The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles

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During his stay in Aberdeen, Metcalf had made himself familiar with
the articles of clothing manufactured at that place, and he came to
the conclusion that a profitable trade might be carried on by
buying them on the spot, and selling them by retail to customers in
Yorkshire. He accordingly proceeded to Aberdeen in the following
spring; and bought a considerable stock of cotton and worsted
stockings, which he found he could readily dispose of on his return
home. His knowledge of horseflesh--in which he was, of course,
mainly guided by his acute sense of feeling--also proved highly
serviceable to him, and he bought considerable numbers of horses in
Yorkshire for sale in Scotland, bringing back galloways in return.
It is supposed that at the same time he carried on a profitable
contraband trade in tea and such like articles.

After this, Metcalf began a new line of business, that of common
carrier between York and Knaresborough, plying the first
stage-waggon on that road. He made the journey twice a week in
summer and once a week in winter. He also undertook the conveyance
of army baggage, most other owners of carts at that time being
afraid of soldiers, regarding them as a wild rough set, with whom
it was dangerous to have any dealings. But the blind man knew them
better, and while he drove a profitable trade in carrying their
baggage from town to town, they never did him any harm. By these
means, he very shortly succeeded in realising a considerable store
of savings, besides being able to maintain his family in
respectability and comfort.

Metcalf, however, had not yet entered upon the main business of his
life. The reader will already have observed how strong of heart
and resolute of purpose he was. During his adventurous career he
had acquired a more than ordinary share of experience of the
world. Stone blind as he was from his childhood, he had not been
able to study books, but he had carefully studied men. He could
read characters with wonderful quickness, rapidly taking stock, as
he called it, of those with whom he came in contact. In his youth,
as we have seen, he could follow the hounds on horse or on foot,
and managed to be in at the death with the most expert riders.
His travels about the country as a guide to those who could see,
as a musician, soldier, chapman, fish-dealer, horse-dealer,
and waggoner, had given him a perfectly familiar acquaintance with
the northern roads. He could measure timber or hay in the stack,
and rapidly reduce their contents to feet and inches after a mental
process of his own. Withal he was endowed with an extraordinary
activity and spirit of enterprise, which, had his sight been spared
him, would probably have rendered him one of the most extraordinary
men of his age. As it was, Metcalf now became one of the greatest
of its road-makers and bridge-builders.

[Image] John Metcalf, the blind road-maker.

About the year 1765 an Act was passed empowering a turnpike-road to
be constructed between Harrogate and Boroughbridge. The business
of contractor had not yet come into existence, nor was the art of
road-making much understood; and in a remote country place such as
Knaresborough the surveyor had some difficulty in finding persons
capable of executing the necessary work. The shrewd Metcalf
discerned in the proposed enterprise the first of a series of
public roads of a similar kind throughout the northern counties,
for none knew better than he did how great was the need of them.
He determined, therefore, to enter upon this new line of business,
and offered to Mr. Ostler, the master surveyor, to construct three
miles of the proposed road between Minskip and Fearnsby. Ostler
knew the man well, and having the greatest confidence in his
abilities, he let him the contract. Metcalf sold his stage-waggons
and his interest in the carrying business between York and
Knaresborough, and at once proceeded with his new undertaking.
The materials for metaling the road were to be obtained from one
gravel-pit for the whole length, and he made his arrangements on a
large scale accordingly, hauling out the ballast with unusual
expedition and economy, at the same time proceeding with the
formation of the road at all points; by which means he was enabled
the first to complete his contract, to the entire satisfaction of
the surveyor and trustees.

This was only the first of a vast number of similar projects on
which Metcalf was afterwards engaged, extending over a period of
more than thirty years. By the time that he had finished the road,
the building of a bridge at Boroughbridge was advertised, and
Metcalf sent in his tender with many others. At the same time he
frankly stated that, though he wished to undertake the work, he had
not before executed anything of the kind. His tender being on the
whole the most favourable, the trustees sent for Metcalf, and on
his appearing before them, they asked him what he knew of a bridge.
He replied that he could readily describe his plan of the one they
proposed to build, if they would be good enough to write down his
figures. The span of the arch, 18 feet," said he, "being a
semicircle, makes 27: the arch-stones must be a foot deep, which,
if multiplied by 27, will be 486; and the basis will be 72 feet
more. This for the arch; but it will require good backing, for
which purpose there are proper stones in the old Roman wall at
Aldborough, which may be used for the purpose, if you please to
give directions to that effect." It is doubtful whether the
trustees were able to follow his rapid calculations; but they were
so much struck by his readiness and apparently complete knowledge
of the work he proposed to execute, that they gave him the contract
to build the bridge; and he completed it within the stipulated time
in a satisfactory and workmanlike manner.

He next agreed to make the mile and a half of turnpike-road between
his native town of Knaresborough and Harrogate--ground with which
he was more than ordinarily familiar. Walking one day over a
portion of the ground on which the road was to be made, while still
covered with grass, he told the workmen that he thought it differed
from the ground adjoining it, and he directed them to try for stone
or gravel underneath; and, strange to say, not many feet down, the
men came upon the stones of an old Roman causeway, from which he
obtained much valuable material for the making of his new road.
At another part of the contract there was a bog to be crossed, and
the surveyor thought it impossible to make a road over it. Metcalf
assured him that he could readily accomplish it; on which the other
offered, if he succeeded, to pay him for the straight road the
price which he would have to pay if the road were constructed round
the bog. Metcalf set to work accordingly, and had a large quantity
of furze and ling laid upon the bog, over which he spread layers of
gravel. The plan answered effectually, and when the materials had
become consolidated, it proved one of the best parts of the road.

It would be tedious to describe in detail the construction of the
various roads and bridges which Metcalf subsequently executed, but
a brief summary of the more important will suffice. In Yorkshire,
he made the roads between Harrogate and Harewood Bridge; between
Chapeltown and Leeds; between Broughton and Addingham; between Mill
Bridge and Halifax; between Wakefield and Dewsbury; between
Wakefield and Doncaster; between Wakefield, Huddersfield, and
Saddleworth (the Manchester road); between Standish and Thurston
Clough; between Huddersfield and Highmoor; between Huddersfield and
Halifax, and between Knaresborough and Wetherby.

In Lancashire also, Metcalf made a large extent of roads, which
were of the greatest importance in opening up the resources of that
county. Previous to their construction, almost the only means of
communication between districts was by horse-tracks and mill-roads,
of sufficient width to enable a laden horse to pass along them with
a pack of goods or a sack of corn slung across its back. Metcalf's
principal roads in Lancashire were those constructed by him between
Bury and Blackburn, with a branch to Accrington; between Bury and
Haslingden; and between Haslingden and Accrington, with a branch to
Blackburn. He also made some highly important main roads
connecting Yorkshire and Lancashire with each other at many parts:
as, for instance, those between Skipton, Colne, and Burnley; and
between Docklane Head and Ashton-under-Lyne. The roads from Ashton
to Stockport and from Stockport to Mottram Langdale were also his
work.

Our road-maker was also extensively employed in the same way in the
counties of Cheshire and Derby; constructing the roads between
Macclesfield and Chapel-le-Frith, between Whaley and Buxton,
between Congleton and the Red Bull (entering Staffordshire), and in
various other directions. The total mileage of the turnpike-roads
thus constructed was about one hundred and eighty miles, for which
Metcalf received in all about sixty-five thousand pounds.
The making of these roads also involved the building of many bridges,
retaining-walls, and culverts. We believe it was generally
admitted of the works constructed by Metcalf that they well stood
the test of time and use; and, with a degree of justifiable pride,
he was afterwards accustomed to point to his bridges, when others
were tumbling during floods, and boast that none of his had fallen.

This extraordinary man not only made the highways which were
designed for him by other surveyors, but himself personally
surveyed and laid out many of the most important roads which he
constructed, in difficult and mountainous parts of Yorkshire and
Lancashire. One who personally knew Metcalf thus wrote of him
during his life-time:. "With the assistance only of a long staff,
I have several times met this man traversing the roads, ascending
steep and rugged heights, exploring valleys and investigating their
several extents, forms, and situations, so as to answer his designs
in the best manner. The plans which he makes, and the estimates he
prepares, are done in a method peculiar to himself, and of which he
cannot well convey the meaning to others. His abilities in this
respect are, nevertheless, so great that he finds constant
employment. Most of the roads over the Peak in Derbyshire have
been altered by his directions, particularly those in the vicinity
of Buxton; and he is at this time constructing a new one betwixt
Wilmslow and Congleton, to open a communication with the great
London road, without being obliged to pass over the mountains.
I have met this blind projector while engaged in making his survey.
He was alone as usual, and, amongst other conversation, I made some
inquiries respecting this new road. It was really astonishing to
hear with what accuracy he described its course and the nature of
the different soils through which it was conducted. Having
mentioned to him a boggy piece of ground it passed through, he
observed that 'that was the only place he had doubts concerning,
and that he was apprehensive they had, contrary to his directions,
been too sparing of their materials.'"*[1]

Metcalf's skill in constructing his roads over boggy ground was
very great; and the following may be cited as an instance. When
the high-road from Huddersfield to Manchester was determined on,
he agreed to make it at so much a rood, though at that time the
line had not been marked out. When this was done, Metcalf, to his
dismay, found that the surveyor had laid it out across some deep
marshy ground on Pule and Standish Commons. On this he
expostulated with the trustees, alleging the much greater expense
that he must necessarily incur in carrying out the work after their
surveyor's plan. They told him, however, that if he succeeded in
making a complete road to their satisfaction, he should not be a
loser; but they pointed out that, according to their surveyor's
views, it would be requisite for him to dig out the bog until he
came to a solid bottom. Metcalf, on making his calculations, found
that in that case he would have to dig a trench some nine feet deep
and fourteen yards broad on the average, making about two hundred
and ninety-four solid yards of bog in every rood, to be excavated
and carried away. This, he naturally conceived, would have proved
both tedious as well as costly, and, after all, the road would in
wet weather have been no better than a broad ditch, and in winter
liable to be blocked up with snow. He strongly represented this
view to the trustees as well as the surveyor, but they were
immovable. It was, therefore, necessary for him to surmount the
difficulty in some other way, though he remained firm in his
resolution not to adopt the plan proposed by the surveyor.
After much cogitation he appeared again before the trustees,
and made this proposal to them: that he should make the road
across the marshes after his own plan, and then, if it should be
found not to answer, he would be at the expense of making it over
again after the surveyor's proposed method. This was agreed to;
and as he had undertaken to make nine miles of the road within ten
months, he immediately set to work with all despatch.

Nearly four hundred men were employed upon the work at six
different points, and their first operation was to cut a deep ditch
along either side of the intended road, and throw the excavated
stuff inwards so as to raise it to a circular form. His greatest
difficulty was in getting the stones laid to make the drains, there
being no firm footing for a horse in the more boggy places.
The Yorkshire clothiers, who passed that way to Huddersfield market
--by no means a soft-spoken race--ridiculed Metcalf's proceedings,
and declared that he and his men would some day have to be dragged
out of the bog by the hair of their heads! Undeterred, however,
by sarcasm, he persistently pursued his plan of making the road
practicable for laden vehicles; but he strictly enjoined his men
for the present to keep his manner of proceeding; a secret.

His plan was this. He ordered heather and ling to be pulled from
the adjacent ground, and after binding it together in little round
bundles, which could be grasped with the hand, these bundles were
placed close together in rows in the direction of the line of road,
after which other similar bundles were placed transversely over
them; and when all had been pressed well down, stone and gravel
were led on in broad-wheeled waggons, and spread over the bundles,
so as to make a firm and level way. When the first load was
brought and laid on, and the horses reached the firm ground again
in safety, loud cheers were set up by the persons who had assembled
in the expectation of seeing both horses and waggons disappear in
the bog. The whole length was finished in like manner, and it
proved one of the best, and even the driest, parts of the road,
standing in very little need of repair for nearly twelve years
after its construction. The plan adopted by Metcalf, we need
scarcely point out, was precisely similar to that afterwards
adopted by George Stephenson, under like circumstances, when
constructing the railway across Chat Moss. It consisted simply in a
large extension of the bearing surface, by which, in fact, the road
was made to float upon the surface of the bog; and the ingenuity of
the expedient proved the practical shrewdness and mother-wit of the
blind Metcalf, as it afterwards illustrated the promptitude as well
as skill of the clear-sighted George Stephenson.

Metcalf was upwards of seventy years old before he left off
road-making. He was still hale and hearty, wonderfully active for
so old a man, and always full of enterprise. Occupation was
absolutely necessary for his comfort, and even to the last day of
his life he could not bear to be idle. While engaged on road-making
in Cheshire, he brought his wife to Stockport for a time,
and there she died, after thirty-nine years of happy married life.
One of Metcalf's daughters became married to a person engaged in
the cotton business at Stockport, and, as that trade was then very
brisk, Metcalf himself commenced it in a small way. He began with
six spinning-jennies and a carding-engine, to which he afterwards
added looms for weaving calicoes, jeans, and velveteens. But trade
was fickle, and finding that he could not sell his yarns except at
a loss, he made over his jennies to his son-in-law, and again went
on with his road-making. The last line which he constructed was
one of the most difficult he had everundertaken,-- that between
Haslingden and Accrington, with a branch road to Bury. Numerous
canals being under construction at the same time, employment was
abundant and wages rose, so that though he honourably fulfilled his
contract, and was paid for it the sum of 3500L., he found himself a
loser of exactly 40L. after two years' labour and anxiety.
He completed the road in 1792, when he was seventy-five years of age,
after which he retired to his farm at Spofforth, near Wetherby,
where for some years longer he continued to do a little business in
his old line, buying and selling hay and standing wood, and
superintending the operations of his little farm, During the later
years of his career he occupied himself in dictating to an
amanuensis an account of the incidents in his remarkable life,
and finally, in the year 1810, this strong-hearted and resolute man
--his life's work over--laid down his staff and peacefully departed
in the ninety-third year of his age; leaving behind him four
children, twenty grand-children, and ninety great grand-children.

[Image] Metcalf's house at Spofforth.

The roads constructed by Metcalf and others had the effect of
greatly improving the communications of Yorkshire and Lancashire,
and opening up those counties to the trade then flowing into them
from all directions. But the administration of the highways and
turnpikes being entirely local, their good or bad management
depending upon the public spirit and enterprise of the gentlemen of
the locality, it frequently happened that while the roads of one
county were exceedingly good, those of the adjoining county were
altogether execrable.

Even in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis the Surrey roads
remained comparatively unimproved. Those through the interior of
Kent were wretched. When Mr. Rennie, the engineer, was engaged in
surveying the Weald with a view to the cutting of a canal through
it in 1802, he found the country almost destitute of practicable
roads, though so near to the metropolis on the one hand and to the
sea-coast on the other. The interior of the county was then
comparatively untraversed, except by bands of smugglers, who kept
the inhabitants in a state of constant terror. In an agricultural
report on the county of Northampton as late as the year 1813, it
was stated that the only way of getting along some of the main
lines of road in rainy weather, was by swimming!

In the neighbourhood of the city of Lincoln the communications were
little better, and there still stands upon what is called Lincoln
Heath--though a heath no longer--a curious memorial of the past in
the shape of Dunstan Pillar, a column seventy feet high, erected
about the middle of last century in the midst of the then dreary,
barren waste, for the purpose of serving as a mark to wayfarers by
day and a beacon to them by night.*[2]

[Image] Land Lighthouse on Lincoln Heath.

At that time the Heath was not only uncultivated, but it was also
unprovided with a road across it. When the late Lady Robert
Manners visited Lincoln from her residence at Bloxholm, she was
accustomed to send forward a groom to examine some track, that on
his return he might be able to report one that was practicable.
Travellers frequently lost themselves upon this heath. Thus a
family, returning from a ball at Lincoln, strayed from the track
twice in one night, and they were obliged to remain there until
morning. All this is now changed, and Lincoln Heath has become
covered with excellent roads and thriving farmsteads.
"This Dunstan Pillar," says Mr. Pusey, in his review of the
agriculture of Lincolnshire, in 1843, "lighted up no longer time
ago for so singular a purpose, did appear to me a striking witness
of the spirit of industry which, in our own days, has reared the
thriving homesteads around it, and spread a mantle of teeming
vegetation to its very base. And it was certainly surprising to
discover at once the finest farming I had ever seen and the only
land lighthouse ever raised.*[3] Now that the pillar has ceased to
cheer the wayfarer, it may serve as a beacon to encourage other
landowners in converting their dreary moors into similar scenes of
thriving industry."*[4] When the improvement of the high roads of
the country fairly set in, the progress made was very rapid.
This was greatly stimulated by the important inventions of tools,
machines, and engines, made towards the close of last century,
the products of which--more especially of the steam-engine and
spinning-machine--so largely increased the wealth of the nation.
Manufactures, commerce, and shipping, made unprecedented strides;
life became more active; persons and commodities circulated more
rapidly; every improvement in the internal communications being
followed by an increase of ease, rapidity, and economy in
locomotion. Turnpike and post roads were speedily extended all
over the country, and even the rugged mountain districts of North
Wales and the Scotch Highlands became as accessible as any English
county. The riding postman was superseded by the smartly appointed
mail-coach, performing its journeys with remarkable regularity at
the average speed of ten miles an hour. Slow stagecoaches gave
place to fast ones, splendidly horsed and "tooled," until
travelling by road in England was pronounced almost perfect.

But all this was not enough. The roads and canals, numerous and
perfect though they might be, were found altogether inadequate to
the accommodation of the traffic of the country, which had
increased, at a constantly accelerating ratio, with the increased
application of steam power to the purposes of productive industry.
At length steam itself was applied to remedy the inconveniences
which it had caused; the locomotive engine was invented, and
travelling by railway became generally adopted. The effect of
these several improvements in the means of locomotion, has been to
greatly increase the public activity, and to promote the general
comfort and well-being. They have tended to bring the country and
the town much closer together; and, by annihilating distance as
measured by time, to make the whole kingdom as one great city.
What the personal blessings of improved communication have been, no
one has described so well as the witty and sensible Sydney Smith:--

"It is of some importance," he wrote, "at what period
a man is born. A young man alive at this period
hardly knows to what improvement of human life he has
been introduced; and I would bring before his notice
the changes which have taken place in England since I
began to breathe the breath of life, a period
amounting to over eighty years. Gas was unknown;
I groped about the streets of London in the all but
utter darkness of a twinkling oil lamp, under the
protection of watchmen in their grand climacteric,
and exposed to every species of degradation and
insult. I have been nine hours in sailing from Dover
to Calais, before the invention of steam. It took me
nine hours to go from Taunton to Bath, before the
invention of railroads; and I now go in six hours
from Taunton to London! In going from Taunton to
Bath, I suffered between l0,000 and 12,000 severe
contusions, before stone-breaking Macadam was
born.... As the basket of stage-coaches in which
luggage was then carried had no springs, your clothes
were rubbed all to pieces; and, even in the best
society, one-third of the gentlemen at least were
always drunk..... I paid 15L. in a single year for
repairs of carriage-springs on the pavement of
London; and I now glide without noise or fracture on
wooden pavement. I can walk, by the assistance of the
police, from one end of London to the other without
molestation; or, if tired, get into a cheap and
active cab, instead of those cottages on wheels which
the hackney coaches were at the beginning of my
life..... Whatever miseries I suffered, there was no
post to whisk my complaints for a single penny to the
remotest comer of the empire; and yet, in spite of
all these privations, I lived on quietly, and am now
ashamed that I was not more discontented, and utterly
surprised that all these changes and inventions did
not occur two centuries ago.

With the history of these great improvements is also mixed up the
story of human labour and genius, and of the patience and
perseverance displayed in carrying them out. Probably one of the
best illustrations of character in connection with the development
of the inventions of the last century, is to be found in the life
of Thomas Telford, the greatest and most scientific road-maker of
his day, to which we proceed to direct the attention of the reader.

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