Chapter 2
How Thick Was Trevithick?
|
Trevithick -- detail of an oil painting by
John Linnell, 1816; in the Science Museum, London. Notice
the vacant eyes, flabby nose and weak chin. |
Flannigan arrived at Richard Trevithick's workshop in Cornwall in
November of 1799. Located in the scenic, if rank, village of Fetidsty
(pronounced fed-id-sti) about a half-day's walk from The Lizard, the
rolling green hills and lush near-tropical sea-coast must have seemed
very like Flannigan's own home near Dingle. But where Dingle was graced
with the splendid Mt. Brandon, the best Fetidsty could boast was a
local copper mine. It is hard to say if the etymology of the village's
name is due to the noxious fumes from the mine and smelting facilities
nearby or the deleterious effects that arsenic poisoning can have
on the human gastro-intestinal system. Perhaps it was merely the ten-to-one
pig to person ratio.
Whatever the case, Flannigan was never-the-less thrilled to be at
the workshop, where he was hired on for several shillings a week to
help Trevithick turn his "puffer-whim" into a feasible locomotive
engine. That Trevithick invented the "strong steam" engine
is hard to deny. James Watt, the legendary inventor of the original
steam engine felt that it was too dangerous to harness the increased
power and efficiency of high-pressure steam. "Only a complete
Loony would try," he wrote. But Trevithick was blithe about the
hazards (subtracting from the already-stunningly low life expectancy
of the average Cornish ore miner).
From 1797 to Flannigan's arrival in late 1799, Trevithick had made
no progress in producing the first locomotive steam engine. Of the
six surviving letters from him to his "friend" in Dartford,
Kent, several indicate this:
"Still no Luck so fer with the moving Puffer My Dear Samsam.
But we have this new bowy who's a ficken genuous, and I'm goin'
fer his braen, instead of the other . . . "
(1799 letter to Sam "the deviant of Dartford" Diedlim)(1)
But from the arrival of Flannigan, Trevithick wrote to his "Samsam"
regularly of his improvements. Never did he openly attribute this
success to Flannigan, but in one letter he wrote:
"The Flan is on the Can Samsam! So much braen in such a
spot-ty head. It really isn't faer, but I've nerly got the Locomotive."
(November, 1801)
Do not be surprised, gentle reader, at the relentless stupidity of
Trevithick's letters. His schoolmaster described him thusly: "disobedient,
obstinate and slow". He also didn't like Trevithick's "potty-mouth",
tenuous literacy, nor his atrocious personal hygiene.
|
The massively corpulent Vivian drinks with
fellow cronies in The Serpentine's Claw, the Lizard, Cornwall. |
Never-the-less, the man was blessed with a certain low animal cunning.
He and his bully-boy - a cousin named Andrew Vivian -- took out a
patent on the first successful locomotive steam engine in March of
1802. Vivian was a known ruffian and head-thumper in the region. When
he wasn't busy running roughshod over Flannigan's fellow assistants
and errand-boys in Trevithick's workshop, Vivian could be found down
at The Lizard, picking fights with exhausted farmers at the local
pub, The Serpentine's Claw (not to be confused with the only bawdy
house in Cornwall, The Cluster Claw).
Flannigan never wrote of these days in his own diaries, so we have
no sure way of knowing how the inevitable conflictoccurred. But it
stands to reason that the successful
test of the world's first steam locomotive through the streets of
London in 1803 causing the inevitable confrontation. This report from
the London Scabrous Times gives us a clue:
"While the Locomotive Engine is undeniably Magnificent, your
Correspondent found it Magnificently Ironic that neither the Inventor,
Richard Trevithic, nor the co-patent holder, Andrew Vivian, could
operate the Machine. It took the Ministrations of their assistant,
a clear-complexioned young man of Irish Extraction, to urge its
Movement."
|
Flannigan is abducted by a Royal Navy press
gang, 1803. |
Thought it was undoubtably good news that Flannigan's acne had finally
cleared up (one would hope so at the age of 20) the reports were to
be the end of his inventing career in Cornwall. The next night a press
gang appeared at their London guest house -- led by Vivian no doubt
-- and they put the young Flannigan in the service of His Majesty's
Royal Navy.
With Britain once again at war with Napoleon's France,
Flannigan was just in time for the party, and was to play an unusual
role Nelson's finest hour at the Battle of Trafalgar. It was also
at this time that Flannigan started keeping a dairy, and he had this
to say about Trevithick and Vivian in a terse, 1803 entry:
"For sure, they were a coupla' prats." (2)
--"Scholarship" by The Squire
Next: England Expects Every Man (Even
the Irish) to Do His Duty
Notes:
(1) Please, dear reader, do not be
fooled by Trevithick's wife, Jane Harvey, nor the six children she
bore him. [back]
(2) In addition to a
contemptible turn of phrase, Trevithick had a disastrous business
sense. A quick-tempered and impulsive (not to mention disgusting)
man, Trevithick sunk all his money into a type of iron tank which
left him bankrupt by 1811. He then spent 16 years in Peru, presumably
buggering llamas, until returning to England, penniless. He died a
pauper in 1833. Vivian was killed in 1804 when a farmer who'd had
the day off caved his skull in with a pint of scrumpy -- a kind
of thick, lumpy, alcoholic cider served in Cornwall. [back]