CAPTAIN J. HUDDART, F.R.S.
Born Jan. 11, 1740. Died August 19, 1816.
Joseph Huddart was born at Allonby in Cumberland. His Father, who was a shoemaker and farmer, desiring to give his son the best education in his power, sent him to a day-school kept by Mr. Wilson, the clergyman of the village. Here young Huddart acquired a knowledge of the elements of mathematics, including astronomy, sciences in which he attained great proficiency in after life. When quite a boy, Huddart gave indications of an original mind, combined with great industry and unwearied patience. Having fallen in with a treatise by Mungo Murray on ship building, he wasso pleased with its clear directions, that he set to work and succeeded, after immense labour and ingenuity, in making a model of a seventy-four gun-ship, with ribs, planks, and bolts complete. When engaged in herding his father's cows, he used to carry out into the country a desk of his own manufacture, employing his time in reading, and mathematical drawing and calculations.
As Huddart grew up he evinced a strong bias for a sea-faring life, and an event occurred in 1756 which decided his future career. In that year large shoals of herrings came into the Solway Firth, and the elder Huddart took advantage of the circumstance to trade in conjunction with a Herring Fishery Company, while his son took his place with others in the boats, and soon displayed so much skill and ability in their management that he became noted among his fellows for superiority of knowledge in nautical matters. Young Huddart continued more or less in this new employment until his father's death, in 1762, when he succeeded to a share in the fishery, and at once took the command of a sloop employed in carrying the salted herrings to Cork and other parts of Ireland, for the supply of the West India markets.
These voyages gave him a thorough knowledge of St. George's Channel, convinced him of the insufficiency of the charts then in use, and ultimately led to his making a complete survey of that sea, and to the subsequent publication of his own most valuable chart. In 1768 Huddart, with the assistance of his uncle, designed and built a vessel for himself, and named it the Patience, every timber in it having been moulded with his own hand. In this vessel he made his first voyage to North America, and continued to sail in her until the year 1771, when he was induced by Sir Richard Hotham, with whom he had become acquainted, to enter the East India Mercantile Marine, in which service he continued for many years, and realized a considerable independency.
Captain Huddart's scientific knowledge and high character introduced him into the Trinity House as an Elder Brother, and also into the Committee of the Ramsgate Harbour Trust, and into the London and East India Dock Directions. At the Trinity House all inquiries relating to lights, lighthouses and charts were chiefly referred to him, while the lighthouses on Hurst Point were built under his superintendence and immediate direction.
On retirement from the East India Company's service, Huddart engaged again in his favourite pursuit of ship building, making many practical experiments to determine the lines, which consistent with stability and capacity for stowage would give to vessels the greatest velocity through the water. But that which constitutes Captain Huddart's chief claim on the gratitude of posterity are his great improvements and inventions in the manufacture of Cordage; before his time nothing worthy of the name of machinery had been applied to rope-making, and to him was reserved the honour ofbringing the wonderful power of Watt's steam engine to bear upon this most important article of manufacture.
Captain Huddart's attention was first drawn towards the subject during a voyage from India to China through the Straits of Sunda, where the ship he commanded was frequently compelled to anchor. When the anchor was weighed, the outer yarns of the cable were often found to be broken, and on opening a piece of cable to find out the cause, Huddart's attention was forcibly drawn to the fact that rope as then manufactured, bore almost the entire strain on the outer yarns of the strands, from the yarns being originally of the same length, and the strand in the process of twisting becoming shortened. He determined to remedy this, and ultimately constructed a machine which, by means of what he called a register plate, gave to every yarn the same strain, and its proper position in the strand which was compressed through a tube into the desired form.
Government refusing to take up this valuable invention, a company was formed by Huddart's friends for the manufacture of rope upon his new principle. These gentlemen built a factory at Limehouse, which was established under the name of Huddart & Co.
Captain Huddart now devoted himself to the further development of his valuable invention; he contrived a registering machine whereby the yarns were formed as they came out of the tar-kettle, the tar being kept at the temperature (212-220° Fah.) he found by experiment to be sufficient for the required purpose, without injuring by too great heat the fibres of the rope.
He also constructed a laying machine, which gave the same length and twist to every strand, and an uniform angle and pressure to the rope or cable. These improvements involved the manufacture of much beautiful machinery, which was made after Huddart's design and under his own personal superintendance.[21]
Captain Huddart lived to an advanced old age, and even in his last illness his disposition to inquire into causes and effects did not forsake him, as his body gradually wasted away, he caused himself to be weighed from time to time, noting thereby the quantity of moisture which escaped by the breath and insensible perspiration. He died at Highbury Terrace, London, at the age of seventy-six, and was interred in a vault under St. Martin's Church, in the Strand.—Memoir of Capt. Jos. Huddart, by Wm. Cotton, D.C.L.London, 1855.