As a young man, surveyor Thomas Telford was a red-hot political activist who yearned for revolution, but admittedly he had read just one book on the matter.
In 1791 Norfolk-born Thomas Paine (lately of the USA), a vocal enthusiast of the French revolution, published a withering denunciation of the British constitution entitled The Rights of Man. Surveyor Thomas Telford, who was living in Shrewsbury Castle as a guest of the local MP, Sir William Pulteney, was swept away by it, and began recommending it to his friends back home in Galloway.
Thomas Telford told the parish council of St Chad’s Church in Shrewsbury that their leaky roof was the last thing they should worry about.
In July 1788, rising surveyor Thomas Telford was living in Shrewsbury Castle as a guest of the local MP, Sir William Pulteney, who had acquired the historic fortress through his wife Frances and wanted Telford to make it habitable. News of his residence nearby reached the parish council of St Chad’s Church, who thought he might be just the man to mend their leaky roof.