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 to 1141 restored him to the earldom of Northampton. Earl Simon fought for Stephen at Lincoln in 1141, and was one of the three earls who remained faithful to Queen Matilda during her husband's captivity. After the death of Henry of Scotland in 1152, Simon was rewarded for his loyalty by receiving the earldom of Huntingdon. He died in August 1153. He had been one of the foremost of Stephen's supporters, and his death, coinciding with that of the king's son Eustace, removed the two chief opponents to an agreement between the king and Henry FitzEmpress ( p. 288). Henry of Huntingdon makes Robert of Gloucester describe Simon II as one whose acts never got beyond speeches, nor his gifts beyond promises (ib. p. 270). Simon II de Senlis founded the nunnery of De la Pré, near Northampton, and the abbey of Saltrey in Huntingdonshire. He married Isabel, daughter of Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester (d. 1118), by whom he had a son, Simon. Simon III de Senlis was apparently recognised in the earldom of Northampton as soon as he came of age in 1159; he obtained the earldom of Huntingdon also on its forfeiture by William the Lion of Scotland in 1174. He married Alice, daughter and heiress of Gilbert de Gant, earl of Lincoln, but died without offspring in 1183 or 1184.



SEPPINGS, ROBERT (1767–1840), naval architect, born at Fakenham in Norfolk in 1767, was son of Robert Seppings and his wife Lydia, daughter of John Milligen, a linendraper at Harleston. Sir Robert's birthplace is eight miles from Burnham Thorpe, where Nelson was born in 1758. His father was a cattle salesman, but his business did not prosper, and Seppings in his boyhood had to contribute to the family's income by carrying letters to a neighbouring town on a mule. Subsequently his mother's brother, John Milligen, a retired naval captain who had settled at Plymouth, adopted, in the place of children of his own, his nephew Robert, as well as the two daughters of his brother, Thomas Milligen. One of these, Charlotte, became Seppings's wife, while her sister Martha married Richard (afterwards Vice-admiral Sir Richard) Dacres, G.C.H., and her sons became Admiral Sir [q. v.] and Field-Marshal Sir [q. v.]

In 1782 Captain Milligen apprenticed his nephew Robert, then fifteen years old, as a working shipwright in Plymouth dockyard. His education was very limited at the time, and his knowledge of mathematics was always slender; but he rapidly acquired a deep interest in his profession, and displayed an inventive genius which industry, determination, and the rapidity and accuracy of his powers of observation enabled him to turn to practical uses.

His first important invention may be referred to 1800. He was then master shipwright assistant at Plymouth dockyard. His chief work was to shore and lift ships in dock, and he was impressed by the time wasted in the processes employed. He sought a method by which ships might be suspended instead of lifted, and with this end in view, after experimenting with models in his cabin on the dock, he constructed new machinery, formerly called ‘Seppings blocks.’ By an arrangement of three wedges—two being placed vertically beside the ship, and one set horizontally across the other two—the examination of the keels and lower timbers of vessels was accomplished with comparative ease and rapidity. Where the old system needed the services of five hundred men, Seppings's system required but twenty men and two-thirds of the time formerly required. A vessel could, in fact, be docked and undocked by means of Seppings's blocks in one spring tide. A trial of the blocks was first made at Plymouth dockyard in September 1800, on the large Spanish first-rate San Josef. A dock at Plymouth was first fitted up with the blocks in 1801 by order of the navy board. For this invention Seppings was granted 1,000l. by the admiralty, and the Copley medal on 23 Nov. 1803 by the Society of Arts. In the ‘Proceedings’ of that society, vol. xxii., is a detailed account of the system of blocks, with diagrams.

Although the admiralty habitually discouraged innovation, Sir John Henslowe, the surveyor of the navy, was in full sympathy with Seppings's efforts. Owing doubtless to his representations, the navy board, in defiance of its traditions, gave practical proof of their appreciation of Seppings's ingenuity by at once removing him to Chatham, and by making him in 1804 a master-shipwright. Meanwhile, Seppings had begun another series of experiments on the construction of ships, which resulted in his in-