by Tony Pollard
‘In a nutshell, though, the difference engine does just what the name suggests; it uses mechanical means to arrange the differences between numbers and combinations of numbers.’
I was obviously looking confused.
‘You have heard of logarithms?’ I nodded without conviction. ‘They are calculated as tables, but those calculations have up until now been carried out manually, and so they contain errors. The engine does the same calculations mechanically, through a clever system of cogs, wheels and levers. Very ingenious, but Babbage didn’t stop there. More recently he’s devised what he calls an analytical engine. It’s capable of even greater feats of mathematics and can make any calculation you can think of, with any string of numbers.’
‘And he has built these things?’
‘Ah, you see, that’s the thing about Babbage. He is such a perfectionist that he will set people to work at construction and then stop them because he’s come up with a better idea of how such and such a part could work – quite impossible really. I offered to finance the construction of the analytical engine, but it was a disaster. I had to pull out before he lost me a packet.’
The traffic was not as heavy as I hoped it might be, and we were now making good progress through Whitechapel. ‘Fascinating,’ I said, ‘but what about the Lazarus Club?’
‘Oh yes, of course. Well, you see, the two things are related, the engine and the name. As you may have guessed from our last meeting, Babbage is a little…’
‘Different?’
‘Quite. Once he gets an idea into his head, that’s it, he won’t let it go until he’s come up with an answer. He has many obsessions but most of these are to do with numbers, most particularly statistics, hence his machines. Now, during his first presentation to our group, for we had no name then, he talked about his investigation into miracles. You know, the type from the Bible.’
‘Yes. Please go on,’ I replied.
‘Well, those who believe in them put miracles down to an act of God. But not Babbage, oh no. He thinks they are a reflection of the same laws that govern nature, thinks that miracles belong to a higher order of natural law. As such he believes he can calculate the statistical chances of any given miracle occurring. The example he used was of a dead man coming back to life. According to Babbage the chances of that were, one in… now let me think…’
The carriage was entering the street in which my rooms were located and still he hadn’t finished his tale.
‘One in… well, anyway, it was a mighty long shot. But the point is that this tickled Brunel pink. It struck just the right chord with him, because he saw the club as a place where no topic was out of bounds, and men of ideas were free to stray from the known world to that which may be shrouded in mystery. “That’s it!” Brunel roared at the end of Babbage’s talk. “We’ll call ourselves the Lazarus Club!” ’
It had been like delivering an awkward baby, but now it was out and I breathed a sigh of relief, just as the carriage came to a halt.
Whitworth gave a wave and the carriage clattered off down the street. Brunel had certainly been right about one thing: they didn’t let just anybody into the Lazarus Club.
8
In late January 1858, after three months of pushing and pulling, without fanfare or jubilation, Brunel’s great babe slipped into the river. Like the rest of London I was elsewhere when the iron mountain finally made a splash – then, as now, busy in the hospital. Through most of February that grey place, with its bed-lined wards, wood-panelled corridors and top-lit carvery, served as more of a home to me than any suite of rooms. I had come to look forward to Miss Nightingale’s visits, her presence in the hospital by now having extended well beyond the requirements of the inspection. Little did I know it then, but she had grand plans for St Thomas’s. But perhaps most importantly, there was little in the way of outside temptation to stray from my labours, and I had not laid eyes on Brunel since that day in the yard. I could only assume that like me he was a busy man. His ship may have made it to the water but she was far from complete and from what I read in the papers he had plenty of other tasks to keep him occupied.
It was the Lazarus Club that drew me back into the engineer’s orbit. Once again he had invited me along as an observer. To my relief nothing further had been said about me giving a presentation to the club, and I had no intention of raising the matter myself. On this occasion the meeting was held in the rather different surroundings of Babbage’s fine home in Dorset Street, Marylebone.
On my first encounter Babbage hadn’t entirely struck me as the sociable type, but his open house made more sense when I learned that his workshop was also located at the same address. As Whitworth had forecast, the reason for our visit was to attend a presentation on his analytical engine, which thanks to our conversation I had at least heard of, if not at all understood.
Babbage seemed more relaxed within the walls of his own abode, if still alert to any form of disturbance from the street. His workshop was a building in the courtyard adjacent to the property and was filled with all manner of devices, giving it more of the appearance of a cabinet of curiosities rather than a functioning manufactory. Our host was happy to explain the history and function of whichever of these objects caught our attention. These included a pair of boards with leather straps attached below which was mounted a pair of flaps, rather like the covers of a book. According to Babbage they were a very early invention of his, a pair of shoes for walking on water. ‘Well, they will be of little use to Isambard,’ boomed Russell. ‘The man believes himself capable of that much already.’ In other circumstances the comment could have been construed as an insult, especially coming from the big Scotsman’s mouth, but on this occasion it elicited only laughter, particularly from Brunel himself. The truth was that we were grateful for being provided with an excuse to laugh because it would have been the obvious response to Babbage’s device, and that would have been plain rude, especially in his own home.
As it happened, the idea wasn’t as outlandish as it first seemed, especially when one considered that it came from the mind of the boy which Babbage had been at the time. He explained that with the shoes strapped to the feet, the flaps beneath were forced apart when the foot was brought down on the surface of the water. In principle, this would impart resistance enough to prevent the foot from sinking before the next step was made and the process repeated. Moving at a rapid pace, the water-walker would thus be able to trot across the surface. The next peal of laughter was led by Babbage himself as he explained how he had almost drowned when putting his prototypes to the test, having got no further than two steps before he was entirely swallowed up by the water. He did not try them out again.
I wish I had found the inventor’s explanation of his analytical engine so easy to comprehend and was relieved that it was not down to me to take the minutes, though I was of a mind that should Brunel ask again then I would probably accept the post. It did not help that the device had yet to be constructed. Even his difference engine, an idea he had first come up with some thirty years previously, had got no further than a small prototype which Babbage used to demonstrate the function of the complete mechanism. Three columns of polished cogs sat within a framework of shafts and cranks, all of which was set into a mahogany base. Each of the cogs had numbers etched into it and it was these which provided the calculations requested of the machine by the operator. Although several members of the audience had already seen the machine in operation, Babbage was keen to show it off to those like myself who had not.
After tinkering with the device Babbage took a turn on a crank, which served to rotate various of the cogs in the columns, and after which he sometimes called it the cogwheel brain. Each motion multiplied the figures displayed on the front of the cogs by six, thus six became twelve, twelve became eighteen and so on and so forth. Impressive as this was, the calculations were somewhat basic, but after fifteen pulls on the lever had been used to produce ninety, the machine seemed to miscalculate, as the next movement p
roduced not ninety-six but one hundred and eighty, and the next three hundred and sixty. To those who had seen the machine before this obviously came as no surprise, indeed several people, including Brunel, who did not seem to think it worthwhile to take minutes on this occasion, looked rather bored with the proceedings. It was left to Catchpole to ask what had happened with the sequence of numbers. Pleased to have elicited a response, Babbage explained that he had previously set up the machine so that it would add the figures in blocks of six and thereafter would multiply the resulting figure by two. The calculations of which the machine was capable may have been basic, but what cogs and pre-set instructions eliminated was human error, and when dealing with large numbers, as was the case when logarithmic charts were under construction, even small errors could cost lives, as the charts were used, among other things, to navigate at sea. Errors could be further compounded by mistakes in typesetting when the tables were being prepared for printing. In Babbage’s finished machine these too would be eradicated as the machine would print its own tables as each calculation was made.
The analytical engine would be even more intelligent, if that is a term which can be used in reference to a machine. Not just capable of basic additions or multiplications, it would be able to execute any calculation using any sequence of numbers. The data to be fed into the device, thus providing the basis for calculation, was transferred from a series of cards with holes punched in them in a particular pattern which was then read by the machine, much like sheet music in a musical box.
Following a few perfunctory questions, we returned to the drawing room in the house for refreshments. Although I understood him to be a widower the room had a feminine quality, which I noted was entirely absent in my own residence. There were fresh flowers in vases, small ornaments and other pieces of bric-a-brac and finely worked pieces of crochet covering the backs of the chairs. As if to ensure that everything was in its place and remained so, two pairs of female eyes stood sentinel from portraits hanging side by side above the mantelpiece. I was to learn from Babbage himself that one was his wife and the other his mother. There was yet another female portrait sitting on the mantelpiece – he was certainly a man for the ladies, I thought. The image may have been much smaller than those hanging above it but the diminutive scale did little to disguise the beauty of its subject. However, before I could bring myself to enquire about her identity Babbage was called over to yet another picture, this time of a man, who from the vice-equipped bench behind him and the rack of chisels appeared to be seated in a workshop not too dissimilar to that we had recently left.
‘Ah, that is Monsieur Jacquard,’ said Babbage with enthusiasm as he crossed the room. ‘He was the inventor of the Jacquard silk loom. You will note that you are not looking at a painting but a portrait woven from silk.’
‘Good grief! So it is,’ exclaimed Stephenson after making a closer examination. Taking my cue from Babbage, I joined the small crowd now gathered around the picture.
Only when my nose was almost pressed against the framing glass could I make out the different coloured threads of silk which had been woven together to make up an incredibly detailed portrait, as lifelike as any other in the room executed with paint and brush. In what was almost a continuation of his presentation, Babbage professed much admiration for the Frenchman, who had first exhibited the picture at the Great Exhibition. It had been woven on a loom which was capable of creating the most intricate patterns, as so effectively demonstrated by the portrait. The Jacquard loom, as Babbage went on to explain after pointing out that the object pictured next to the seated figure was a model of the device, operated in accordance with instructions provided by a series of punched cards which dictated the pattern of the weave. If a rod on the machine encountered a punched hole then it passed through and no action resulted. If, however, there was no hole and the passage of the rod was blocked then it engaged a hook which pulled up a particular warp thread and allowed the shuttle carrying the weft thread to pass beneath it. It was this system of information transfer which Babbage had adapted for his analytical engine, and which now, when described in the context of its original application, made much more sense to me.
Lord Catchpole put his hand against the glass. ‘The effect is quite fantastic. What incredible detail. I had heard of the Frenchman’s loom but had clearly failed to comprehend the full scope of its capabilities. Why, I must see about purchasing one for my silk mills in Macclesfield; it would both broaden our range of products and reduce manpower costs.’
‘Just how many people do you have working in those mills of yours, Catchpole?’ enquired Stephenson. ‘If that’s not an impertinent question.’
‘Not at all. When last I checked with my managers there were nearly ten thousand people working in twenty-three mills scattered across the north of England.’
Stephenson let out an impressed whistle. ‘No wonder they call you King Cotton! That’s a veritable army of workers you have up there. Talking of which, how have your labour relations been of late, no more trouble since those riots – what did they call them?’
‘They were the best part of ten years ago,’ replied Catchpole, letting out a slightly nervous laugh. ‘And they were the Plug riots, so-called.’
‘Of course, they pulled the plugs out of the boilers in your mills, didn’t they?’
‘The work of a few Chartist agitators. There was a lot of rabble-rousing and some poorly coordinated attempts at halting production – the draining of boilers, damage to machinery, that sort of thing. But you would be surprised how quickly grievances melt away when they come face to face with a few horsemen with drawn sabres. Before long the workers were pleading to be allowed back to work. The yeomanry did sterling service, but don’t misunderstand me, gentlemen, King Cotton I may be but a despot I am not. My workers are paid on a par with those in the employ of the most generous of my competitors, but for that I expect at least loyalty. Mark me, my friends, we cannot allow dissent, in whatever form, to interfere with the economic growth of our great nation.’
All this talk of dissent among mill workers meant little to me but I did recall a time when agricultural workers in the West Country, not far from my childhood home, rioted and smashed up new-fangled threshing machines which they feared would put them out of work. Progress, it was clear, was not regarded by everyone as a good thing.
‘But enough of the past, gentlemen,’ announced Catchpole. ‘It is surely the future which interests us. Now, where has Babbage got to? I must ask him how I can get hold of one of these wonderful French machines.’
Babbage was now on the other side of the room, having left our company to engage in conversation with Ockham, who to my surprise had a warm smile stretched across his face. It was the first time I had seen him exhibit anything but stony detachment, and there could be no doubt that the smile suited him. But the moment the pair became aware that attentions were being directed towards them, his newfound levity was snuffed like a candle.
Eager to pursue his latest business venture, Catchpole strode over to the pair, at which point Ockham muttered something to Babbage, nodded politely to the approaching peer and left the room.
Ockham’s departure marked the end of the gathering, and people began to drift away. Among them was Sir Benjamin, with whom I had not exchanged a word all evening. Before I took my own leave I had a brief conversation with Stephenson, who like the others seemed to have enjoyed the proceedings.
‘Babbage seemed much calmer than usual.’
‘He always was happier in his own home. It takes me back, you know.’
‘What does?’ I asked.
Stephenson gestured around the room, at those of us still left. ‘This, the meeting here. I remember the days when he regularly hosted little gatherings which the great names of the day would attend to discuss their latest ideas and inventions.’
‘You mean like the Lazarus Club?’
‘I suppose you could say he laid the foundations for the club, yes. Like Brunel, he didn’t h
ave much time for the Royal Society; in fact, he was very vocal, as he tends to be, in his criticism of it. He thought it was run by self-serving amateurs and never tired of saying so. His little soirées were in part a response to that. But things were much less formal back then – Babbage wasn’t running a club, he was just being sociable.’ Stephenson glanced at the portraits above the mantelpiece. ‘No minutes for one thing. I think it was also a way of coping with his personal tragedies, after his wife and children died from illness. Some really interesting people, though; some of our present members were regulars but there were also artists, actors and the like – that novelist chap Charles Dickens turned up on more than one occasion.’ Stephenson lowered his voice and looked to check whether Babbage was in earshot. ‘But then his work on the engines took over his life and then his mother passed away – she was the last remnant he had of a family and he was quite devoted to her. That was when his nerves started to get the better of him. There were no more meetings after that, not until he took up with Brunel, that is, and Ockham of course. He strikes me as a Babbage in the making that one, difficult to get the measure of, though.’
I could only nod in agreement. ‘They seem very well disposed to one another – Babbage and Ockham.’
Stephenson nodded and I hoped for a further insight but before it could be offered Babbage approached and the moment was lost.
9
It had been a two-operation afternoon. First off, alas quite literally, was a little girl’s arm. The poor soul had been badly mauled by a dog and from the bruising on the rest of her body it looked as though the beast had shaken her like a rag doll. If she’d been brought in immediately after the attack, then it may have been possible to save the limb. But the mutt responsible was one of her father’s own fighting dogs. He ran an illegal pit in Shoreditch and so had been less than eager to reveal the dubious nature of his livelihood. The brute was in tears when he finally got around to bringing her to the hospital, and his wife couldn’t bring herself to look at him. He had first entrusted his daughter to a back-street quack, whose dirty instruments merely completed the work the dog had begun. By the time she reached me, an incision halfway above the elbow was as low as I was prepared to go. Fortunately, her arm was stick-thin and after administering a minimal dose of ether I took it off in record time. As her parents made to leave the girl in the ward the mother rushed back and through sobs told me her husband had gone into the kennels that morning and cut the throats of his eight dogs. She didn’t know how they were going to live now.
