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SIR WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. 



SIR WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. 



Sir William Fairbairn was born at Kelso, in Scotland, on the 

 19th of February, 1789. His father was Andrew Fairbairn, a farmer 

 in humble circumstances. His early education was therefore very 

 meagre ; but the mechanical genius which distinguished him in after 

 life showed itself on several occasions while he was yet a boy. At the 

 age of sixteen he was apprenticed to the Percy Main Colliery Com- 

 pany, with wages at eight shillings per week, which he was enabled 

 to increase by overwork. His duties were mainly in the engineering 

 department of the works. What he learned here practically, he supple- 

 mented by a regular course of study in the evenings. Every evening 

 of the week had its appointed work, — INlondays, arithmetic and men- 

 suration ; Tuesdays, history and poetry ; Wednesdays, recreation, novels 

 and romances ; Thursdays, algebra ; Friday?!, geometry and trigonom- 

 etry; Saturdays, recreation. His persistent efforts, aided by great 

 natural ability, enabled him to remedy in great part the want of early 

 training. 



At the age of twenty-one he went to London in search of work, and 

 remained there about two years. Thence he worked his way through 

 the south of England and Wales to Ireland, remaining in Dublin, at 

 the Phoenix Foundry, about six months. In 1814 he made his way 

 to Manchester; and, after working there about two years as a journey- 

 man millwright, he commenced business for himself, in connection with 

 a shopmate, James Lillie, — a partnership that continued fifteen years. 

 His specialty was mill-work ; and he soon made such improvements in 

 the machinery of mills that his success in life was at once assured. 

 Here he be!]:an the introduction of wrought iron as a building material ; 

 and to his persistency and success in its use is due much of the credit 

 of the subsequent rapid increase of the employment of wrought iron in 

 machinery, bridges, and ships. In 1831 he built a small iron vessel, 

 one of the first constructed ; and its success was so great that he estab- 

 lished in 1835 the extensive works for iron ship-building at JMillwall 

 on the Thames, where, in the next fourteen years, he built about one 

 hundred and twenty iron ships, some of which were of very large size. 



When Eobert Stephenson was engaged upon the designs for the 

 Conway and Britannia bridges, Mr. Fairbairn, in connection with Mr. 

 Hodgkinson, made an elaborate series of experiments to determine the 

 best form of tubular girders, and thus contributed materially to the 

 success of those works. These experiments, and others upon solid and 

 built iron beams,, upon riveted joints, the properties of cast iron, <;oI- 



