William Fairbairn
1789 – 1874
Sir William Fairbairn, 1st Baronet of Ardwick, civil engineer, mechanical engineer, structural engineer and industrialist
Engineering Achievements
William Fairbairn was the greatest mill-builder and experimental engineer of the middle quarters of the nineteenth century, a major contributor to iron shipbuilding during the critical decade 1835-44, and to wrought-iron bridges during two of the most formative decades in bridge-building, 1845-64.
He advanced understanding of material strengths and properties which he applied in the design of multi-storey iron-framed mills, wrought iron ships (where he made a significant contribution to understanding the response to changing forces on the hull) and bridges. Fairbairn built 1000 bridges and his major contribution was in the design, testing and manufacture of iron bridges made from long riveted tubular section girders. Of these the two best known are the Conwy (1848) and Britannia (1850) bridges, the building of both being overseen by Robert Stephenson. Fairbairn stands as an icon of the heroic age of Victorian engineering, straddling the era of practically-trained ingenious millwright and professional engineer.
His Life
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1789 Born 19th February to Andrew Fairbairn, farm steward and Margaret Henderson. Baptised 8th March in Kelso, Scotland
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1799-1803 Age: 10-14 Educated at Munlochy parish school, Ross-shire
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1804-11 Age: 15 Apprentice millwright at Percy Main Colliery, Newcastle
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1811-17 Age: 22 Journeyman millwright
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1813 Age: 24 Settled in Manchester
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1817 Age: 28 Established Fairbairn & Lillie, Manchester
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1818 Age: 29 Transformed factory power transmission
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1822 Age: 33 Major waterwheels, including Catrine and Deanston
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1825-45 Age: 36- Experiments with Eaton Hodgkinson on Strength of Materials
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1828-74 Age: 39- Stationary steam engines - beam, columnar, marine, horizontal
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1830 Age: 41 Experiments on the Forth & Clyde Canal
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1830 Age: 41 First iron bridge on a main-line railway
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1830 Age: 41 Elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers
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1830-35 Age: 41- Shipbuilding at Ancoats
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1832 Age: 43 Became Sole Principal
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1835 Age: 46 First Iron steamship on the European Lakes
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1835-44 Age: 46- 100 iron ships built at Millwall on the Thames
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1836 Age: 47 Travis Brook Mill, Stockport
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1836 Age: 47 Dixon's Shaddon Mill, Carlisle
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1836 Age: 47 Bailey Brothers Mill, Stalybridge, with marine engine
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1837 Age: 48 Mills in Russia
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1837 Age: 48 First iron steamship certified by Lloyds
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1837 Age: 48 Retained load/creep tests
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1838 Age: 49 Vienna Locomotive Works
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1838 Age: 49 First iron Royal Yacht, for Nicholas I of Russia
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1838 Age: 49 Riveting machine patented
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1838-39 Age: 49- Experiments on strength of iron plates and rivets
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1838-62 Age: 49- 500 railway locomotives
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1839 Age: 50 Factories in Turkey, including prefabricated corn mill
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1839-40 Age: 50- High pressure pumping engine for Belgian coal-mine
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1840 Age: 51 Iron Duke is the first iron steamship to cross the Atlantic
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1841 Age: 52 The Rose is the first iron steamship to reach Australia
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1844 Age: 55 Lancashire Boiler patented
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1844 Age: 55 Steamship Sir Henry Pottinger for P&O
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1845-9 Age: 56- Experiments for Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges
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1845- Age: 56- 1,000 tubular-girder, plate girder and lattice bridges
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1846 Age: 57 First 'fireproof' mill in France, La Foudre, Rouen
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1847 Age: 58 Pumping and winding engines at Astley Deep Pit, Dukinfield
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1850 Age: 61 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society
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1850- Age: 61- Tubular swan-neck cranes
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1850 Age: 61 Cotton Mill, Gefle, Sweden
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1851-3 Age: 62-4 Spinning and weaving Alpaca mill at Saltaire, near Bradford. The largest factory when built.
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1852 Age: 63 Elected to Académie des Sciences, Paris
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1854 Age: 65 Floating corn mill, Sebastopol, Crimea
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1854 Age: 65 Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield
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1854-55 Age: 65- Retires from day-to-day management - becomes consulting engineer
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1854 Age: 65 President of the Institution of Mechanical Enginers
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1855 Age: 66 Cotton Mills in Bombay
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1857 Age: 68 Experiments on Resistance of Tubes to Collapse
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1859 Age: 70 Elected Honorary Member of Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland
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1859 Age: 70 Longest span bridge in Australia, Barwon, Victoria
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1859-60 Age: 70- Dinting and Mottram Viaducts
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1860 Age: 71 Awarded Honorary Doctorate (LLD) by University of Edinburgh
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1860 Age: 71 Awarded Gold Medal by Royal Society
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1861 Age: 72 President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science
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1861-3 Age: 72- Publication of Mills and Millwork
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1862 Age: 73 Sugar Refinery Warehouse, Dublin
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1869 Age: 80 Honoured with Baronetcy
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1865 Age: 76 Experiments in connection with Atlantic Telegraph Cable
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1870 Age: 81 Patent for five-tube boiler
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1874 Age: 85 Died 18th August in Moor Park, Farnham, Surrey, the home of his son-in-law, JF La Trobe Bateman
His Legacy
Fairbairn was a great experimentalist, demonstrating the value of performing tests and trials to help develop designs. He wrote and lectured extensively to learned societies, and some of his books became standard texts for practising engineers. Mills and Millwork (in two Parts, 1861 and 1863) went to three editions in his lifetime. He trained a significant number of gifted engineers including five who became Professors of Engineering. It is to Fairbairn and Rankine that modern mechanical engineering science owes its origin: Rankine made unique contributions to theory and Fairbairn's unique place in engineering history is as the master of engineering experiment. More than any of his contemporaries he pointed the way to advances in engineering by scientific experiment. His obituary in The Engineer included:
"it is difficult to discover a branch of the art of mechanical engineering to which Fairbairn has not contributed something. His footprints may be found on every path that the engineer can tread, and the sands of time will never eface them."
More Information
Remarks on Canal Navigation etc William Fairbairn, London, 1831
Observations on Improvements of the Town of Manchester etc William Fairbairn, Manchester, 1836
A List of Wheel Patterns, etc William Fairbairn, Manchester, 1842
An account of the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges, and Atlas William Fairbairn, London, 1849
On the Application of Cast and Wrought Iron to Building Purposes William Fairbairn, London, 1854
Useful Information for Engineers William Fairbairn, London, 1856
Iron, its History, Properties and Processes of Manufacture William Fairbairn, C.E., Edinburgh, 1861
Treatise on Mills and Millwork William Fairbairn, Esq., C.E. London. Part I (1861); Part II (1863)
Treatise on Iron Ship Building: its History and Progress William Fairbairn, London, 1865
Lives of the engineers, S. Smiles, new edn, 1874
Sir William Fairbairn, The Engineer, p.154, 21st August 1874
Obituary, Sir William Fairbairn, Bart., F.R.S., 1789-1874, Minutes of the Proceedings of the ICE, Vol.39, pp.251-264, London, 1875
The life of Sir William Fairbairn, bart., William Pole, ed., Longmans, Green & Co. 1877
William Fairbairn: the experimental engineer Richard Byrom, Railway and Canal Historical Society, 2017
Fairbairn, Sir William, FRS. Entry in Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers. Vol 2. pp.272-276. James Sutherland, 2008.
There is a statue of Sir WIlliam Fairbairn in Manchester Town Hall
A portrait of Fairbairn by Charles Allen du Val was exhibited at the Royal Manchester Insitution and the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1869
There are two portraits (a carte-de-visite and a mezzotint) of Fairbairn held in the National Portrait Gallery
There are two portraits (engravings) of Fairbairn in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
There are eight Lancashire Boilers in the National Mining Museum, Scotland
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry (full text available to subscribers and UK library members)
Thanks to Richard Byrom, most recent and comprehensive biographer of William Fairbairn, for his assistance in compiling this page.