Part 37

"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.

Gurney applied his steam-jet to other purposes than propelling locomotives and exciting the ardour of furnaces in ironworks. By its means he extinguished the fire of a burning coal-mine at Astley, in Lancashire, and in 1849 another at Clackmannan, where the bed of coal had been burning for over thirty years. He also employed it for expelling noxious gases from sewers, and planned and superintended in 1849 the ventilation by this means of the pestilential sewer in Friar Street, London, which resisted all other efforts to cleanse it; and he suggested to the metropolitan commissioner of sewers that a steam-jet apparatus should be placed at the mouth of every sewer emptying into the great main sewer by the Thames river-side.

He was employed on the lighting, heating, and ventilation of the old House of Commons, and he held the appointment of superintendent of these functions from 1854 to 1863.

He had remarked that the flame of hydrogen gas caused vibrations that produced musical tones, and in 1823 wrote on "the analogy between chemical and musical combinations." He suggested "an improved finger-keyed musical instrument, in the use of which a performer is enabled to hold or prolong the notes, and to increase or modify the tone at pleasure." In 1825 and 1833 he proposed "certain improvements in musical instruments." He invented a stove, and saw and advocated the advantage of the employment of circulation of hot water for the heating of a building. He advocated the employment of concrete for foundations where there was no rock, and to show that it was possible to build a house upon the sand, he reared the castle at Bude upon concrete floated into the shifting sand above high-water mark. He again was the first to point out and insist on the necessity for there being two shafts to every colliery, so as to maintain a circulation of air.

For several years Mr. Gurney resided at Hanacott Manor, near Launceston, but he had also a house at Reeds, in Poughill by Bude, and the castle at the latter place, which is usually let. He was knighted in 1863--a tardy acknowledgment of his great services and extraordinary ability. The honour came too late to really advantage him. That same year he was stricken with paralysis, and therefore could do nothing in the way of scientific research and invention. He was attended till his death by his only child, a daughter, Miss Anna D. Gurney. He expired at Reeds on the 28th February, 1875, and was buried at Launcells in the graveyard just under the south wall of the nave.

Like Henry Trengrouse, so with Sir Goldsworthy Gurney--a man of genius and perseverance, and one who benefited mankind, received no adequate recognition in his lifetime. May posterity do for him, as for Trengrouse, what his contemporaries denied him. Mr. Smiles vainly endeavoured to refuse to credit him with the invention of the steam-blast; but the writer of his life in the Dictionary of National Biography afforded him tardy justice. "One soweth and another reapeth" is true of all inventors with few exceptions. How much do we owe to Sir Goldsworthy! He was the pioneer of locomotion by motors on our roads, the salvation of many lives by the ventilation of coal-mines; he invented the system of heating mansions by hot water, the flash-light for lighthouses, the steam-blast revolutionizing locomotion by steam; he showed that houses could be built on concrete foundations; he discovered the limelight, the oxyhydrogen blow-pipe: and he was repaid with a barren knighthood when about to be struck down by paralysis.

For his bounty, There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas, That grew the more by reaping. Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2.

FOOTNOTE:

Smiles (S.), Lives of the Engineers, Vol. III, p. 100. London, 1862.

THE JANES

The family of Jane, descended from the ancient family of Janes of Worcestershire, was settled in Cornwall at an early date. It bore as its arms, arg. a lion rampant az. between 3 escallops gules. It was settled in S. Winnow early in the sixteenth century, and at the beginning of the following century was at Lanhydrock and at Liskeard, at which latter place Thomas Jane was mayor in 1621. His son Joseph Jane was M.P. for Liskeard in 1625 and 1640, and was mayor in 1631, 1635, and 1636. He married Loveday, daughter of William Kekewich, in 1633. He was a whole-hearted Royalist, and when the King was at Oxford, in 1643, he attended him there. In the following year he was one of the Royal Commissioners in Cornwall, and when Charles I came to Cornwall, in 1644, he entertained him in August in his house at Liskeard.

During 1645 and 1646 he carried on a correspondence with Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon, on the condition of the Royalist cause in Cornwall. Liskeard had fallen into the hands of the Parliamentarians, but Sir Ralph Hopton defeated Ruthven on Braddock Down on January 19th, 1643, and recovered Liskeard for the King. Ruthven fled to Saltash, which he fortified with much expedition.

When the Royal cause was lost the vengeance of the Parliament fell on Joseph Jane, and he was nearly ruined by the heavy composition he was forced to pay. In 1650, and again in 1654, he was named Clerk of the Royal Council, but it was an empty honour; Charles II could pay nothing, and the Council could only grumble and plot.

Jane attempted to answer Milton's Εικονοκλαστης in a work, Εικων ακλαστος the Unbroken Image, but it was a poor performance. It was published in 1651; Hyde says, however, in a letter to Secretary Nicholas, "the King hath a singular good esteem both of Joseph Jane and of his book."

He had a son, William Jane, baptized at Liskeard, 22nd October, 1645, who was educated at Westminster School, elected student of Christ Church, Oxford, 1660, and graduated B.A. in 1664, and M.A. in 1667, and D.D. in 1674. After his ordination he was appointed lecturer at Carfax. He attracted the attention of Henry Compton, who became Canon of Christ Church in 1669, by his sturdy loyalty and orthodoxy; and when Compton became Bishop of Oxford, he chose Jane to preach the sermon at his consecration, and he appointed him one of his chaplains.

In 1670 he became Canon of Christ Church, and was given the living of Winnington in Essex. In 1679 he received a prebendal stall in S. Paul's Cathedral and the archdeaconry of Middlesex. In May, 1680, he was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. This rapid promotion was due in part to the staunch loyalty of his father and the losses of his family on that account, but also to his cool, businesslike abilities, and to his learning, which though not profound was good.

In July, 1683, he framed the Oxford declaration in favour of Passive Obedience, and committed the University to an opinion which subsequent events were calculated to stultify.

As Green says: "The Cavaliers who had shouted for the King's return, had shouted also for the return of a free Parliament. The very Chief Justice who asserted at the trial of the Regicides, the general freedom of the King from any responsibility to the Nation, asserted just as strongly that doctrine of ministerial responsibility, against which Charles the First had struggled. It was the desire of every royalist to blot out the very memory of the troubles in which monarchy and freedom had alike disappeared, to take up again, as if it had never been broken, the thread of our political history. But the point at which even royalists took it up was not at the moment of the Tyranny, but at the moment of the Long Parliament's first triumph, when that Tyranny had been utterly undone. In his wish to revive this older claim of the Crown, which the Long Parliament had for ever set aside, the young King found himself alone. His closest adherents, his warmest friends, were constitutional royalists of the temper of Falkland and Culpepper. Partisans of an absolute monarchy, of such a monarchy as his grandfather had dreamed of and his father had for a few years carried into practice, there now were none."

The clergy in advocating passive obedience were actuated by the sense of the miseries through which England had passed during the Great Rebellion--better to submit under protest than to fly to arms again, better certainly to submit even to what was deemed an injustice or inexpedient, when the Crown was hedged about with restrictions, and when the ministers of the Crown were responsible to the nation. There was, however, a noisy and vehement party that went much beyond this, and one Filmer had worked the theory of Divine Right of the Sovereign into a system, that was accepted by the more crazy and immoderate of the old Tory party, mainly among the clergy; and the Oxford declaration went a long way in this direction. Men were beating about for a theory on which to base Government by a King, they had not grasped the truth that the King represents the people, just as does a President in a Republic, but with the superaddition of Divine ratification and imparted grace for the task of ruling, by unction and coronation. That the Kings of England had ever been elected, and that coronation was the confirmation by God, through the Church, of the choice of the people, had been forgotten through the prevalence of feudal ideas in the Middle Ages. Filmer propounded his doctrine that the Divine Right rested in primogeniture, and the rabid Tories, looking out for a theory, snatched at this for want of a better.