George Bidder (1806-1878) - Moretonhampstead’s ‘Calculating Boy’ and eminent engineer

By Bill Hardiman, Moretonhampstead History Society

Queen Charlotte leaned forward and asked: ‘Little boy, how long would it take for a snail to creep along 838 miles from Lands-End to Farett’s Head in Scotland if he moved eight feet daily?’.

‘553,080 days ma’am’ answered the ten-year old straight away in his soft Devon accent.

George Parker Bidder had been literally ‘performing’ such mental arithmetic feats from an early age. Born into a large, poor family in Moretonhampstead, without formal mathematical education, he taught himself various calculating techniques while still unable to read or write. From the age of six his father showed him off for significant financial gain in local pubs, markets and fairs as ‘The Calculating Boy’. As his fame grew and his performances spread across the country. In 1816 he was ‘commanded’ to demonstrate his skills before King George II and Queen Charlotte who, suitably impressed, gave him a watch that played tunes. Many eminent mathematicians offered to pay for the illiterate child prodigy to attend school. Initially his father was reluctant to give up his source of income until Sir Henry Jardine, an eminent Scottish lawyer, convinced him that an education would equip ‘The Arithmetical Phenomenon’ to earn much more.

Sir Henry’s advice soon proved correct. With his backing and support, George raced through Edinburgh University to graduate aged only 18 and went on to rapidly build a successful career as a brilliant civil engineer, becoming President of the Institution of Civil Engineers (1859-1861). George developed productive working partnerships with the pioneering greats of the age such as Thomas Telford and George and Robert Stephenson. From surveying and designing many large engineering projects, including railways, canals, harbours, piers, docks and draining marshes, he progressed to developing the extensive application of cast iron sheeting piled back by mass concrete. He first used this when laying a granite tramway in London, connecting it to steam ships at Brunswick Wharf. In East Anglia he designed the first swing bridge and opened up the area with the Great Eastern Railway.

From the early 1830s to the mid-1840s, George frequently advised the parliamentary committees that had to approve each new railway line. The tendering was very competitive with costings closely scrutinised; his almost instantaneous mathematical skills enabled him to quickly spot mistakes in other engineers’ surveying and calculations. George enjoyed these debates and earned a reputation as the ‘the best witness who ever entered a committee room’. With rough and ready repartees including long strings of figures, he argued his case ‘inch by inch with a face as hard as tunnel rock, with no outward indication he had a heart within him’.

He did not forget his roots, with frequent visits back to Moretonhampstead, paying for his parents move to Exeter and his siblings’ education while ‘merrymaking with the grog until 3am’ with his old Devon friends. Two brothers were found good posts in London. Bart was a bit of a dandy and wore in the new clothes that George hated to be seen in! Sam, an eminent engineer himself, partnered George in a colliery venture and lived next door. While heavily involved in the London & Birmingham Railway, George just found time to marry Georgina (‘Georgey’) Harby, noting in his diary the essential facts: ‘Day breezy & fine. Married my wife & set off for Burford Bridge’. They had time for only one day’s honeymoon, recorded as: ‘Showery at Burford Bridge.’ Eight children survived the couple into adulthood, many of them very successful in their own careers.

His prolific engineering activity continued for 50 years: railways across England, Europe and India; a brewery; a flour mill; water works and mills; gas works in Denmark; polders in Holland; the world’s first electric telegraph company that gave the first ‘respectable employment’ to married women outside the home; Dolgoch Slate Quarry; and secret military projects later used in the rapid movement of the BEF to France in 1914. There is space here to highlight just one. Between 1850 and 1855 George Bidder designed and built the Royal Victoria Docks east of London in the Essex marshes. George used his multi-faceted engineering skills to build docks much bigger and deeper with his system of iron sheeted concrete for the new long and wide steamships, hydraulic systems of loading and unloading to cope with the tides, giant warehousing and railway links to London and beyond. He encouraged the purchase of land beyond the docks for later expansion that became the Royal Albert Docks. All delivered on time and an instant financial success.

Bidder has long been overshadowed by Brunel. Brunel was more innovative and designed beautiful structures, but Bidder’s work was more accurate; more often completed within budget and on time. Brunel favoured the wider railway gauge that he used in the West Country for more comfortable travelling, but Bidder’s narrow gauge eventually became the standard as it was considerably cheaper to run. After Brunel’s death, George helped to finance and complete Brunel’s Clifton Suspension Bridge.

In supposed retirement in Devon, George still worked on several projects, including steam powered trawlers. A few days before he died aged 72, George was quoted as saying: ‘It is not easy to calculate logarithms mentally up to ten places; but I think I could do a thousand a day now, if it were worth my while.’ Would that we could all say that at any age!

A monument and information board have recently been erected near his birthplace by Moretonians David Cannon and John Dodds to showcase the achievements and importance of such an illustrious son of Moretonhampstead.