Thomas Payne "The Age of Reason"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a0TCKhUkoo

 I have the first half of the book "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Payne as a books-on-tape on my youtube channel - atwaterpub. It is worth a watch and listen. He was one intelligent guy.  He also invented the first steel construction, or "box girder" bridge span and revolutionized the bridge construction industry. Prior to that invention, all bridges were made of stone and slow and expensive to build.

Thomas Payne built his box girder bridge in a cow pasture and it was of absolutely no use at all except "proof of concept," but they had bridges made of steel shortly after.


After this, he went to France to join the French Revolution, but was eventually imprisoned himself by the Reign of Terror.  Great Britain appealed for his release.

Thomas Payne narrowly escaped execution in the French Revolution by a miraculous comedy of errors of which he was totally unaware until his release. His cell door was marked with the execution symbol, but because it was a corner cell, the guard left the door open and nobody saw the execution symbol when the victims were rounded up. A day later the Order of Release from the British Government and the Revolutionary Government arrived and he was released. He narrowly escaped death.


Thomas Payne is most famous for writing the pamphlet "The Rights of Man" which helped inspire and give heart to the American Revolution in 1776.  At the end of his life he returned to the USA and published "The Age of Reason."  The book was not well received and went virtually unsold.  He died penniless and alone nearly ten years later.



copyright (c) 2017
William Schaeffer