Kingsmill Eyre (23 May 1682–1743) was Secretary of

Chelsea Hospital The Royal Hospital Chelsea is a retirement home and nursing home for some 300 veterans of the British Army. Founded as an almshouse, the ancient sense of the word "hospital", it is a site located on Royal Hospital Road in Chelsea. It is an i ...

, a garden designer, and the

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

ee of a process for making iron.

Family

Kingsmill was the youngest of five children of

Samuel Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bibl ...

and Martha Eyre of New House,

Whiteparish Whiteparish is a village and civil parish on the A27 about southeast of Salisbury in Wiltshire, England. The village is about from the county boundary with Hampshire. The parish includes the hamlets of Cowesfield Green (east of Whiteparish ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

. His elder brother was

Robert Eyre Sir Robert Eyre (166628 December 1735) was an English lawyer and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1698 to 1710. He served as Solicitor-General and then as a judge, and ultimately as Chief Justice of the ...

, Solicitor-General in 1708–10 and then

Chief Justice of the Common Pleas The chief justice of the Common Pleas was the head of the Court of Common Pleas, also known as the Common Bench or Common Place, which was the second-highest common law court in the English legal system until 1875, when it, along with the other ...

in 1725–35.

Career

His mother was looking for a place of employment for him in 1702, and sought the help of

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...

, the philosopher. He had served eight years (including time in

Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...

) as an apprentice to a Mr Chitty, a merchant, supplying stores to the

Navy Board The Navy Board (formerly known as the Council of the Marine or Council of the Marine Causes) was the commission responsible for the day-to-day civil administration of the Royal Navy between 1546 and 1832. The board was headquartered within the ...

. The outcome of this has not been discovered. Somehow, Eyre entered the circle of

Robert Walpole Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745; known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole) was a British statesman and Whig politician who, as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader ...

; the point of contact may have been his brother Robert. This led to Eyre's appointment as Agent to the Four Companies of Invalids of

in 1716, a post in the gift of Walpole as its treasurer. This was followed in 1718 by his appointment as Secretary to the Commissioners of Chelsea College. In this period, Eyre was responsible for laying out the garden at Walpole's Norfolk mansion at

Houghton Houghton may refer to: Places Australia * Houghton, South Australia, a town near Adelaide * Houghton Highway, the longest bridge in Australia, between Redcliffe and Brisbane in Queensland * Houghton Island (Queensland) Canada * Houghton Townshi ...

. He may also have designed other gardens during the 1720s. During the 1720s, Eyre became involved in the iron-making project of

William Wood William Wood may refer to: Politicians * William Wood (MP for Berkshire), Member of Parliament (MP) for Berkshire, 1395 * William Wood (15th century MP), MP for Winchester, 1413 * William Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley (1801–1881), British statesma ...

, whose son had obtained a patent for a method of making iron in an air furnace using mineral coal in 1727. This was followed by another to Wood himself in 1728 for something similar, but the enterprise collapsed because Wood was unable to perform what he promised. How deeply Eyre was involved is not clear, but in 1736, he took out a similar patent in his own name. In May, 1726 he was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eyre, Kingsdmill 1682 births 1743 deaths English inventors Fellows of the Royal Society