Cover to cover – a Scottish perspective on the world of publishing
BY JULIAN GLOVER BLOOMSBURY £25
Born into poverty in the parish of Westerkirk, Dumfriesshire, Thomas Telford’s ambitions saw him reverse his fortunes to become a significant figure in the story of Britain’s industrialisation. A stone mason turned architect turned engineer, Telford’s life spanned almost eight decades in which he masterminded some of the greatest engineering feats of the time. Glover’s telling of Telford’s life is both intimate and expansive, covering his well-known engineering accomplishments such as roads, bridges and waterways whilst exploring the lesser known story of Telford the man. According to Glover, Telford was a complex person: a shepherd’s boy who loved the countryside yet helped industrialise it; an ambitious man who cared little for accolades; highly sociable, but markedly private when it came to his personal life; and finally, an engineer who was also a passionate poet. In Scotland alone, there are few inhabitants or visitors who haven’t crossed one of the many Telford bridges now firmly etched into the Scottish landscape. For instance the Craigellachie Bridge on the River Spey, the historic Dean Bridge which crosses Edinburgh’s Water of Leith, the gothic-styled Tongland Bridge over the River Dee in Dumfries & Galloway, the Cartland Bridge in Lanark which spans the Mouse Water and the five-arch stone Pathhead Bridge in Midlothian.
Telford was also responsible for the construction of 32 churches, all built in his simple T-shaped design which, to this day, still pepper the Highlands and islands. In later years, his reputation began to spread internationally following his work on the Caledonian Canal, which connected the east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William, spawning a sister canal, the Göta Canal, in Sweden.
Glover argues that despite Telford’s numerous and renowned feats, such as the Menai Bridge connecting Anglesey with mainland Britain and the Pontcysyllte aqueduct in Wales, he remains in something of a ‘historical twilight’. With technology shifting so rapidly in the years following Telford’s death, fresh heroes of Victorian engineering emerged, no more so than those involved in the burgeoning railways, whose inventions and achievements overshadowed those of Telford.
Despite embellishment in places – Robert Burns’ Ayrshire birthplace is described by Glover as being ‘by the Solway Firth’ during an exploration of the parallels between Telford and the poet, which included details of an assumed friendship – this is a thorough and enthusiastic telling of the life and works of one of Scotland’s greatest engineers, and a book which rightly underlined Telford’s reputation as one of the men of genius who built Britain.
‘In Scotland, there are few inhabitants or visitors who haven’t crossed one of the many Telford bridges now firmly etched into the Scottish landscape’