Scientific discovery, or at any rate the practical application of scientific truths to the ordinary needs of life, had made considerable progress since the accession of Queen Victoria, and it may be convenient at this stage to review some of the principal changes thus effected. Electric Telegraph was probably of more importance than any other. The active powers of the electric “fluid” had been known for many years, and some of the greatest inquirers of modern times had anticipated extraordinary results from an agency so potent, and so various in its operations. The transmission of electricity by an insulated wire was shown by several experimenters as early as 1747, and in later years telegraphic arrangements were devised by scientific explorers, both English and foreign. But no very decided progress in the transmission of thought by electricity was effected until a short period before the death of William IV., when somewhat analogous plans were simultaneously conceived in England and America by Professor Wheatstone and Professor Morse. It has sometimes been a matter of contention as to whether the honour of this discovery should belong to the one or the other; but it may in truth be fairly divided between both. The first telegraphic line in England was set up by Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Cooke, on the Great Western Railway, between Paddington and West Drayton, in 1838-9. The first telegraphic line in America was not constructed until 1844. From those respective dates, the new means of intercommunication spread rapidly on both sides of the Atlantic, until, in these days, the whole civilised world is covered with a mesh of telegraphic lines, almost as wonderful in their operation as the web of nerves which, in the living animal, carry the conceptions of the brain through every part of the system, and the impression of the senses to the seat of reason. One of the earliest practical applications of the new telegraphic system, in a matter concerning the general interests of the public, occurred at the commencement of 1845. On the 1st of January a woman was murdered at Salt Hill, near Slough, and a certain Quaker with whom she had been intimate was suspected of the crime. The man made his way to Slough, and proceeded by train to London; but a telegraphic description of his appearance, and a statement of the reasons for his detention, had reached Paddington before the time of his arrival. A policeman was waiting on the platform, and the suspected person was closely watched and followed until it was considered prudent to arrest him. He was tried, found guilty, and executed; and Sir Francis Head, the well-known writer, records that while travelling on the same railway some time afterwards, he heard a third-class passenger, pointing to the telegraph lines, remark, “Them’s the cords that hanged John Tawell.”
Another great achievement of this period is the beautiful art of Photography. Some slight approach towards this mode of producing pictures was made as long ago as the sixteenth century, when the action of light on
BURLEIGH HOUSE, STAMFORD.
chloride of silver was discovered. Further results were obtained during the eighteenth century, particularly by Thomas Wedgwood (son of the celebrated potter) and Sir Humphry Davy. Wedgwood was the author of a paper, published in 1802 in the Journal of the Royal Institution, which he entitled “An Account of a Method of Copying Paintings upon Glass, and of making Profiles by the Agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver.” The art, however, made no great progress until it was taken up in France by M. Daguerre, who worked in concert with M. Joseph Nicéphore Niepce. The latter died in 1833, after several years’ association with M. Daguerre; but it was not until January, 1839, that the production of photographic plates was publicly announced by his partner. In the same year, Mr. Henry Fox Talbot published his mode of multiplying photographic impressions by producing in the first instance a negative photograph, from which any number of positive copies could be obtained. The earliest photographs were called Daguerreotypes and Talbotypes, after the French and English inventors; but in a few years both appellations were superseded by the Greek word photography—literally, a “light-writing,” though a “light-picture” would be the more proper description. The uses of photography have been manifold, and the satisfaction they have given in preserving the very reflex of the faces of our dead relations and cherished friends is doubtless the greatest triumph of all. Within a few months of his death, Prince Albert was deeply moved on receiving from his daughter, the Crown Princess of Prussia, a daguerreotype of his father. “How precious,” he writes to her on the 3rd of September, 1861, “is the daguerreotype! After seventeen years which have glided by since my dear father was taken away, all at once his shade has come before me—for such, in fact, it is.”[17]
To the early part of Queen Victoria’s reign must be referred some of the most practical applications of the gigantic telescope erected by the Earl of Rosse at Parsonstown, in Ireland. This wonderful instrument (which, however, has been much surpassed by later telescopes) was in active operation from 1828 to 1845. Its power was such as to exhibit the very rocks on this side of the moon, and our knowledge of that satellite—a barren, mournful sphere of extinguished vitality—was greatly increased by the scientific labours of Lord Rosse and his coadjutors. Returning to mundane matters, we must refer to the opening of the Thames Tunnel, which took place on the 25th of March, 1843. The shaft had been commenced, and the first brick laid, as far back as the 2nd of March, 1825; but the work was twice delayed by the irruption of water. This subway between Wapping and Rotherhithe was undoubtedly a splendid triumph of modern engineering, and reflected the highest credit on Mr. I. K. Brunel, who proposed and carried out the design. But the tunnel was not long popular, and, after the dissolution of the Company in 1866, the work was transferred to the East London Railway, by which it has since been used. The Queen and Prince Albert were much interested in the tunnel, and, in July, 1843, honoured it with a visit of inspection.
Arctic discovery made some important strides about this date. Sir John Franklin, accompanied by Captains Crozier and Fitzjames, sailed in the Erebus and Terror on his third Arctic Expedition, May 24th, 1845. From subsequent investigations, it appears that he discovered the North-west passage, having sailed down Peel and Victoria Straits (now called Franklin’s Straits) a few months after his arrival in those inhospitable regions. The Expedition, however, was fatal to the brave explorers. All England waited with anxiety for tidings of these adventurous men; but, after a few despatches, an appalling silence and mystery descended on the enterprise. Months passed away, and nothing more was heard of the Erebus and Terror. It was as if ships and men had been snatched away from the world; and the public could comfort itself only with vague hopes that, after all, the vessels and their crew would reappear at some unexpected corner of the earth. When the suspense became no longer bearable, expeditions were sent out in search of the missing voyagers, and coals, provisions, clothing, and other necessaries, were deposited at various points by the English and American Governments, by Lady Franklin, and by several private individuals. Some years later, wild rumours started up that Sir John Franklin and the gaunt remnant of his crew had been seen at this place and at that; but these accounts always proved incorrect. It is unnecessary to recount the numerous expeditions sent out by Lady Franklin, and by the Governments of Great Britain and the United States. Suffice it to say that, on the 6th of May, 1859, Lieutenant Hobson found at Point Victory, near Cape Victoria, a cairn and a tin case, the latter containing a paper, signed on the 25th of April, 1848, by Captain Fitzjames, which certified that the ships Erebus and Terror were beset with ice on the 12th of September, 1846; that Sir John Franklin died on the 11th of the following June; and that the ships were deserted on the 22nd of April, 1848. Some skeletons and other relics were afterwards discovered; but the precise nature of the sufferings endured by these heroic men is swallowed up for ever in the icy silence of the Polar Seas.
The rapid development of Tractarianism in the Church of England drew forth from the Archbishop of Canterbury a letter to the clergy of the Established Church, dated January 11th, 1845. His Grace forbore from giving any authoritative opinion on the practices recently introduced, but recommended moderation, forbearance, and mutual concession. Where the Tractarian innovations had been submitted to quietly, he thought they should be continued; but where they had been violently opposed, he advised the clergyman not to insist on their observance. Uniformity in the mode of conducting public worship he regarded as extremely desirable; but, as the Rubric was not very consistent with itself, he admitted that its authors might possibly have contemplated the existence of some diversity, when sanctioned by convenience. Nothing could be more amiable than the feeling which prompted this address; but it was clearly unfitted to appease the feelings of either the Tractarians or the Anti-Tractarians. Both sides were committed to the most extreme views, which they advocated with mutual bitterness. Eight days after the publication of the Archbishop’s circular, there was a disturbance in St. Sidwell’s Church, Exeter, arising out of the Puseyite practices of the Rev. Francis Courtenay. The matter was referred to the Bishop of Exeter by the Mayor, and the former wrote to Mr. Courtenay, recommending him to give way at the request of the civil authorities, and not to persist in wearing the surplice in the pulpit, unless his conscience should require him to do so. At the present day it seems a ridiculous wrangling over trifles to dispute whether a clergyman shall wear a surplice or a gown; but it should be recollected that these trifles were commonly held to be the outward manifestations of a fixed determination on the part of all Puseyite clergymen to assimilate the Church of England to the Church of Rome. If the opposition to the surplice was trivial, so also was the determination to wear it: if the wearing of the surplice involved a serious principle on the one side, the resistance involved an equally serious principle on the other. Yet the Archbishop of Canterbury thought that a few kindly words would compose these heart-burnings, which had already destroyed the peace of the Church, and now threatened its very existence.