Sir William Fairbairn 1789-1874

his mother was the daughter of a Jedburgh tradesman and she clothed the family by her efforts at the spinning wheel, making and dyeing cloth, blankets and shirting.

William began at an early age to demonstrate his construction skills by building boats and little mills. From an uncle living in Galashiels, William learned book-keeping and land surveying. He obtained work on the construction of Kelso Bridge. However he suffered an injury when a huge stone rolled onto his leg.

The family moved to North Shields, where his father obtained employment as a land steward. William became apprenticed to a millwright at Newcastle. However he read Plaque on wall in Roxburgh Street avidly and continued his mathematical and other studies, by educating himself from libraries. Because of this technical He constructed over 80 vessels for the Peninsular and Oriental ingenuity he was appointed to look after engines at the Company and others for the British Government introducing Percy Main colliery, where he became acquainted with iron shipbuilding to the River Thames. This experience led him George Stephenson. to conceive the idea of a rectangular tube or box girder to bridge the large gap between Anglesey and North Wales. Moving to London in 1811 he secured an introduction to the Society of Arts and to Alexander Tilloch who was the Fairbairn was elected President of the Institution of founder of the Philosophical Magazine. Tilloch employed him Mechanical engineers in 1854. He often spoke at the in the construction of a steam engine to be used for digging. British Association and served as a juror in the London In 1817 he set up in partnership with James Lillie to provide exhibitions of 1851 and 1852, receiving the Gold Medal of machinery for cotton mills. They also made water wheels for the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural the Catrine Cotton Works in Ayrshire and built a light iron Knowledge (known as Royal Society) in 1860. He also served steamship to work on the Forth and Clyde Canal. In 1824, as a juror at the Paris exhibition in 1855. He was made a Fairbairn went to Zurich to erect 2 watermills, surmounting member of the Légion d’honneur in 1855 and also became a Sir William Fairbairn – picture SCRAN the problem of irregular water supply by constructing wheels foreign member of the Institut de France. which worked regularly whatever the river height. Born 3rd March 1789, in a house at the corner of Roxburgh Fairbairn declined a knighthood in 1861; however he Street and Chalkheugh Terrace, Kelso commemorated by a When the recession hit the cotton industry Fairbairn moved accepted a baronetcy in 1869. When he died in 1874, 50,000 plaque. in to the locomotive boiler manufacture, where he greatly people attended his funeral. He is buried at Prestwick, improved steam boilers and often was called as an expert Northumberland. William Fairbairn attended a private school run by Mr Ker, witness if deaths had occurred due to a boiler explosion. before attending the English school under Mr. White. His He invented the riveting machine which enabled factories grandfather was a gardener to the Baillies of Mellerstain. His to speed up their operations. His diversification after the father Andrew Fairbairn, a farmer served in the Navy during cotton recession also led him to shipbuilding. the American War of Independence. Margaret Fairbairn,

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