370 



NATURE 



\J\iarch I, 1877 



THE LIFE OF SIR WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN 



The Life of Sir William Fairbairn, Bart, F.R.S., LL.D., 

 D.C.L., &^c. Partly Written by Himself. Edited and 

 Completed by William Pole, F.R.S., Member of Council 

 of the Institution of Civil Engineers. (London : 

 Longmans, 1877.) 



'"r*HE art of Engineering is one by which above all others 



J- the influence of science upon the civilisation of the 

 world has been proclaimed with the loudest voice. Astro- 

 nomy may deal with far more tremendous mechanical 

 problems and may have done more for establishing the 

 exactness of scientific research. Chemistry may have done 

 much for the amelioration of suffering, and have given to 

 the world vast commercial enterprises. Geology and Metal- 

 lurgy have told men where to find and how to use the wealth 

 beneath their feet ; and to Physics we owe the Electric 

 Telegraph and a thousand things besides. But Engineer- 

 ing, combining all of them with much that is its own, goes 

 out to the world and makes itself heard and known by 

 every class. Millions who never heard of the Nautical 

 Almanac see the feats of navigation and the power of 

 ocean ships. The locomotive, diving under mountains 

 or flying over valleys leaving civilisation in its track, 

 preaches the power of steam to people who may never 

 hear of the dynamical nature of heat. And the splendid 

 machinery by which the commonest things of life are 

 made testifies to the greatness and humanising influence 

 of that art which, above every other, directs the great 

 powers in Nature to the use and convenience of man. 



To Engineering, civil and mechanical, this country, 

 more perhaps than any other, owes its wealth and not a 

 little of its fame ; and the British public has always 

 delighted to honour the veterans of the profession to 

 which its country owes so much, more especially those 

 who by great originality of mind, broad unprejudiced 

 common sense, sound reasoning, and indomitable perse- 

 verance, triumphing over all opposition and difficulty, 

 and abandoning the beaten paths of their fellow-men 

 (whenever those paths led wide of their mark), have cut 

 out for themselves new roads and made themselves 

 pioneers in their profession, adding to it fresh lustre, 

 and lifting themselves thereby from a humble position of 

 life to a great and honoured place in the estimation of 

 their fellow-men. Of such men as Brindley, Watt, 

 Telford, Stephenson, Rennie, Maudslay, Nasmyth, Whit_ 

 worth, and Fairbairn, this country may justly be proud 

 for with their names are mixed up, in no small degree, its 

 prosperity and its fame. 



The story of such eventful lives cannot but be full of 

 interest and instruction \ interesting as tales of the vicis- 

 situdes of fortune, the difficulties, trials, hardships, and 

 triumphs inseparable from the life of a " self-made " man, 

 and instructive in the highest degree, as putting upon 

 record the history and development of those branches of 

 hum.an progress which played so important a part in the 

 drama of their lives. 



The career of Sir William Fairbairn, which extended 

 over eighty-five years, was an exceptionally eventful one, 

 and the biography before us possesses an especial in- 

 terest from the fact of its being partly written by himself, 

 and written, too, in so pleasant and animated a style as to 

 carry the reader with him into all the scenes of his life, 



and to show that he was as accomplished a writer as he 

 was a mechanician. Indeed, he was a mos: prolific 

 author, having given to the world some eighty publica- 

 tions, several being of the highest scientific character, 

 and published in the Philosophical Transactions, as well 

 as several large and important works upon engineering 

 subjects. 



William Fairbairn, like his friend, George Stephenson, 

 raised himself from the humblest rank of life, being the 

 son of a small farmer or " portioner " of Kelso, where he 

 was born in the year 1789. When little over four years 

 old he attended the parish school, where he learnt to read 

 from some of the best poets and prose-writers, and in his 

 own words, " if to these be added a course of Arithmetic 

 as far as Practice and the ilule-of-Three, they will consti- 

 tute the whole of my stock of knowledge up to my tenth 

 year." He gives a lively description of the hard training 

 which prevailed in Scotland at that period, and of the 

 severity with which discipline was enforced in the Scottish 

 schools. At the age of fifteen Fairbairn was apprenticed 

 to a Mr. Robinson, a millwright at the Percy Main Colliery, 

 near North Shields, and here he had a rough time of it. 

 Surrounded by temptations of every kind, and with the 

 lowest possible of companions to associate with, he 

 sketched out for himself a weekly curriculum of study, 

 in which literature, mathematics, and recreation Avere 

 pretty evenly distributed. This he kept up with wonder- 

 ful constancy, and in a short time was able to turn the 

 tables upon those who ridiculed him, by proving the 

 superiority which learning gave him. 



It was also at this time that he made the acquaintance of 

 George Stephenson, who had then charge of an engine at 

 Willington Ballast Hill, only a mile or two from Percy Main 

 Colliery. The two young men, who were nearly of the 

 same age, and were both earnest in their love for mecha- 

 nics, here formed a friendship which lasted through life. 

 It is on record that in the summer evenings Fairbairn was 

 accustomed to go over and see his friend, and would fre- 

 quently attend to the Ballast Hill engine for a few hours, 

 in order to enable Stephenson to take a two or three 

 hours' turn at heaving ballast out of the collier vessels, 

 by which he earned a small addition to his regular wages ; 

 and he often, in after life, alluded with pride and satis- 

 faction to his early intimacy and close friendship with the 

 great founder of the railway system. 



At the age of twenty-one, Fairbairn, wishing to see 

 more of the world, and being at this time of a roving dis ■ 

 position, went in search of other employment, which he 

 obtained first at Newcastle, then at Bedlington. From 

 here he went to London in the winter of 181 1 with 

 2/. js. 6d. in his pocket, and immediately set out to look 

 for work, which he failed to get, through the tyranny of 

 the Millwright's Trades-union Society. For some time 

 after this William Fairbairn was more or less a " rolling 

 stone," travelling about the country picking up odd repair' 

 ing jobs, and seldom remaining in one place for long. 



We find him in Bath, Bristol, South Wales, Dublin, 

 Liverpool, and Manchester, which he entered in the 

 winter of 18 13, when he was in his twenty- fourth year, 

 and obtained employment with Mr. Adam Parkinson, 

 with whom he remained two years : he was at this time 

 earning thirty shillings per week, and this enabled him 

 to fulfil in 1 816 his engagement of marriage, which had 



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