(James), was born at Tunstead, in the parish of Wormhill, Derbyshire, in 1716. His father was a small freeholder, who dissipated his property in company and field amusements, and neglected his family. In consequence, young Bridley was left destitute of even the common rudiments of education, and till the age of 17 was casually employed in rustic labours. At that period he bound himself apprentice to one Bennet, a millwright at Maclesfield, in Cheshire, where his mechanical genius presently developed itself. The master being frequently absent, the apprentice was often left for weeks together to finish pieces of works concerning which he had received no instruction; and Bennet, on his return, was often greatly astonished to see improvements in various parts of mechanism, of which he had no previous conception. It was not long before the millers discovered Bridley's merits, and preferred him in the execution of their orders to the master or any other workman. At the expiration of his servitude, Bennet being grown into years, he took the management of the business upon himself, and by his skill and industry contributed to support his old master and his family in a comfortable manner.

In process of time Bridley set up as a millwright on his own account; and by a number of new and ingenious contrivances greatly improved that branch of mechanics, and acquired a high reputation in the neighbourhood. His fame extending to a wider circle, he was employed, in 1752, to erect a water-engine at Clifton, in Lancashire, for the purpose of draining some coal mines. Here he gave an essay of his abilities in a kind of work for which he was afterwards so much distinguished, driving a tunnel under ground through a rock nearly 600 yards in length, by which water was brought out of the Irwell for the purpose of turning a wheel fixed 30 feet below the surface of the earth. In 1755 he was employed to execute the larger wheels for a silk mill at Congleton; and another person, who was engaged to make other parts of the machinery, and to superintend the whole, proving incapable of completing the work, the business was entirely committed to Bridley; who not only executed the original plan in a masterly Brindley, terly manner, but made the addition of many curious and valuable improvements, as well in the construction of the engine itself, as in the method of making the wheels and pinions belonging to it. About this time, too, the mills for grinding flints in the Staffordshire potteries received various useful improvements from his ingenuity.

In the year 1756 he undertook to erect a steam engine, upon a new plan, at Newcastle-under-Lyme; and he was, for a time, very intent upon a variety of contrivances for improving this useful piece of mechanism. But from these designs he was, happily for the public, called away to take the lead in what the event has proved to be a national concern of capital importance—the projecting the system of canal navigation. The Duke of Bridgewater, who had formed his design of carrying a canal from his coal-works at Worsley to Manchester, was induced by the reputation of Mr Brindley to consult him on the execution of it; and having the sagacity to perceive, and strength of mind to combine in, the original and commanding abilities of this self-taught genius, he committed to him the management of the arduous undertaking. The nature of this enterprise has already been described (Encycl. vol. IV. p. 82); it is enough here to mention, that Mr Brindley, from the very first, adopted those leading principles, in the projecting of these works, which he ever after adhered to, and in which he has been imitated by all succeeding artists. To preserve as much as possible the level of his canals, and to avoid the mixture and interference of all natural streams, were objects at which he constantly aimed. To accomplish these, no labour or expense was spared; and his genius seemed to delight in overcoming all obstacles by the discovery of new and extraordinary contrivances.

The most experienced engineers upon former systems were amazed and confounded at his projects of aqueduct bridges over navigable rivers, mounds across deep valleys, and subterraneous tunnels; nor could they believe in the practicability of some of these schemes till they saw them effected. In the execution, the ideas he followed were all his own; and the minutest, as well as the greatest, of the expedients he employed, bore the stamp of originality. Every man of genius is an enthusiast. Mr Brindley was an enthusiast in favour of the superiority of canal navigations above those of rivers; and this triumph of art over nature led him to view with a sort of contempt the winding stream, in which the lover of rural beauty so much delights. This sentiment he is said to have expressed in a striking manner at an examination before a committee of the House of Commons, when, on being asked, after having made some contemptuous remarks relative to rivers, what he conceived they were created for? he answered, "to feed navigable canals." A direct rivalry with the navigation of the Irwell and Mersey was the bold enterprise of his first great canal; and since the success of that design, it has become common, all over the kingdom, to see canals accompanying, with insulting parallel, the course of navigable rivers.

After the successful execution of the Duke of Bridgewater's canal to the Mersey, Mr Brindley was employed in the revived design of carrying a canal from that river to the Trent, through the counties of Chester and Stafford. This undertaking commenced in the year 1766; and from the great ideas it opened to the mind of its conductor, of a scheme of inland navigation which should connect all the internal parts of England with each other, and with the principal sea-ports, by means of branches from this main stem, he gave it the emphatic name of the grand trunk. In executing this, he was called upon to employ all the resources of his invention, on account of the inequality and various nature of the ground to be cut through; in particular, the hill of Harecastle, which was only to be passed by a tunnel of great length, bored through strata of different consistence, and some of them mere quicksand, proved to be a most difficult, as well as expensive, obstacle, which, however, he completely surmounted. While this was carrying on, a branch from the grand trunk, to join the Severn near Bewdley, was committed to his management, and was finished in 1772. He also executed a canal from Droitwich to the Severn; and he planned the Coventry canal, and for some time supervised its execution; but on account of some difference in opinion he resigned that office. The Chesterfield canal was the last undertaking of the kind which he conducted, but he only lived to finish some miles of it. There was, however, scarcely any design of canal navigation set on foot in the kingdom, during the latter years of his life, in which he was not consulted, and the plan of which he did not either entirely form, or revise and improve. All these it is needless to enumerate; but, as an instance of the vastness of his ideas, it may be mentioned, that, on planning a canal from Liverpool to join that of the duke of Bridgewater at Runcorn, it was part of his intention to carry it by an aqueduct bridge, across the Mersey, at Runcorn Gap, a place where a tide, sometimes rising fourteen feet, rushes with great rapidity through a sudden contraction of the channel. As a mechanic and engineer, he was likewise consulted on other occasions; as with respect to the draining of the low lands in different parts of Lincolnshire and the Isle of Ely, and to the cleansing of the docks of Liverpool from mud. He pointed out a method, which has been successfully practised, of building sea-walls without mortar; and he was the author of a very ingenious improvement of the machine for drawing water out of mines by the contrivance of a long and a gaining bucket.

The intensity of application which all his various and complicated employments required, probably shortened his days; as the number of his undertakings, in some degree, impaired his usefulness. He fell into a kind chronic fever, which, after continuing some years, with little intermission, at length wore out his frame, and put a period to his life on September 27, 1772, in the 56th year of his age. He died at Tunhull, in Staffordshire, and was buried at New Chapel in the same county.

In appearance and manners, as well as in acquirement, Mr Brindley was a mere peasant. Unlettered, and rude of speech, it was easier for him to devise means for executing a design than to communicate his ideas concerning it to others. Formed by nature for the profession he assumed, it was there alone that he was in his proper element; and so occupied was his mind with his business, that he was incapable of relaxing in any of the common amusements of life. As he had not the ideas of other men to afflit him, whenever a point of difficulty in contrivance occurred; it was his custom to retire to his bed, where, in perfect solitude, he would lie for one, two, or three days, pondering the matter in his mind till the requisite expedient had presented itself. This is that true inspiration which poets have almost exclusively arrogated to themselves, but which men of original genius in every walk are actuated by, when, from the operation of the mind acting upon itself, without the intrusion of foreign notions, they create and invent.

A remarkably retentive memory was one of the essential qualities which Mr Brindley brought to his mental operations. This enabled him to execute all the parts of the most complex machine in due order, without any help of models or drawings, provided he had once accurately settled the whole plan in his mind. In his calculations of the powers of machines, he followed a plan peculiar to himself; but, indeed, the only one he could follow without instruction in the rules of art. He would work the question some time in his head, and then set down the result in figures. Then taking it up in this stage, he would again proceed by a mental operation to another result; and thus he would go on by stages till the whole was finished, only making use of figures to mark the several results of his operations. But though, by the wonderful powers of native genius, he was thus enabled to get over his want of artificial method to a certain degree, yet there is no doubt that when his concerns became extremely complicated, with accounts of various kinds to keep, and calculations of all sorts to form, he could not avoid that perplexity and embarrassment which a readiness in the processes carried on by pen and paper can alone obviate. His estimates of expense have generally proved wide of reality; and he seems to have been better qualified to be the contriver, than the manager, of a great design. His moral qualities were, however, highly respectable. He was far above envy and jealousy, and freely communicated his improvements to persons capable of receiving and executing them; taking a liberal satisfaction in forming a new generation of engineers able to proceed with the great plans in the success of which he was so deeply interested. His integrity and regard to the advantage of his employers were unimpeachable. In fine, the name of Brindley will ever keep a place among that small number of mankind who form eras in the art or science to which they devote themselves, by a large and durable extension of its limits.