ONCE WORTH £30,000.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 227, 23 August 1935, Page 10

ONCE WORTH £30,000.

NOW LIVES ON CHARITY. INVENTED REINFORCED CONCRETE. The man who, 70 years ago, revolutionised the building trade by inventing reinforced concrete, is to-day living in fear of a pauper’s grave, says an London correspondent. Joseph Tall, at 84, lives in a tiny cottage at Coggcshall, Essex. He was 14 when he patented his invention as “a method of reinforcing concrete in order to render it suitable for building,” and he was hailed as a genius. He went on to invent and patent more than a score of other inventions covering the whole field of concrete construction. He was 1.5 when he put up his first concrete building at Bexley Heath, Kent, and two years later Napo eon 111. commissioned him to build a block of 40 flats in Paris. Buildings all over the world stand as memorials to Ins invention. At 21 he was worth £30,000. It was with the floating of a company to run the business that tilings began to go wrong. Before he was 2o money and position had gone. Me had no money to prevent his patents lapsin'3'. His last lew pounds went to bury his mother. The master became an artisan. The inventor worked as a painter and decorator. V ith old age came unemployment. On the old-age pension he and his wife who is <3, went to live at ..Coggeshall. Tllev lack ' ed food and fu©l until, throe years ago the Cement Manufacturers Association heard of their plight and made them a small allowance. ‘ I am afraid of one thing.” he said, ‘ that when I die I shall be buried by the parish —a pauper.”