FAIRBAIRN, SIR WILLIAM, BART. (1789-1874), Scot tish engineer, was born on Feb. 19, 1789 at Kelso, Roxburghshire, where his father was a farm-bailiff. In 1803 he obtained work at three shillings a week as a mason's labourer on the bridge then being built by John Rennie at Kelso; but within a few days he was incapacitated by an accident. During his apprenticeship as a mill wright at Percy Main he made the acquaintance of George Stephenson, who then had charge of an engine at a neighbouring colliery. In 1817 he entered into partnership with a shopmate, James Lillie, with whose aid he hired an old shed in High street, Manchester, where he set up a lathe and began the business which became famous throughout the world. Fairbairn investigated the use of iron in shipbuilding, and made exhaustive experiments on its strength as a building material. In 1835 he established a ship building yard at Millwall, London, but his preoccupation with scientific investigation and other matters diverted his attention, and the business was sold at a loss.
In 1845 he was employed, with Robert Stephenson, in construct ing the tubular railway bridges across the Conway and Menai Straits. Fairbairn investigated the construction of steam boilers, in which he effected many improvements. His fertility and readi ness of invention greatly aided an inquiry carried out at his Man chester works (1851) by Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and J. P. Joule, at the instigation of William Hopkins, to deter mine the melting points of substances under great pressure; and from 1861 to 1865 he was employed to guide the experiments of the government committee appointed to inquire into the "appli cation of iron to defensive purposes." He died at Moor Park, Surrey, on Aug. 18, 1874. He declined a knighthood in 1861, but accepted a baronetcy in 1369.
His youngest brother, Sir PETER FAIRBAIRN (I799-1 861) , founded a large machine manufacturing business in Leeds. Start ing on a small scale with flax-spinning machinery, he subsequently extended his operations to the manufacture of textile machinery in general and to engineering tools. He was knighted in 1858.
See The Life of Sir William Fairbairn, partly written by himself and edited and completed by Dr. William Pole (1877).