The Raid on Raglan: Sacred Ground and Profane Curiosity
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THE RAID ON RAGLAN: SACRED GROUND AND PROFANE CURIOSITY *. and therefore I call this a Semi Omnipotent Engine, and do intend that a model thereof be buried with me.' JOHN HEWISH EDWARD Somerset, 6th Earl and 2nd Marquis of Worcester (1601-67) is one of the best knov^rn of his resilient family, both for his part in the Civil War and his controversial reputation as the possible inventor of the steam engine (fig. i). His performance as Charles l's Lieutenant-General in Wales was a tale of defeats. His mission to bring in the Irish Catholics on the King's side miscarried and was disowned by Charles, who had ordered it. Poverty drove him back from exile in France on to the charity of Cromwell. He died during the Restoration, but too soon for the full revival of his family's fortunes. He was born at the wrong time, with the tastes of an amateur natural philosopher when fate required him to be a man of action. Yet his curiosity and mystical dreams of mastering nature by means of machines were characteristic of the age in which the Royal Society was estabhshed. His book A Century of the Names and Scantlings of such Inventions as at Present I can call to Mind, etc. (London, 1663) is a type of compendium common in its ^period, but it has not slipped into oblivion like most of them. Vagueness was one way an inventor could protect himself from imitators and many of the devices described in the Century are undefined or plainly fantastic. But No. 68 'An Admirable and Most Forcible way to Drive up Water by Fire' describes (though in no great detail) a steam pressure device arrestingly like that well-known one of Thomas Savery, 'The Miner's Friend', patented later in 1698. There is a lot of evidence on both sides and it has been debated by engineer-historians since at least the nineteenth century without conclusive result.^ In the Marquis's Century of Inventions an anticipation—perhaps even the source—of Savery's steam pump can be found in company with such a description as No. 98, from which my heading quotation comes: An engine so contrived that working the Primum Mobile forward or backward, upward or downward, circularly or cornerwise, to and fro, straight upright or downright, yet the pretended operation continueth and advanceth, none of the above motions hindering, much less stopping the other, but unanimously and with harmony agreeing . The Marquis's Vauxhall workshop, his employment of a continental master mechanic, and his water-commanding engine at work in some form or other are facts,^ but the 182 rt T3 rt ^ rt y Q rt £ bo .PS |l cj rt '^ C yj rt "T* B 4-1 e 2 S o S 2 0-0 3 3 W ^ -C^ M rt u w (D 3 rt w 2 rt balance of well-informed opinion has moved against the claims made for him as a successful and significant practical inventor. Exposure to much of the evidence, particularly that in his own words, does not inspire confidence. Another review of it here would be inappropriate; my theme is an attempt made nearly a century and a quarter ago to settle the question once and for all. For long no one took any notice of his stated intention to be buried with a modeP of his Semi-Omnipotent Engine. Then, in the mid-nineteenth century appeared a man who, by his interests as well as his official position, seemed predestined to take him at his word. This was Bennet Woodcroft of the London Patent Office. The son of a Northern textile finisher, he had worked on the shop fioor and exploited his own inventions in textile machinery and ships' propellers. He left a Manchester practice as a patent agent to come to London to teach machinery at University College. His work on indexing the patents buried in the public records so impressed a Parliamentary committee in 1852 that he was given the key post (to do with specifications) in the reformed Office.^ Public enlightenment in the arts and sciences was fashionable just after the Great Exhibition. Woodcroft set up a free public library at the Office and also set up and ran a small museum of invention for which space was found at South Kensington. Its successor is still there. He was an early devotee of the cult of the engineer as hero, exemplified by the works of Samuel Smiles. As a great rescuer of old machines, he was a conservationist avant la lettre. He was also impulsive and pushing and, for an engineer, at times oddly cavalier with facts. A project involving a steam engine, a dead Marquis, a romantic setting and as will appear—a live Duke, could not be resisted. Woodcroft had been collecting the records of invention for years, and would have been familiar with the case of the Marquis. Evidence of his intention to recover the model dates from early i860. ^ The possible buried model was not the only one associated with the Marquis. There was also the model of his water commanding engine which an act of 1663 required him to deposit with the Exchequer as part of his side of the bargain in a grant of privilege.^ In view of the continuity of British institutions it was perhaps not over-sanguine to hope for its survival. A handwritten circular was lithographed and sent out from the Great Seal Patent Office to various departments, including the State Paper Office, the Office of the Queen's Remembrancer and the Treasury. It reproduced a drawing taken from a nineteenth-century edition of the Marquis's book,^ showing what the engine might have looked like. 'Her Majesty's Patent Commissioners', Woodcroft wrote (he often invoked them for his own uses), 'were anxious to collect and preserve for public inspection as many of the earlier proofs of national ingenuity as may still remain'. There was indeed wide interest in every aspect of steam engine progress. What Whitehall thought of the request is hidden in the formality of uniformly negative replies. Though they were Roman Catholics, certain of the post-Reformation Earls of Worcester were buried in the parish church at Raglan, in Monmouthshire, and it was easy for Woodcroft to establish that the inventor Earl was among them. For instance, 184 he was in touch with John Timbs, who mentions it in his Stories of Inventors. In March i860 he sent a copy of his circular to Francis P. Hooper, of Watkins, Hooper, Baylis, and Baker, of Sackville Street, acting for the 8th Duke of Beaufort. Seated at Badminton since the early eighteenth century, the family still owned Raglan and other Monmouth- shire estates. He requested the Duke's permission to open the vault 'to obtain an examination of the buried model'. 'Should it come to light', he wrote in his idiosyncratic prose 'it would be the most interesting mechanical relict in the kingdom'. 'I do not want the model, but I wish to have the model to see exactly what it was the Marquis achieved, and to have a model made of it'. So began a year of negotiations, which at first went promisingly. Mr. Hooper wrote to Mr. Osmond A. Wyatt, the land agent of the Monmouth estates, who replied that he believed the 6th Earl 'the inventor of the steam engine' was buried at Raglan: *if I am right, and the Model in question really was placed with the Marquis' coffin, it ought to be found in Raglan church, with the remains.' The Duke was agreeable to his ancestor being disturbed but anxious that the proper ecclesiastical authority should be obtained. He was one of the great sporting Dukes, and founder of the Badminton Library; his letters convey his celebrated directness and charm. Also, if the model should be there, exposure to the air after being shut up so many years will simply destroy it, so that someone should be present to make a drawing of it. If it is found and does not fall to pieces, a copy may be made and the original must be returned to its coffin. They had no right, he added subsequently 'to disturb the arrangements a gentleman chooses to make for himself after death'. This was a check to the impetuous Woodcroft, who maintained that the model would turn out to be made of brass and copper and would 'drive up water by fire if such duty were required of it'. In making it known to posterity, he stressed, they would only be carrying out the Marquis's unstated wishes. If not at Raglan, 'I have still hopes of meeting with it in the Royal Observatory at Kew, or in a cellar under the British Museum, where the early models of the Royal Society have been ignominiously stowed away'. 'I have been at engine hunting before', he added, 'the pace is slow, the last one I ran to earth took me from five to six years, and the reward in some instances rather equivocal.' He was referring here to the saving of the Symington marine steam engine, now in the Science Museum, his greatest success.^ The Duke had mentioned that the Duchess had signified her intention of attending the opening, but if apprehensive at this prospect Woodcroft did not show it. The former, however, was firm that 'Chancellor's Licence' should be obtained. 'I have not been idle', Woodcroft wrote Hooper in early April, 'John Macgregor, whom you know, is preparing all the necessary documents for His Grace's signature.