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COCHRANE, ARCHIBALD,
ninth earl of Dundonald, a nobleman distinguished by his useful
scientific investigations, was the son of Thomas, the eighth earl, by
Jane, daughter of Archibald Stewart of Torrence; and was born on the 1st
of January, 1748. His lordship, before his father’s death, entered
life as a cornet, in the 3d dragoons, which commission he afterwards
abandoned, in order to become a midshipman under his countryman captain
Stair Douglas. While stationed as acting lieutenant in a vessel off the
coast of Guinea, he had occasion to observe the liability of vessels to
be rotted by the sea, which in some cases was so very great, that a few
months was sufficient to render them not seaworthy. He conceived the
idea of laying them over with tar extracted from coal, a substance which
was then little known, though now identified with the very idea of
marine craft. The experiment was first tried in Holland, and found to
answer all the purposes required. Being then tried upon a decked boat at
the Nore, and found equally answerable, his lordship procured a patent
of his invention for a short term, which was afterwards (1785) changed
for an act of parliament, vesting it in him and his heirs for twenty
years. Unfortunately, the general adoption of copper-sheathing rendered
the speculation not only abortive, but ruinous to the inventor,
who had burdened all his estates in order to raise the necessary works.
His lordship had succeeded to the family honours in 1778. In 1785, he
published two pamphlets—one entitled, "The Present State
of the Manufacture of Salt explained," the other, "An Account
of the Qualities and Uses of Coal Tar and Coal Varnish." In 1795,
his lordship published a treatise showing the intimate connection
between agriculture and chemistry, and in 1807 he obtained a patent for
improvements in spinning machinery. It unfortunately happened that his
lordship’s inventions, although all of them seemed to tend to the
public good, proved unprofitable to himself. The latter half of his long
life was, on this account, spent in embarrassments and privations, which
may well excite our sympathy. His lordship was thrice married; first to
Anne, daughter of captain Gilchrist of Annsfield, R. N.; secondly, to
Isabella, daughter of Samuel Raymond, Esq. of Belchamp, in Essex;
thirdly, to Anna Maria Plowden, daughter of the well-known historian of
Ireland. By the first of these matches, he had six sons, the eldest of
whom, under the designation of lord Cochrane, distinguished himself by
his gallant naval achievements in the war of the French Revolution. The
following remarks were made in allusion to this noble and unfortunate
votary of science, in the annual address of the Registrars of the
Literary Fund Society, in the year 1823:-
"A man born in the
high class of the old British peerage has devoted his acute and
investigating mind solely to the prosecution of science; and his powers
have prevailed in the pursuit. The discoveries effected by his
scientific research, with its direction altogether to utility, have been
in many instances beneficial to the community, and in many have been the
sources of wealth to individuals. To himself alone they have been
unprofitable; for with a superior disdain, or (if you please) a culpable
disregard of the goods of fortune, he has scattered around him the
produce of his intellect with a lavish and wild hand. If we may use the
consecrated words of an apostle, ‘though poor, he hath made many rich,’
and though in the immediate neighbourhood of wealth, he has been doomed
to suffer, through a long series of laborious years, the severities of
want. In his advanced age he found an estimable woman, in poverty, it is
true, like himself, but of unspotted character, and of high, though
untitled family, to participate the calamity of his fortunes; and with
her virtues and prudence, assisted by a small pension which she obtained
from the benevolence of the crown, she threw a gleam of light over the
dark decline of his day. She was soon, however, torn from him by death,
and, with an infant whom she bequeathed to him, he was abandoned to
destitution and distress, (for the pension was extinguished with her
life.) To this man, thus favoured by nature, and thus persecuted by
fortune, we have been happy to offer some little alleviation of his
sorrows; and to prevent him from breathing his last under the oppressive
sense of the ingratitude of his species."
The earl of Dundonald
died in poverty at Paris, on the 1st of July 1831, at the
advanced age of eighty-three years. |
