Such was the beginning of William Murdock's connection with the firm of Boulton and Watt. When he called again he was put upon a trial job, and then, as he was found satisfactory, he was engaged for two years at 15s. a week when at home, 17s. when in the country, and 18s. when in London. Boulton's engagement of Murdock was amply justified by the result. Beginning as an ordinary mechanic, he applied himself diligently and conscientiously to his work, and gradually became trusted. More responsible duties were confided to him, and he strove to perform them to the best of his power. His industry, skilfulness, and steady sobriety, soon marked him for promotion, and he rose from grade to grade until he became Boulton and Watt's most trusted co-worker and adviser in all their mechanical undertakings of importance.
Watt himself had little confidence in Scotchmen as mechanics. He told Sir Waiter Scott that though many of them sought employment at his works, he could never get any of them to become first-rate workmen. They might be valuable as clerks and book-keepers, but they had an insuperable aversion to toiling long at any point of mechanism, so as to earn the highest wages paid to the workmen.The reason no doubt was, that the working-people of Scotland were then only in course of education as practical mechanics; and now that they have had a century's discipline of work and technical training, the result is altogether different, as the engine-shops and shipbuilding-yards of the Clyde abundantly prove. Mechanical power and technical ability are the result of training, like many other things.
When Boulton engaged Murdock, as we have said, Watt was absent in Cornwall, looking after the pumping-engines which had been erected at several of the mines throughout that county. The partnership had only been in existence for three years, and Watt was still struggling with the difficulties which he had to surmount in getting the steam engine into practical use. His health was bad, and he was oppressed with frightful headaches.
He was not the man to fight the selfishness of the Cornish adventurers. "A little more of this hurrying and vexation," he said, "will knock me up altogether." Boulton went to his help occasionally, and gave him hope and courage. And at length William Murdock, after he had acquired sufficient knowledge of the business, was able to undertake the principal management of the engines in Cornwall.
We find that in 1779, when he was only twenty-five years old, he was placed in this important position. When he went into Cornwall, he gave himself no rest until he had conquered the defects of the engines, and put them into thorough working order.
He devoted himself to his duties with a zeal and ability that completely won Watt's heart. When he had an important job in hand, he could scarcely sleep. One night at his lodgings at Redruth, the people were disturbed by a strange noise in his room. Several heavy blows were heard upon the floor. They started from their beds, rushed to Murdock's room, and found him standing in his shirt, heaving at the bedpost in his sleep, shouting "Now she goes, lads! now she goes!"Murdock became a most popular man with the mine owners. He also became friendly with the Cornish workmen and engineers. Indeed, he fought his way to their affections. One day, some half-dozen of the mining captains came into his engine-room at Chacewater, and began to bully him. This he could not stand. He stript, selected the biggest, and put himself into a fighting attitude.
They set to, and in a few minutes Murdock's powerful bones and muscles enabled him to achieve the victory. The other men, who had looked on fairly, without interfering, seeing the temper and vigour of the man they had bullied, made overtures of reconciliation. William was quite willing to be friendly.
Accordingly they shook hands all round, and parted the best of friends. It is also said that Murdock afterwards fought a duel with Captain Trevethick, because of a quarrel between Watt and the mining engineer, in which Murdock conceived his master to have been unfairly and harshly treated.Portions of the gas were also confined in portable vessels of tinned iron, from which it was burned when required, thus forming a moveable gas-light.
Murdock had a gas lantern in regular use, for the purpose of lighting himself home at night across the moors, from the mines where he was working, to his home at Redruth. This lantern was formed by filling a bladder with gas and fixing a jet to the mouthpiece at the bottom of a glass lantern, with the bladder hanging underneath.
Having satisfied himself as to the superior economy of coal gas, as compared with oils and tallow, for the purposes of artificial illumination, Murdock mentioned the subject to Mr. James Watt, jun., during a brief visit to Soho in 1794, and urged the propriety of taking out a patent. Watt was, however, indifferent to taking out any further patents, being still engaged in contesting with the Cornish mine-owners his father's rights to the user of the condensing steam-engine. Nothing definite was done at the time. Murdock returned to Cornwall and continued his experiments. At the end of the same year he exhibited to Mr.
Phillips and others, at the Polgooth mine, his apparatus for extracting gases from coal and other substances, showed it in use, lit the gas which issued from the burner, and showed its "strong and beautiful light." He afterwards exhibited the same apparatus to Tregelles and others at the Neath Abbey Company's ironworks in Glamorganshire.
