"The Author offers the following book as a continua­"continua­tion in a more generally accessible form of the Series tion of Memoirs of Industrial Men introduced in his Lives of the Engineers. While preparing that work he fre­of fre­quently came across the tracks of celebrated inventors quently mechanics and iron-work-ers the founders in a great measure of the modern indus-try of Britain whose la­measure la­bours seemed to him well worthy of being traced out bours and placed on record and the more so as their lives presented many points of curious and original interest. Having been encouraged to prosecute the subject by offers of assistance from some of the most eminent liv-ing mechanical engineers he is now enabled to present the following further series of memoirs to the public."