Clay Lane

The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

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265

The Friendship of Trade

As Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli stoked fears of Russian aggression, John Bright said that Russia was only threatening when she felt threatened.

In 1879, British politicians were warning that we must occupy Afghanistan to prevent Russia invading India, and that Emperor Alexander II’s military operations in the Balkans were not a liberation but an excuse to sweep across Europe that must be met with force. John Bright watched this escalation with alarm, and urged the Government to make our peace with Russia as we had with France – by trade.

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Picture: By Vasili Pukirev (1832-1890), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

266

‘Never Let Your Men Look Over the Hedge’

Employees are the key to any entrepreneur’s success, and he must know them intimately, trust them completely and pay them generously.

Scottish engineer James Nasmyth, son of an Edinburgh artist, set up the Bridgewater Foundry in Patricroft, Salford, in 1836. He tells us in his Autobiography that in the competitive market of Victorian heavy industry, the key to success was making sure that his employees never wanted to work for anyone else.

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Picture: © Jules Verne Times Two / julesvernex2.com / CC-BY-SA-4.0.. Source.

267

‘One of That Sort, Are You?’

Henry Maudslay, the great engineer, had seen enough apprentices to last him a lifetime.

In 1829, artist Alexander Nasmyth tried to realise his son James’s abiding dream, an apprenticeship at Maudslay’s engineering firm in London. Presuming on a slight acquaintance, father and son presented themselves at Henry Maudslay’s home in Westminster, only to be told that apprentices had been such a disappointment that he would take no more. A guided tour of the factory was small compensation.

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Picture: Pierre Louis (‘Henri’) Grevedon (1776-1860), via the National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: ? Public domain.. Source.

268

Ye’re Nae Smith!

A loyal Scotsman on the run from pro-English traitors disguised himself as a blacksmith’s apprentice, but soon gave himself away.

The Scottish surname Nasmyth or Naesmyth is said by scholars to derive, in all probability, from nail-smith. But Scottish engineer James Nasmyth, who appropriately enough in 1839 invented a steam hammer for making enormous iron bars, had heard a different tale, which he set down in his Autobiography.

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Picture: John Neagle (1796–1865), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

269

Byron Swims the Hellespont

Byron felt compelled to set the record straight after it was alleged that he had swum the Hellespont the easy way.

Every night, so the Greek myths tell us, Leander left Abydos in Asia Minor and swam across the narrow Hellespont to his lover Hero, priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos in Thrace, the European side, until he was drowned in bad weather. On May 3rd, 1810, George Gordon Byron and his friend Lt William Ekenhead swam the same stretch of water in the other direction, from Europe to Asia.

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Picture: By Georg Balthasar Probst (1732-1801) 1750. Source.

270

‘I Have No Quarrel With Any Man’

Magnus, Earl of Orkney, disappointed King Magnus of Norway by refusing to get involved in somebody else’s war.

In 1098, Magnus III ‘Barelegs’, King of Norway, swept across the Scottish islands, reminding their governors that these territories belonged to the crown of Norway. Three brothers of Orkney, the earls Erlend, Magnus and Hakon, were obliged to accompany him as his fleet sailed west and then south down to Wales, where King Magnus barged into a fight between peoples who owed him no loyalty at all.

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Picture: Wandernder Weltreisender 3.0.. Source.