Life of Thomas Telford; civil engineer with an introductory history of roads and travelling in Great Britain

Samuel Smiles

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. The present is a revised and in some respects enlarged edition of the 'Life of Telford, ' originally published in the 'Lives of the Engineers, ' to which is prefixed an account of the early roads and modes of travelling in Britain.

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• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 27 septembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819929666
• Langue: English

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PREFACE
The present is a revised and in some respectsenlarged edition of the 'Life of Telford, ' originally published inthe 'Lives of the Engineers, ' to which is prefixed an account ofthe early roads and modes of travelling in Britain.
From this volume, read in connection with the Livesof George and Robert Stephenson, in which the origin and extensionof Railways is described, an idea may be formed of theextraordinary progress which has been made in opening up theinternal communications of this country during the lastcentury.
Among the principal works executed by Telford in thecourse of his life, were the great highways constructed by him inNorth Wales and the Scotch Highlands, through districts formerlyalmost inaccessible, but which are now as easily traversed as anyEnglish county.
By means of these roads, and the facilities affordedby railways, the many are now enabled to visit with ease andcomfort magnificent mountain scenery, which before was only thecostly privilege of the few; at the same time that theirconstruction has exercised a most beneficial influence on thepopulation of the districts themselves.
The Highland roads, which were constructed with theactive assistance of the Government, and were maintained partly atthe public expense until within the last few years, had the effectof stimulating industry, improving agriculture, and converting aturbulent because unemployed population into one of the most loyaland well-conditioned in the empire; — the policy thus adopted withreference to the Highlands, and the beneficial results which haveflowed from it, affording the strongest encouragement to Governmentin dealing in like manner with the internal communications ofIreland.
While the construction of the Highland roads was inprogress, the late Robert Southey, poet laureate, visited theHighlands in company with his friend the engineer, and left onrecord an interesting account of his visit, in a, manuscript now inthe possession of Robert Rawlinson, C. E. , to whom we are indebtedfor the extracts which are made from it in the present volume.
London, October, 1867.
EARLY ROADS AND MODES OF TRAVELLING.
CHAPTER I. OLD ROADS.
Roads have in all times been among the mostinfluential agencies of society; and the makers of them, byenabling men readily to communicate with each other, have properlybeen regarded as among the most effective pioneers ofcivilization.
Roads are literally the pathways not only ofindustry, but of social and national intercourse. Wherever a lineof communication between men is formed, it renders commercepracticable; and, wherever commerce penetrates, it creates acivilization and leaves a history.
Roads place the city and the town in connection withthe village and the farm, open up markets for field produce, andprovide outlets for manufactures. They enable the natural resourcesof a country to be developed, facilitate travelling andintercourse, break down local jealousies, and in all ways tend tobind together society and bring out fully that healthy spirit ofindustry which is the life and soul of every nation.
The road is so necessary an instrument of socialwellbeing, that in every new colony it is one of the first thingsthought of. First roads, then commerce, institutions, schools,churches, and newspapers. The new country, as well as the old, canonly be effectually “opened up, ” as the common phrase is, by roadsand until these are made, it is virtually closed.
Freedom itself cannot exist without freecommunication, — every limitation of movement on the part of themembers of society amounting to a positive abridgment of theirpersonal liberty. Hence roads, canals, and railways, by providingthe greatest possible facilities for locomotion and information,are essential for the freedom of all classes, of the poorest aswell as the richest.
By bringing the ends of a kingdom together, theyreduce the inequalities of fortune and station, and, by equalizingthe price of commodities, to that extent they render themaccessible to all. Without their assistance, the concentratedpopulations of our large towns could neither be clothed nor fed;but by their instrumentality an immense range of country is broughtas it were to their very doors, and the sustenance and employmentof large masses of people become comparatively easy.
In the raw materials required for food, formanufactures, and for domestic purposes, the cost of transportnecessarily forms a considerable item; and it is clear that themore this cost can be reduced by facilities of communication, thecheaper these articles become, and the more they are multiplied andenter into the consumption of the community at large.
Let any one imagine what would be the effect ofclosing the roads, railways, and canals of England. The countrywould be brought to a dead lock, employment would be restricted inall directions, and a large proportion of the inhabitantsconcentrated in the large towns must at certain seasons inevitablyperish of cold and hunger.
In the earlier periods of English history, roadswere of comparatively less consequence. While the population wasthin and scattered, and men lived by hunting and pastoral pursuits,the track across the down, the heath, and the moor, sufficientlyanswered their purpose. Yet even in those districts unencumberedwith wood, where the first settlements were made— as on the downsof Wiltshire, the moors of Devonshire, and the wolds of Yorkshire—stone tracks were laid down by the tribes between one village andanother. We have given here, a representation of one of thoseancient trackways still existing in the neighbourhood of Whitby, inYorkshire;
[Image] Ancient Causeway, nearWhitby.
and there are many of the same description to be metwith in other parts of England. In some districts they are calledtrackways or ridgeways, being narrow causeways usually followingthe natural ridge of the country, and probably serving in earlytimes as local boundaries. On Dartmoor they are constructed ofstone blocks, irregularly laid down on the surface of the ground,forming a rude causeway of about five or six feet wide.
The Romans, with many other arts, first brought intoEngland the art of road-making. They thoroughly understood thevalue of good roads, regarding them as the essential means for themaintenance of their empire in the first instance, and of socialprosperity in the next. It was their roads, as well as theirlegions, that made them masters of the world; and the pickaxe, notless than the sword, was the ensign of their dominion. Whereverthey went, they opened up the communications of the countries theysubdued, and the roads which they made were among the best of theirkind. They were skilfully laid out and solidly constructed. Forcenturies after the Romans left England, their roads continued tobe the main highways of internal communication, and their remainsare to this day to be traced in many parts of the country.Settlements were made and towns sprang up along the old “streets; ”and the numerous Stretfords, Stratfords, and towns ending' in“le-street” — as Ardwick-le-street, in Yorkshire, andChester-le-street, in Durham— mostly mark the direction of theseancient lines of road. There are also numerous Stanfords, whichwere so called because they bordered the raised military roadwaysof the Romans, which ran direct between their stations.
The last-mentioned peculiarity of the roadsconstructed by the Romans, must have struck many observers. Leveldoes not seem to have been of consequence, compared withdirectness. This peculiarity is supposed to have originated in animperfect knowledge of mechanics; for the Romans do not appear tohave been acquainted with the moveable joint in wheeled carriages.The carriage-body rested solid upon the axles, which infour-wheeled vehicles were rigidly parallel with each other. Beingunable readily to turn a bend in the road, it has been concludedthat for this reason all the great Roman highways were constructedin as straight lines as possible.
On the departure of the Romans from Britain, most ofthe roads constructed by them were allowed to fall into decay, onwhich the forest and the waste gradually resumed their dominionover them, and the highways of England became about the worst inEurope. We find, however, that numerous attempts were made in earlytimes to preserve the ancient ways and enable a communication to bemaintained between the metropolis and the rest of the country, aswell as between one market town and another.
The state of the highways may be inferred from thecharacter of the legislation applying to them. One of the firstlaws on the subject was passed in 1285, directing that all bushesand trees along the roads leading from one market to another shouldbe cut down for two hundred feet on either side, to prevent robberslurking therein; * [1] but nothing was proposed foramending the condition of the ways themselves. In 1346, Edward III.authorised the first toll to be levied for the repair of the roadsleading from St. Giles's-in-the-Fields to the village of Charing(now Charing Cross), and from the same quarter to near Temple Bar(down Drury Lane), as well as the highway then called Perpoole (nowGray's Inn Lane). The footway at the entrance of Temple Bar wasinterrupted by thickets and bushes, and in wet weather was almostimpassable. The roads further west were so bad that when thesovereign went to Parliament faggots were thrown into the ruts inKing-street, Westminster, to enable the royal cavalcade to passalong.
In Henry VIII. 's reign, several remarkable statuteswere passed relating to certain worn-out and impracticable roads inSussex and the Weald of Kent. From the earliest of these, it wouldappear that when the old roads were found too deep and miry to bepassed, they were merely abandoned and new tracks struck out. Afterdescribing “many of the wayes in the wealds as so depe and noyousby wearyng and course of water and other occasions that peoplecannot have their carriages or p