William Playfair
PLAYFAIR, WILLIAM, an ingenious mechanic and miscellaneous writer,
brother to John Playfair, was born in the year 1759. The personal
history of this man when compared with that of his brother, shows in
striking colours the necessity, not only of industry, but of steadiness
and consistency of plan, as adjuncts of genius in raising its possessor
to eminence. Being very young when his father died, his education was
superintended by his brother. His early taste for mechanics prompted his
friends to place him as apprentice to a mill-wright of the name of
Miekle. He afterwards went to England, and in 1780, was engaged as
draughtsman in the service of Mr James Watt. How long he remained in
this situation we do not know, but the vast mass of pamphlets which he
was unceasingly producing must have speedily interfered with his
professional regularity, and he seems to have spent the remainder of his
days in alternately making mechanical discoveries of importance, and
penning literary or political pamphlets. Among the most useful of his
mechanical efforts, was the unrequited discovery of the French
telegraph, gathered from a few partial hints, and afterwards adapted by
an alphabet of his own invention to British use. At the period when he
was most busy as a writer, he received no less than five patents for new
inventions; one of these was for the manufacture of sashes, constructed
of a mixture of copper, zinc, and iron. These he termed Eldorado sashes.
Another was for a machine for completing the ornamental part of fretwork
on small implements of silver and other metal; such as sugar tongs,
buckles, &c., which had previously been executed by the hand. For some
time he occupied a silversmith’s shop in London, but, tiring of the
business, or finding it unprofitable, he proceeded to Paris, where,
among other mechanical speculations, he procured an exclusive privilege
for the manufacture of a rolling mill on a new plan. While living in
Paris, he was the means of forming the colony of Scioto in America.
Having formed an acquaintance with Mr Joel Barlow, who had been sent to
Paris to negotiate the disposal by lots of three millions of acres which
had been purchased by a company at New York, on the banks of the Scioto,
he undertook to procure for him the necessary introductions, and to
conduct the disposal. The breaking out of the French revolution favoured
the scheme. It was proposed that the lands should be disposed of at 5s.
per acre, one half to be paid at signing the act of sale, the other to
remain on mortgage to the United States, to be paid within two years
after taking possession. In less than two months 50,000 acres were sold,
and two vessels sailed from Havre de Grace, with the nucleus of the
colony. Soon after accomplishing this project, he made a narrow escape
from being arrested by the revolutionary government, a fate which his
strongly expressed objections to the French revolution rendered a very
likely event. On his return to London he projected a bank termed the
Security Bank; its object was the division of large securities so as to
facilitate small loans;—this bank unfortunately belied its name, and
became insolvent, too little attention having been paid to the
securities taken. On the restoration of the Bourbons, he returned to
France, and became editor of Galignani’s Messenger, but he was driven
back to England by a libel prosecution, and continued to gain his
subsistence by essay-writing and translating. His works being in general
connected with the passing politics of the day, need not be all named
and characterized. In books and pamphlets, his distinct works are said
to amount to about a hundred. Several were politico-economical in their
subject, discussing the sinking fund, the resources of France, the
Asiatic establishments of Britain, the prospects of the manufacturing
interest, &c. His political remarks were generally for the purpose of
supporting and vindicating the conduct of Britain towards France, and
received the designation "patriotic." Among his principal publications
were a "History of Jacobinism," published in 1795; an edition of Smith’s
Wealth of Nations, with Notes, in 1806; and "British Family
Antiquities," in 9 vols. 4to, published in 1809-11. This last work forms
a Peerage and Baronetage of Britain and Ireland. It contains a great
mass of matter, and is splendidly illustrated, but it is not looked on
by genealogists as a work of much authority. He spent the last days of
his laborious but irregular life without the competence which
well-directed talent generally acquires, and his death was hurried on by
anxiety of mind. He died in Covent Garden on the 11th February, 1823, in
the sixty-fourth year of his age. "In private life," says a biographer,
"Mr Playfair was inoffensive and amiable; not prepossessing in his
appearance and address, but with a strong and decided physiognomy, like
that of his late brother. With a thoughtlessness which is too frequently
allied to genius, he neglected to secure that provision for his family,
which from his talents they were justified to expect; and although he
laboured ardently and abundantly for his country, yet he found it
ungrateful, and was left in age and infirmity to regret that he had
neglected his own interests to promote those of the public." [Annual
Obituary, 1824, 460.]
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Revised 10 June 2005