Excerpt from A Historical Survey of the Boiler Makers' and Iron and Steel Ship Builders' Society: From August, 1834, to August, 1904, With a Brief Sketch of the Life and Work of Its Leading Officials; Comparisons Between Boilermaking, Shipbuilding, Bridgebuilding in the Early Days of Its History and of Modern Times; And Interesting Arbitration Awards Mr. R. Knight, writing in 1872, said: "It is sad, but true, that we have no record of the many years of our Society's past existence, and to write its history would be impossible." Thirty years later, when I promised to attempt the task, and when the difficulties to obtain early records would be immeasurably greater, I had not seen that utterance, and did not realise the almost impossible task I had set myself to do; but after long labour I am gratified that the difficulties have been to a great degree surmounted and a work produced that, although it may not shine with literary merit, does at least give as comprehensive a history of the seventy year's life of the Society as it is possible to obtain. The labour has been all the more difficult because of the impossibility to give many consecutive hours to the task. Sometimes a few evening hours could be devoted to it, and just as some progress was being made the demands of a busy life caused it to be dropped for weeks and sometimes months together, until evening work had to be given up, and Saturday afternoons utilised in order to get some continuity of thought and action. I am indebted to all those who, recognising the need of some such work, assisted me in searching out old members and the sons of old members in order to obtain past records of the Society's work. It would be invidious to mention any one in particular, but I have thankful recollections of those who kindly did whatever they were asked to do in that direction. I am also indebted to Mr. Wilson Worsdell (North Eastern Railway), Sir Benjamin Baker, the Thames Shipbuilding and Engineering Co. Limited, Messrs. Laird Bros., and the Editors of The Shipping World, The Engineer, and Engineering Times for the permission so kindly granted me to reproduce the illustrations published in that portion of the work dealing with the trade in the early days of the Society and the present. I trust the book will be found interesting, and that the reading of it will enthuse the present and future generations into emulating the best deeds of their forefathers. My task is completed, and as I do not seek any pecuniary gain I can express the hope that a ready sale of the work will take place, and that some profit will be made on the sale in order that I may have the two-fold satisfaction of having done something to instruct my fellows and by it realised a sum of money sufficient to do some good to the orphans of our deserving members or some other equally good object. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.