Samuel Smiles (December 23, 1812 – April 16, 1904), was a Scottish author and reformer. In the public domain by age This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... December 23 is the 357th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (358th in leap years). ... 1812 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... April 16 is the 106th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (107th in leap years). ... 1904 (MCMIV) was a leap year starting on a Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Motto: Nemo me impune lacessit (English: No one provokes me with impunity) Scotlands location within Europe Scotlands location within the United Kingdom Languages English, Gaelic, Scots Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow First Minister Jack McConnell Area - Total - % water Ranked 2nd UK 78,782 km² 1. ...

Born in Haddington, Smiles was the eldest of eleven children. He left school at the age of 14 and was apprenticed to a doctor, eventually enabling him to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. While studying and after graduating he campaigned for parliamentary reform, contributing articles to the Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle and the Leeds Times. Haddington. ... The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland. ... In the United Kingdom, the Reform Act could refer to various Acts Reform Act 1832 (The First Reform Act or The Great Reform Act), which abolished rotten boroughs and gave representation to previously unrepresented urban areas like Birmingham etc. ...

In 1838, he was invited to become the editor for the Leeds Times, a position which he accepted and filled until 1845. In May 1840, Smiles became Secretary to the Leeds Parliamentary Reform Association, an organisation that held to the six objectives of Chartism: universal suffrage for all men over the age of 21; equal-sized electoral districts; voting by secret ballot; an end to the need of MPs to qualify for Parliament, other than by winning an election; pay for MPs; and annual Parliaments. | Jöns Jakob Berzelius, discoverer of protein 1838 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1845 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... 1840 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Chartism was a movement for social and political reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century. ... Universal suffrage (also general suffrage or common suffrage) consists of the extension of suffrage to all adults, without distinction as to race, sex, belief, or social status. ... The Polling by William Hogarth (1755); Before the secret ballot was introduced voter intimidation was commonplace Wikisource has original text related to this article: A History of the Australian Ballot System in the United States The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voters choices are confidential. ... States currently utilizing parliamentary systems are denoted in orange and red—the former being constitutional monarchies where authority is vested in a parliament, and the latter being parliamentary republics whose parliaments are effectively supreme over a separate head of state. ...

In 1845, Samuel Smiles left the Leeds Times and became secretary to the Leeds and Thirsk Railway and then, nine years later, the South Eastern Railway. In 1866, he left this position to be president of the National Provident Institution, but left in 1871, after suffering a debilitating stroke. He recovered from the stoke, eventually learning to read and write again, and he even wrote books after his recovery. He died in Kensington and was buried in Brompton Cemetery. The London and Greenwich Railway (LGR), together with the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway (CWR) in East Kent were the earliest railways to serve the then county of Kent: eventually both became parts of the South Eastern Railway (SER). ... 1866 (MDCCCLXVI) is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ... 1871 (MDCCCLXXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... For other uses, see Stroke (disambiguation). ... Kensington is an area to the west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. ... Brompton Cemetery is a cemetery located in Earls Court, a part of the Borough of Kensington & Chelsea in west London, England. ...

As editor of the Leeds Times, he advocated radical causes ranging from women's suffrage to free trade to parliamentary reform. But by the late 1840s, Smiles became concerned about the advocation of physical force by Chartists Feargus O'Connor and George Julian Harney, though he seems to have agreed with them that the movement's current tactics were not effective, saying that "mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society." In the 1850s he seems to have completely given up on parliamentary reform and other structural changes as a means of social advance. For the rest of his career, he advocated individual self improvement. Free trade is an economic concept referring to the selling of products between countries without tariffs or other trade barriers. ... // Events and Trends Technology First use of general anesthesia in an operation, by Crawford Long The first electrical telegraph sent by Samuel Morse on May 24, 1844 from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.. War, peace and politics First signing of the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) on February... Feargus Edward OConnor (1794 – August 30, 1855) was an Irish Chartist leader and advocate of the Land Plan. ... English Political Activist, Journalist & Chartist Leader George Julian Harney, the son of a seaman, was born in Deptford on 17th February, 1817. ... // Events and Trends Technology Production of steel revolutionised by invention of the Bessemer process Benjamin Silliman fractionates petroleum by distillation for the first time First transatlantic telegraph cable laid First safety elevator installed by Elisha Otis Science Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species, putting forward the theory of evolution...

Smiles's writings

Smiles is best known today as the writer of books extolling virtues of self help, and biographies lauding the achievements of 'heroic' engineers. Most of these biographies were contained in the four volume work, The Lives of Engineers, but he also wrote many other biographies. He selected the topics of his biographies as a means of emphasising his thesis of self help. These works have come to exemplify Victorian values for the modern reader. He received some criticism in his own time from socialist because of his emphasis on individual achievement. This article or section may contain external links added only to promote a website, product, or service – otherwise known as spam. ... Sir Thomas Malory wrote the most famous fictional biography of the Middle Ages with Le Morte dArthur about the life of King Arthur. ... Look up engineer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

He was a prolific author of books and articles. The following is an incomplete list of his most important work. See Jarvis, below, for a full listing of his writings.

Self help topics

• Self-Help, London, 1859
• Character, London, 1871
• Thrift, London, 1875
• Duty, London, 1880
• Life and Labour, London 1887

Biographical works

• The Life of George Stephenson, London, 1857
• The Story of The Life of George Stephenson, London, 1859 (abridgement of the above)
• Brief biographies, Boston, 1860 (articles reprinted from periodicals such as the Quarterly Review)
• Lives of the Engineers, 3 vol, London 1862
  • Vol 1, Early engineers - James Brindley, Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, Sir Hugh Myddleton, Capt John Perry
  • Vol 2, Harbours, Lighthouses and Bridges - John Smeaton and John Rennie, (1761-1821)
  • Vol 3, History of Roads - John Metcalfe and Thomas Telford
• Industrial Biography, London, 1863

Includes lives of Andrew Yarranton, Dud Dudley, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Clement, etc..

• Boulton and Watt, London, 1865
• The Huguenots: Their Settlements, Churches and Industries in England and Ireland, London, 1867
• Lives of the Engineers, new ed. in 5 vols, London, 1874

(includes the lives of Stephenson and Boulton and Watt)

• Life of a Scotch Naturalist: Thomas Edward, London, 1875
• George Moore, Merchant and Philanthropist, London & New York, 1878
• Robert Dick, Baker of Thurso, Geologist and Botanist, London, 1878
• Men of Invention and Industry, London, 1884

Phineas Pett, Francis Petit Smith, John Harrison, John Lombe, William Murdock, Frederic Koenig,The Walter family of The Times, William Clowes, Charles Bianconi, and chapters on Industry in Ireland, Shipbuilding in Belfast, Astronomers and students in humble life

• James Nasmyth, engineer, an autobiography, ed. Samuel Smiles, London, 1885
• A Publisher and his Friends. Memoir and Correspondence of the Late John Murray, London, 1891
• Jasmin. Barber, Poet, Philanthropist, London, 1891
• Josiah Wedgwood, his Personal History, London, 1894
• The Autobiography of Samuel Smiles, LLD, ed. T. Mackey, London, 1905

The growth of industrial archaeology in Britain from the 1960s caused a number of these titles to be reprinted, and a number are available on the Web from such sources as Project Gutenberg, noted below. George Stephenson George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was an English mechanical engineer who designed a famous and historically important steam-powered locomotive named Rocket and is known as the Father of British Steam Railways. The Victorians considered him a great example of diligent application and thirst for... James Brindley. ... Sir Cornelius Vermuyden (born Tholen, Netherlands, 1595; died London, c. ... Statue of Sir Hugh Myddleton near the terminus of the New River Sir Hugh Myddleton (1560-10 December 1631) was a Welsh goldsmith, clothmaker, banker, entrepreneur, mine-owner and self-taught engineer. ... John Perry John Perry (1850-1920) F.R.S. was an Ulsterman and engineer. ... Portrait of John Smeaton, with the Eddystone Lighthouse in the background. ... John Rennie (7 June 1761 in East Linton, Scotland - 4 October 1821) was a civil engineer, constructing many bridges, canals, and docks. ... John Metcalfe (born 1964 in New Zealand) is a British composer and violist, and a former member of the band the Durutti Column. ... Thomas Telford (August 9, 1757 - September 2, 1834) was born in Westerkirk, Scotland. ... Andrew Yarranton (1619-1684) was an important English engineer, who was responsible for building several canals. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wikisource. ... Henry Maudslay. ... Joseph Clement was a British engineer and industrialist. ... The firm of Boulton and Watt, a partnership between Matthew Boulton and James Watt, made steam engines at their Soho Foundry in Smethwick, near Birmingham, England. ... In the 16th and 17th centuries, the name of Huguenots came to apply to members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France. ... The name Thomas Edward can refer to: Thomas Edward Lawrence, British liaison officer during the Arab Revolt. ... Robert Dick (January, 1811 - December 24, 1866), Scottish geologist and botanist was born at Tullibody, in Clackmannanshire. ... Phineas Pett (November 1, 1570 - August, 1647) was a shipwright and a member of the Pett dynasty. ... John Harrison. ... John Lombe (1693 - 1722) was an inventor who patented 3 types of Silk machines, for winding, spinning and twisting. ... For men with a similar name, see William Murdoch (disambiguation). ... William Clowes founded a printing firm in 1803 in London. ... Charles Bianconi, a native of Italy, was born in Ireland in 1802, and is famous for his innovations while living there. ... James Nasmyth James Hall Nasmyth (August 19, 1808 – May 7, 1890) was an engineer and inventor famous for his development of the steam hammer. ... John Murray is a British publishing house, renowned for the roster of authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen, Lord Byron and Charles Darwin. ... Josiah Wedgwood Josiah Wedgwood (July 12, 1730 – January 3, 1795) was an English potter, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ...

The reliability of Smiles's work

Jarvis discusses this exhaustively in his book, and it is clear that Smiles must never be taken as the last word on the lives of Victorian engineers. Aside from the accuracy of his statements (it is known, for example, that he was prone to making selective quotations from documents to show his subjects in the best light), there is the balance of his coverage. He tended to concentrate on Civil Engineering, to the detriment of mechanical engineering and invention. Present-day researchers, who seem only to use Smiles and few other sources uncritically, thus get a lop-sided view of what industrialisation during the Industrial Revolution and the Victorian era in Britain was about. The Falkirk Wheel in Scotland. ... The W16 engine from a Bugatti Veyron Mechanical engineering is a very broad field of engineering that involves the application of physical principles for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. ... An invention is an object, process, or technique which displays an element of novelty. ... Industrialisation (sometimes industrialization in American English) or an industrial revolution (in general, with lowercase letters) is a process of social and economic change whereby a human society is transformed from a pre-industrial (an economy where the amount of capital accumulated is low) to an industrial state (see Pre-industrial... A Watt steam engine in Madrid. ...

References

Adrian Jarvis, Samuel Smiles and the construction of Victorian Values Sutton Publishing, 1997, 176pp, 16 illus. (ISBN 075091128X)

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Samuel Smiles Project

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Samuel Smiles

• Works by Samuel Smiles at Project Gutenberg
• Character by Samuel Smiles in html format