Marc Brunel to Navy Board: objection to dismissal
[NMM CHA/F/29]
23 May 1816
In reference to your communication of the 9th inst. which I received on my return from the continent, informing me that you have now desired Commissioner Sir Robert Barlow to signify to Mr Ellicombe, that his services were no longer required at Chatham to superintend the works connected with the sawmill. I beg to observe that I cannot but express my surprise at the nature of the communication, no less than at the manner [in which] it is conveyed.
Had I been asked whether his services were required for superintending the work already connected with the sawmill, or were necessary to it, I should have not hesitated on the answer I should have had to return. But when I took over what Mr. Ellicombe has had to do, and what he has to do, for establishing the carriage now preparing and also for disposing the means and connecting the powers whereby the timber is to be conveyed to and fro and spread over the ground; I should easily have accounted how far the abilities and services of that gentleman were necessary for the establishment, had I been honoured from you, with a previous application such as my situation and the confidence I have hitherto be honoured with, had given me a right to expect at the hands on the honourable Navy Board.
If for so short a period as 2 or 3 weeks, Mr. Ellicombe’s exertions and labours have not been so actively and usefully employed as they were before, it is because others have not been so expeditious in the executions of the works they had to perform, as I had expected. The work I allude to, namely that which is intended to convey the power through the whole course of the railway is ready to be forwarded to Chatham.
If at this period, I am deprived of the services of Mr. Ellicombe to effect that which I have imparted to him during the gradual progress of that undertaking, or in the course of correspondence that has subsisted between both him and myself, I shall be under the necessity of making more frequent journeys to and from Chatham, a circumstance attended with great inconvenience to me and of greater expense to the public than Mr. Ellicombe’s charges could possibly have been.
Mr. Ellicombe’s services have not been continued by me, solely for superintending the sawmill; but for directing the execution of the work in general, and for giving them the effect they should arrive at, before they can be left to the management of others – The manner he has already acquitted himself of the trust placed in him, justifies, in a vert satisfactory way, the choice I have made. No part of the work evinces greater proof of his abilities and judgement than the manner in which the timber lifting apparatus has been put up and put into action.
What remains to be fixed cannot be combined with the existing works, nor connected as it should be, unless I have the entire management of the concern as I have hitherto had, and unless I have the choice of the instruments I think necessary to my purpose.
Mr. Ellicombe being from his superior education – liberal connections, and from his uncommon acquirements fitted, in every respect, I trust that your Honourable Board has no personal objection to him, [and that] he will be allowed to continue where he is, in the character of my confidential agent, in superintending my Chatham engagements, until I have completed it, waiting for your Honourable Board’s directions and instructions.
(Macdougall ‘Chatham Dockyard 1815-1865)
cliveh