Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool MakersSmiles, Samuel
History
Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers
Smiles, Samuel
Industrial arts -- Biography; Iron industry and trade -- Great Britain -- Biography
When in the prime of life, Mr. Reynolds was an excellent rider,
performing all his journeys on horseback. He used to give a ludicrous
account of a race he once ran with another youth, each having a lady
seated on a pillion behind him; Mr. Reynolds reached the goal first,
but when he looked round he found that he had lost his fair companion,
who had fallen off in the race! On another occasion he had a hard run
with Lord Thurlow during a visit paid by the latter to the Ketley
Iron-Works. Lord Thurlow pulled up his horse first, and observed,
laughing, "I think, Mr. Reynolds, this is probably the first time that
ever a Lord Chancellor rode a race with a Quaker!" But a stranger
rencontre was one which befel Mr. Reynolds on Blackheath. Though he
declined Government orders for cannon, he seems to have had a secret
hankering after the "pomp and circumstance" of military life. At all
event's he was present on Blackheath one day when George III. was
reviewing some troops. Mr. Reynold's horse, an old trooper, no sooner
heard the sound of the trumpet than he started off at full speed, and
made directly for the group of officers before whom the troops were
defiling. Great was the surprise of the King when he saw the Quaker
draw up alongside of him, but still greater, perhaps, was the confusion
of the Quaker at finding himself in such company.
During the later years of his life, while living at Bristol, his hand
was in every good work; and it was often felt where it was not seen.
For he carefully avoided ostentation, and preferred doing his good in
secret. He strongly disapproved of making charitable bequests by will,
which he observed in many cases to have been the foundation of enormous
abuses, but held it to be the duty of each man to do all the possible
good that he could during his lifetime. Many were the instances of his
princely, though at the time unknown, munificence. Unwilling to be
recognised as the giver of large sums, he employed agents to dispense
his anonymous benefactions. He thus sent 20,000L. to London to be
distributed during the distress of 1795. He had four almoners
constantly employed in Bristol, finding out cases of distress,
relieving them, and presenting their accounts to him weekly, with
details of the cases relieved. He searched the debtors' prisons, and
where, as often happened, deserving but unfortunate men were found
confined for debt, he paid the claims against them and procured their
release. Such a man could not fail to be followed with blessings and
gratitude; but these he sought to direct to the Giver of all Good. "My
talent," said he to a friend, "is the meanest of all talents--a little
sordid dust; but as the man in the parable who had but one talent was
held accountable, I also am accountable for the talent that I possess,
humble as it is, to the great Lord of all." On one occasion the case
of a poor orphan boy was submitted to him, whose parents, both dying
young, had left him destitute, on which Mr.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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