Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/107

 parliamentary deposit, which had to be accomplished by the last day of November. While his remarkable success was most encouraging, its effects soon began to tell upon his health, which completely gave way in 1847, when he was compelled to retire from business and go into the country, where a year of perfect rest restored him to health. In 1848 he accepted an appointment as assistant-engineer under the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers. On the death of the chief engineer of the Commissioners in 1852, Mr. Bazalgette was selected from among thirty-six candidates to fill the vacant position, being first appointed under the title of General Surveyor of Works, and soon afterwards of Chief Engineer. His report on the failures of the new system of drainage in certain provincial towns led to the resignation of the Commissioners and the appointment of a new Commission by Lord Palmerston. Mr. Bazalgette was elected engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works on its establishment in 1856, and was instructed to devise a scheme for the drainage of London. Accordingly he prepared estimates and designs which were executed between 1858 and 1865. The main intercepting drainage of London is original in design, and it is also the most perfect, the most comprehensive, and at the same time the most difficult work of its class that has ever been executed. Though little thought of now, because it is unseen, it is the work for which its author's reputation as an engineer will ever stand highest in the opinion of professional engineers. Between 1863 and 1874 the Victoria, the Albert, and the Chelsea Embankments, were designed and executed by him, besides many other metropolitan improvements, such as new streets, subways, and artisans' dwellings. He has also designed and carried out the drainage of many other towns, and has devoted much attention to the question of the best means for the disposal and utilisation of sewage. He was created a Companion of the Bath in 1871 and knighted in 1874.

BAZLEY,, Bart., born at Gilnow, near Bolton, in 1797, was educated at the Bolton Grammar School. At an early age he was apprenticed to learn cotton-spinning at the factory of Ainsworth & Co. (once the establishment of Sir Robert Peel & Co.). In 1818 he started in business at Bolton and in 1826 removed to Manchester. He became the head and sole proprietor of the largest fine cotton and lace thread spinning concern in the trade, employing more than one thousand hands, and he established, in connection with his factories, schools and lecture and reading rooms. Mr. Bazley was one of the earliest members of the Manchester Anti-Corn Law Association, and of the Council of the League; and in 1837, with Messrs Richard Cobden and John Brooks, he opened the Free-trade campaign at Liverpool, on which occasion he made his first public speech. In 1845 he was elected president of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, which post he held till 1859. Mr. Bazley was one of the Royal Commissioners of the Great Exhibition of 1851; he served upon the Royal Commission for promoting the amalgamation of the Laws of the United Kingdom; and in 1855 he was a Commissioner of the Paris Imperial Exhibition. In 1858 he was elected M.P. for Manchester, without a contest. His business and parliamentary duties pressing severely upon his time and attention, in 1862 he retired from the former, and disposed of his extensive mills and concerns, determining to devote his time to public life. In 1859 and 1865 he was re-elected for Manchester at the head of the poll; but in 1868 he came in second, polling 14,192 votes against 15,486, recorded in