Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/886

Rh 850 FAIRBAIRN lections. He afterwards received additional instruction in reading, writing, and accounts, and obtained from his uncle, who was a parish schoolmaster, some knowledge of mensura tion ; but &quot; the want of a good grammatical course, and a slight knowledge of the classics,&quot; was a frequent subject of regret to him in his subsequent life. Other circumstances worthy of notice connected with his earlier years were his fondness for athletic exercises, which often tempted him to the performance of daring feats in climbing, and the early development of his mechanical genius, which first displayed itself in the construction of a waggon to save him self the trouble and fatigue of carrying his infant brother on his back. It is somewhat remarkable that the other efforts of his mechanical genius in boyhood had reference chiefly to ships and mills, with the construction of both of which his name was subsequently so largely associated. In 1803 it was found necessary that Fairbairn should contri bute something to the very straitened family income, and he obtained work at three shillings a week as a mason s labourer on the Ronnie bridge at Kelso; but a serious accident which happened to him a few days after beginning this employment not only deprived the family of the smill help of his earnings, but, by the expense it entailed, con tributed to bring them almost to the brink of starvation. His father having, however, shortly after this obtained the situation of steward on a farm connected with Percy M;iin Colliery near North Shields, William obtained employment as a carter in tonnexion with the colliery. Here, on account of his &quot; Scotch accent and different manner, he became the mark of every species of annoyance,&quot; and had to take part in no less than seventeen pugilistic encounters before he was &quot; able to attain a position calculated to en sure respect.&quot; In March 1801 an immense change for the better occurred in his surroundings and prospects, by his being bound an apprentice to a millwright at Percy Mains. He now commenced a systematic course of self-improvement, assigning each day of the week to a particular subject of study, and devoting also a fixed amount of lib time tu recreation and amusement. Besides obtaining by unaided application a pretty complete knowledge of practical mathematics he contrived to go through an extensive course of general reading ; and an attachment he formed to a young girl, whom he afterwards married, by leading him to begin letter writing, was his first stimulus to the practice of literary composition. It was at Percy Mains also that he made the acquaintance of George Stephenson, who then had charge of an engine at a neighbouring colliery, and the friendship thus begun lasted through life. For some years subsequent to the expiry of his term of apprenticeship, Fairbairn, who, with all his forethought and persevering diligence, had still in his composition a strong love of adventure and a spice of recklessness, lived a some what roving life, seldom remaining long in one place and often reduced to very hard straits before he got a job. But soon after his marriage he began seriously to set himself to the attainment of the object he had long contemplated, his emancipation from daily labour ; and in November 1817 ha entered into partnership with a shopmate of the name of Lillie, with whose aid he hired an old shed in High Street, Manchester, where he set up a lathe, and began business. His first order was to renew the &haftwork of an extensive cotton mill, which with great diligence he accomplished within the specified time, and not only satis factorily, but with the substitution of improvements which virtually amounted to a revolution of the whole system of mill construction. Such a successful performance of their first contract immediately secured to the new firm a great reputation, and orders pressed in much faster than they were able with their limited capital to execute them. Their fame soon extended beyond Manchester, and in 1824 Fairbairn was engaged to plan and execute a new arrange ment of the water-power of Catrine cotton works, Ayrshire, where, and at Deanston, Perthshire, he introduced a system of water-wheel construction whose hydraulic power has never been surpassed. In the summer of 1824 he also effected similar improvements in a mill at Zurich, Switzer land. In 1832 Fairbairn dissolved partnership with Lillie, retaining the works in Canal Street to which they had previously removed. In 1 830 he had been employed by the Forth and Clyde Canal Company to make experiments svith the view of determining whether it were possible to construct steamers capable of traversing the canal at a speed which would enable the canal interest to compete success fully with that of the railway ; and the results of his investigation were published by him in 1831, under the title Remarks on Canal Navigation. His plan of using iron boats proved inadequate to overcome the diffi culties of his problem, but it first suggested the construc tion of iron vessels ; and in the development of the use of this material both in the case of merchant vessels and men-of-war the chief merit must be assigned to Fair bairn. In this way also he was led to pursue those ex periments in regard to the strength of iron, according to its combination with other substances, and to various methods of preparation and construction, which have given him a place in this branch of mechanical engineering altogether pre-eminent. In 1835 Fairbairn established, in connexion with his Manchester business, a ship-building yard at Mill- wall, London, where he constructed several hundred vessels, including many for the royal navy; but he ultimately found it impossible with his other engagements to superintend the work in such a satisfactory manner as to make it pay, and at the end of 14 years he disposed of the concern at a great loss. In 1837 he was employed by the sultan of Turkey with the view of assisting in the introduction of the me chanical arts into that country, and after his return home his services were rewarded by a decoration. For several years Fairbairn was engaged, in conjunction with Eaton Hodgkinson, in making experiments on the strength and other properties of iron, and in 1845 he was consulted by Robert Stephenson in reference to the best method of constructing the tubular bridge which the latter designed for carrying the railway across the Conway and Menai Straits. Although the share Fairbairn had in the under taking has been the subject of some dispute, there can be no doubt that he was guided in his experiments chiefly by his own independent judgment, and that he was the in ventor of the rectangular self-supporting tube which was the essential feature of the construction. For this inven tion he, with the concurrence of Stephenson, took out a patent, and he afterwards constructed more than a thousand bridges on the same principle. In reference to his con nexion with the invention, he published a volume entitled An Account of the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tabular Bridges, &c., 1849. In 1849 he was invited by the king of Prussia to submit designs fjr the construction of a bridge across the Rhine, but after various negotiations, another design, by a Prussian engineer, which was a modification of Fairbairn s, was adopted. Another matter which engaged much of Fairbairn s atten tion was steam boilers, in the construction of which he effected many improvements. He is also the inventor of the tubular crane, and took out several patents for the con struction and arrangement of steam machines. In 1851 he greatly aided, by his fertility and readiness of inven tion, in an investigation carried on at his works by Mr Joule and Sir William Thomson in reference to the proper ties of the materials of the earth s surface ; and from 1801 to 1865 he was employed to guide the experiments of the Government committee appointed to inquire into the &quot; appli-