Kirkaldy's Testing & Experimenting Works

Facts not opinions. Partner with engineering genius – the source of innovation that helped build our world today Kirkaldy’s Testing & Experimenting Works “ Experiencing Kirkaldy’s fAcT An opportunity to partner Putting thE muSEum on a machine testing materials to SuStainaBLE financiaL footing mEanS WE can PLan foR thE destruction gives us direct, futuRE – oPEning daily to with engineering genius – the exciting contact with the WELcomE a divERSE audiEncE. Victorian Testing Works that pioneering ideas of this helped forge our world today! exceptional engineer. But Kirkaldy’s Testing & Experimenting Works on Southwark Street, it also offers new ways to London, is the source for structural engineering and materials explore ideas around art, testing innovations around the world. Ever since he had it shipped from the manufacturers in Leeds, science and innovation. David Kirkaldy’s colossal hydraulic Universal Testing Machine has stood intact and in working order here in London, housed in Ensuring this museum the engineering workshop he designed around it. has a sustainable future is Its near-miraculous survival has been thanks to a group of skilled and dedicated volunteers, custodians of Kirkaldy’s legacy essential if we are to inspire since the 1980s, who have opened the Testing Works as a museum people from every background with monthly demonstrations. and discipline to continue Survival, that is, until now. Southwark Street lies at the heart of an area that is regenerating fast, making the future of this asking these questions.” atmospheric Grade II building – and Kirkaldy’s listed machine inside it – precarious. dr daniel glaser director, Science gallery London, The museum needs to revitalise. We are planning for a future where King’s college London the machine and its remarkable story will reach a much wider and more london.sciencegallery.com diverse audience, with opportunities to experiment, learn, try out ideas and above all, experience the sheer thrill of testing metals to destruction. The very same machine that tested the steel for the iconic Mississippi Bridge in St Louis still makes a huge bang today! The Kirkaldy Testing Museum needs help to make all this happen. To secure the future of the Testing Works and help bring it to the next generation of innovators and engineers we are inviting patrons and sponsors to partner with us. We hope you might be one of them. Kirkaldy’s Testing & Experimenting rs Bridge rs A ckfri LA B Works WATerLoo Bridge soUTHWArk Bridge Blackfriars Rd London Bridge Southwark St Stamford St Waterloo Rd London Bridge York Rd Waterloo East Southwark 1 Waterloo David Kirkaldy: fAcT in 1864 thE inStitution of “ For the Victorians, building bridges with new The man EnginEERS in ScotLand aWaRdEd KiRKaLdY itS goLd mEdaL foR hiS PaPER ‘ExPERimEntS on iRon Born in 1820, David Kirkaldy was the son of a and StEEL’. materials was the nanotechnology of its day but Dundee merchant and briefly entered his father’s business, but his talent for experimenting and on a truly massive scale. Kirkaldy was at the minute detail found a more natural home in engineering. He took the chance to become heart of this revolution and the survival of his an apprentice to shipbuilder Robert Napier’s Vulcan Foundry in Glasgow. It was an opportune testing machine is a vital reminder to us today time to do so for such an inquiring mind. of the search for truth, even when it isn’t Exciting new materials such as steel were being developed but their properties were not well understood. always popular. Everyone with even the When Napier was contracted in 1858 to build high-pressure steel boilers in which lightness as well as strength was needed Kirkaldy was appointed remotest interest in how bridges stand should to conduct the necessary testing. He was quickly promoted to chief draughtsman and calculator. come to Southwark and see for themselves!” The tests took three and a half years and showed the huge potential of steel over the traditional wrought iron for structures. Kirkaldy resigned dan cruickshank from his job and designed his own Universal Testing Machine, which he historian and TV presenter had built at his own expense. Then he moved south to be at the heart of industrial and engineering London, in Southwark. Kirkaldy never advertised for work, yet the world’s first independent commercial testing service won an international reputation for independence and reliability. This rigorous objectivity was summed up in the motto Kirkaldy had carved over the door lintel at 99 Southwark Street – ‘Facts Not Opinions’. david KiRKaLdY ShoWn in hiS 1897 oBituary in The engineer 2 fAcT The machine KiRKaLdY’S EYE foR dEtaiL ExtEndEd to hiS intRicatE dRaWing, moSt famously hiS BEautifuL dEPiction of thE Between 1861 and 1863 David Kirkaldy designed th StEamShiP ‘PERSia’ that WaS his Universal Testing Machine, patented on 26 SELEctEd in 1861 foR ExhiBition at thE RoYaL acadEmY. noW in November 1863. Built by Greenwood and Batley thE coLLEction at thE nationaL maRitimE muSEum gREEnWich, in Leeds, it was transported first to The Grove, it WaS fEatuREd in david Southwark then eight years later to 99 Southwark dimBLEBY’S tv PRogRammE ‘BRitain and thE SEa’. Street where it has remained ever since. The horizontal water-powered machine itself is massive – 47 feet 7 inches long, weighing some 116 tons and capable of testing columns and girders up to 440 tons from buildings and bridges. It can pull, thrust, bend, twist, N shear, punch and bulge metal beams to breaking point and records how DO N O much hydraulic pressure each takes before its explosive failure. L WICH, Kirkaldy helped solve some of the major structural engineering N problems of his day. , GREE M Within a fortnight of opening, material arrived for testing from the giant engineering company, Krupps of Essen. Kirkaldy’s also tested E MUSEU M steel for James Ead’s iconic Mississippi Bridge at St Louis – one of the earliest and largest steel structures in the world and still in use today – AL MARITI AL as well as iron recovered from the bed of the River Tay after the tragic N bridge collapse of 1879. © NATIO Several of London’s own bridges were also tested by Kirkaldy. Almost immediately after opening Joseph Cubitt engaged him to test materials for Blackfriars Bridge and later each of the huge links for Hammersmith Bridge were tested to destruction here. 4 5 The museum fAcT KiRKaLdY’S alwaYS ShoWEd “ Not enough people know the story yet of comPLEtE faith in thEiR RESuLtS, nEvER incoRPoRating Southwark Street’s location near clients and aS a LimitEd comPanY. foR a other engineering companies was key to Kirkaldy’s cEntury, aS SoLE PRoPRiEtoRS, Kirkaldy. It’s a direct link to the industrial past thEY REtainEd unLimitEd, decision to move here. From the start visitors came PERSonaL LiaBiLitY if thEY oR thEiR WoRKERS WERE EvER of Bankside, a clue to the importance of this to see his ‘Museum of Fractures’ laid out on the found to BE nEgLigEnt. upper floors with thousands of specimens showing the results of every type of testing. area in forging new ideas and bringing them The building itself is an authentic example of the Italianate industrial to the world. Tate Modern supports cultural architecture once so typical of this part of Southwark – but with some distinguishing features, such as opposing doors on the front and rear that allowed very large beams to be tested. creativity in all fields and we are lucky to be at The real importance lies inside, where the almost untouched the heart of a neighbourhood where innovation Victorian engineering works still has its irreplaceable atmosphere. In the basement the huge weight of the machine above becomes has flourished for centuries. Keeping the apparent. In this more domestic setting alongside an untouched Victorian domestic range is another of the museum’s operational Kirkaldy Testing Museum intact and authentic machines, a Denison chain tester. The Kirkaldy Museum Trust was set up in 1983 with a Board of Directors to manage its activities and a small group of friends who show is an important piece of the jigsaw.” visitors round on monthly open days. Like other great museums created by a presiding genius – such as Sir John Soane’s Museum – it feels as though donald Hyslop the founder has not really left, but merely stepped out for a moment. head of Regeneration and community Partnerships, tate modern and chair Better Bankside “ Sitting in Kirkaldy’s leather chair, in his office, next door to his pioneering testing machine, I did hope a bit of his genius might rub off on me.” charlotte fotheringham Structural Engineer at Lyons o’neill 6 fAcT New life for the testing works thE authEnticitY of Both thE machinE and itS SEtting aRE cRuciaL in aLLoWing cREativE nEW PRacticES in a uniquE The survival of the machine and the workshop has SEtting that WiLL BE LoSt brought an exciting new opportunity for the Testing Without SuPPoRt. Works. Recently it has become the remarkable venue for some cutting edge contemporary arts residencies – showcasing not just the work of some of Britain’s leading artists but also the potential for the machine itself to be used in intriguing and creative new ways. New audiences are now discovering Kirkaldy’s story through events such as Open House and Bankside’s annual MERGE arts festival. “ This museum is the only one in Site-specific art projects have brought the machine to life as a the country, if not in the world, collaborator in its own right, in works from sculpture to electro-acoustic to publicly allow visitors to music. The residency by sculptor James Capper allowed him to produce see this kind of equipment still 12 original works testing the variations of stretched steel forms.

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