On 14th June, 1806 a son was born to William and Elizabeth
Bidder and christened George Parker, the name Parker being his
mother's maiden name. The Bidder's lived in Moretonhampstead, a
small town on the edge of Dartmoor where William plied his trade
as a stonemason. Little did the parents know that George, their
sixth child, would become known as 'The Calculating Boy' and one
of the most famous civil engineers of the nineteenth century and
would bring prosperity to himself and his family.
As a child George gave little indication of his mental
capabilities, tending to avoid school and preferring to amuse
himself by playing games with marbles and conkers, working out
in his head, the various combinations and sequences that arose
from those games. His brother John had taught him to count and
as a result, he acquired a fascination with numbers that led him
to develop mental skills that would prove so beneficial in later
life.
The school George attended was run by a local minister who
reported that although George experienced difficulty with his
writing, he had no problem understanding numbers and doing
calculations. He frequently displayed his mental agility by
encouraging local people to ask him complex arithmetical
problems that he would then solve with remarkable rapidity.
George's father soon realised that he had a child prodigy on his
hands and that his son's talent could be of financial benefit to
the family. He started to exhibit the boy at local fairs and
shows where he was advertised as 'The Calculating Boy' and in
due course he travelled further afield, appearing in many towns
across the country including London. Charges for admission were
made and George's father quickly appreciated the rewards to be
derived from these appearances. In the winter of 1816-17 George
was invited to display has talents to Queen Charlotte who put to
him a several numerical questions, no doubt prepared for her in
advance of the meeting, which he answered accurately and in
record time.
In 1816, two gentlemen from Cambridge who had witnessed one of
George's performances, persuaded his reluctant father to allow
the boy to attend a school in Camberwell but after a year, his
father, unwilling to accept the loss of income, withdrew George
from the school. George does not appear to have resented the
change and the tours he subsequently undertook no doubt helped
to broaden his horizons. He remained cheerful and enjoyed joking
with the questioners.
While exhibiting in Edinburgh in 1819, he caught the attention
of Sir Henry Jardine, a prosperous Hong Kong businessman who,
together with a group of friends, arranged for George to receive
private tutoring and later, for his attendance at Edinburgh
University. There he established a great friendship with Robert
Stephenson, the son of George Stephenson the eminent railway
engineer, which was to last throughout their lives and played an
important part in influencing George to pursue a career in civil
engineering. George was always grateful to his mentor and repaid
his debt to him and Edinburgh by establishing the Jardine
Bursary at the university for the benefit of students of limited
means.
On leaving university and with the help of Sir Henry, George
obtained an appointment as a trainee surveyor with the Ordnance
Survey that involving extensive work in Scotland but after two
years he moved to Cardiff and then to London. Here he took the
next step in his professional career and moved into civil
engineering, working as an engineering pupil with Henry Palmer,
a well-known consulting engineer and former assistant to Thomas
Telford. During this period he worked on surveys for the London
Docks and various harbour, railway and canal projects but in
order to help support his younger brothers, he also worked as a
part-time clerk in the offices of Royal Exchange Life Assurance
where his calculating skills were of great benefit to the
company.
Following a short period with another firm of engineers where he
worked on other schemes in the London area, he joined the
practice of his friend Robert Stephenson. This was at the start
of 'the railway era' and initially George worked on the London &
Birmingham railway gaining valuable experience at a time of
great activity when the rail network was being developed
throughout the country.
In order that a proposed railway scheme could receive the
approval of Parliament, it was necessary to prepare and submit
accurate surveys of the intended route together with estimated
construction costs for consideration by the appropriate
Parliamentary Committee. Such schemes called for careful
examination and involved cross-examining the promoters and
expert witnesses and it was here that George's talents made
their greatest impact. His practical knowledge of surveying,
coupled with his prodigious memory and mental skills made him a
most effective force when appearing before the Committees. His
ability to spot weaknesses and errors in his opponents
submission and to present counter-arguments made him such a
formidable witness that on one occasion, opposing Counsel
objected to his presence stating that 'nature had endowed him
with particular qualities that placed his opponents on an unfair
footing'.
This was the type of work in which he excelled and he loved the
cut and thrust of argument and the analysis of technical
problems. Consequently, his main contribution to the expansion
of the railway network in this country was through the promotion
of schemes rather than their construction and perhaps it is for
this reason, that his name is not as well known as those of
other famous railway men such as Brunel, Stephenson and Locke.
It is a measure of his standing however, that he is portrayed
with his contemporaries in the famous painting by John Lucas of
'Conference of Engineers at Britannia Bridge' that hangs in the
Institution of Civil Engineers.
Bidder's entrepreneurial flair led him into other fields of
development and as his wealth increased, he invested in land as
well as a variety of businesses in which he took an active
interest. One development with which he became associated was
the electric telegraph, a new invention still in the early
stages of its commercial development. By introducing it on the
London & Blackwall Railway and later on the Norwich & Yarmouth
line, he was able to effect economies by introducing single line
operation with safe and reliable communication between stations.
As the demand for this type of communication increased, he
helped to promote and finance the Electric Telegraph Company and
the subsequent development of transatlantic cables.
Bidder was responsible for many overseas projects including
railway schemes in Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and India and as
his reputation grew, he came into contact with many leading
dignitaries and Heads of State. He reached the pinnacle of his
professional career when he was elected President of the
Institution of Civil Engineers in 1860-61.
Although Bidder's main home was in Surrey, he always had great
affection for his native County of Devon and having bought a
house in Dartmouth his wife Georgina and family of eight
children gradually began to spend more time there. He became a
member of the Town Council and took an active interest in local
affairs, but felt unable to accept the office of Mayor due to
his many commitments in London. In 1869 he became the President
of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science,
Literature and the Arts, a position later held by one of his
grandsons. In fact the immediate Bidder family tree contains
many distinguished individuals.
The nature of his work meant that he spent long periods away
from home but he kept in regular touch with his family. Hard
work and dedication were always a feature of Bidder's life and
they brought their just rewards so that he and his family were
able to enjoy a standard of living his parents could never have
envisaged. Together with Robert Stephenson, he made many
business and social trips on Stephenson's yacht and at Dartmouth
he acquired his own yacht, the equivalent to a personal jet
aircraft these days. Always the engineer, his interest in boats
and water led to him to assist William Froude, another famous
engineer, on experimental work associated with the design of
ships' hulls. He was a founder member of the Dart Yacht Club and
played an important role in the Club obtaining a Royal Warrant.
Just prior to his death he purchased Stoke House, Stoke Fleming
which he planned to enlarge but he died there on 28th September
1878 before the work could be completed. He was buried in the
churchyard at Stoke Fleming.
Bidder's prodigious memory and mental agility remained with him
until the end and even during the last few days of his life, he
was still able to enjoy philosophical discussion and debate with
his friends. Bidder's name frequently occurs in the nineteenth
century annals of civil engineering and he is remembered in the
town of his birth where a mosaic has been laid in the road
approaching the parish church that illustrates some of the
mathematical problems he resolved as a child. A lithograph of
Bidder together with a marble bust can be found in the town's
Bowring Library and on 29th May 2003 the Retired Chartered
Engineers' Club, Exeter placed a commemorative plaque on the
wall of the Parish Council Office in The Square that was
unveiled in the presence of his grandson and great-grandson.
Blessed with a wonderful brain, Bidder developed his own method
of mental calculation that he explained in a lecture to the
Institution of Civil Engineers in 1856. This was complemented by
a memory that retained basic information on which he relied when
performing complicated calculations and which was probably the
result of the games he had taught himself as a child. There is
little doubt that his speed of mental computation would compare
favourably with today's electronic devices that appear so
indispensable for even the simplest of calculations.
A G Banks