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Michael Flannigan - a life of invention

 

 

 

 

Michael Flannigan:
A Life of Invention

Introduction

Chapter 1: Born in the Age of Invention (1783-1799)

Chapter 2: How Thick Was Trevithick? (1799-1803)

Chapter 3: Flannigan at Trafalgar (1803-1805)

Chapter 4: Flannigan and the War of 1812 (1805-1819)

Chapter 5: The Infamous Seal Penis Incident (1819-1821)

Chapter 6: The Vibraphonic Bellows Era (1821-1829)

Chapter 7: Zanzibar's Freak Festival (1829-1833)

Chapter 8: The Manx Minx (1833-1836)

Chapter 9: Sloe Gin, Head Hurly and the Bull Ring Riots (1836-1840)

 
Chapter 2
How Thick Was Trevithick?
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).Notes from Flannigan's notebook on wheel apparatus for locomotive.

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 claw
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 1803 test of the first locomotivesuccessful 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."

press gang takes Flannigan
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]

 

 
     

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