Editing Fleeming Jenkin (section)

===Domestic life===
In 1859 he married Ann Austin.<ref>{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|access-date=13 January 2017|archive-date=24 January 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130124115814/http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

With a young family coming, it was an anxious time but he bore his troubles lightly. [[Robert Louis Stevenson]] says in his ''memoir'' of Jenkin that it was his principle ''to enjoy each day's happiness as it arises, like birds and children.''{{citation needed |date=December 2012}}

In 1863 his first son was born and the family moved to a cottage at [[Claygate]] near [[Esher]]. Though ill and poor, he kept up his self-confidence.  ''The country,'' he wrote to his wife, ''will give us, please God, health and strength. I will love and cherish you more than ever. You shall go where you wish, you shall receive whom you wish, and as for money, you shall have that too. I cannot be mistaken. I have now measured myself with many men. I do not feel weak. I do not feel that I shall fail. In many things I have succeeded, and I will in this.... And meanwhile, the time of waiting, which, please Heaven, shall not be so long, shall also not be so bitter. Well, well, I promise much, and do not know at this moment how you and the dear child are. If he is but better, courage, my girl, for I see light.''<ref name=munro/>{{rp|¶ 45}}

He took to gardening, without a natural liking for it, and soon became an ardent expert. He wrote reviews and lectured or amused himself in playing [[charades]] and reading poetry. James Clerk Maxwell was among his visitors. During October 1860, he superintended the repairs of the Bona-Spartivento cable, revisiting Chia and Cagliari, then full of [[Giuseppe Garibaldi|Garibaldi]]'s troops. The
cable, which had been broken by the anchors of [[coral (precious)|coral]] fishers, was grapnelled with difficulty.  ''What rocks we did hook!'' writes Jenkin. ''No sooner was the grapnel down than the ship was anchored; and then came such a business: ship's engines going, deck engine thundering, belt slipping, tear of breaking ropes; actually breaking grapnels. It was always an hour or more before we could get the grapnels down again.''<ref name=munro/>{{rp|¶ 46}}

In 1865, on the birth of their second son, Mrs. Jenkin was very ill, and Jenkin, after running two miles for a doctor, knelt by her bedside during the night in a draught. He suffered from [[rheumatism]] and [[sciatica]] ever afterwards.<ref name=munro/>{{rp|¶ 47}} It nearly disabled him while laying the cable from [[Lowestoft]] to [[Norderney]] in Germany for [[Paul Reuter]] in 1866. This line was designed by Forde & Jenkin, manufactured by Messrs. W. T. Henley & Co., and laid by the ''Caroline'' and ''William Cory''. Clara Volkman, a niece of Reuter, sent the first message, with the telegraph engineer [[C. F. Varley]] holding her hand.