdom, he afterwards conducted a great variety of public operations; and in 1808 he was employed by the Swedish government to execute a regular survey, and lay down correct plans and sections of the country between Lake Wenern and the shore of the Baltic, near Soderkoping, and to make a detailed Report on the subject, with the view of connecting the great fresh-water lakes, and forming a direct communication between the North Sea and the Baltic. Having completed this service, he embarked at Gottenburg early in October. In August 1813 he again visited Sweden, and inspected all the works then commenced, which chiefly consisted of excavations. The king bestowed upon him a Swedish order of knighthood, but his good sense prevented him from assuming the title. In our days, such honours “be good cheap.” As a further mark of the royal approbation, he received the king’s portrait set in valuable diamonds.

He continued for many years to be engaged in a great variety of similar undertakings, indeed in all the most important undertakings that were then in progress; and a simple enumeration of his roads, bridges, canals, and harbours, would itself occupy a very considerable space. “It has been said, and no doubt truly, that Mr Telford was inclined to set a higher value on the success which attended his exertions for improving the great communication from London to Holyhead, the alterations of the line of road, its smoothness, and the excellence of the bridges, than on that of any other work he executed. The Menai Bridge will unquestionably be the most imperishable monument of Mr Telford’s fame. This bridge over the Bangor ferry, connecting the counties of Carnarvon and Anglesea, partly of stone and partly of iron, on the suspension principle, consists of seven stone arches, exceeding in magnitude every work of the kind in the world.”^[4. Annual Biography and Obituary, vol. six. p. 203. ]

Telford was possessed of a robust frame, and till he reached the age of seventy, he had never been visited with any serious illness. While at Cambridge in the year 1827, he was afflicted with a severe and dangerous disorder; and although he gradually recovered a certain degree of health, he never recovered his former vigour. He became subject[7:21:172] to bilious derangements in an alarming degree; and these recurring in the spring and autumn of 1832 and 1833, and again in the spring of the ensuing year, greatly impaired his strength. On the 23d of August 1834 he experienced an attack, which, after affording some delusive expectations of his recovery, reached its fatal termination on the second of September, after he had completed the seventy-seventh year of his age. He died at his house in Abingdon Street, Westminster, and his remains were deposited in the Abbey.

He bequeathed legacies to the amount of L.16,600, but his own relations were entirely overlooked. “After his mother’s death,” we are instructed, “Telford had few family connections to provide for; and although he was ready to help these, when occasionally in want of pecuniary assistance, yet he did not divide his property amongst them, having from experience formed a strong opinion against the removal of any man from his station in life.” Telford’s original station was that of a journeyman mason at Langholm; and was it for him to appeal to his own experience, and to form a strong opinion against the removal of any man from his station in life? He had a cousin named James Jackson, whose labours as a mason had rounded his ample shoulders almost to deformity; and being no longer fit for hard work, he endeavoured to earn a livelihood by teaching a very humble school in Westerkirk. If he received any pecuniary assistance from his more fortunate relation, it must to all appearance have come in very scanty portions. The moral philosophy of this engineer and his editor is by no means suited to our unrefined taste. To Colonel Pasley, the nephew of his early benefactor, he bequeathed a legacy of five hundred pounds. We likewise mention to his credit that he bequeathed a thousand pounds to the subscription library of Westerkirk, and the same amount to that of Langholm. In the last days of a lengthened life, he had not utterly forgotten

Thy pleasant banks, O Esk, and verdant groves, The seat of innocence, and purest loves.

The defects of his early education he had endeavoured to remedy by his own unaided exertions in his mature years. We are informed that he had taught himself Latin, French, and German, and could read those languages with facility, and converse freely in French. He is likewise said to have been well acquainted with algebra, but to have placed more reliance on experiment than on mathematical investigation. A combination of science with experiment he doubtless understood and practised, as the best method of proceeding in his more difficult undertakings. He was a lover of literature, and was fond of miscellaneous reading. His relish for poetry never deserted him; and two poets, Campbell and Southey, were remembered in his will. To the Edinburgh Encyclopa?dia he contributed the articles Architecture, Bridge-building, and Canal-making. His account of his own life is however the most lasting monument of his professional talents. Of his personal history, the details are very meagre and unsatisfactory; but the record of his proceedings, and the result of his experience, as an engineer who had been engaged in such important and multifarious operations, constitute it a work of great interest in its own department.^[5. Life of Thomas Telford, Civil Engineer, written by himself; containing a descriptive Narrative of his Professional Labours: with a folio Atlas of Copper Plates. Edited by John Rickman, one of his Executors; with a preface, supplement, annotations, and index. Lond. 1833, 4to. ] (x.)