William and Robert Tindall, the former of whom resided in London; he was one of the half-dozen great shipbuilders and owners who founded "Lloyd's." Splendid East Indiamen, of some 1000 tons burden, were then built at Scarborough; and scarcely a timber was moulded, a plank bent, a spar lined off, or launching ship-ways laid, without my being present to witness them.

And thus, in course of time, I was able to make for myself the neatest and fastest of model yachts.
At that time, I attended the Grammar School.

Of the rudiments taught, I was fondest of drawing, geometry, and Euclid.

Indeed, I went twice through the first two books of the latter before I was twelve years old.

At this age I was sent to the Edinburgh Academy, my eldest brother William being then a medical student at the University.