Brindley

Brindley, JAMES, an eminent English mechanic and engineer, born in Thornsett, near Chapel-en-le-Firth, Derbyshire, in 1716. His parents being in poor circumstances, he received very little education; he was apprenticed at seventeen to a millwright, afterwards became an engineer, and in 1752 showed great ingenuity in contriving a water-engine for draining a coal-mine. A silk-mill on a new plan, and several others of his works, recommended him to the Duke of Bridgewater (q.v.), who employed him to execute the canal between Worsley and Manchester. This difficult enterprise was crowned with success, including the remarkable aqueduct over the Irwell at Barton, 39 feet above the river, removed in 1888, to give place to a steel aqueduct in connection with the Manchester slip-canal. Thenceforth he devoted his great skill and genius to the construction of navigable canals; commenced the Grand Trunk, and completed the Birmingham, Chesterfield, and others. He appears to have constructed or laid out 365 miles of canals. Up till the last he remained illiterate, most of his problems were solved without writings or drawings, and when anything specially difficult had to be considered, he would go to bed and think it out there. Once, when under examination before a committee of the House of Commons, being jokingly asked for what purpose he supposed rivers to have been created, he is said to have replied: 'Undoubtedly to feed navigable canals.' His life was shortened by his excessive thought and labour, and he died at Turnhurst, Staffordshire, 30th September 1772.