DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70267#0464
416
SIR WILLIAM STAINES.
the man then doing such apparent drudgery was doomed
to be their future Lord Mayor.
But in process of time., when Mr. Staines became a
little master, and able to undertake small concerns for
himself, having obtained his freedom by serving his Ma,
jesty, Bow steeple, about 1/60, happening to be in want
of repair, he fortunately conceived that he should be able
to execute the job, and applying for the same by the
encouragement of a friend, .who was bound for the ful-
filment of his contract, his proposals were preferred, and
his performance of the business so well approved of, that
he was afterwards employed to raise a scaffold for the
steeple of St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, which was struck with
lightning, 1763. This scaffolding being suffered to stand
after the business had been done till some of the ropes
gave way, a part of it fell, and, what was very re-
markable, one of the poles pitching down in a perpendi-
cular direction from that extraordinary height upon a
tombstone, it penetrated the same just as if it had been a
soft substance, and perforated a round hole, which, of
course, was viewed with surprise by a number of spectators.
Mr. Staines was afterwards employed to take down the
remainder of this scaffolding; and the Scotch pavement
being introduced about that time, he was engaged in the
paving of several streets; and afterwards had the good
fortune to be appointed mason to the city of London.
.About this time he had a house and a mason’s yard in
Barbican. But with respect to Bow church being the
first means of making his fortune, Mr. Staines seemed to
entertain such an intimate sense of it, that when he became
Lord Mayor, this church was represented in painting, in
the back giound of one of the pannels of the state coach.
We now come to a particular feature in the life of Mr.
Staines, respecting some incidents, which, if they had not
been very well attested, must have rather staggered than
claimed
SIR WILLIAM STAINES.
the man then doing such apparent drudgery was doomed
to be their future Lord Mayor.
But in process of time., when Mr. Staines became a
little master, and able to undertake small concerns for
himself, having obtained his freedom by serving his Ma,
jesty, Bow steeple, about 1/60, happening to be in want
of repair, he fortunately conceived that he should be able
to execute the job, and applying for the same by the
encouragement of a friend, .who was bound for the ful-
filment of his contract, his proposals were preferred, and
his performance of the business so well approved of, that
he was afterwards employed to raise a scaffold for the
steeple of St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, which was struck with
lightning, 1763. This scaffolding being suffered to stand
after the business had been done till some of the ropes
gave way, a part of it fell, and, what was very re-
markable, one of the poles pitching down in a perpendi-
cular direction from that extraordinary height upon a
tombstone, it penetrated the same just as if it had been a
soft substance, and perforated a round hole, which, of
course, was viewed with surprise by a number of spectators.
Mr. Staines was afterwards employed to take down the
remainder of this scaffolding; and the Scotch pavement
being introduced about that time, he was engaged in the
paving of several streets; and afterwards had the good
fortune to be appointed mason to the city of London.
.About this time he had a house and a mason’s yard in
Barbican. But with respect to Bow church being the
first means of making his fortune, Mr. Staines seemed to
entertain such an intimate sense of it, that when he became
Lord Mayor, this church was represented in painting, in
the back giound of one of the pannels of the state coach.
We now come to a particular feature in the life of Mr.
Staines, respecting some incidents, which, if they had not
been very well attested, must have rather staggered than
claimed