The New International Encyclopædia/Worcester, Edward Somerset, second Marquis of

WORCESTER, Edward Somerset, second Marquis of (1601-67). An English nobleman and inventor, the son of the first Marquis of Somerset. In early life he devoted himself to mathematical and mechanical researches. In 1641 he entered the service of Charles I., who, in 1645, sent him to treat secretly with the Irish Catholics and to raise troops for service in England. The secret was discovered, Worcester was imprisoned on the charge of treason, and Charles I. disowned him. After his release Worcester spent four years in voluntary exile, and upon his return to England in 1652 was imprisoned in the Tower until 1654. Worcester wrote A Century of the Names and Scantlings of Such Inventions as at Present I Can Call to Mind to have Tried and Perfected (1663), in which he described a steam-engine as an admirable and most forcible machine for “driving up water by fire.” Though he is known to have erected great water-works at Vauxhall, there is no proof that he constructed the engine described above. Consult Dircks, The Life, Times, and Scientific Labors of the Second Marquis of Worcester, with an annotated reprint of his Century of Inventions (1865).