Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 07.djvu/155

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therewith. In the introduction of steam navigation he had a large share; he made some of the original engines used on the Humber and the Trent, and some of the earliest on the Mersey, including those for the vessel which first plied on the Liverpool ferries in 1814. He fitted out the Sir Francis Drake at Plymouth in 1824, the first steamer that ever took a man-of-war in tow. His calciner was used on the works of most of the tin mines in Cornwall, as well as at the silver ore works in Mexico, and his fan regulator was also found to be a most useful invention. At the Butterley works he applied the principle of a rapid rotation of the mould in casting iron pipes, and incurred great expense in securing a patent, only to find that a foreigner, who used the same process in casting terra cotta, had recited in his specifications that the same mode might be applied to metals. The most novel and ingenious of his inventions was the walking machine called the Steam Horse, which he made at Butterley in 1813, and which worked with a load up a gradient of 1 in 36 during all the winter of 1814 at the Newbottle colliery. Early in 1815, through some carelessness, this machine exploded, and most unfortunately killed thirteen persons (Wood, Treatise on Rail Roads, 1825, pp. 131–5, with a plate).

In the course of his career he obtained many patents, but derived little remuneration from them, although several of them came into general use. Latterly he turned his attention to the subject of improved ventilation for collieries, and sent models of his inventions to the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. He was intimate with all the engineers of the older school, and was almost the last of that celebrated set of men. He died at the residence of his son, William Brunton, at Camborne, Cornwall, 5 Oct. 1851, having married, 30 Oct. 1810, Anne Elizabeth Button, adopted daughter of John and Rebecca Dickinson of Summer Hill, Birmingham. She died at Eaglesbush, Neath, Glamorganshire, 1845, leaving sons, who have become well known as engineers.

[Minutes of Proceedings of Institution of Civil Engineers, xi. 95–99 (1852).]

G. C. B.


BRUNYARD, WILLIAM (fl. 1350), Dominican friar, described as the author of a 'Summa Theologiae' and of certain 'Distinctiones' and 'Determinationes,' is probably, as Echard suggested (Script. Ord. Domin. i. 634 b), identical with the better known John de Bromyarde [q. v.]

[Boston ap. Tanner's Bibl. Brit., præf. pp. xxxiii, xl; Bale's Cat. Script. Brit. v. 77, pp. 429 seq. (see also Bale's Notebook in the Bodleian Library. Selden MS. supr. 64, f. 53); Pits's Comm. de Script. Brit. p. 479.]

R. L. P.


BRUODINE, ANTHONY (fl. 1672), Irish Franciscan, was a native of the county of Clare. He became a Recollect friar and jubilate lecturer of divinity in the Irish convent of the Holy Conception of the Blessed Virgin at Prague. He wrote: 1. 'Œcodomia Minoriticæ Scholæ Solamonis, Johannia Duns Scoti, sive Universæ Theologiæ Scholasticæ Manualis Summa,' Prague, 1663, 8vo. 2. 'Corolla Œcodomiæ Minoriticæ Scholæ Salamonis, Doctoris subtilis; sive pars altera Manualis Summæ totius Theologiæ Speculativæ,' Prague, 1864, 8vo. 3. 'Propugnaculum Catholicæ Veritatis, Pars prima Historica, in quinque libros distributa,' Prague, 1668, 4to. In the fifth book he violently attacks Thomas Carve's 'Lyra,' or annals of Ireland, in a chapter headed 'De Carve seu Carrani erroribus et imposturis.' This provoked from Carve the 'Enchiridion Apologeticum,' Nuremberg, 1670, 12mo. In answer to this a tract called the 'Anatomicum Examen Enchiridii' was published at Prague in 1671, but whether this was written by Friar Cornelius O'Mollony, a relative of Bruodine's, or by Bruodine himself under that name, as Carve believed, is uncertain [see Carve, Thomas]. 4. 'Armamentarium Theologicum,' Prague, 4to. He is probably identical with the Antonius Prodinus whose 'Descriptio Regni Hiberniæ, Sanctorum Insulæ, et de prima origine miseriarum & motuum in Anglia, Scotia, et Hibernia, regnante Carolo primo rege' was printed at Rome, 1721, 4to, under the editorship of the exiled son of Phelim O'Neill.

[Ware's Writers of Ireland (Harris), 160, 181; Kerney's Pref. to reprint of Carve's Itinerarium (1859), pp. ix, x; Loundes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), 295, 383, 1979; Bibl. Grenvilliana, i. 119, 575; Cat. Lib. Impress. in Bibl. Col. Trin. Dubl. (1864), i. 490, 491.]

T. C.


BRUTTON, NICHOLAS (1780–1843), lieutenant-colonel, descended from the old Devonshire family of Brutton or Bruteton, entered the army as ensign in the 75th foot in 1795, proceeded to India, served at the battle of Seedasseer in 1799, through the Mysore campaign as aide-de-camp to Colonel Hart, and led one of the storming parties at Seringapatam on 4 May 1799, when he was severely wounded. He served through the campaign in Canara; at the siege and assault of Jamalabad, and under Lord Lake through the campaigns of 1804–5. At Bhurtpore he led a storming party, and was again severely wounded. He exchanged into the 8th hussars, served in the Sikh country in 1809 under General St. Leger, and as brigade-major to General Wood in the Pindarree campaign, 1812.