Thomas Shaw Brandreth, FRS (24 July 1788 – 27 May 1873) was an English mathematician,

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

and classicist.

Early life and education

Brandreth was the son of a

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

physician,

Joseph Brandreth Joseph Brandreth M.D. (1746 – 10 April 1815) was an English physician. He was the physician to the Duke of Gloucester. He was born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, in 1746. After graduating with an M.D. at Edinburgh in 1770, where his thesis, ''De F ...

. He studied at Eton and received a BA from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1810 as Second Wrangler, second

Smith's Prize The Smith's Prize was the name of each of two prizes awarded annually to two research students in mathematics and theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge from 1769. Following the reorganization in 1998, they are now awarded under the n ...

man, and chancellor's medalist, attesting to his keen intelligence. He received his MA in 1813, and was subsequently elected to a fellowship at Trinity. He then entered the Inns of Court, initially at

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

in 1810, but he migrated to the Inner Temple in 1813 and was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in 1818. He entered legal practice at Liverpool, but was much diverted from advancement by his interest in inventions.

Inventions

Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1821 for mathematical achievements, he had by that time invented a logometer (an early slide rule), and went on to design and patent a friction wheel and a clock escapement. These achievements led him into friendship with George Stephenson, and he played a role in the survey and engineering of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, particularly the crossing of Chat Moss. However, he resigned as a director of the line shortly before its completion. In the early days of railroading, it was by no means clear that the

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

would come to be the principal form of propulsion for trains. Brandreth invented a machine which used a horse galloping on a treadmill as its source of motive power. A prototype, the ''

Cycloped ''Cycloped'' was an early horse-powered locomotive, built by Thomas Shaw Brandreth of Liverpool, which competed unsuccessfully in the Rainhill trials of October 1829. The Rainhill trials The ''Cycloped'' was the only entry in the trials th ...

'', participated in the Rainhill Trials in 1829, but it had to be withdrawn when the horse broke through the floor of the machine. In any case, the trials proved the superiority of steam motive power in all but exceptional circumstances.

Family, judicial office, and Homer

Brandreth married a Harriet Byrom, of Fairview (a suburb of Liverpool), in 1822, by whom he had two daughters and five sons, among them Thomas Brandreth, a distinguished naval officer. A move to London further diminished his legal practice, and he ultimately declined the offer of a judgeship in Jamaica and retired to Worthing and devoted himself to the education of his children. In retirement, he again took up the study of classical literature, and made a lengthy inquiry into the use of the digamma in the works of Homer. His studies were published in 1844 as ''A Dissertation on the Metre of Homer''; and reflected in an edition of the '' Iliad'' with digammas. This was followed by a well-received translation of the ''Iliad'' into blank verse in 1846. Brandreth died in Worthing in 1873. He took an interest of local affairs, becoming a

justice of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

for West Sussex and taking a hand in the improvement of the town's infrastructure.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brandreth, Thomas Shaw 1788 births 1873 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge English barristers 19th-century British inventors 19th-century English mathematicians Fellows of the Royal Society Locomotive builders and designers People educated at Eton College British people in rail transport English classical scholars Second Wranglers Greek–English translators 19th-century translators Translators of Homer Homeric scholars