John Metcalf (17171810), also known as Blind Jack of Knaresborough or Blind Jack Metcalf,

was the first professional road builder to emerge during the Industrial Revolution.
Blind from the age of six, John had an eventful life, which was well documented by his own account
just before his death. In the period 1765 to 1792 he built about 180 miles (290 km) of turnpike road,
mainly in the north of England.

Early life[edit]
Metcalf was born into a poor family in Knaresborough in Yorkshire, England on 15 August 1717. His
father was a horse breeder. At the age of six John lost his sight after a smallpoxinfection; he was
given fiddle lessons as a way of making provision for him to earn a living later in life. He became an
accomplished fiddler and made this his livelihood in his early adult years. In 1732, aged 15, Metcalf
succeeded Morrison as fiddler at the Queen's Head, a tavern in Harrogate. Morrison had played
there for 70 years.[citation needed] Metcalf also had an affinity for horses and added to his living with
some horse trading. Though blind, he took up swimming and diving, fighting cocks, playing cards,
riding and even hunting. He knew his local area so well he was paid to work as a guide to visitors.
In 1739 Jack befriended Dorothy Benson, the daughter of the landlord of the Granby Inn in
Harrogate. When aged 21 he made another woman pregnant; Dorothy begged him not to marry the
woman and Jack fled. He spent some time living along the North Sea Coast between Newcastle and
London, and lodged with his aunt in Whitby. He continued to work as a fiddler. When he heard
Dorothy was to be married to a shoemaker, he returned and they eloped. They married and had four
children. Dorothy died in 1778.
His fiddle playing gave him social connections and a patron, Colonel Liddell. In one much-
repeated[citation needed] story the colonel decided to take him to London, 190 miles (310 km) to the south.
John found the colonels leisurely progress slow and went ahead on foot. He reached London first
and returned to Yorkshire before the colonel. He managed this on foot despite his blindness,
demonstrating his determination and resourcefulness.
During the Jacobite rising of 1745 his connections got him the job of assistant to the royal recruiting
sergeant in the Knaresborough area. Jack went with the army to Scotland. He did not experience
action but was employed moving guns over boggy ground. He was captured but released. He used
his Scottish experience to begin importing Aberdeen stockings to England.

Carrier[edit]
Before his army service Metcalf worked as a carrier using a four-wheeled chaise and a one-horse
chair on local trips. When competition cut into the business he switched to carrying fish from the
coast to Leeds and Manchester. After 1745 he bought a stone wagon and worked it
between York and Knaresborough. By 1754 his business had grown to a stagecoachline. He drove a
coach himself, making two trips a week during the summer and one in the winter months.

Road builder[edit]
Statue of Blind Jack Metcalf, Market Place, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. The device in his hand is
a Surveyor's wheel.

In 1765 Parliament passed an act authorising the creation of turnpike trusts to build new toll funded
roads in the Knaresborough area. There were few people with road-building experience and John
seized the opportunity, building on his practical experience as a carrier.
He won a contract to build a three-mile (5 km) section of road between Minskip and Ferrensby on a
new road from Harrogate to Boroughbridge. He explored the section of countryside alone and
worked out the most practical route.
Metcalf built roads in Lancashire, Derbyshire, Cheshire and Yorkshire, including roads between:

Knaresborough and Wetherby

Wakefield, Huddersfield and Saddleworth (via the Standedge pass)
Bury and Blackburn with a branch to Accrington
Skipton, Colne and Burnley
Metcalf believed a good road should have good foundations, be well drained and have a smooth
convex surface to allow rainwater to drain quickly into ditches at the side. He understood the
importance of good drainage, knowing it was rain that caused most problems on the roads. He
worked out a way to build a road across a bog using a series of rafts made from ling (a type of
heather) and furze (gorse) tied in bundles as foundations. This established his reputation as a road
builder since other engineers had believed it could not be done.
He acquired a mastery of his trade with his own method of calculating costs and materials, which he
could never successfully explain to others.

Later life[edit]
Competition from canals eventually cut into his profits and he retired in 1792 to live with a daughter
and her husband at Spofforth in Yorkshire. Throughout his career he built 180 miles (290 km) of
road. At 77 he walked to York, where he related a detailed account of his life to a publisher.
Blind Jack of Knaresborough died aged 92 on 26 April 1810, at his home in Spofforth. He is buried in
the churchyard of All Saints' Church, Spofforth.
Memorials[edit]
A statue of John Metcalf has been placed in the market square in Knaresborough, across from Blind
Jack's pub.[1]
On 7 July 2017, the A658, also known as the Harrogate Southern Bypass, was named 'John Metcalf
Way'.[2]
John Loudon McAdam (born John Lowdon McAdam, 23 September 1756[1] 26 November 1836)
was a Scottish engineer and road-builder. He invented a new process, "macadamisation", for
building roads with a smooth hard surface, using controlled materials of mixed particle size and
predetermined structure, that would be more durable and less muddy than soil-based tracks.

Early life[edit]
McAdam was born in Ayr, Scotland.[2] He was the youngest of ten children and second son of the
Baron of Waterhead. The family name was traditionally McGregor, but was changed to McAdam
(claiming descent from the Biblical Adam) for political reasons in James VI's reign.[3] He moved
to New York in 1770 and, as a merchant and prize agent during the American Revolution, made his
fortune working at his uncle's counting house. He returned to Scotland in 1783 and purchased
an estate at Sauchrie, Ayrshire.
Besides taking part in local Ayrshire affairs, McAdam operated the Kaims Colliery. The colliery
supplied coal to the British Tar Company, of Archibald Cochrane, 9th Earl of Dundonald and
partners in the coal tar trade; McAdam ran its kilns. He further was involved in the ironworks
at Muirkirk, which was a customer for the coke byproduct of the tar business. This business
connection is the only direct relationship of McAdam and tar.[4]

Career[edit]

Memorial stone to John Loudon McAdam.

McAdam became a trustee of the Ayrshire Turnpike in 1783 and became increasingly involved with
day-to-day road construction over the next 10 years. In 1802 he moved to Bristol, England and he
became general surveyor for the Bristol Corporation in 1804. He put forward his ideas in evidence
to Parliamentary enquiries in 1810, 1819 and 1823.[3] In two treatises written in 1816 and 1819
(Remarks on the Present System of Road-Making and Practical Essay on the Scientific Repair and
Preservation of Roads) he argued that roads needed to be raised above the surrounding ground and
constructed from layered rocks and gravel in a systematic manner.
McAdam had also been appointed surveyor to the Bristol Turnpike Trust in 1816, where he decided
to remake the roads under his care with crushed stone bound with gravel on a firm base of large
stones.[5] A camber, making the road slightly convex, ensured rainwater rapidly drained off the road
rather than penetrate and damage the road's foundations. This construction method, the greatest
advance in road construction since Roman times, became known as "macadamisation", or, more
simply, "macadam".
The macadam method spread very quickly across the world. The first macadam road in North
America, the National Road, was completed in the 1830s and most of the main roads in Europe
were subject to the McAdam process by the end of the nineteenth century.[6]
Although McAdam was paid 5,000 for his Bristol Turnpike Trust work and made "Surveyor-General
of Metropolitan Roads" in 1820, professional jealousy cut a 5,000 grant for expenses from
the Parliament of the United Kingdom to 2,000 in 1827.[7] His efficient road-building and
management work had revealed the corruption and abuse of road tolls by unscrupulous Turnpike
Trusts, many of which were run at a deliberate loss despite high toll receipts.

Death and descendants[edit]

McAdam died in Moffat, Dumfriesshire, while returning to his home in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire,
from his annual summer visit to Scotland. His three sons, and in turn four grandsons, followed him
into the profession and assisted with the management of turnpike trusts around the country. His
second surviving son, James Nicoll McAdam, the "Colossus of Roads", was knighted for managing
turnpike trusts: a knighthood, it is said, previously offered to his father but declined.[2]

Pierre-Marie-Jrme Trsaguet (15 January 1716 1796) was a French engineer. He is widely
credited with establishing the first scientific approach to road building about the year 1764. Among
his innovations was the use of a base layer of large stone covered with a thin layer of smaller stone.
The advantage of this two-layer configuration was that when rammed or rolled by traffic the stones
jammed into one another forming a strong wear resistant surface which offered less obstruction
to traffic.
Trsaguet was born in Nevers, the youngest son from a family of engineers. He began his career as
a sub inspector in the Corps des Ponts et Chausses (Bridges and Highways Corps), in Paris. He
later moved to Limoges, Haute-Vienne as chief engineer in 1764. In 1775 he was appointed
inspector general of roads and bridges for all of France. He published a paper describing his road
building methods.

Method of road building[edit]

First of all an earth foundation was excavated parallel with but about ten inches below the finished
surface of the new road. This was convex in cross section to encourage water to drain off the
finished surface.
Next, large stones were laid on edge and any protruding pieces on their upper edges broken off to
leave an even surface. This stone foundation was covered with a second course of smaller rounded
stones.
Finally a third layer of hard broken stone, (about the size of walnuts) was spread by a shovel to
produce the surface layer.
This system was used continuously in France from 1775 until 1820 when the country changed to the
cheaper Macadam method
Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE (9 August 1757 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer,
architect and stonemason, and a noted road, bridge and canal builder. After establishing himself as
an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects
in his native Scotland, as well as harbours and tunnels. Such was his reputation as a prolific
designer of highways and related bridges, he was dubbed The Colossus of Roads (a pun on
the Colossus of Rhodes), and, reflecting his command of all types of civil engineering in the early
19th century, he was elected as the first President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a post he
retained for 14 years until his death.

Early career[edit]
Telford was born on 9 August 1757 at Glendinning, a hill farm 3 miles east of Eskdalemuir Kirk, in
the rural parish of Westerkirk, in Eskdale, Dumfriesshire. His father John Telford, a shepherd, died
soon after Thomas was born. Thomas was raised in poverty by his mother Janet Jackson (died
1794).[1]
At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a stonemason, and some of his earliest work can still be
seen on the bridge across the River Esk in Langholm in the Scottish borders. He worked for a time
in Edinburgh and in 1782 he moved to London where, after meeting architects Robert Adam and
Sir William Chambers, he was involved in building additions to Somerset House there. Two years
later he found work at Portsmouth dockyard and although still largely self-taught was extending
his talents to the specification, design and management of building projects.
In 1787, through his wealthy patron William Pulteney, he became Surveyor of Public Works in
Shropshire. Civil engineering was a discipline still in its infancy, so Telford was set on establishing
himself as an architect. His projects included renovation of Shrewsbury Castle, the
town's prison (during the planning of which he met leading prison reformer John Howard),
the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Bridgnorth and another church, St Michael, in Madeley. Called in
to advise on a leaking roof at St Chad's Church Shrewsbury in 1788, he warned the church was in
imminent danger of collapse; his reputation was made locally when it collapsed 3 days later, but he
was not the architect for its replacement.
As the Shropshire county surveyor, Telford was also responsible for bridges. In 1790 he designed a
bridge carrying the LondonHolyhead road over the River Severn at Montford, the first of some 40
bridges he built in Shropshire, including major crossings of the Severn at Buildwas, and Bridgnorth.
The bridge at Buildwas was Telford's first iron bridge. He was influenced by Abraham
Darby's bridge at Ironbridge, and observed that it was grossly over-designed for its function, and
many of the component parts were poorly cast. By contrast, his bridge was 30 ft (10 m) wider in
span and half the weight, although it now no longer exists. He was one of the first engineers to test
his materials thoroughly before construction. As his engineering prowess grew, Telford was to return
to this material repeatedly.
In 1795 the bridge at Bewdley in Worcestershire was swept away in the winter floods and Telford
was responsible for the design of its replacement. The same winter floods saw the bridge
at Tenbury also swept away. This bridge across the River Teme was the joint responsibility of both
Worcestershire and Shropshire and the bridge has a bend where the two counties meet. Telford was
responsible for the repair to the northern (Shropshire) end of the bridge.

Ellesmere Canal[edit]
Telford's reputation in Shropshire led to his appointment in 1793 to manage the detailed design and
construction of the Ellesmere Canal, linking the ironworks and collieries of Wrexham via the north-
west Shropshire town of Ellesmere, with Chester, utilising the existing Chester Canal, and then
the River Mersey.
A canal boat traverses the Pontcysyllte aqueduct

Among other structures, this involved the spectacular Pontcysyllte Aqueduct over the River Dee in
the Vale of Llangollen, where Telford used a new method of construction consisting of troughs made
from cast iron plates and fixed in masonry. Extending for over 1,000 feet (300 m) with an altitude of
126 feet (38 m) above the valley floor, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct consists of nineteen arches, each
with a forty-five foot span. Being a pioneer in the use of cast-iron for large scaled structures, Telford
had to invent new techniques, such as using boiling sugar and lead as a sealant on the iron
connections. Eminent canal engineer William Jessop oversaw the project, but he left the detailed
execution of the project in Telford's hands. The aqueduct was designated a UNESCO World
Heritage Site in 2009.[2]

The Longdon-on-Tern aqueduct

The same period also saw Telford involved in the design and construction of the Shrewsbury Canal.
When the original engineer, Josiah Clowes, died in 1795, Telford succeeded him. One of Telford's
achievements on this project was the design of the cast-iron aqueduct at Longdon-on-Tern, pre-
dating that at Pontcysyllte, and substantially bigger than the UK's first cast-iron aqueduct, built
by Benjamin Outram on the Derby Canal just months earlier. The aqueduct is no longer in use, but is
preserved as a distinctive piece of canal engineering.
The Ellesmere Canal was completed in 1805 and alongside his canal responsibilities, Telford's
reputation as a civil engineer meant he was constantly consulted on numerous other projects. These
included water supply works for Liverpool, improvements to London's docklands and the rebuilding
of London Bridge (c.1800).
Most notably (and again William Pulteney was influential), in 1801 Telford devised a master plan to
improve communications in the Highlands of Scotland, a massive project that was to last some 20
years. It included the building of the Caledonian Canal along the Great Glen and redesign of
sections of the Crinan Canal, some 920 miles (1,480 km) of new roads, over a thousand new
bridges (including the Craigellachie Bridge), numerous harbour improvements (including works
at Aberdeen, Dundee, Peterhead, Wick, Portmahomack and Banff), and 32 new churches.
Telford also undertook highway works in the Scottish Lowlands, including 184 miles (296 km) of new
roads and numerous bridges, ranging from a 112 ft (34 m) span stone bridge across
the Dee at Tongueland in Kirkcudbright (180506) to the 129 ft (39 m) tall Cartland Crags bridge
near Lanark (1822).
Telford was consulted in 1806 by the King of Sweden about the construction of a canal
between Gothenburg and Stockholm. His plans were adopted and construction of the Gta
Canal began in 1810. Telford travelled to Sweden at that time to oversee some of the more
important initial excavations.
Many of Telford's projects were undertaken due to his role as a member of the Exchequer Bill Loan
Commission, an organ set up under the Poor Employment Act of 1817, to help finance public work
projects that would generate employment.[3]

The 'Colossus of Roads'[edit]

Menai Suspension Bridge

During his later years, Telford was responsible for rebuilding sections of the London to Holyhead
road, a task completed by his assistant of ten years, John MacNeill; today, much of the route is
the A5 trunk road, although the Holyhead Road diverted off the A5 along what is now parts
of A45, A41 and A464 through the cities of Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Between
London and Shrewsbury, most of the work amounted to improvements. Beyond Shrewsbury, and
especially beyond Llangollen, the work often involved building a highway from scratch. Notable
features of this section of the route include the Waterloo Bridge across the River Conwy at Betws-y-
Coed, the ascent from there to Capel Curig and then the descent from the pass of Nant
Ffrancon towards Bangor. Between Capel Curig and Bethesda, in the Ogwen Valley, Telford
deviated from the original road, built by Romans during their occupation of this area.
On the island of Anglesey a new embankment across the Stanley Sands to Holyhead was
constructed, but the crossing of the Menai Straitwas the most formidable challenge, overcome by
the Menai Suspension Bridge (181926). Spanning 580 feet (180 m), this was the longest
suspension bridge of the time. Unlike modern suspension bridges, Telford used individually linked
9.5-foot (2.9 m) iron eye bars for the cables.
Galton Bridge

Telford also worked on the North Wales coast road between Chester and Bangor, including another
major suspension bridge at Conwy, opened later the same year as its Menai counterpart.
Further afield Telford designed a road to cross the centre of the Isle of Arran. Named the 'String
road', this route traverses bleak and difficult terrain to allow traffic to cross between east and west
Arran avoiding the circuitous coastal route. His work on improving the Glasgow Carlisle road, later
to become the A74, has been described as "a model for future engineers."[4]
Telford improved on methods for the building of macadam roads by improving the selection of stone
based on thickness, taking into account traffic, alignment and slopes.[5]
The punning nickname Colossus of Roads was given to Telford by his friend, the eventual Poet
Laureate, Robert Southey. Telford's reputation as a man of letters may have preceded his fame as
an engineer: he had published poetry between 1779 and 1784, and an account of a tour of Scotland
with Southey. His will left bequests to Southey (who would later write Telford's biography), the
poet Thomas Campbell (17771844) and to the publishers of the Edinburgh Encyclopdia (to which
he had been a contributor).[6]
In 1821, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The 'Telford Church'[edit]

A 'Telford church' on Ulva(1827/8) in the Inner Hebrides

An Act of Parliament in 1823 provided a grant of 50,000 for the building of up to 40 churches and
manses in communities without any church buildings (hence the alternative name: 'Parliamentary
Church' or 'Parliamentary Kirk').[7] The total cost was not to exceed 1500 on any site and Telford
was commissioned to undertake the design. He developed a simple church of T-shaped plan and
two manse designs a single-storey and a two-storey, adaptable to site and ground conditions, and
to brick or stone construction, at 750 each. Of the 43 churches originally planned, 32 were
eventually built around the Scottish highlands and islands (the other 11 were achieved by redoing
existing buildings). The last of these churches was built in 1830.[8][9] Some have been restored and/or
converted to private use.[10]

Late career[edit]
Other works by Telford include the St Katharine Docks (182428) close to Tower Bridge in central
London, where he worked with the architect Philip Hardwick, the Gloucester and Berkeley Ship
Canal (today known as the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal), Over Bridge near Gloucester, the
second Harecastle Tunnel on the Trent and Mersey Canal (1827), and the Birmingham and
Liverpool Junction Canal (today part of the Shropshire Union Canal) started in May 1826 but
finished, after Telford's death, in January 1835. At the time of its construction in 1829, Galton
Bridge was the longest single span in the world. He also built Whitstableharbour in Kent in 1832, in
connection with the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway with an unusual system for flushing out mud
using a tidal reservoir. He also completed the Grand Trunk after James Brindley died due to being
over-worked.
In 1820, Telford was appointed the first President of the recently formed Institution of Civil
Engineers, a post he held until his death.[11]

Telford's death[edit]
Telford's young draughtsman and clerk 183034 George Turnbull in his diary states:
On the 23rd [August 1834] Mr Telford was taken seriously ill of a bilious derangement to which he
had been liable he grew worse and worse [surgeons] attended him twice a day, but it was to
no avail for he died on the 2nd September, very peacefully at about 5pm. His old servant James
Handscombe and I were the only two in the house [24 Abingdon Street, London] when he died. He
was never married. Mr Milne and Mr Rickman were, no doubt, Telford's most intimate friends. I
went to Mr Milne and under his direction made all the arrangements about the house and
correspondence. Telford had no blood relations that we knew of. The funeral took place on the
10th September [in Westminster Abbey]. Mr Telford was of the most genial disposition and a
delightful companion, his laugh was the heartiest I ever heard; it was a pleasure to be in his
society.[12][13]
Thomas Telford was buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey; a statue was erected to him nearby,
in St Andrew's Chapel adjoining the north transept.

Honours[edit]
In 2011 he was one of seven inaugural inductees to the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame.[14]
A steamroller (or steam roller) is a form of road roller a type of heavy construction machinery
used for leveling surfaces, such as roads or airfields that is powered by a steam engine. The
levelling/flattening action is achieved through a combination of the size and weight of the vehicle and
the rolls: the smooth wheels and the large cylinder or drum fitted in place of treaded road wheels.
The majority of steam rollers are outwardly similar to traction engines as many traction engine
manufacturers later produced rollers based on their existing designs, and the patents owned by
certain roller manufacturers tended to influence the general arrangements used by others. The key
difference between the two vehicles is that on a roller the main roll replaces the front wheels and
axle that would be fitted to a traction engine.