William Fairbairn, Born 1789
pioneer of engineering research
Born to a local farmer, Sir William Fairbairn was a prominent Scottish civil and mechanical engineer. He showed an early mechanical aptitude as an apprentice millwright in Newcastle upon Tyne where he befriended the young George Stephenson. In 1817, he launched his mill-machinery business in Manchester with James Lillie as Fairbairn and Lillie Engine Makers. Fairbairn was a lifelong learner and joined the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1830. In the 1820s and 30s, he and Eaton Hodgkinson conducted a search for an optimal cross section for iron beams. In the 1840s, when Robert Stephenson, the son of his youthful friend George, was trying to develop a way of crossing the Menai Strait, it was Fairbairn, engaged as a consultant, who conceived the idea of a rectangular tube or box girder to bridge the large gap between Anglesey and North Wales. He later moved on a large scale into the building of ships and railway engines.
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Source: This life story of William Fairbard is the 2015 PhD thesis of Richard Byrom at the University of Huddersfield. It is archived here with acknowledgement and thanks.