By means of a draw-plate, however, an oven can be expeditiously charged. This appliance consists of a sliding plate or tray, mounted on wheels running on rails, which is drawn out of the oven loaded with bread, and then returned. The plate itself is often made of iron, but one well-known oven is fitted with a withdrawable iron frame, in which are laid, edge to edge, tiles of a special make, which are cemented in place, and form a continuous baking surface. This seems an excellent arrangement, as the baker has all the advantages of a brick oven, that is to say, his bread is baked both on top and bottom by heat evolved from tiled surfaces, and the undoubted drawbacks incidental to baking bread on an iron surface are avoided. A draw-plate fitted to an oven capable of baking a batch made from a sack (280 ℔) of flour can be run out, charged and run in again, in about two minutes. The draw-plate has the incidental advantage, by expediting the loading and discharge of the oven, of ensuring a more uniform baking of the batch, and therefore of minimizing the loss of weight. Some bakers have gone so far as to estimate the saving in this respect from the use of a draw-plate at half an ounce per 2-℔ loaf. With decker ovens a double draw-plate may be used, the feet of the pedestal supporting the upper draw-plate running on a rail outside, but parallel to the rail on which the lower draw-plate runs. This arrangement, however, is more applicable to small than large ovens. Or the lower oven may be fitted with a draw-plate while the upper oven is served with a peel. The draw-plate being at a lower level than the sole of an ordinary oven, the upper deck may be worked with a peel without much difficulty.
The decker oven is, as its name implies, an oven built over another oven: in fact, sometimes a tier of three ovens is employed, placed one above the other. The object is to secure a double or treble baking surface without a very much larger outlay on fuel than would be necessary for one oven. It is easy to understand that a double or three decker oven might be constructed under conditions where it would be impossible to place two or three ordinary ovens side by side. Practical bakers are somewhat divided as to the actual economy of the decker system; possibly it is a question of management. The upper oven is heated by the gases which have passed under the oven beneath. A double-decker oven on the flue principle could be heated by three flues, one beneath the lower oven, another passing between the crown of the lower and the sole of the top oven, and the third over the crown of the upper oven. If a third oven were built over the second, then a fourth flue would pass over the crown of the third and top oven. In such an arrangement of flues the distribution of heat to the ovens would be fairly equal, but no doubt the lower oven would be the hottest. In addition to the flues, which should be straight and accessible for cleaning, there ought also to be auxiliary flues by which heat may be allowed to pass dampers to the upper portions of the series of ovens. In this way the heat of the upper oven or ovens can be regulated independently to a great extent of the bottom oven. The power of regulating the heat of the ovens is very necessary, because a baker doing what is called a mixed trade, that is to say, producing cakes and pastry in addition to bread, must work his ovens at varying temperatures. Cakes cannot be baked at the heat (about 450° F.) required by a batch of household bread. The richest fancy goods, such as wedding and Christmas cakes, require the coolest ovens. Flue ovens are best worked with coke, as coal is apt to choke the flues; retort coke is recommended in place of oven coke. An oven should be fitted with some kind of thermal register, and both high-temperature thermometers and pyrometers are used for this purpose. (G. F. Z.)
BREADALBANE, JOHN CAMPBELL, 1st Earl of (c. 1636–1717), son of Sir John Campbell of Glenorchy, Bart., and of the Lady Mary Graham, daughter of William, earl of Airth and Menteith, was born about 1636. He took part in the abortive royalist rising under Glencairn in 1654, and was one of those who urged Monk to declare a free parliament in England to facilitate the restoration. He sat in the Scottish parliament as member for Argyllshire from 1669 to 1674. As principal creditor he obtained in October 1672, from George, 6th earl of Caithness, a conveyance of his dignities, lands and heritable jurisdictions; and after the latter’s death he was created on the 28th of June 1677 earl of Caithness and viscount of Breadalbane. In 1678 he married the widowed countess of Caithness, an economical step which saved him the alimentary provision of 12,000 merks a year he had covenanted to pay. In 1680 he invaded Caithness with a band of 700 men and defeated and dispossessed the earl’s heir male. The latter, however, was subsequently confirmed in his lands and titles, and Campbell on the 13th of August 1681 obtained a new patent with the precedency of the former one, creating him earl of Breadalbane and Holland, viscount of Tay and Paintland, Lord Glenorchy, Benederaloch, Ormelie and Weick in the peerage of Scotland, with special power to nominate his successor from among the sons of his first wife. In 1685 he was a member of the Scottish privy council. Though nominally a Presbyterian he had assisted the intolerant and despotic government of Lauderdale in 1678 with 1700 men. He is described as having “neither honour nor religion but where they are mixed with interest,” as of “fair complexion, of the gravity of the Spaniard, cunning as a Fox, wise as a Serpent and supple as an Eel.”[1] He was reputed the best headpiece in Scotland.[2]
His influence, owing to his position and abilities, was greater than that of any man in Scotland after Argyll, and it was of high moment to King William to gain him and obtain his services in conciliating the Highlanders. Breadalbane at first carried on communications with Dundee and was implicated in the royalist intrigue called the “Montgomery plot,” but after the battle of Killiecrankie in July 1689 he made overtures to the government, subsequently took the oath of allegiance, and was entrusted with a large sum of money by the government to secure the submission of the clans. On the 30th of June 1691 he met the Jacobite chiefs and concluded with them secret articles by which they undertook to refrain from acts of hostility till October, gaining their consent by threats and promises rather than by the distribution of the money entrusted to him, the greater part of which, it was believed, he retained himself. When asked to give an account of the expenditure he replied: “The money is spent, the Highlands are quiet, and this is the only way of accounting between friends.”[3]
On the 27th of August a proclamation was issued offering indemnity to all those who should submit and take the oath of allegiance before the 1st of January 1692, and threatening all those who should refuse with a military execution and the penalties of treason. All the chiefs took the oath except MacIan, the chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe, who postponed his submission till the 31st of December, and was then prevented from taking the oath till the 6th of January 1692 through the absence of a magistrate at Fort William, whither he had repaired for the purpose. This irregularity gave Breadalbane an immediate opportunity of destroying the clan of thieves which had for generations lived by plundering his lands and those of his neighbours. Accordingly, together with Argyll and Sir John Dalrymple (afterwards Lord Stair), Breadalbane organized the atrocious crime known as the “Massacre of Glencoe,” when the unfortunate MacDonalds, deceived by assurances of friendship, and at the moment when they were lavishing their hospitality upon their murderers, were butchered in cold blood on the 13th of February 1692. Breadalbane’s astuteness, however, prevented the disclosure of any evidence against him in the inquiry afterwards instituted in 1695, beyond the deposition of a person who professed to have been sent on Breadalbane’s behalf to obtain a declaration of his innocence from MacIan’s sons, who had escaped. The discovery of his former negotiations with the Jacobite chiefs caused his imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle in September, but he was released when it was known that he had been acting with William’s knowledge.
Breadalbane did not vote for the Union in 1707, but was chosen a representative peer in the parliament of Great Britain of 1713–1715. His co-operation with the English government in securing the temporary submission of the Highlands was inspired by no real loyalty or allegiance, and he encouraged the attempted French descent in 1708, refusing, however, to commit himself to paper. On the occasion of the Jacobite rising in 1715 he excused himself on the 19th of September from obeying the summons to appear at Edinburgh on the ground of his age and infirmities; but nevertheless the next day visited Mar’s camp at Logierait and afterwards the camp at Perth, his real business being, according to the Master of Sinclair, “to trick others, not to be trickt,” and to obtain a share of the French subsidies. He had taken money for the whole 1200 men he had promised and only sent 300. His 300 men were withdrawn after the battle of Sheriffmuir, and his death, which took place on the 19th of March 1717, rendered unnecessary any inquiry into his conduct. He married (1) Mary, daughter of Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland,
