biography
| name: |
Fairbairn, Sir William
|
pronunciation:
[fairbairn]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1789–1874)
|
| biography:
| Engineer, born in Kelso, Scottish Borders, SE Scotland, UK. He worked as a millwright in Manchester before opening a shipbuilding yard in London, pioneering the use of wrought iron for hulls. For Stephenson's bridges over the Menai Strait and at Conway, he designed the rectangular tubes ultimately adopted, and hydraulic rivetting machines that were partly used for their construction. He aided Joule and Lord Kelvin in 1851 in their investigations, and guided the experiments of the government committee (1861–5) on the use of iron for defensive purposes. |
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