The Project Gutenberg EBook of Biographies of Working Men, by Grant Allen

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Title: Biographies of Working Men

Author: Grant Allen

Posting Date: August 8, 2009 [EBook #4529]
Release Date: October, 2003
First Posted: February 2, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIOGRAPHIES OF WORKING MEN ***

Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines.

BIOGRAPHIES OF WORKING MEN

by

GRANT ALLEN, B.A.

1884

CONTENTS.

I. THOMAS TELFORD, STONEMASON
II. GEORGE STEPHENSON, ENGINE-MAN
III. JOHN GIBSON, SCULPTOR
IV. WILLIAM HERSCHEL, BANDSMAN
V. JEAN FRANCOIS MILLET, PAINTER
VI. JAMES GARFIELD, CANAL BOY
VII. THOMAS EDWARD, SHOEMAKER

PREFACE.

My acknowledgments are due to Dr. Smiles's "Lives of the Engineers,"
"Life of the Stephensons," and "Life of a Scotch Naturalist;" to Lady
Eastlake's "Life of Gibson;" to Mr. Holden's "Life of Sir William
Herschel;" to M. Seusier's "J. F. Millet, Sa Vie et Ses Oeuvres;" and
to Mr. Thayer's "Life of President Garfield;" from which most of the
facts here narrated have been derived.

G.A.

BIOGRAPHIES OF WORKING MEN.

I.

THOMAS TELFORD, STONEMASON.

High up among the heather-clad hills which form the broad dividing
barrier between England and Scotland, the little river Esk brawls and
bickers over its stony bed through a wild land of barren braesides and
brown peat mosses, forming altogether some of the gloomiest and most
forbidding scenery in the whole expanse of northern Britain. Almost
the entire bulk of the counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Ayr is
composed of just such solemn desolate upland wolds, with only a few
stray farms or solitary cottages sprinkled at wide distances over their
bare bleak surface, and with scarcely any sign of life in any part save
the little villages which cluster here and there at long intervals
around some stern and simple Scottish church. Yet the hardy people who
inhabit this wild and chilly moorland country may well be considered to
rank among the best raw material of society in the whole of Britain;
for from the peasant