THE ENGINEER.
'Soon shall thy arm, unconquered Steam, afar
Drag the slow barge and drive the rapid car.'
Darwin.
It would not be unreasonable to inquire how it can be necessary now to write an account of Richard Trevithick, seeing that only nine or ten years ago two elaborate volumes on the subject were published by his son Francis.[141] But, apart from the propriety of including so remarkable a man in the fasciculus of our Cornish worthies, it may be observed that the very amplitude of the 'Life' to which I have referred renders it inaccessible to the general reader; and moreover it is (as the talented civil engineer who wrote that valuable and interesting work himself observes), almost as much a technical history of the development of the steam-engine as a memoir of him who was so intimately associated with its rise and progress. Our purpose is biography; and, unless I am grievously mistaken, this aspect of the subject will be found full of interest.
The steam pumping-engine is to a mine what the heart is to a man: were its action to cease, or to be inefficiently performed, the mine would be flooded, and would cease to be. It is therefore not to be wondered at if, so soon as men ceased to find the precious ores in granules on the surface, washed down by mountain streams from the denuded veins which seam the hillsides, attention should be directed towards finding the coveted treasures in the bowels of the earth itself. But here a difficulty met the searchers. As they sunk their pits they often tapped the sources of streams, which, gushing out, at once put an end to their quest. Rude expedients were at first employed to remedy this; wooden pumps, worked by the hand, and such-like feeble attempts at getting over the difficulty. But it was not until 1702 that, according to some accounts, the first steam pumping-engine was erected in Cornwall, by Savery. Newcomen, whose name will always be honourably associated with the improvement of this invaluable machine, very soon was able to increase its efficiency, and erected one of his best engines in 1720, at the mine-works of Ludgvan-lez, near Penzance. By 1756 there were several steam-engines at work in Cornwall; but their defects, especially as regards their low power, and their extravagant consumption of coal, were inconveniently felt. It was at length perceived that the solution of the difficulty lay in a diminution of the size of the boiler, and an increase in the elastic force of the steam; and for the accomplishment of these objects we are mainly indebted to the subject of this memoir, as well as, in some degree, also to his father. The circumstances which surrounded them were by no means encouraging. Coal, of course, had to be imported, and also iron plates for the boilers; and the latter it was necessary, in those days, to make of small size, on account of the indifferent condition of the Cornish roads, along which (as no heavy wheeled-traffic was practicable), the burdens had to be transported from the ports to the mines, and vice versa, on the backs of mules. Now-a-days the huge boilers are moved entire, and there are few more gladsome as well as picturesque sights to be seen in Cornwall than the transit of a gigantic new boiler through the streets of one of the West-country towns. It means that mining enterprise, which has flagged of late years, owing to the increased importation of foreign ores, and has caused deep depression and cruel poverty in many a Cornish home, is awakening once more; and the teams of thirty or forty horses, with their noisy conductors, and the ponderous mass which slowly toils along the weary road, are hailed with shouting and songs. We see, then, of what vital interest to a mining county, such as Cornwall, must ever be all that is connected with that seemingly prosaic structure, the steam-engine; and how full of interest, to Cornish folk at least, should be the story of any Cornishmen who have been prominently connected with its development and history. Such certainly were the Trevithicks, especially the younger.
Though in later times they settled in the western part of the county, the family seems to have sprung, in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, from Trevemeder, a 'town place' in the seaboard parish of St. Eval, four or five miles north-west of St. Columb Major, a parish which contains some of the finest cliff scenery in Cornwall, at the far-famed Bedruthan Steps and Sands. Some of the family monuments are still to be found in the church, which lies two miles south of Trevemeder.
The elder Trevithick, who, like his more illustrious son, was christened Richard, was born in 1735; and that he was a man of sound judgment and much force of character may be surmised from his having been appointed, when only thirty years of age, manager of some of the leading Cornish mines, in days when mine-managers were expected to be their own engineers. In 1760 he married Ann Teague, one of a family (said to be of Irish extraction) distinguished for many a long year past in the annals of Cornish mining. By her, a woman of large and portly figure,[142] he had a tall stately family of four daughters and one son, all of whom were, I believe, born in an unpretending house amongst the mine-heaps which lie between Dolcoath and North Crofty, in sight of the noble hill of Carnbrea crowned with its old castle, and still more antique remains of ancient Britons.
An example of the elder Richard's inventive skill as an engineer was given when he repaired, or rather, almost reconstructed, about 1775, Newcomen's old Carloose, or Bullan Garden engine; especially by adding thereto a strong top of new form to the boiler, a drawing of which is given in the Appendix to Price's 'Mineralogia Cornubiensis,' 1778. The old boiler-tops were scarcely more than kettle-lids, and were actually weighted down in order to keep them in their places; indeed, there is a tradition that the first Cornish boilers were nothing more than stone fire-places! In effecting this improvement Richard Trevithick, senior, was assisted by one John Harvey,[143] the founder of the celebrated firm of Harvey and Co., of Hagle Foundry, of whom we shall hear more by-and-by.
But about 1777 Watt, the celebrated 'low-pressure' engineer, appeared on the scene with his improvements in the steam-engine; travelling into Cornwall for the purpose of obtaining orders, erecting his first engine at Wheal Busy, and exciting the most angry jealousy on the part of all the local mine-managers and engineers—and notably our Richard: who, however, had the magnanimity and good sense at length to acknowledge and to adopt many of his illustrious rival's improvements.