Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/173

 attached to tory principles, controlled the Cornish borough of St. Mawes, and exercised great influence in the adjoining boroughs. John contested the constituency of Truro in 1689, and petitioned the House of Commons against the return of the two whig members, but did not succeed in obtaining the seat. When his relative, Henry Seymour, elected to sit for their family borough of Totnes, the vacancy at St. Mawes was filled by Tredenham (9 April 1690), and he represented it until the dissolution in 1705. He was then out of parliament for a time, but on 21 Nov. 1707 he succeeded his father at St. Mawes, and sat for it continuously until his death. The Cornish historian, Tonkin, describes him as an ornament to the lower house.

The father had been displaced by William III early in 1698 from the governorship of the castle of St. Mawes, and the son declined to sign the voluntary association of loyalty to William III (1695–6). A story is told in the life of John Mottley that the officers of the Earl of Nottingham were on one occasion upon the look-out for Colonel John Mottley, father of the play-writer and a well-known Jacobite spy; Mottley used frequently to dine with John Tredenham at the tavern of the Blue Posts, and when the officers made a raid upon that inn, Tredenham got arrested instead of his friend. He was brought before Nottingham, and his papers, which he asserted to be the groundwork of a play, were examined. In a short time Tredenham was set at liberty by the earl, with the remark that he had ‘perused the play and heard the statement,’ but could find no trace of a plot in either.

In 1701, after the death of James II and the recognition by Louis XIV of his son as the new king of England, orders were given that Poussin, the French agent, should be instructed to leave this country. He was not at home, but was found at supper (Tuesday, 23 Sept.) at the Blue Posts with Tredenham, Anthony Hammond (1668–1738) [q. v.], and Charles Davenant [q. v.] This incident formed the subject of much discussion, and cost the tory party dear. The Jacobites in parliament were called ‘French pensioners’ and ‘Poussineers,’ and the two other culprits tried to put the blame on Tredenham. It was reckoned that at the following general election this supper lost the tories thirty seats, and those of Hammond and Davenant among them (, Hist. of England, v. 299, 303; Corresp. of Clarendon and Rochester, 1828 ed. ii. 398; Coke MSS., Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. ii. 428, 436).

Tredenham died ‘by a fall from his coach-box’ on 25 Dec. 1710. He married in 1689 Anne, daughter and sole heiress of Sir John Lloyd, bart., of the Forest, Carmarthenshire.



TREDGOLD, THOMAS (1788–1829), engineer, was born at Brandon, near the city of Durham, on 22 Aug. 1788. After receiving a slight elementary education at the village school he was apprenticed at the age of fourteen to a cabinet-maker at Durham. He remained with him six years, devoting his leisure to the study of mathematics and architecture, and taking advantage of the holidays granted on race days to acquire a knowledge of perspective. In 1808, after his apprenticeship had expired, he proceeded to Scotland, where he laboured for five years as a joiner and journeyman carpenter. To gratify his desire for knowledge he denied himself sleep and relaxation, and thereby permanently impaired his health. On leaving Scotland he went to London, where he entered the office of his relative, William Atkinson, architect to the ordnance, with whom he lived for six years, and whom he served for a still longer period. At this time ‘his studies combined all the subjects connected with architecture and engineering; and in order that he might be able to read the best scientific works on the latter subject, he taught himself the French language. He also paid great attention to chemistry, mineralogy, and geology, and perfected his knowledge of the higher branches of mathematics.’

In 1820 he published ‘Elementary Principles of Carpentry’ (London, 4to), in which he considered the problems connected with the resistance of timber in relation to making floors, roofs, bridges, and other structures. He also appended an essay on the nature and properties of timber. With the exception of Barlow's ‘Essay on the Strength of Timber and other Materials’ in 1817 [see ], Tredgold's work was the first serious attempt in England to determine practically and scientifically the data of resistance. Before his time engineers relied chiefly on the formulæ and results attained by Buffon and by Peter van Musschenbroek in his ‘Physicæ Experimentales