John Martin: Taking the train to the New Jerusalem? was an article by the Tate's 'John Martin: Apocalypse' exhibition curator and Martin Myrone on 14 November 2011
Myrone commented that:-
Although John Martin is best remembered today as the painter of apocalyptic biblical scenes, by his own account he dedicated something like two-thirds of his time and huge amounts of money to developing increasingly ambitious engineering schemes. From the end of the 1820s until the last few years of his life (he died in 1854), John Martin published a succession of detailed plans and written proposals for transforming London’s sewerage and transport systems. Although his schemes were taken seriously at the highest level, none of them got off the ground in the way Martin envisaged. Rival business interests blocked his plans, and his proposals were sometimes dismissed outright as ‘Babylonish’ visions. His reputation as a painter of wildly imaginative scenery didn't help. In retrospect, Martin’s plans can look as ‘visionary’ as his paintings, as if he was planning to give modern, industrial form to the much-vaunted heavenly ‘New Jerusalem’ which many Britons expected to see rise in their own time. He imagined the embankment of the Thames, something which took place (giving the riverfront its familiar appearance) only after his death.
And he proposed a circular railway line, which ran from the east of London, across what was then northerly suburbs (it would have run just north of Regents Park) through the open fields to the west (again, now built-up, central London) and across the south (connecting with Vauxhall), out to Greenwich. As so often with Martin, he felt that his ideas were pilfered by other parties, in this case the Metropolitan Terminii Commission who at the same time as Martin published his proposals came up with their plan for encircling central London with terminal railway stations and barring steam trains from coming into the centre of town
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As the scholar Lars Kokkonen explores in his essay for the catalogue accompanying John Martin: Apocalypse, the idea that Martin was inspired to come up with these engineering plans from religious feelings doesn't really hold up. He wasn't a religious eccentric or rebellious outsider as is often assumed. The pollution of the Thames and the problems with London’s transport infrastructure were pressing issues in John Martin’s day, and like many others he saw that coming up with proper solutions could be a route to making a fortune. His dedication to civil engineering was another aspect of his commercial outlook. Lars Kokkonen and the print specialist Michael Campbell discovered independently that Martin was an exhibitor at the Great Exhibition in 1851, and I found out that he was able to make some money at the very end of his life from a patent he was granted for ‘Improvements in Apparatus and Means Used in Draining Cities, Towns, and other Inhabited Places and Land’. But at the same time, John Martin seems to have invested far too much in these schemes for this to have been the result of purely rational self-interest. He seems to have been driven by something other than common sense or cynicism, as much with these engineering proposals as with his grandiose and always controversial art. His impoverished background, and lack of education and training may have led him to invest too much (time, money, energy) in enterprises which promised to secure him social prestige, fame and money: he was trying too hard to impress, perhaps?
The satirical magazine 'Punch', in the first half of 1843, proved critical of Martin's ideas:-
METROPOLIS IMPROVEMENTS.
Ten years after Martin's death, The Thames Embankment reconstruction work was successfully undertaken by Sir J. W. Bazalgette in three divisions the chief being the Victoria Embankment. This reaches from Blackfriars to Westminster Bridge (commenced in 1864 and finished in 1870 and costing over, a then a massive, £1.5 million). Bazalgette did acknowledge Martin's influence on his designs which are, of course, still very much evident to this day.
The famous mining engineer of this time was Thomas Sopwith F.R.S. (quoted in EXCERPTS FROM HIS DIARY OF FIFTY-SEVEN YEARS by BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON) who, although very unsure about William and Jonathan Martin said of their brother John:-
While pitying these two unhappy brothers, Mr. Sopwith had unbounded admiration of a third brother of the same family, the marvellous John Martin, the painter, whose works as an artist were, he thought, even surpassed by his suggestions as an engineer, by his plans for improved sanitation, and by his hopes of securing a healthy world. " Truly," my friend said, as he closed the history, " in this case it is literally the fact : — " ' Great genius is to madness close allied.'"
Further Illustrations of Martin's Schemes
John Martin also worked on a series of inventions with his eccentric brother William as the prime instigator. These involved mines, railways and ships. Following visits to William in Newcastle in 1828 and 1829, pamphlets were published Outlines of Several Inventions For Maritime and Inland Purposes
1837 found John promoting a paper on a laminated beam with wood and iron to the Institute of British Architects which was adopted.
* Seven years later in 1835 John appeared three times before a Select Committee on Accidents in Mines and showed his Miner's Safety Lamp modified from an earlier design by William (William's had proved better than that of Sir Humphrey Davy in tests 22 years earlier by the waste men of Willington Colliery).
The John Martin Safety Lamp Design of 1835
Tests on various safety lamps were conducted by a Mr Moffat in February 1837 using a 'moveable atmosphere' These demonstrated the insecurity of both variants of the Martin's lamps. John Martin was present at the tests and immediately accepted that neither his nor William's was safe.
A report as published in the Mining and Railway Gazette printed in the Newcastle Journal 18th February 1837 is below.
(I am very grateful to Mr Dave Rimmer, who has extensively researched mines safety lamps, for providing this information)
Finally in 1849 the Mines Ventilation ideas were deemed a positive answer to mine safety and Davy admitted his lamp was of limited use too. Credit was given to brother William Martin who had suggested this many years before.