Samuel Smiles

Context:

Referenced in comparison to Walt Disney as a tinkerer figure, noting Smiles was fascinated by people who started tinkering like James Watt and Matthew Boulton.

Context:

Dan mentions that Samuel Smiles 'wrote an incredibly popular biography of him' referring to George Stephenson, and Tom confirms 'he did a whole series of lives of the engineers.' This is Smiles' biographical series about British engineers.