Mr. James Taylor may also be considered as one of the authors or inventors of the present system of steam navigation. In a memorial laid before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1824, he says:—
“Before, however, entering upon the main object, permit me to introduce it by a short statement explanatory of my connection with Mr. Miller. In the autumn of 1785, I went to live in Mr. Miller’s house as preceptor to his two younger sons. I found him a gentleman of great patriotism, generosity, and philanthropy, and at the same time of a [pg 82]very speculative turn of mind. Before I knew him he had gone through a very long and expensive course of experiments upon artillery, of which the carronade was the result. When I came to know him he was engaged in experiments upon shipping, and had built several (ships or vessels) upon different constructions, and of various magnitudes. The double vessel seemed to fix his attention most. In the summer of 1786 I attended him repeatedly in his experiments at Leith, which I then viewed as parties of pleasure and amusement. But in the spring of 1787 a circumstance occurred which gave me a different opinion. Mr. Miller had engaged in a sailing match with some gentlemen at Leith, against a Custom House boat (a wherry), which was reckoned a first-rate sailer. A day was appointed, and I attended Mr. Miller. His was a double vessel, sixty feet deck, propelled by two wheels, turned by two men each. * * * Being then young and stout, I took my share of the labours of the wheels, which I found very severe exercise, but it satisfied me that a proper power only was wanting to produce much utility from the invention.” This led to long and interesting discussions on the subject, and Miller explained that his principal object was to enable vessels to avoid or extricate themselves from dangerous situations, and also give them powers of motion during calms. He asked Mr. Taylor to give him the benefit of his brains. At last the latter told him that he could suggest no power equal to the steam-engine. The question then became how to apply it. Taylor made sketches according to his ideas, and Mr. Miller then said, “Well, when we go to Edinburgh we will apply to an operative engineer, and take an estimate for a small engine, and if it is not a large sum, we will set about it; but as I am a stranger to the steam-engine, you shall take charge of that part of the business, and we will try what we can make of it.”
“At this time William Symington, a young man employed at the lead mines at Wanlockhead, had invented a new construction of the steam-engine, by throwing off the air-pump. I had seen a model work, and was pleased with it, and thought it very answerable for Mr. Miller’s purpose. Symington had come into Edinburgh that winter for education. Being acquainted with him, I informed him of Mr. Miller’s intentions and mine, and asked if he could undertake to apply his engine to Mr. Miller’s vessels, and if he could I would recommend him. He answered in the affirmative, and from friendship I recommended both himself and engine, and afterwards introduced him to Mr. Miller. After some conversation, Symington engaged to perform the work, and Mr. Miller agreed to employ him. It was finally arranged that the experiment should be performed on the lake at Dalswinton, in the ensuing summer (1788). Accordingly in the spring, after the classes of the College broke up, I remained in town to superintend the castings, &c., which were done in brass, by George Watt, founder, back of Shakspear Square. When they were finished I sent the articles to the country, and followed myself. After some interval I took Symington with me to Dalswinton to put the parts together. This was accomplished about the beginning of October, and the engine, mounted in a frame, was placed upon the deck of a very handsome double pleasure-boat, upon the lake. We then proceeded to action, and a more complete, successful, and beautiful experiment was never made by any man at any time, either in art or science. The vessel moved delightfully, and notwithstanding the smallness of the cylinders (four [pg 83]inches diameter), at the rate of five miles an hour. After amusing ourselves a few days, the engine was removed, and carried into the house, where it remained as a piece of ornamental furniture for a number of years.” The vessel was 25 feet long and 7 broad. Thus was steam navigation inaugurated! How few of the readers of the Dumfries Newspaper, the Edinburgh Advertiser, or the Scots’ Magazine, when reading the brief account printed in their columns, dreamt of the revolution which this interesting and successful little experiment involved. The latter could not see farther than its utility in canals, and other inland navigation. The Annual Register for the year does not even mention it.
It was now agreed to repeat the experiment. A double engine with eighteen-inch cylinder was constructed at Carron under Symington’s directions. In November, 1789, she was tried on the Forth and Clyde Canal. “After passing Lock 16,” says Taylor, “we proceeded cautiously and pleasantly for some time, but after giving the engine full play the arms of the wheels, which had been constructed too slight, began to give way, and one float after another broke off, till we were satisfied no accuracy could be attained in the experiment until the wheels were replaced by new ones of a stronger construction. This was done with all possible speed, and upon the 26th December, we again proceeded to action. This day we moved freely without accident, and were much gratified to find our motion nearly seven miles per hour. Next day we repeated the experiment with the same success and pleasure. Satisfied now that everything proposed was accomplished, it was unnecessary to dwell longer upon the business; for, indeed, both this and the experiment of last year were as complete as any performance made by steam-boats, even to the present day.” Mr. Miller, who paid all the expenses of these steam experiments, did not pursue them further, and it is to be regretted, inasmuch as his name has not been so popularly associated with the infancy of steam navigation as could be wished. He was an enthusiast in many branches of practical science, and seems latterly to have given his mind more particularly to improvements in agriculture. Mr. Taylor’s connection with steam-boat experiments ceased with those of the second boat in 1789. “And it is clear,” says Woodcroft, “from his own statement and those of his friends, that he was neither the inventor of the machinery by which either of those boats was driven, nor of the mode of connecting the engines to the boat and wheels.” His widow received a small pension from Government, and in 1837 each of his four daughters received a gift of £50 for their father’s connection with the experiments. Miller sought no pecuniary aid or reward of any kind; and, although he devoted his time and talents, and expended nearly £30,000 of his own fortune in the improvement of artillery and naval architecture, his services were wholly overlooked by the powers that were. Mr. Woodcroft has very clearly shown that Miller, in spite of the apparent success of the experiments, had not great faith in Symington’s machinery, which he describes in a letter “as the most improper of all steam-engines for giving motion to a vessel.” We find him much later describing, in a patent specification, a new form of flat boat, with centre-boards and paddle-wheels, still worked by his favourite capstans.
THE “CHARLOTTE DUNDAS.”
More than ten years elapsed before Symington, the builder of Miller’s engines, found another patron. In 1801, Thomas, first Lord Dundas, employed him to fit up a [pg 84]steam-boat for the Forth and Clyde Canal Company, in which he was a large shareholder. “Having,” says Lindsay,[25] “availed himself of the many improvements made by Watt and others, Symington patented his new engine on the 14th of March of that year, and fitting it on board the Charlotte Dundas, named after his lordship’s daughter, produced, in the opinion of most writers who have carefully and impartially inquired into this interesting subject, ‘the first practical steam-boat.’ ” In March, 1802, the Charlotte Dundas made her trial trip on the canal. It was in one sense a fortunate day for the experiment, for a gale of wind blew, and no other vessel attempted to move to windward. The little steamer, towing two barges of seventy tons burden, accomplished the trip to Port Dundas, Glasgow, a distance of 19½ miles, in six hours, or at the rate of 3¼ miles per hour. Lord Dundas, who was on board, thought favourably of the experiment, and in a letter of introduction to the Duke of Bridgewater, recommended Symington’s new engine to his notice. His grace almost immediately gave him an order to construct eight vessels similar to the Charlotte Dundas, and the struggling engineer naturally thought that his fortune was made. Alas! before the arrangements could be consummated the duke died, and the committee who had charge of the canal after his decease, came to the conclusion that the wash from steam-boats would injure its banks. Woodcroft considers that “this vessel might, from the simplicity of its machinery, have been at work to this day with such ordinary repairs as are now occasionally required for all steam-boats,” and claims that to Symington belonged “the undoubted merit of having combined for the first time those improvements which constitute the present system of steam navigation.” The success of the engine consisted in this: that, “after placing in a boat a double-acting reciprocating engine, he attached his crank to the axis of the paddle-wheel,” a combination on which there has been no improvement to the present day, as rotatory motion is secured without the interposition of a lever or beam. So much for the engine, but how about the poor engineer? This boat was laid up in a creek of the canal, where she remained for many years exposed as a curiosity, and perhaps also as a warning to ambitious speculators. Symington’s means were nearly exhausted, and after having had to fight Taylor at law in regard to some of [pg 85]the minor inventions employed, we find him in 1825 receiving the miserable gift of £100 from the Privy Purse, and later, a further sum of £50. What a return for labours which so distinctly led to our present system of steam navigation!
SYMINGTON.
In 1797, an experiment which took place in the neighbourhood of Liverpool is recorded in the Monthly Magazine, on oars worked by steam; the engine made eighteen strokes per minute, and propelled a vessel, heavily laden with copper slag, through the Sankey Canal. The claims of other countries have also been put forth, but the first attempts at practical steam navigation belong to Scotland, and, as we shall see, were improved to such an extent in America, that to that country belongs the credit of having first organised a steam-boat line for continuous and paying traffic.