steam-engine. Mr. March says, "I recollect
it very distinctly, and even the sort of framing on which it stood.
The machine was not patented, and like many inventions in those days,
it was kept as much a secret as possible, being locked up in a small
room by itself, to which the ordinary workmen could not obtain access.
The year in which I remember it being in use was, so far as I am aware,
long before any planing-machine of a similar kind had been invented."

Matthew Murray was born at Stockton-on-Tees in the year 1763. His
parents were of the working class, and Matthew, like the other members
of the family, was brought up with the ordinary career of labour before
him. When of due age his father apprenticed him to the trade of a
blacksmith, in which he very soon acquired considerable expertness. He
married before his term had expired; after which, trade being slack at
Stockton, he found it necessary to look for work elsewhere. Leaving
his wife behind him, he set out for Leeds with his bundle on his back,
and after a long journey on foot, he reached that town with not enough
money left in his pocket to pay for a bed at the Bay Horse inn, where
he put up. But telling the landlord that he expected work at
Marshall's, and seeming to be a respectable young man, the landlord
trusted him; and he was so fortunate as to obtain the job which he
sought at Mr. Marshall's, who was then beginning the manufacture of
flax, for which the firm has since become so famous.

Mr. Marshall was at that time engaged in improving the method of
manufacture,[2] and the young blacksmith was so fortunate or rather so
dexterous as to be able to suggest several improvements in the
machinery which secured the approval of his employer, who made him a
present of 20L., and very shortly promoted him to be the first mechanic
in the workshop. On this stroke of good fortune Murray took a house at
the neighbouring village of Beeston, sent to Stockton for his wife, who
speedily joined him, and he now felt himself fairly started in the
world. He remained with Mr. Marshall for about twelve years, during
which he introduced numerous improvements in the machinery for spinning
flax, and obtained the reputation of being a first-rate mechanic. This
induced Mr. James Fenton and Mr. David Wood to offer to join him in the
establishment of an engineering and machine-making factory at Leeds;
which he agreed to, and operations were commenced at Holbeck in the
yea