William Fairbairn was a Scottish engineering giant in hall of fame

Both brothers would make their contribution to the Industrial Revolution and both would be recognised with royal honours – though in Peter’s case it would be as much for his political wcork as mayor of Leeds as for his inventions.

I have been meaning to write about the Fairbairns for some time now after I was contacted by a member of the Fairbairn clan who asked if I could find out details of the brothers. They are not unique in being high-achieving Scottish engineering siblings – the lighthouse-building Stevensons spring to mind – but I consider them both interesting and outstanding in that for most of their working lives, they were completely separate in their work.

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William first. I say at the outset that he is one of the most neglected figures in the history of British industry. Born into a farming family, his father Andrew was a ploughman who had previously been press-ganged into service in the Royal Navy. His mother Margaret would have six children in all and endured periods of ill health. William was educated in the local parish school and later remembered being fascinated with model engines.

Andrew moved the family to Moy, south of Inverness, before he landed a job as steward of the farm belonging to the owners of Percy Main Colliery near Newcastle. Thus William was able to gain a seven-year apprenticeship as a millwright at the age of 15.

With no access to higher education, Fairbairn was very much a self-taught man, and his trade gave him a great understanding of the practices of ironworkers in general. He also made a friend at a nearby colliery – one George Stephenson.

An engraving depicting William Fairbairn's swan-necked tubular crane (Image: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Alongside his training, Fairbairn became a voracious reader and preferred self-improvement to carousing, though he had many friends. He would study mathematics for years, but late in life was also a senior figure in literary and philosophical circles – a real “lad o’ pairts”.

After several years as a journeyman millwright moving from pit to pit for work, Fairbairn went to London where he had his first success with the invention of a sausage machine for which he earned £33. Eventually, he arrived in Manchester in 1813 and worked for Thomas Hewes who was a former millwright like Fairbairn who had branched out into iron construction.

Four years later, Fairbairn set up business with James Lillie as Fairbairn And Lillie Engine Makers. His timing could not have been better, as Britain was about to be transformed by iron – with ships, trains, and bridges all beginning to use the metal. It was also a bold move for Fairbairn who had married his wife Dorothy, née Marr, a year earlier. They would have six children in all.

The firm was soon renowned for the quality of its work, and Fairbairn was in demand for all sorts of commissions, including building the first iron paddle-steamer, the Lord Dundas, in Manchester in 1830. He developed a shipyard at Millwall and specialised in iron-built ships – his firm made about 80 of them – before he retired from that business in 1848. It was the first shipyard on the Thames to build iron ships.

By now, Fairbairn was well-known for his influential work with iron in both mills and ships and was seen as the prime mover in the ironwork industry, even before moving on to iron bridges – developing the “box girder” concept that was used in the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait, among many others. The Britannia should not be confused with the Menai Suspension Bridge developed years before by Fairbairn’s fellow Scot, Thomas Telford.

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Fairbairn was essentially an experimental engineer, and he was excited at the huge prospects the coming of the railways brought to Britain. He travelled across England and Scotland before settling into the production of steam locomotives at Millwall. He would eventually supervise the building of 400 such locomotives.

His experiments on boilers and pressures led to the invention of the famous Lancashire boiler in 1844. He continued to improve it for years and it became the standard boiler.

He was much concerned with the concept of metal fatigue and wrote highly influential works on the subject – so much so that in 1861, the UK parliament set up an inquiry into the issue and got Fairbairn to chair it. He became the third president of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers after George and Robert Stephenson.

The rewards came thick and fast for Fairbairn who gained considerable wealth but never displayed it flashily. He was honoured in France and the USA and was made 1st Baronet of Ardwick in Lancashire in 1869. He died at the age of 85 at his home at Farnham on August 18, 1874.

His citation in the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame says it all: “William Fairbairn was the greatest mill-builder and experimental engineer of the middle quarters of the 19th 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 stands as an icon of the heroic age of Victorian engineering, straddling the era of practically trained ingenious millwright and professional engineer.”

Next week, I will tell the equally inspiring story of Sir Peter Fairbairn who rose from ploughman’s son to become a celebrated inventor in the textile industry and also a shrewd politician and mayor of Leeds.