family. He had a crown charter of the barony of Dawick in 1703, ratified in parliament in 1705. He was created a baronet of Scotland on 31 July 1706, and died in July 1720. He married three times: first, Jane Stewart, widow of Sir Ludovic Gordon, bart., of Gordonstoun, Elgin; secondly, Janet, daughter of Sir William Murray of Stanhope, Peeblesshire; and, thirdly, Barbara (d. 1768), daughter of Andrew Pringle of Clifton, Roxburghshire.
His eldest son James (d. 1779), by his first wife, succeeded him, and appears to have attained some note in his day as a botanist, having studied under Linnæus in Sweden. He is said to have made extensive collections, and to have been among the first in Scotland to plant birch and silver firs. The genus Nasmythia (= Eriocaulon) was most probably named in his honour by Hudson (1778). He was member of parliament for Peeblesshire from 1730 to 1741, and died on 4 Feb. 1779. He had married Jean, daughter of Thomas Keith.
[Burke's Peerage; Irving's Book of Scotsmen; Hudson's Flora Anglica, 2nd ed. 1778.]
NASMYTH, JAMES (1808–1890), engineer, son of Alexander Nasmyth [q. v.], artist, and of his wife Barbara Foulis, was born at 47 York Place, Edinburgh, on 19 Aug. 1808. After being for a short time under a private tutor he was sent to the Edinburgh high school, which he left in 1820 to pursue his studies at private classes. His education seems to have been acquired in a very desultory way, much of his spare time being spent in a large iron-foundry owned by the father of one of his schoolfellows, or in the chemical laboratory of another school friend. His father taught him drawing, in which he attained great proficiency. By the age of seventeen he had acquired so much skill in handling tools that he was able to construct a small steam-engine, which he used for the purpose of grinding his father's colours. He also made models of steam-engines to illustrate the lectures given at mechanics' institutions. The making of one of these models brought him into communication with Professor Leslie, of the Edinburgh University, who gave him a free ticket for his lectures on natural philosophy. In 1821 he became a student at the Edinburgh school of arts, and, his model-making business proving very remunerative, he was able to attend some of the classes at the university. When only nineteen he was commissioned by the Scottish Society of Arts to build a steam-carriage capable of carrying half a dozen persons. This was successfully accomplished, and in 1827–8 it was tried many times on the roads in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. Hearing from some of his acquaintances of the fame of Henry Maudslay [q. v.], he determined to seek employment with him at Lambeth, and in May 1829 he became assistant to Maudslay in his private workshop. On Maudslay's death, in February 1831, he passed into the service of Joshua Field, Maudslay's partner, with whom he remained until the following August. Nasmyth's engagement with Maudslay was of great service to him, and he always spoke in the highest terms of his ‘dear old master.’
Returning to Edinburgh, he spent two years in making a stock of tools and machines, and at the same time he executed any small orders which came in his way. In 1834 he started in business on his own account in Dale Street, Manchester, his total capital amounting to only 63l. He received much help from friends there, among others from the brothers Grant, the originals of the ‘Brothers Cheeryble’ of Dickens. His business increasing, he took a lease in 1836 of six acres of land at Patricroft, near Manchester, and commenced to lay the foundations of what eventually became the Bridgewater foundry. In 1836 also he gave evidence on the arts and principles of design (see Report, p. 28) before a select committee of the House of Commons. A few years afterwards he took into partnership Holbrook Gaskell; and the firm acquired a very high reputation as constructors of machinery of all kinds, steam-engines, and especially of improved machine-tools.
The invention with which Nasmyth's name is most closely associated, and of which he himself seems to have been most proud, is that of the steam-hammer. This was called forth in 1839 by an order for a large paddle-shaft for the Great Britain steamship, then being built at Bristol. He at once applied his mind to the question, and ‘in little more than half an hour I had the whole contrivance in all its executant details before me, in a page of my scheme-book’ (Autobiography, p. 240). A reduced photographic copy of the sketch, dated 24 Nov. 1839, is given in his ‘Autobiography.’ There is probably no instance of an invention of equal importance being planned out with such rapidity. The paddle-shaft was eventually not required, the proprietors having decided to adopt the screw-propeller, and, as there was no inducement to go to the expense of making a steam-hammer, the matter remained in abeyance. The sketches seem to have been freely shown, and in 1840 they were seen by Schneider, the proprietor of the great ironworks at Creuzot, during a visit to Patricroft. He
