In the year 1807 Maudslay took out a patent for improvements in the steam-engine, by which he much simplified its parts and secured greater directness of action. His new engine was called the Pyramidal, from its form, and was the first move towards direct acting engines. In 1810, finding his business getting too extensive for his premises in Margaret Street, he removed to the more capacious ones in Westminster Road, Lambeth. Here he for many years carried on a large business, embracing the manufacture of all kinds of machinery, but more particularly of marine engines, to the construction and improvement of which he early directed his attention, foreseeing how important a branch of industry they would eventually become; and it may be interesting to record, that the engines (24 H. P.) of the 'Regent,' the first steamboat which ran between London and Margate, were made at this yard in the year 1816. Mr. Maudslay held for several years the contract for supplying the Royal Navy with ship tanks, and this led to his making improved machinery for punching and shearing the iron plates used in their manufacture, reducing the cost of preparing the plates for receiving the rivets from seven shillings, to ninepence, per Tank. Mr. Maudslay has been described by his friend Mr. James Nasmyth as the very beau-ideal of an honest, upright, straightforward, hardworking intelligent Englishman: he died in his 60th year from a severe cold which he had caught on his way home from a visit to France, and was buried in Woolwich churchyard, in a vault he had caused to be constructed there; the monument and tablet erected to his memory were of cast iron, and were made from a design of his own. Maudslay married when twenty years old Sarah Tindel, by whom he had four sons and three daughters, of whom now survive only one daughter, and one son Thomas Henry Maudslay.--_From particulars communicated by members of the present firm of Maudslay, Sons and Field._--_Smile's Industrial Biography._ London, 1863. PATRICK MILLER. Born in Scotland 1730. Died at Dalswinton House, near Dumfries, 1815.