Remarks on the Present System of Road Making: With Observations, Deduced from Practice and Experience, With a View to a Revision of the Existing Laws, and the Introduction of Improvement in the Method of Making, Repairing, and Preserving Roads, and Defending the Road Funds from Misapplication. Seventh Edition, Carefully Revised, With an Appendix, and Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons, June 1823, with Extracts from the EvidenceMcAdam, John Loudon
History
Remarks on the Present System of Road Making: With Observations, Deduced from Practice and Experience, With a View to a Revision of the Existing Laws, and the Introduction of Improvement in the Method of Making, Repairing, and Preserving Roads, and Defending the Road Funds from Misapplication. Seventh Edition, Carefully Revised, With an Appendix, and Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons, June 1823, with Extracts from the Evidence
McAdam, John Loudon
Macadam roads; Roads -- Great Britain
In February, the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury received
a representation from several noblemen and gentlemen, urging in very
strong terms the claim of Mr. MᶜAdam to remuneration for the services he
had rendered to the Public. This document, as well on account of the
grounds upon which the remuneration is stated to have been merited, as
also from its having been so numerously and respectively signed, well
deserves the attention of the House. Mr. Harrison, by desire of their
Lordships, transmitted this certificate with a letter to the Postmasters
General; in which, amongst other observations, and alluding to the
recommendation in favour of Mr. MᶜAdam before mentioned, he writes as
follows:—“These testimonials are of so highly respectable a nature from
the station and character of the individuals who have signed them, and
are so decisive as to the merit, not only of the system itself, but also
of Mr. MᶜAdam’s personal labours and exertions in reducing it into
practice; and as to the great advantages which the Public have already
derived therefrom on several important lines of road in different parts
of the Kingdom, that my Lords could not hesitate a moment in affording
to any application, which Mr. MᶜAdam may be advised to make to
Parliament for remuneration for these services, their perfect and entire
concurrence.”
And the Postmasters General in the same letter are directed, after
taking into their consideration these testimonials, together with any
subsequent information they may have acquired, to report whether the sum
of 2,000_l._ or any other sum might, in their opinion, be advanced to
Mr. MᶜAdam, to relieve him from the difficulties under which he then
laboured, and until the pleasure of Parliament shall be obtained; to
which the Postmasters General reply by letter of 23d February 1820, in
still stronger terms of commendation of the services of Mr. MᶜAdam,
stating that “they consider Mr. MᶜAdam’s system of making and repairing
roads as deserving of every encouragement, that its beneficial results
are acknowledged in every part of the various districts of the country
where the trustees of roads have availed themselves of his assistance
and suggestions, that he has in the most disinterested manner given
every facility to other persons with the same general object; and that
the observations of their Surveyor of Mailcoaches, enclosed in their
Report of the 20th December, have acquired additional force from the
experience of the last two months, in which the mail coaches have had to
contend with unusual difficulties; for it has been evident on such parts
of roads where Mr. MᶜAdam’s system has been pursued, the public mails
have experienced less interruption than where the old system was
persisted in; and their Lordships conclude their letter by recommending
the advance of 2000_l._”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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