What the English Owe to Naturalized Foreigners
The industry of England owes much to the foreigners who have from time to time become settled and naturalized amongst us. Dr. Percy has stated, in his Metallurgy, that we are indebted to German miners, introduced into England by the wisdom of Elizabeth, for the early development of our mineral resources. It also appears that the Dutch were our principal instructors in civil and mechanical engineering; draining extensive marsh and fen lands along the east coast in the reign of James I., and erecting for us pumping-engines and mill-machinery of various kinds. Many of the Flemings, driven from their own country by the Duke of Alva, sought and found an asylum in England, bringing with them their skill in dyeing, cloth-working, and horticulture; while the thousands who flocked into the kingdom on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV., introduced the arts of manufacturing in glass, silk, velvet, lace, and cambric, which have since become established branches of industry. The religious persecutions in Belgium and France not only banished from those countries free Protestant thought, but at the same time expelled the best industrial skill, and England eventually obtained the benefit of both.
Our mechanical proficiency, however, has been a comparatively recent growth. Like many others of our national qualities, it has come out suddenly and unexpectedly. But, though late learners, we have been so apt that we have already outstripped our teachers; and there is scarcely a branch of manufacture in which we have not come up to, if indeed we have not surpassed, the most advanced continental nations.
The invention of the steam-engine, towards the end of last century, had the effect of giving an extraordinary impetus to improvement, particularly in various branches of iron manufacture; and we began to export machines, engines, and ironwork to France, Germany, and the Low Countries, whence we had before imported them. Although this great invention was perfected by Watt, much of the preliminary investigation in connexion with the subject had been conducted by eminent French refugees: as by Desaugliers, the author of the well-known Course of Experimental Philosophy, and by Denis Papin, for some time Curator of the Royal Society, whose many ingenious applications of steam-power prove him to have been a person of great and original ability. But the most remarkable of these early inventors was unquestionably Thomas Savery—also said to have been a French refugee, though very little is known of him personally—who is entitled to the distinguished merit of having invented and constructed the first working steam-engine. All these men paved the way for Watt, who placed the copestone on the work of which the distinguished Frenchmen had in a great measure laid the foundations.
Many other men of eminence, descendants of the refugees, might be named, who have from time to time added greatly to our scientific and productive resources. Amongst names which incidentally occur to us are those of Dollond the optician; and Fourdrinier, the inventor of the paper-making machine. Passing over these, many were the emigrés who flocked over to England at the outbreak of the great French Revolution of 1789, and who maintained themselves by teaching the practice of art, and by other industrial pursuits. Of these, perhaps, the most distinguished was Marc Isambard Brunel, who for the greater part of his life followed the profession of an engineer, leaving behind him a son as illustrious as himself,—Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer of the Great Western and other railways, the designer of the Great Eastern steam-ship, and the architect of many important public works.—Abridged from the Quarterly Review, No. 223.