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some other hints. Bunning came in, he also is practising with Liddle.
Am going to dine at Dees’s down at Wallsend.
Last Tuesday they christened the Gt Eastern “Leviathan” & attempted to launch her but some of the apparatus got wrong, a lot of men were hurt, and after sliding down a foot or two, she stuck & could be got no further.
The big bell cast by Warner’s for the Houses of parliament has got cracked from someone playing with it. [30]
Sund.[ay] 7 [struck through] 8th. Went down to Dees’s met Carrick there.
Mond[ay] 9th. Delivered up my plans to Mr Wright & charged(?) him £4 .15/-, where-
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upon he gave me 5 pound, the 3/- as he said, to get a glass of wine with.
Tues[day] 9 [struck through] 10 Finished case-hardening furnace for factory; viz the new one with two chambers, according to the plans of Dodd’s man.
Also a small furnace for new rivt [struck through] rivet machine, made smoke consuming.
Also arranged gear for lifting steam valves of 86 St Eng[ines] and examined & completed the working drawings for the same engines.
Frid[ay] 13. This week Gerald Massey a writer on art &c & a poet of some note has been delivering 3 of 4 lectures on poetry & painting, he is very popular & considering he reads his lectures has taken wonderfully. [31]
[30] The 16 ton Great Bell more commonly known as “Big Ben” was cast on 6 August 1856 in Stockton on Tees by John Warner & Sons.
[31] Gerald Massey (1828-1907) was a poet, literary and art critic and freethinker who enjoyed some degree of popularity during the Victorian period.
