While his name was rising and his reputation increasing, he had the good fortune of becoming known to the Duke of Bridgewater. The latter was no ordinary man. The youngest of five children, who successively died off, he was, in boyhood, regarded as so sickly that his life was despaired of and his intellect doubted. On this account his education was for a time neglected. However, he was sent on a Continental tour, under the guidance of a traveling tutor, and no doubt used his eyes to better purpose than had been anticipated by his guardians, or than his immediate pursuits would have led them to suppose. On returning to England, he set about enjoying himself after the fashion of the day. He appeared as the owner of race-horses, as a gentleman-rider, as the frequenter of aristocratic assemblies, and as the successful suitor of a celebrated beauty. It was on the last point that his fate turned. Circumstances of a peculiar nature interfered with the matrimonial project, and prevented the union. The young duke vowed perpetual celibacy, declared he would never address another female in accents of gallantry, and abandoning fashionable society, with all its pains, and pleasures, and excitements, retired, with honor, to his estates in the county of Lancaster.
Fortunately this representative of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere was gifted with an ardent diligence which his illustrious progenitor might have envied, and he forthwith began to develop the resources which lay dormant in his hereditary possessions. Mr. Gilbert, a person who had been much engaged in mining operations, became his assistant, and exhibited a spirit of energy and perseverance kindred with that of his employer. Brindley’s provincial fame was now not inconsiderable, and he soon became acquainted with the young patrician, who had fled from the wiles of noble matrons, and the fascinations of their fairer daughters, to bleak coal-fields and barren moors.
The man who was now introduced to the then thin and slender duke, who had escaped from race-courses, ball-rooms, and gaming-tables, to earn for himself the proud and honorable title of the “Father of British Inland Navigation,” was plain in appearance and boorish in manners. But whenever he spoke bystanders listened with pleased surprise at the enterprising courage which his words betokened; and his conversation was in no small degree indicative of one of the strong, rough, resolute, master minds, whose workings—stern and independent—frequently benefit largely the human species, and minister to the civilization of the wide world. He was just such a man as the duke stood in need of for the carrying out of his plans of improvement, and he readily consented to take service with that view.
The first undertaking on which Brindley entered in his new position was the Bridgewater Canal. Having surveyed the ground, and reported that it presented no insuperable difficulties, an Act of Parliament was obtained, and the enterprise proceeded with under his superintendence. The self-taught engineer was branded by turns as an enthusiast, a madman, and a person unworthy of trust; but his intellectual courage and unshrinking confidence in the expedients of his own bold, powerful, and original mind defied all such assaults; and he remained unmoved by the sneers, scorn, and ridicule directed against his projects. His heart and soul were in the enterprise, and obstacles disappeared before his determined will. Strangers came from afar to view the gigantic operations, and marveled at the facility with which the plain, hard-headed, illiterate man, found means to handle huge rocks, and remove them at his pleasure. This pursuit completely monopolized his thoughts and occupied his attention; he cared not for recreation or amusement. Unceasing industry seemed the law of his being. When in London he was once persuaded to go to the theatre, but declared that the whole scene so confused his ideas, and unfitted him for business, that he would, on no consideration, repeat his visit.
He appears to have had no idea of the beauties of nature, nor any perception of the objects which make up fine scenery. When under examination by a committee of the House of Commons, he was asked for what purpose he conceived rivers to have been created? and, after a slight pause, replied,
“Undoubtedly to feed canals.”
To the end of his extraordinary career, this wonderful man was occupied in his favorite pursuits, and his application to the subject was intense throughout. While the Grand Trunk Navigation Canal, to which he devoted so much thought and energy, was progressing toward completion under his auspices, and he was feeding his mind with visions of the great things it was to accomplish, his death, hastened by mental exertion, took place at Turnhurst, in Staffordshire, on the 27th of September, 1772.