William Fairbairn - the doyen of Manchester engineers

 William Fairbairn was a Scot, born in Kelso in 1789.

At the age of sixteen, he was apprenticed to Percy Main Colliery, near Newcastle-on-Tyne. In 1811, he moved to London, where he worked for Rennie and Penn.

In 1817, he launched a mill-machinery business in Manchester with a former shop-mate, James Lillie. The business was successful and in the 1830s he expanded into locomotive building. In 1836, fearing that London yards were getting all the work for iron steam ships, he borrowed heavily to set up the Millwall Yard. This survived until 1847 when it was taken over by IK Brunel and John Scott Russell where Brunel built his famous but financially unsuccessful Great Eastern.

Fairbairn had long been interested in education for working men and championed the Mechanics Institute movement; he had been party to setting up the Manchester Institute in 1824. He was frustrated by the lack of national co-ordination; there were eventually some 1,200 such institutes. In 1835 he decided that a magazine would help drawn the movement together and launched The Workshop with Naysmith who, whilst talented and a good communicator, did not have feel for the working man.

The magazine failed and this drew Fairbairn to the self educated Joseph Whitworth and the two became close friends and collaborators, both becoming part of the Manchester Lit & Phil. Fairbairn would become president from 1855-1860.

Henry Maudslay would become, in the eyes of William Fairburn, 'one of the six engineers who completely dominated the profession between 1790 and 1830, the year before he died. The other five were John Rennie, Thomas Telford, James Watt, Joseph Bramah and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. I write of Maudslay in the context of London machine tool makers.

At this time the Institute of Mechanical Engineers was a thing of the future and William was a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and indeed some of the work for which he is renowned is what we would now know as civil engineering. Fairbairn worked with Robert Stephenson on the Britannia and bridge over the Menai Strait and the nearby Conway bridge. He went on to work on cotton mills and then steam engines. He made a huge contribution to the design and construction of Salts Mill, which is widely regarded as his mill-building masterwork

William Fairbairn was much concerned with the lot of the working man, his eduction and his safety in the workplace. William served as President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1854.

Further reading

https://rchs.org.uk/product/william-fairbairn-the-experimental-engineer/

James Watt and Matthew Boulton - steam powered manufactories

 James Watt was a Scot, born in Greenock in January 1736. His father was a skilled carpenter employing quite a number of people working mainly on ships. He was successful and respected; he owned shares in some of the ships he worked on. He married an equally respectable woman. The family story was tragic with three of five children dying in childhood with a further child losing his life on one of his father's ships. This left James as the surviving child.

James was not a strong child and lived his life with extended periods of ill-health. His mother and father taught him at home. When he eventually went to school he did not excel and suffered because of his delicate nature. However he was a wonderful story teller and mastered mathematics. He had played with wood and tools from early childhood and had excellent craft skills.

With this background a career as a mathematical instrument maker beckoned.

I tell of Watt's crucial role in the development of steam power in the context of three places: Glasgow where he started, Falkirk where he nearly succeeded, Birmingham where he found the right partner in Matthew Boulton

Matthew Boulton was born in 1728 son Matthew Boulton (senior) a silver stamper and piercer based in Birmingham. Matthew (junior) was educated in Deritend until he needed to join his father in the business. In spite of a rudimentary education, Matthew developed a passion for classics and through his work an interest in mechanics and science. In reaching the age of majority, his father took him into partnership and its wasn't long before Matthew was running the business.

Birmingham had many craftsmen like Matthew (senior) making 'toys' objects of delight for the middle classes. Over the years these objects had become increasingly gaudy and Matthew set his sights on producing well made objects of good taste. He invented the inlaid buckle. He worked with Huntsman of Sheffield on steel objects. He explored the work being produced by the French and copied it. He borrowed fine objects and had his craftsmen copy them. He went into clock making achieving success with both design and taste. He was selling to royalty and the aristocracy not only in England but across Europe. The death of his father provided a fine inheritance and a good marriage to Ann Robinson added to this. Samuel Smiles suggests he could have retired.

Matthew Boulton had other ideas; his passion was for business and he needed more space and built the iconic Soho Manufactory (page image with thanks to the Wellcome Collection). In this fine building, getting on for 1,000 craftsmen worked on buttons, clasps, watch chains and metal wares; candle sticks, urns and brackets; clocks and silver plate. It was the workshop of the world. He was a good employer keen to offer opportunity to young men of poor backgrounds. As I tell in my blog on London, he opened an outlet in Inner London as did his friend Josiah Wedgwood who produced in ceramics beautiful objects which would sit well alongside the Soho production. We do of course not remember Boulton for any of this. It was his championing of James Watt that transformed manufacturing.

The site of the Soho Manufactory had running water sufficient to power two water mills used largely for polishing. However in summer the water levels dropped and alternative horse power had to be found and was never really satisfactory. Boulton explored the inventions of Savery and Newcomen to pump water up to fill ponds to power the mills. The cost proved prohibitive. He then corresponded with Benjamin Franklin and his friend Erasmus Darwin on the design of steam engines. Good fortune led to Dr Roebuck in Falkirk inviting Boulton to invest in the Carron Iron works and this lead to Boulton eventually meeting Watt. They took an instant liking to one another.

I tell of their developing relationship in my blog on Birmingham but more so St Austell and Camborne where Watt struggled for acceptance of his inventions by the stuck in the mud Cornish. Watt also faced endless legal arguments over patents, but with Matthew's support won through. It wasn't only Watt's inventions, the addition of steam power to manufacturing enabled Matthew to take on the Royal Mint in mechanised coin production. Once again the struggle was not technical but for acceptance. Like so many entrepreneurs Matthew struggled as his demand for capital for ever exceeded its supply. His tenacity time and again won the day.

The original partnership of Boulton and Watt was dissolved in 1800 on the expiration of the reciprocating engine patent. James Watt was sixty four and exhausted; Matthew Boulton was eight years older and with ideas still occupying his brain, not least the Soho Mint which was his pride and joy. James Watt enjoyed nearly twenty years of retirement, dying in 1819. Matthew Boulton had died ten years earlier.

James Watt is commemorated through a statue in Westminster Abbey, a seated figure in Glasgow's George Square, and the Watt Memorial Engineering & Navigational School in Greenock. He is buried at St Mary’s Church, Handsworth, Birmingham.

Further reading:

Samuel Smiles, Lives of Boulton and Watt (Stroud: Nonsuch, 2007, first published 1865)

Thomas Telford and John Smeaton - fathers of civil engineering, and John and George Rennie - civil and mechanical engineers

The Rennies were a Scots family that epitomises the connectivity of civil and mechanical engineering. 

I begin, though, with the father of civil engineering, John Smeaton, who is best known for rebuilding the Eddystone Lighthouse during which he discovered that the property of hardening whilst submerged in water was linked to the clay content of the cement. In 1824, a Leeds stonemason, Joseph Aspdin, took this a stage further and invented a method of making from limestone and clay a cement which he called Portland Cement given the similarity in colour between it and Portland stone.

Smeaton, born in 1724 in Austhorpe near Leeds, began as a mathematical instrument maker, as did James Watt. Smeaton then went on to design some sixty water and wind mills. He pioneered the use of cast iron pipes. His civil engineering projects included canals and bridges. He founded the engineering society which became the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Thomas Telford was younger born in 1757 near Lockerbie. He began as a stone mason working on Somerset House in London and then a number of restoration projects. He is know for many civil engineering masterpieces.

The Menai suspension bridge

The Caledonian canal

He built some 1,200 miles of well drained roads in Scotland. He built the Ellesmere canal and worked on many harbours and bridges. He championed the use of Roman cement, the forerunner to Portland.

John Rennie senior was born in East Lothian in 1761 and was soon fascinated by all things mechanical. He worked for Andrew Meikle a millwright who invented the mechanical thresher. He attended the University of Edinburgh and then set off to explore canals. He was introduced by his university professor to James Watt and went to work for Boulton & Watt, his first project being the installation of steam engines at the Albion flour mills in Southwark. From there he set up his own business making food manufacturing machinery.

Canal mania caught up with him and he produced magnificent civil engineering structures including the Caen Hill flight of locks on the Kennet and Avon canal. He went on to design docks including the East and West India docks and bridges including Waterloo and Southwark bridge.

His son George took over the mechanical engineering side of the business eventually becoming fascinated by the mechanics of the screw propellor and he built a number of ships so powered for the navy

The civil engineering business was left to his son John who completed his father’s projects including London Bridge. He went on to design major drainage projects and was involved with railway building. He became president of the ICE in 1845 and received a knighthood for his services.

Both sons were part of the G and J Rennie shipbuilding yard at Greenwich.

John senior’s youngest son was named Matthew Boulton Rennie perhaps underlining the connections.

Further reading:

https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/meet-the-engineers/