Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/83

Fisken the Divinity Hall of the Secession church. While there he taught a school at Alyth, near his birthplace. Upon receiving license in the presbytery of Dundee, he commenced his career as a preacher in the Secession church. He visited various places throughout the country, including the Orkney Islands, where he would have received a call had he cared to accept it. He was next sent to the presbytery at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and preached as a probationer at the adjoining village of Stamfordham, where in 1847 he received a call, and was duly ordained. He there laboured zealously until his death. In the double capacity of governor and secretary he did much towards promoting the success of the scheme of the endowed schools at Stamfordham. Fisken and his brothers Thomas (a school-master at Stockton-upon-Tees) and David studied mechanics. Thomas and he invented the steam plough. A suit took place between the Fiskens and the Messrs. Fowler, the well-known implement makers at Leeds, and the finding of the jury was that the former were the original discoverers. The appliance which perfected the plan of the brothers occurred to them both independently and almost simultaneously. William Chartres of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the solicitor employed by the Fiskens, used to tell how the two brothers wrote to him on the same day about the final discovery, but that he received William's letter first. Fisken also invented a potato-sowing machine, a safety steam boiler, a propeller, an apparatus for heating churches, which worked excellently, and the 'steam tackle' which, patented in July 1855, helped to render the steam plough of practical use. This system of haulage, which obtained second prize at the royal show at Wolverhampton, has undergone great modifications since its early appearance in Scotland in 1852, its exhibition at Carlisle in 1855, and at the show of the Royal Agricultural Society of England in 1863 (Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, xx. 193, xxiv. 368). Fisken worked on the fly-rope system. An endless rope set into motion direct by the fly-wheel of the engine drove windlasses of an extremely ingenious type, by which the plough or other implement was put in motion. A great deal of excellent work was done on this system, especially with tackle made by Messrs. Barford & Perkins of Peterborough, but for some reason the system never quite took with farmers, and very few sets of Fisken's tackle are now in use (Engineer, 11 Jan. 1884, p. 37). Fisken was the author of a pamphlet on 'The Cheapest System of Steam Cultivation and Steam Cartage,' and of another 'On the Comparative Methods of Steam Tackle,' which gained the prize of the Bath and West of England Society. A man of liberal views, great generosity of character, and wide reading, he made friends wherever he went. He died at his manse, Stamfordham, on 28 Dec. 1883, aged upwards of seventy. [Times, 4 and 8 Jan. 1884; Newcastle Courant, 4 Jan. 1884.]  FITCH, RALPH (fl. 1583–1606), traveller in India, was among the first Englishmen known to have made the overland route down the Euphrates Valley towards India. He left London on 12 Feb. 1583 with other merchants of the Levant Company, among whom were J. Newberry, J. Eldred, W. Leedes, jeweller, and J. Story, a painter. He writes : 'I did ship myself in a ship of London, called the Tiger, wherein we went for Tripolis in Syria, and from thence we took the way for Aleppo' (, ii. 250). Fitch and his companions arrived at Tripolis on 1 May, thence they made their way to Aleppo in seven days with the caravan. Setting out again on 31 May for a three days' journey on camels to Bir (Biredjik) on the Euphrates, there they bought a large boat, and agreed with a master and crew to descend the river, noticing on their way the primitive boat-building near the bituminous fountains at Hit (cf., ii. 636). On 29 June Fitch and his company reached Felújah, where they landed. After a week's delay, for want of camels, they crossed the great plain during the night, on account of the heat, to Babylon (i.e. Bagdad) on the Tigris. On 22 July they departed hence in flat-bottomed boats down this river to Bussorah at the head of the Persian Gulf, where they left Eldred for trade. On 4 Sept. Fitch and his three companions arrived at Ormuz, where within a week they were all imprisoned by the Portuguese governor at the instance of the Venetians, who dreaded them as their rivals in trade. On 11 Oct. the Englishmen were shipped for Goa in the East Indies unto the viceroy, where, upon their arrival at the end of November, as Fitch puts it, 'for our better entertainment, we were presently put into a fair strong prison, where we continued until 22 Dec.' (, vol. ii. pt.i. 250). Story having turned monk, Fitch, Newberry, and Leedes were soon afterwards set at liberty by two sureties procured for them by two Jesuit fathers, one of whom was Thomas Stevens, sometime of New College, Oxford, who was the first Englishman known to have reached India by the Cape of Good Hope, four years before, i.e. 1579 (cf., vol. ii. pt. i. 249). After 'employing the remains of their money in precious stones,