Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/77

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Morland
71
Morland

of writing, which was very ingenious; also his wooden calendar, which instructed him all by feeling, and other pretty and useful inventions of mills, pumps, &c., and the pump he had erected that serves water to his garden and to passengers, with an inscription, and brings from a filthy part of the Thames near it a most perfect and pure water. He had newly buried 200l. worth of music books, being, as he said, love songs and vanity. He plays himself psalms and religious hymns on the Theorbo ' (cf. Faulkner, Fulham, p. 161). He died on 30 Dec. 1695, and was buried in Hammersmith Chapel on 6 Jan. 1695-6. He must have been in an extremely weak condition, as he was unable to sign his will. By it he disinherited his only son, Samuel, who was the second and last baronet of the family, and bequeathed his property to Mrs. Zenobia Hough.

He married, first, in 1657, Susanne, daughter of Daniel de Milleville, baron of Boissay in Normandy, and of the Lady Catherine, his wife; secondly, on 26 Oct. 1670, in Westminster Abbey, Carola, daughter of Sir Roger Harsnett, knight (she died on 10 Oct. 1674, aged 22); thirdly, on 16 Nov. 1676, in Westminster Abbey, Anne, third daughter of George Feilding of Solihull, Warwickshire, by May, second daughter of Sir Thomas Shirley, knight, of Wiston, Sussex (she died on 20 Feb. 1679–80, aged 18); fourthly, at Knightsbridge Chapel, Middlesex, on 1 Feb. 1686-7, Mary Aylif, a woman of low origin and infamous character, from whom he obtained a divorce on 16 July following, and who subsequently became the second wife of Sir Gilbert-Cosins Gerard (Chester, Registers of Westminster Abbey, p. 593; cf. Pepys, v. 323, 329).

Morland was one of the chief mechanicians of his time. Aubrey credits him with the invention of 'drum cap-stands for weighing heavy anchors.' It is admitted that he invented the speaking-trumpet though Kircher disputed his claim and two arithmetical machines, of which he published a description under the following title: 'The Description and Use of two Arithmetick Instruments, together with a short treatise explaining and demonstrating the ordinary operations of arithmetick; as likewise, a perpetual almanack and several useful tables,' 4 parts, London, 1673, 16mo. The perpetual almanack is reprinted in Playford's 'Vade Mecum,' 1679, and in Falgate's 'Interest in Epitome,' 1725. The arithmetical machines, originally presented to Charles II in 1662, were manufactured for sale by Humphry Adanson, who lived with Jonas Moore, esq., in the Tower of London. By means of them the four fundamental rules of arithmetic were readily worked 'without charging the memory, disturbing the mind, or exposing the operations to any uncertainty.' This calculating machine appears to have been a modification of one constructed by Blaise Pascal about 1642. (For the subsequent development of the instrument, the prototype of the arithmometer of M. Thomas of Colmar, which is at present in extensive use, see the article 'Calculating Machines 'in Walford's 'Insurance Cyclopædia,' i. 41 3; see also articles John Napier of Merchiston and Charles Babbage.) One of Morland's machines is now at South Kensington. Pepys characterised one that he saw as very pretty but not very useful. A similar instrument seems to be indicated by No. 84 of the Marquis of Worcester's 'Century of Inventions.' Morland's treatise on the speaking-trumpet is entitled : 'Tuba Stentoro-Phonica, an Instrument of excellent use, as well at Sea, as at Land. Invented, and variously experimented in ... 1670,' London, 1671, fpl.; 2nd edit. London, 1672, fol. An advertisement states that the instruments of all sizes and dimensions were made and sold by Simon Beal, one of his majesty's trumpeters, in Suffolk Street. The tubes are stated in a French edition of the treatise published in London (1671) to be on sale by Moses Pitt for 21. 5s. each. One is still preserved at Cambridge (see an account of the instrument in Phil. Trans. Abridged, i. 670; cf. Notes and Queries, 6th ser. ix. 423).

Morland's most important discoveries were in connection with hydrostatics, although the statement that he invented the fire-engine is untrue; he was only an improver of that machine [see under Lucar, Cyprian, and Greatorex, Ralph]. The problems connected with raising water to a height by mechanical means were receiving a great amount of attention during the middle of the seventeenth century, and to the discoveries made in this field (in which Morland bore an important part) are largely attributable the subsequent rapid development of the steam-engine and the accelerated rate of evolution in mechanical science generally. Morland may have had his attention drawn more particularly to this subject by Pascal's researches, which were then attracting attention in France, though Pascal's celebrated treatise 'Sur l'Equilibre des Liqueurs' was not published until 1663. It is certain that from Morland's return to England in 1660 water-engines of various kinds occupied the bulk of his time and capital. On 11 Dec. 1661 a royal warrant was issued for a grant to Morland of the sole use during fourteen years of his