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  bridge at the Menai Straits he consulted Fairbairn, who made many experiments, and was ultimately appointed to superintend the construction of the bridge ‘in conjunction with’ Stephenson. The tube was successfully raised in April 1848. Misunderstandings having arisen as to Fairbairn's precise position, he gave up his appointment, and in 1849 published ‘An Account of the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges, with a complete History of their Progress,’ containing his own account of the affair. In October 1846 he took out a patent for the new principle of wrought-iron girders he had devised for the bridge, although Stephenson shared in the patent. He stated in 1870 that he had built and designed nearly a thousand bridges. In 1849–50 he submitted plans, which, however, were not adopted, for a bridge over the Rhine at Cologne. Fairbairn made many investigations into the properties of the earth's crust in conjunction with William Hopkins [q. v.], the Cambridge mathematician, and was a high authority upon all mechanical and engineering problems.

Fairbairn caught a chill, from which he never recovered, at the opening of the new buildings of Owens College in 1870. He died 18 Aug. 1874 at the house of his son-in-law, Mr. Bateman of Moor Park, Surrey. He was buried at Prestwick, Northumberland.

Fairbairn had seven sons and two daughters by his wife. He declined a knighthood in 1861, but accepted a baronetage in 1869. In 1840 he bought the Polygon, Ardwick, near Manchester, where he lived till his death, and received many distinguished visitors. He spoke often and well at the British Association and similar meetings. He served as juror in the London exhibitions of 1851 and 1862, and at the Paris exhibition of 1855. In 1855 he was made a member of the Legion of Honour, and he was a foreign member of the Institute of France. He received the gold medal of the Royal Society in 1860, and was president of the British Association in 1861. He received the honorary LL.D. degree of Edinburgh in 1860 and of Cambridge in 1862. He was president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1854, and of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society from 1855 to 1860. A full list of his numerous contributions to the ‘Transactions of the Royal Society’ and the proceedings of many scientific and learned bodies is given in the life by Mr. Pole.

[Life of Sir W. Fairbairn, partly written by himself, edited and completed by W. Pole, 1877; Account of the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Bridges, 1849; Smiles's George and Robert Stephenson, and Industrial Biography; Iron, its History, Properties, &c.; Fortunes made in Business; various papers contributed by Fairbairn to the proceedings of scientific societies.]  FAIRBORNE, PALMES (1644–1680), governor of Tangier, was the son of Colonel Stafford Fairborne of Newark (Harl. Soc. Publ. viii. 268–9), and probably related to the Yorkshire family of that name. When a lad he fought as a soldier of fortune in the defence of Candia (Crete) against the Turks (a siege which lasted on and off for twenty years, 1648–69), and, in token of the valour he there displayed, a Turk's head was afterwards included in his arms (see grant or confirmation of arms, about 1677, Grants, iii. 63, by Sir H. Norroy). At the age of seventeen Fairborne was back in England (, Mon. Westmonasteriensia, p. 6366; epitaph on monument). In the autumn of 1661 he enlisted as a captain in the newly formed regiment called the Tangier Regiment of Foot, afterwards the 2nd Queen's, now the Queen's West Surrey Regiment. The regiment mustered one thousand strong, besides officers, on Putney Heath, 14 Oct., and sailed to garrison Tangier, under the command of the Earl of Inchiquin, in January 1662 (see for these and other details Colonel Davis's history of the regiment). During the next eighteen years Fairborne took a prominent part in the defence of Tangier, which was exposed to constant attacks from the Moors, receiving the honour of knighthood for his services (, Rel. of State Affairs, i. 36). By 1664 he had risen to the rank of major. In 1667 he fought a duel with a brother officer, which threatened to have a fatal termination had they not been separated and forced into a reconciliation. The account Fairborne gives of the place in his letters home is deplorable; in 1669 he writes: ‘Tangier never was in a worse condition than at present. I hope some care is taken to remedie this, or else the Lord have mercy upon us’ (, i. 95, &c.). The soldiers were often in want of stores and victuals, and constant desertions took place. Fairborne rode on one occasion alone into the enemy's lines, and brought a deserter back in triumph on his horse (26 Dec. 1669). In May 1676 he was made joint deputy-governor in the absence of the Earl of Inchiquin, and on the death (21 Nov.) of his coadjutor, Colonel Allsop, he had the sole command for the next two years. Under Fairborne's firm and wise rule great improvements took place both in the discipline of the garrison and in the construction of the mole for defence of the harbour. But the pay being two years and a quarter in arrears,