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from the engine, that the smoke box should be towards the plough, & the engine should have small wheels, upon which it would proceed along the headland like a crab – and he would have portable rails to be laid down along the headland nor would he attempt to run without.
If he said we should go into this trade I should be at the head of the department. Mr Pease had told him I was under-paid at the factory: that might be, he did not approve of young men getting too quickly promoted, but in a few months, if I could make anything of this plough business, he would raise my salary
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As long as I was a simple draughtsman he could not give me more than the market price.
I next went to Tottenham, & in the morning went to Ipswich alone, as John Fowler could not come down till the Friday.
Friday 18 Dec[embe]r Went to the works was introduced to David Warby. †
Ipswich being my native place I had known him by sight in former years but only now to speak to. He was a tall & stout man, spoke the Suffolk dialect, had a strong vein of humour in his composition but was always extremely courteous & obliging – In appearance he looked as if he had something of the sailor about him, whether in his dress or his gait I do not know – I have often observed the same in men who have been brought up near a sea front.
I saw another engine which was being fitted with drums, with V grooves to work the rope as an endless coil.
Then went up to a field behind the Cliff where two engines were going to
[37] Ransome and Sims was an Ipswich based firm of agricultural engineers whose origins dated back to 1789. See Carol & Michael Weaver, Ransomes, 1789-1989: 200 years of excellence (Ipswich 1989).
