Niger through a great part of its course, Burnard was commissioned to
execute a statue of the explorer for the column erected in Lander's
honour at Truro. His only other public work of any consequence was the
statue of Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-law Rhymer, for the market-place
of Sheffield; but he was employed in executing portrait busts of many
men of importance, as General Gough, Professor John Couch Adams, his
fellow-Cornishman, Professor Ed. Forbes, and one of Makepeace
Thackeray, which Burnard gave as a present to the Cottonian Library at
Plymouth, where it now stands above the door.
He exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1855, 1858, 1866, and 1867. He
married in London, but lost his wife, and then took to drink. The
boys, as he said, jeered at him, and called him "Old Burnard."
As a man, he was tall and big, with an enormous head which no
ordinary hat would fit; so that his hats had to be made for him.
Eventually he went "on tramp," paying periodical visits to old friends
at Altarnon. He would make sketches, draw portraits, at farms and in
public-houses; was ready to write an article for a newspaper, or to
make an election squib, for either side; and was, in fact, as clever
with his pen and pencil as he was with chisel.
He was a most entertaining companion, and able to converse on any
subject.
Thus he lived by his wits, mixing with the highest, but by preference
with the lowest. The last time he visited Altarnon was in 1877, three
years before his death; he remained there on that occasion for a week,
with hardly any clothes to his back, and was boarded by his old
playmate, Mr. S. Pearn, and slept in the common lodging-house,
Five-lanes. After having been fitted out with fresh clothes by some
friends he proceeded to the west of the county.
During this last visit at Altarnon he drew some large pencil heads,
which show a firm and delicate hand, but he delighted in minute
execution. There is also evidence that his mind at this time was as
steady as his hand, for he composed a poem on the death of Mr. F.
Herring, one or two verses of which may be given.
I stood beside the spot where late you laid him,
The spot to each of us most hallowed ground;
After the angels had in white array'd him,
And his smooth brows with flowers immortal crown'd.
* * * * *
Who in the wilderness would wish to wander,
Whose feet have trodden once the promised land?
Believe that all is well, nor pause to ponder
On things that mortals cannot understand.
He is most bless'd that is the firmest trusting,
Believing One that's wiser far than he,--
Is, for his good, the balance still adjusting;
So--tell my parents not to mourn for me.
I now can see what might have been my story,
Had I remained through man's allotted day:
(Sorrow for joy, dark age for youth and glory:)
And bless the love that hastened me away.
And wafted me across the mystic river,
Where all discords and elements agree,
Calmed by His word, that can from death deliver,
So tell my loved ones not to mourn for me.
[Illustration: TOMBSTONES IN ALTARNON CHURCHYARD CUT BY BURNARD]
He was equally ready to lampoon any one, whether friend or foe;
probably accommodating his muse to the humour of those with whom he
happened to be.
One day he had been making a sketch of a farmer called Nicoll, and
resorted to the public-house in Liskeard with his patron. Whilst there
he scribbled on a piece of paper and handed to his friend Nicoll:--
Cash is scarce, and fortune's fickle;
I should like to draw some silver now,
As I've all day been drawing nickel.
There is at Penpont House, Altarnon, a small profile head of Burnard
executed by himself. It is a cameo in plaster of Paris. He is said to
have sketched his face by looking in a mirror, and then cut an
intaglio in slate from his drawing.
Nevil N. Burnard died in the Union, Redruth, of heart and kidney
complaint, 27th November, 1878.
SIR GOLDSWORTHY GURNEY, KNT.,
INVENTOR
This man of remarkable versatility and genius was the fourth son of John
Gurney, of Trevargus; he was born at Treator, near Padstow, on February
14th, 1793, and was baptized at Padstow on the ensuing 26th June.
He was named after his godmother, a daughter of General Goldsworthy
and a maid of honour to Queen Charlotte. He was educated at the Truro
Grammar School, and during part of his holidays was wont to stay with
a relative, the rector of S. Erth, in which parish lived Mr. Davies
Giddy (who afterwards changed his name, and was better known as Mr.
Davies Gilbert, President of the Royal Society), in whose house he
very frequently met Richard Trevithick, a plain, unpretending man, of
great genius, connected with the neighbouring copper mines, who lived
near, and who often consulted Mr. Giddy on mathematical calculations
connected with the steam-engine and his mechanical inventions.
Although so young, Mr. Gurney, whose natural bent was for these
subjects, soon formed an acquaintance with this singularly original
and talented man, and he continued during the period of his medical
studies in correspondence with him.
Mr. Gurney saw Trevithick's first steam-carriage in 1804, and followed
closely his improvements and experiments on locomotion, and he
remembered, moreover, the contemptuous treatment this gifted man
received at the hands of the engineers of the day.
[Illustration: _S. C. Smith, del._ _W. Sharp, lithog._
SIR GOLDSWORTHY GURNEY]
His views were described as "wild theories," and his plans were
scoffed at. But Mr. Giddy or Gilbert encouraged Trevithick to go on
and not be discouraged, and Richard Trevithick became the inventor of
the locomotive as well as of the high-pressure engine. His first
locomotive was constructed to travel on common roads; he afterwards
modified it and set it to run on rails at Merthyr Tydvil. The trial
was made there on February 4th, 1804. In the year 1813 he exhibited
his locomotive on a temporary railway, laid for the purpose near
Euston Square, and showed the great speed it was capable of attaining.
This speed, however, was only maintained while the accumulated steam
in the boiler was worked off, but his experiment showed that, if a
sufficient quantity of steam could be "kept up," as he termed it, the
speed might be maintained for any distance and any length of time. But
how was this to be effected? That was the difficulty, and that
difficulty arose out of another--how was a sufficient draught to be
created to keep the fire in the furnace at full activity? As the
locomotive moved it created a draught the reverse of that required for
the fire, and unless a strong and steady draught into the furnace
could be created, sufficient heat could not be generated to produce a
sufficient and continuous amount of steam.
Trevithick in his first locomotive had discharged the steam up the
funnel to get rid of it, but without any idea of creating a vacuum by
means of which a draught could be caused. Stephenson did the same. Mr.
Smiles has claimed that the "steam-jet" was invented by Stephenson,
but this was not the case. The steam used in Trevithick's and
Stephenson's engines was waste or exhaust steam, discharging itself
through the funnel indeed, but not filling it, so that it created no
perceptible draught.
Mr. Smiles says: "The steam after performing its duty in the cylinders
was at first allowed to escape into the open atmosphere with a hissing
blast, to the terror of horses and cattle. It was complained of as a
nuisance, and a neighbouring squire threatened to commence an action
against the colliery lessees unless it was put a stop to."
Accordingly the steam was introduced into the funnel about half-way up
at the side so as to get rid of it and obviate the objection of the
noise. But the evidence that Stephenson had discovered that it could
be employed to create a draught is inconclusive.
Goldsworthy Gurney had been placed at Wadebridge with Dr. Avery as a
medical pupil, and there he married Elizabeth Symons in 1814. He
settled down at Wadebridge as a surgeon, but his active mind would not
let him rest as a small country practitioner; he felt that he had
powers and visions that would bring him before the public as an
inventor and a benefactor. Accordingly he moved to London in 1820,
where he made the acquaintance of several able physicians, and was
called to deliver a course of lectures on the elements of chemical
science at the Surrey Institute. It was in 1823 that he began his
experiments with steam and on locomotion, and he abandoned the medical
profession in order to devote himself to these researches. His desire
was to construct an engine that would travel on common roads, and
travel at a more rapid pace than horses.
Now Stephenson, in his evidence before a Parliamentary Committee,
stated that the rate at which his locomotive travelled was "from 3 to
5 or 6 miles an hour."
"_Q._ So that these hypothetical cases of 12 miles an hour do not fall
within your general experience?
"_A._ They do not.
"_Q._ Laying aside the 12 miles an hour, I think the rate at which
these experiments were made was about 6-3/4 miles to 7?
"_A._ I think the average was 6-1/2 miles."
In the first edition of Nicholas Wood's _Treatise on Railways_, 1829,
occurs this passage: "It is far from my wish to promulgate to the
world that the ridiculous expectations, or rather professions, of the
enthusiastic specialist, will be realized, and that we shall see them
travelling at the rate of 12, 16, 18, or 20 miles an hour. Nothing
could do more harm towards their adoption or general improvement than
the promulgation of such nonsense."
Before a second edition appeared, Mr. Gurney's steam-jet had
revolutionized the engine, and it blew this absurd passage out of the
book and the disbelief out of Wood's head.
Nicholas Wood was a viewer at Killingworth Colliery, and assisted
George Stephenson in his experiments, and he first saw the steam-blast
in Mr. Hackworth's _Sans Pareil_ in 1829, so that gentleman had
adopted it on Mr. Gurney's recommendation and according to his plan.
Wood thus describes what he then saw: "Mr. Hackworth had, it appears,
in his engine, resorted to the use of the waste steam in a more
forcible manner than before used, throwing it up in a jet, and which,
when the engine moved at a rapid rate, and the steam thereby almost
constantly issued from the pipe, had a most powerful effect. The
consequence was, that when the engine began to travel at the rate of
twelve or fifteen miles an hour, the draught was so great that it
actually threw the coke out of the chimney."
Here then is the first sight of the steam-blast to Nicholas Wood,
fellow-worker with George Stephenson. He knew nothing of it before.
But Goldsworthy Gurney's steam-blast had been adopted before this on
steamboats. It was first applied to the _Alligator_ in 1824; then to
the _Duchess of Clarence_, and other steamboats. It had made its way
into France.
In the Lords' Committee Report of 1849 on "Accidents in Mines," a Mr.
Keene, engineer of Bayonne, was examined.
"_Q._ Have you ever seen Mr. Gurney's plan used on the Continent?
"_A._ It has been used on the Continent for producing draughts in
furnace-chimneys.
"_Q._ Furnace-chimneys--for what purpose?
"_A._ Where the draught has been sluggish; I used it to get a stronger
draught on board a steamboat in 1830, to enable me to stem the strong
currents of the Garonne.
"_Q._ Have you any knowledge of some experiments made by Mr. Gurney in
the year 1826 with respect to the power of the steam-jet?
"_A._ I saw frequent experiments made by Mr. Gurney in 1826 to produce
draught by the action of high-pressure steam, exactly in the same way
as it is now employed for producing ventilation in the collieries;
that is, there were a number of jets of about a quarter to
three-eighths of an inch diameter, communicating directly with a
high-pressure boiler; the cock being open, the full steam from the
boiler was brought upon those jets, and a draught was produced by
their action in the chimney-shaft.
"_Q._ In the chimney-shaft of a locomotive engine?
"_A._ In the chimney-shaft of a locomotive and in the shaft of a
factory; the experiments were tried in various ways. I saw these
experiments frequently; many other persons saw them at the same time;
and I employed the same myself shortly afterwards for a like purpose
abroad."
Mr. Keene in his evidence further stated, in answer to the question
whether Mr. Gurney's experiments were open to the public:--
"Many persons visited the place daily, and the carriage went out into
the road, and into the barracks, and was often surrounded by a group
of persons. It was understood and known how this draught was procured,
because the passage of the steam was heard up the chimney when the
carriage was still, and the great draught of the furnace was the
occasion of remark by everybody who was around it; they were quite
surprised how such a great current could be produced with so small a
height of chimney: it was a very remarkable thing, and drew attention
from everybody around at that time."
The principle of the action of the steam-blast was simple enough. It was
to fill the funnel with high-pressure steam, which would act much as the
sucker in a pump, exhaust the air and draw up air through the furnace,
as the cone of steam escaped out of the funnel. To act thus, the steam
must completely fill the chimney, allowing of no down draught.
This was what had entirely escaped Trevithick and Stephenson. Up to
the discovery of the steam-jet by Gurney, the waste steam, as has been
stated, was uselessly dispersed through the chimney.
In 1827, Gurney took a steam-carriage he had constructed to Cyfarthfa,
at the request of Mr. Crawshay, and while there applied his steam-jet
to the blast-furnaces. This gave a great impetus to the manufacture of
iron.
Stephenson now adopted it, and employed it for his locomotive the
_Rocket_, that ran on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in October,
1829. Previously on one occasion Stephenson had run his engine
continuously for fifty-three minutes doing twelve miles. But now, with
the adoption of the steam-blast, it attained a velocity of twenty-nine
miles an hour.
"It is not too much to say that the success of the locomotive depended
upon the adoption of the steam-blast. Without that, by which the
intensity of combustion, and the consequent evolution of steam, were
maintained at the highest point, high rates of speed could not have
been kept up, the advantages of the multitubular boiler afterwards
invented could never have been fairly tested, and locomotives might
still have been dragging themselves unwieldily along at little more
than five or six miles an hour."[13]
It had been in July of the same year that Gurney had made a journey in
his steam-coach from London to Bath and back again, on the main road,
at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. This journey, undertaken at the
request of the quartermaster-general of the army, was the first long
journey at a maintained speed ever made by any locomotive on road or
rail.
Mr. Gurney's steam-coach was, of course, provided with the steam-jet.
The _Mirror_ of December 15th, 1827, says: "Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney,
whose name is familiar to most of our readers, after a variety of
experiments during the last two years, has completed a steam-carriage on
a new principle. We have accordingly introduced the annexed engraving,
which will enable our readers to enter into the details of the
machinery. First as to its safety, upon which point the public are most
sceptical. In the present invention it is stated that even from the
bursting of the boiler there is not the most distant chance of mischief
to the passengers. The boiler is tubular, and upon a plan totally
distinct from anything previously in use.... The weight of the carriage
and its apparatus is estimated at 1-1/2 tons, and its wear and tear of
the road, as compared with a carriage drawn by four horses, is as one to
six. When the carriage is in progress the machinery is not heard. The
engine has a 12-horse power, but may be increased to 16; while the
actual horse-power in use, except in ascending a hill, is but eight
horses.... Mr. Gurney has already secured a patent for his invention;
but he has our best wishes for permanent success."
Sir Charles Dance in 1831 ran a steam-coach of Gurney's make between
Gloucester and Cheltenham five times a day for four months, and during
this time carried three thousand passengers some four thousand miles,
without a single accident occurring.
There seemed to be every prospect of the steam-carriage superseding
the mail-coach, and indeed of private gentlemen setting up their
Gurney steam-carriages, as now they run their motors. But trustees of
roads, coach-proprietors, coachmen, and other interested persons
formed a strong body of opposition. How violent this was may be judged
from the fact that on one occasion a pile of stones eighteen inches
high was thrown across the road, and in struggling through it the axle
of the coach was broken.
But prejudice and dullness are mighty powers.
How little, mark! that portion of the ball,
Where, faint at best, the beams of Science fall;
Soon as they dawn, from Hyperborean skies
Embody'd dark, what clouds of Vandals rise!
Parliament interfered. Tolls on highways were raised to a prohibitive
rate, so that the running of steam-conveyances was brought to a
standstill. A committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 1831 to
inquire into the matter, reported "that the steam-carriage was one of
the most important improvements in the means of internal communication
ever introduced; that its practicability had been fully established;
and that the prohibitory clauses against its use ought to be
immediately repealed." The committee recommended that the Turnpike Act
should be repealed. It ascertained that upon the Liverpool and Prescot
road Mr. Gurney would be charged £2 8s., while a loaded stage-coach
would have to pay 4s. On the Bath road the same carriage would be
charged £1 7s. 1d., while a coach drawn by four horses would pay 5s.
On the Ashburton and Totnes road Mr. Gurney would have to pay £2,
while a coach drawn by four horses would be charged only 3s. On the
Teignmouth and Dawlish road the proportion was 12s. to 2s.
The Report of the Committee on Steam-Carriages, ordered to be printed
by the House of Commons, 12th October, 1831, was reasonable and just.
It reported:--
"Besides the carriages already mentioned, 'twenty or forty others are
being built by different persons, all of which have been occasioned by
his (Mr. Gurney's) decided journey in 1829.'
"The committee have great pleasure in drawing the attention of the House
to the evidence of Mr. Farey. He states that he has no doubt whatever
but that a steady perseverance in such trials will lead to the general
adoption of steam-carriages; and again, that what has been done proves
the practicability of impelling stage-coaches by steam on good common
roads, without horses, at a speed of eight or ten miles an hour.
"Much, of course, must remain to be done in improving their efficacy;
yet Mr. Gurney states that he has kept up steadily the rate of twelve
miles per hour; that the extreme rate at which he has run is between
twenty and thirty miles per hour.
"The several witnesses have estimated the probable saving of expense
to the public, from the substitution of steam power for that of
horses, at from one-half to two-thirds. Mr. Farey gives, as his
opinion, that steam-coaches will very soon after their establishment
be run for one-third of the cost of the present stage-coaches.
"Sufficient evidence has been adduced to convince your committee--
"That carriages can be propelled by steam on common roads at an
average rate of ten miles per hour.
"That they can ascend and descend hills of considerable inclination
with facility and safety.
"That they are perfectly safe for passengers.
"That they are not nuisances to the public.
"That they will become a speedier and cheaper mode of conveyance than
carriages drawn by horses.
"That such carriages will cause less wear of roads than coaches drawn
by horses.
"That rates of toll have been imposed on steam-carriages, which would
prohibit their being used on several lines of road, were such charges
permitted to remain unaltered."
But the House of Commons would not listen to the recommendations of
its committee, and the employment of motors as means of locomotion on
roads was postponed till the present age, when again dullness did its
best to impede the adoption and to drive the manufacture out of
England to France.
Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney was in advance of his time, and had to suffer
accordingly. The committee had suggested that as the prohibition of
steam-coaches on roads was a ruinous blow to Gurney, he should be
indemnified with a grant of £16,000. But the Chancellor of the
Exchequer refused the grant, and the Bill, after passing the Commons,
was thrown out by the Lords.
So the unfortunate Goldsworthy Gurney, after having abandoned his
profession, in which he was rapidly gaining a large practice, and
after spending £30,000 and five years of toil to perfect his
invention, was ruined.
Another of his inventions was the Bude light, at first intended for
lighthouses. For this he obtained a patent in 1838. In its first form it
consisted of a common Argand oil lamp of rather narrow circular bore and
the introduction into the centre of the flame of a jet of oxygen. This
was not, however, an original discovery, for it had been employed by Dr.
Ure in Glasgow in 1806 or 1807. But it was found to be too expensive for
use in lighthouses, nor was the brilliancy of the flame sufficiently
heightened to lead the Masters of Trinity House to adopt it.
Mr. Gurney was not discouraged. It had long been known that by
dissecting a flame of the compound jet of hydrogen and oxygen upon a
bit of clay a most vivid illumination was set forth. But Mr. Gurney
substituted lime for clay as less liable to disintegration by heat;
and he adopted the Argand lamp with an improvement such as had been
suggested and adopted from Fresnel. This consisted in a lamp composed
of a series of four, five, or six concentric wicks on the same plane,
supplied with oil from a fountain below by means of a pump; and he
obtained a second patent in 1839. He next applied his principle to
gas, purified in a peculiar manner, and burned in compound Argand
lamps, consisting of two or more concentric rings perforated with rows
of holes in their upper surfaces, having intervals between the rings
for the admission of an upward rush of air to maintain a high
incandescence. The intensity and whiteness of the light thus produced
by the combustion of coal-gas surpassed anything hitherto discovered
till the production of the mantle-burner.
It was he, moreover, who proposed the flash-light for lighthouses, as
a means by which seamen might identify lighthouses. He proposed that a
powerful light should be made by periodic flashes to correspond with
the number of the lighthouse, and that every lighthouse along the
coast should have a registered number, so that the number of flashes
per minute should represent the lighthouse.
Gurney was present at Sir W. Snow Harris's experiment on Somerset
House terrace with wire for ships' lightning-conductors. Turning to
Sir Anthony Carlisle, in reference to the magnetic needle which, as he
observed, made starts on meeting the poles of a galvanic battery, he
said with the inspiration of genius, "Here is an element which may,
and I foresee will, be made the means of intelligible communication."
Whilst engaged at the Surrey Institution he invented the oxyhydrogen
blow-pipe. Before this was introduced the risk of accident was so
great that recourse was seldom had to oxyhydrogen.