WAPP - Waltham Abbey Personnel Project

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WAPP: 115

Name: John (Jnr.) Braddock

Birth Date: 00/04/1794

Death Date: 09/09/1840

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Subject: List of Employees

Document Date: 29/08/1812

PRO Reference: Supply 5/229

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Biography:

1. John Braddock, Jnr. was the son of John Braddock, the Master Refiner of Salpetre (1762-1840) and was baptised at St. Martin in the Fields on the 30th April 1794 (WASC2229). He was trained as a powder maker, and by August 1812 he was employed at Waltham Abbey as a Labourer, "drawing and setting stoves, and in the willow plantation" He was paid 2/8d per day, and allowed to watch in turn, for which he received 1/6d per night (List of Employees - Supply 5/229 - dated the 29th August 1812). He was then engaged on a five-year contract by the East India Company in Madras as an "expert in making gundpowder" at 10/d per day. He sailed for India on the ship 'Hugh Inglis', arriving at Madras on the 9th August 1813, marrying Elizabeth Stephenson at St. Mary's church, Madras, in January 1819. 2. According to D. F. Harding, author of "Small Arms of the East India Company: 1600-1856", Vol.III Ammunition and Performance,1999 (p.38), John, jnr. wrote "A Memoir on Gunpowder" (WASC 0677) on the theory and practice of the manufacture and proof of gunpowder, originally published in Madras for the East India Company and reprinted in London in 1832 by Braddock's father. He apparently spent extra time among the workmen to master every part of the process and to pick up opinions, after which he was recruited by the East India Company and sent out to India as one of "Captain Thomas Fraser's team of specialists in the various branches of powder making." (WASC 2229) 3. On page 80, Harding says that "A Memoir on Gunpowder" filled a gap on "the subject of gunpowder in English Scholarship, and in the 1840's it is often quoted in the Company's records as the best authority on the subject of gunpowder." It also "received high praise from the gunmaker and author, Henry Wilkinson, and was even summarised in French." (WASC 2229). 4. John died in Madras on the 9th September 1840, and more information on his life in India can be found in an article on 'John Braddock - Powder Master' written by one of his descendants, Sylvia Murphy (WASC 2229).