"
After three years spent at Maudslay's, Mr. Nasmyth returned to Edinburgh
to construct a small stock of engineering tools suitable for starting
him in business on his own account. He hired a workshop and did various
engineering jobs, in order to increase his little store of money and to
execute his little stock of tools. This occupied him for two years; and
in 1834 he removed the whole of his tools and machinery to Manchester.
He began business there in a very humble way, but it increased so
rapidly that he was induced to remove to a choice piece of land on the
banks of the Bridgewater Canal at Patricroft, and there make a
beginning--at first in wooden sheds--of the now famous Bridgewater
Foundry.
"There," says he, "I toiled right heartily until December 31st, 1856,
when I retired to enjoy, in _active_ leisure, the result of many an
anxious and interesting day. I had there, with the blessing of God,
devoted the best years of my life to the pursuit of a business of which
I was proud. And I trust that, without undue vanity, I may be allowed to
say that I have left my mark upon several useful inventions, which
probably have had no small share in the mechanical works of the age.
There is scarcely a steamship or locomotive that is not indebted to my
steam hammer; and without it, Armstrong and Whitworth guns and
iron-plated men-of-war could scarcely have existed.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133