My uncle, Ray Revor, was blind since age 1 month. His father wanted him to be independent and not be treated as "handicapped" so the family offered him assistance only until he became acquainted with the situation. Ray owned his own business, employed 6 sighted employees, was the leader of a popular band (the 3 blind mice), canned his own pickles, was a master carpenter, tested blind equipment like watches and talking books, beat me at checkers, always knew when someone cheated at cards, married a gorgeous nurse, and on and on. You don't need partial sight, blind people can be amazing! He was the most amazing person I've ever met. Never underestimate anyone.

Pretty damn impressive by any measure.

Another Great Britain 🇬🇧💯 worthy of a great movie💪🎬 Thanks for telling his tail🧐🤔 regards from LONDON 😍🇬🇧🙏💯

John Metcalfe would be a worthy subject for a film. It would be well received I imagine.

What an incredible man and a Yorkshireman to boot.

That was one heck of a life story. What a guy!

I've known of him since inheriting my late brother Paul's illustrated historical book in 1961, when Paul, then nine years of age died of a brain tumour. My ma used to read to me from it at bedtime. She's still going, aged one hundred.

The older I get, I find that the most famous of people are often equaled or bested by someone who I'd not heard of. KZfaq contributors point this out very well, with stories like this, and current young athletes or musicians doing incredible things while being little known. Thanks for taking the time to pt this together.

I've heard of him because I went to a primary school in the fifties that taught children about important figures in the past.

So a blind man on foot won a 200-mile race against a man in a coach with horses and a driver? That’s one of the most remarkable feats I have ever heard of.

Excellent! Thank You!

I’ve heard of him, I used to work at Knaresborough Castle and I’m a Metcalfe! 😂😂😂🤣

Incredible noteworthy story. His lost of sight made him a great visionair.

A great video with loads of content and no padding.

Loved it so much! Thank you. This is probably one of my favourite videos so far ❤

What an inspiring person ! Thank you for bringing him to everyone's notice 👍

Yes - what a guy!

Metcalf had helpers who were his eyes for him, they described it and he visualised it

Absolutely incredible and inspiring story, thank you for sharing

What an inspirational man.

He didn't let things keep him down!

not to take away from the truly impressiveness of this man, I want to remind people that blind people aren't necessarily unsighted. They may indeed be getting something from their eyes. areas of bright and dark, or shadows in fog, or even coloured blobs they can analyze. Or even that they can see if they hold a thing close enough. This makes the story imaginable, anyway, but as you say, maybe he worked with zero vision.

Whether "Blind Jack" had partial sight or perhaps, had an assistant on some of his excursions is irrelevant. We must realize just how remarkable these feats were for anyone in the 18th. century, let alone for a handicapped man. Figuring out a way to build over marshes and similar terrain, shows us just how intelligent this man truly was. Thank you for the education on someone I almost certainly would never heard of otherwise. Well done.

Let's not forget that the horses weren't blind and would been the 'cruise control' of their day!

Being a keen transport enthusiast, I heard of Blind Jack in my pre-teens. A real inspiration!

Except for the part about him impregnating a woman and subsequently abandoning her and his child, (in my opinion a most shameful thing) I enjoyed learning about this man. Peace. Out.

That is an amazing story about an incredible man! Thank you for sharing. I'm looking at my own accomplishments (or lack thereof), And I'm realizing I don't have much to show for my 43 years of existence. 😅

Grew up in Knaresborough. Live a couple of miles away from Knaresborough town centre now. They taught us about Blind Jack in infant school.

Great story. I had never heard of this guy. He must have had a compelling personality.

Great to know he's one of my England cousins! Currently writing a book on my family!

His parents did good, paying for him to learn the violin at young age. Real confidence booster .

With smallpox, total blindness was a rare complication compared to partial blindness. It's most likely that Metcalf had some limited vision. I have a friend with extremely limited vision who still manages to be remarkably independent. It's all a question of attitude, and Metcalf was clearly the kind of man who was going to make the most of what he had.

I read a book about him many years ago. Wonderful book.🇦🇺

Remarkable man.

What a fascinating guy!

Thanks so much for sharing this story. It was amazing to hear about this man

Really enjoyed that video, very informative!

The man was blind, yet he liked hunting and dived in a river to rescue someone? Strange blindness indeed!

A thing often forgotten about a horse and cart is that the "engine" can think and act on it's own initiative the horse would usually take the line of least resistance and as long as it didn't decide this was to stand still or graze, steering was only necessary if there was a choice of routes or a turning.

as soon as I read the title I knew it was going to be Blind Jack! such an amazing human being and so many wonderful achievements to his name!

Thank you for putting up this story. I have been blind all my life and I am a retired special education teacher. Disabled people are not taught their own history because they really aren’t considered to have any. Notable figures such as Helen Keller, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder are put up to us as role models. Now I am in no way saying that they are not, but they become their own stereotypes and the general public doesn’t think blind people can do anything except teach other blind people or perform music. “If you can see it, you can be it” has become a popular saying, but even when those of us in the blind community know about other examples of people in different occupations, the general public does not. Instead, the public is presented with the image of blind people always needing help, usually being helpless, and only being successful at a very few low paying occupations or as the few who attain rare celebrity status which is unattainable for the rest of us. Thank you for doing what you can to change the public perception of what blind people have done and can do. I am going to be sharing the story so that other people can see it. Even so, I am sure that under employment and job discrimination will still continue. Yes, some people might say this is a very cynical viewpoint, but for us it is reality.

I remember the name from History class at school circa 1967!!

Great story.

Since there is a statue of him, it looks as though quite a few people have heard of him.

Thank you. Incredibly interesting and inspiring 👏 😊❤

Great story. I remember he was mentioned alongside MacAdam etc in cse history in the early 70s!

And yet, if he could walk on modern roads, he’d be lucky to survive 20 yards, before falling into a pothole.

While in college, I knew a totally blind guy named Jerry. He loved hiking, cave exploring, scuba diving, and many other sports. He walked around Michigan State University without the aid of either a cane or a guided dog. Didn't need them. He used a combination of step counting, memory, and hearing. Thanks to the wind and other sources of sound Jerry could literally hear the buildings and determine their size, location, and large recesses. Where Jerry had problems was in noisy places like busy restaurants where he would ask for a guide and very uneven surfaces like breakdown in a cave that he would crawl over while the rest of us walked. If Blind Jack could hear as well as Jerry, getting around by himself would not have been a problem.

Good story, thanks.

I was born in the North Riding over 60 years ago and I had never heard of John Metcalfe. As a fully sighted person his achievements are obvious. Blind, amazing. This is an example of a Video where it is interesting, heart warming, informative and something that I am pleased to see that I will now understand his statue. Thank you for this.

what a great man, and what an enjoyable video. liked and subscribed.

I guess coming from West Yorkshire i had heard of blind Jack. He didn't build as many miles as Telford or MacAdam but they were better made.

I've heard of Metcalf and had an idea who you were referring to at the start, as in the blind guy who "discovered" a method of building roads across bogs. He was a remarkable chap and I agree is largely unknown. I know him because he is mentioned in a helpfile in the video game Empire: Total War. Also I think he might have been mentioned on an episode of QI also because I seem to recall seeing something comedic many years ago where he was mentioned.

An impressive chap.

Very interesting. Thank you. A 4x great aunt on my maternal lines became blind and deaf by the age of 14, but when she was about 60 became the first editor of a quarterly magazine for the new National Deaf and Blind Helpers League. She was able to type letters, but sometimes didn't always gauge the end of the paper and platter correctly, but was able to catch up on the next line. Clearly a clever lady who didn't allow her disability to hold her back.

A remarkable story. Thank for putting it on KZfaq

I’ve heard of Blind Jack thanks to old Fred Major - our history teacher whom smoked like a chimney & tolerated us disinterested scamps & wankers for a Hampshire County Council secondary school in 1978 . Thanks for this 👍

This was really interesting, thank you!

That was really interesting and informative...what a fascinating individual! Cx

this man is a real inspiration

Very impressive and remarkable character, I will think of him when travelling on the John Metcalf Way.

Thanks

Thank you

Just wonderful.

Amazing!

… what a great and inspiring story. There is no comparison to flakey pop culture and today’s ‘slaves to celebrity’ - including Celebrities themselves. Hats off to ‘Blind jack’, I say.

Blind Jack, the British Zatoichi... but real.

Good!

I suspect that Jack was blind more in name than condition. He may have been partially sighted, but without a guide, canine or human, he couldn't walk hundreds of miles along dirt tracks, never mind engineer roads without some vision. Funnily enough, driving a horse and cart is very plausible, once the horse was accustomed to the route, he could make his own way.

Well done! Fascinating perspective. Truly an indication that we are designed to “fill the earth and subdue it.” Maybe someday we will be able to truly understand and enjoy fully this amazing Planet we are given.

Fascinating, thanks

Fascinating video. I'll be sure to add his achievements to my classes. Thank you!

Hi, Thank you for this wonderful video. Jack Metcalf’s story is the telling of a miracle of human courage. As you said I did learn of Macadam and Telford at school. I grew up on the edge of Chat Moss so I learned of Stephenson’s exploits too. I spent many hours train spotting by the Manchester to Liverpool line.

Thank you for this video. More info on Blind Jack can be found as I expect you know in 'Lives of the Engineers' by Dr. Samuel Smiles.

Very interesting!

How does a blind man drive a coach - all the horses have eyes. He has ears and all the other senses that we have. Horses are well known to follow the routes they're familiar with - they'll even wait for you without being instructed.

Very interesting content, I'm sure that I've heard of this man in my school days, but admit that I had forgotten about him. Nice to revisit his story.😊

Brilliant, thanks

Fascinating!

Very interesting video 🙂 I shared it on a family WhatsApp group and he is well-enough known for it to have suggested 'Knaresborough' when I wrote Blind Jack of... AI is everywhere now huh?! (I had heard of him because I grew up about 3 miles from Knaresborough, and my Dad ran a garage there). Very interested to hear his first go was the road between Ferrensby and Minskip - it was between my childhood home and schools so I've been up and down it several thousand times, but didn't know it had historical significance ❤

❤

Great history!

Great video. I have learned something new from this and I look forward to watching (and Learning from) more of your work.

Thank you for this inspiring video about a very inspirational man. It is quite amazing how mind over matter illustrates attitude over aptitude.

Inspirational.

He probably had blurry or clouded vision rather than total darkness because infections like Smallpox cause scarring of the cornea. Blindness is a spectrum of visual impairments including limited field of vision and inability to focus properly.

Subscribed and shared great story You know there's a gun review or Misha I think that's how you say it and he's blind and shoots guns and reviews guns and what a story making good with what you've been given

It's no mystery how he could drive between towns. The horses knew the way, and anyway , surely someone among the passengers could advise him at forks in the road if the horses could not. I'm sure the horses could remember the way. I know that leader dogs can guide their inebriated owners home while they just enjoy the walk. So I readily can believe horses have similar capabilities.

Very interesting, a man to be admired for sure, to the able bodied these kind of biographies seem impossible, bravo to this northern hero

John Metcalf is our seven times great grandfather. I have researched his family history in detail.

Thank u

Brilliant information, brilliant vieo.

"Bog, I see no bog!"

Very impressive. It was my joy to watch your video. John Metcalf is a person who should have streets named. Lets call him the Beethoven of street-builders :-)

More so than his ability to build roads and drive wagons, how did Blind Jack hunt?!

Unusually long life for the times but Blind Jack must have known he had a true purpose in his life.

3:16 a bit like todays British roads

TY for sharing. Great story I’ve never heard of. Need these tails more than ever.

Great story. I always wondered how people got around. For example, Felix Mendelsohn traveled from Germany over the Alps to Venice before there were trains. How long would that have taken? Also, what is the bike-like contraption next to his statue?

Would make a great movie.