In the year 1815, while Mr. Murdock was fitting up an apparatus of his own invention for heating the water of the baths at Leamington, a ponderous cast-iron plate fell upon his leg above the ankle, nearly severing it in two. This severe accident laid him up for a long time, and he never entirely recovered from the effects of it. During the latter years of his life Murdock's faculties, both corporeal and mental, experienced a gradual decay, causing him to live in complete retirement. He died in 1839, aged eighty-five years, and his remains were buried in Handsworth Church, near to those of Boulton and James Watt.
Mr. Murdock married in the year 1785 the daughter of Captain Paynter, of Redruth, Cornwall, who died at the early age of twenty-four, having had four children.—From a Paper read by Mr. William Buckle, of Soho, before a meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, October 23, 1850.
ROBERT MYLNE.
Born January 4, 1733. Died May 5, 1811.
Robert Mylne, the architect of Blackfriars Bridge, was born at Edinburgh. His father was an architect, and magistrate of the city; and his family, it has been ascertained, held the office of Master Masons to the Kings of Scotland for a period of five hundred years, until the union of the crowns of England and Scotland.
On arriving at man's estate, Mylne travelled for improvement; and his enthusiastic prosecution of his art soon brought him into notice. In 1758 he became a candidate for the honours of the Academy of St. Luke at Rome, and the chief prize in the highest class of architecture was awarded to him; being the first instance of a native of Great Britain obtaining that honour.
Mylne resided at Rome during a space of five years, and on his return to England executed a design for Blackfriars Bridge, which was selected from among twenty others. This bridge was commenced in 1760; and on the occasion of the laying of the foundation-stone by the Lord Mayor, among other medals deposited in the stone was a silver one, the memorial of the young architect's first triumph, viz., the medal (one of two) given him by the Academy at Rome. The bridge was completed in 1769; the arches are elliptical in shape, and were the first instances in England in which the form of an ellipse was substituted for a semicircle. The total cost of the bridge itself, exclusive of the approaches, amounted to 152,840l.
Mylne's reputation was now established, and his services were employed in the erection or improvement of many edifices throughout the United Kingdom. He received at the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the Lord Mayor, the office of Surveyor of St. Paul's Cathedral; and while holding this appointment, suggested the famous inscription to Sir Christopher Wren—'Si monumentum quæris circumspice.' He also held the office of Clerk of the Works at Greenwich Hospital for fifteen years, and was Engineer to the New River Water Works from the year 1762 until his death, in 1811, when he was succeeded by his son.