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1 Cubitt, William
[br]b. 1785 Dilham, Norfolk, Englandd. 13 October 1861 Clapham Common, Surrey, England[br]English civil engineer and contractor.[br]The son of a miller, he received a rudimentary education in the village school. At an early age he was helping his father in the mill, and in 1800 he was apprenticed to a cabinet maker. After four years he returned to work with his father, but, preferring to leave the parental home, he not long afterwards joined a firm of agricultural-machinery makers in Swanton in Norfolk. There he acquired a reputation for making accurate patterns for the iron caster and demonstrated a talent for mechanical invention, patenting a self-regulating windmill sail in 1807. He then set up on his own as a millwright, but he found he could better himself by joining the engineering works of Ransomes of Ipswich in 1812. He was soon appointed their Chief Engineer, and after nine years he became a partner in the firm until he moved to London in 1826. Around 1818 he invented the treadmill, with the aim of putting prisoners to useful work in grinding corn and other applications. It was rapidly adopted by the principal prisons, more as a means of punishment than an instrument of useful work.From 1814 Cubitt had been gaining experience in civil engineering, and upon his removal to London his career in this field began to take off. He was engaged on many canal-building projects, including the Oxford and Liverpool Junction canals. He accomplished some notable dock works, such as the Bute docks at Cardiff, the Middlesborough docks and the coal drops on the river Tees. He improved navigation on the river Severn and compiled valuable reports on a number of other leading rivers.The railway construction boom of the 1840s provided him with fresh opportunities. He engineered the South Eastern Railway (SER) with its daringly constructed line below the cliffs between Folkestone and Dover; the railway was completed in 1843, using massive charges of explosive to blast a way through the cliffs. Cubitt was Consulting Engineer to the Great Northern Railway and tried, with less than his usual success, to get the atmospheric system to work on the Croydon Railway.When the SER began a steamer service between Folkestone and Boulogne, Cubitt was engaged to improve the port facilities there and went on to act as Consulting Engineer to the Boulogne and Amiens Railway. Other commissions on the European continent included surveying the line between Paris and Lyons, advising the Hanoverian government on the harbour and docks at Hamburg and directing the water-supply works for Berlin.Cubitt was actively involved in the erection of the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851; in recognition of this work Queen Victoria knighted him at Windsor Castle on 23 December 1851.Cubitt's son Joseph (1811–72) was also a notable civil engineer, with many railway and harbour works to his credit.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1851. FRS 1830. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1850 and 1851.Further ReadingObituary, 1862, Minutes of 'the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 21:552– 8.LRD -
2 Civil engineering
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3 Ports and shipping
See also: INDEX BY SUBJECT AREA[br]Armstrong, Sir William GeorgeEgerton, FrancisLi GaoPeter the GreatShen GuaStanhope, Charles -
4 Railways and locomotives
Biographical history of technology > Railways and locomotives
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5 Kirkaldy, David
[br]b. 4 April 1820 Mayfield, Dundee, Scotlandd. 25 January 1897 London, England[br]Scottish engineer and pioneer in materials testing.[br]The son of a merchant of Dundee, Kirkaldy was educated there, then at Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, and at Edinburgh University. For a while he worked in his father's office, but with a preference for engineering, in 1843 he commenced an apprenticeship at the Glasgow works of Robert Napier. After four years in the shops he was transferred to the drawing office and in a very few years rose to become Chief. Here Kirkaldy demonstrated a remarkable talent both for the meticulous recording of observations and data and for technical drawing. His work also had an aesthetic appeal and four of his drawings of Napier steamships were shown at the Paris Exhibition of 1855, earning both Napier and Kirkaldy a medal. His "as fitted" set of drawings of the Cunard Liner Persia, which had been built in 1855, is now in the possession of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, London; it is regarded as one of the finest examples of its kind in the world, and has even been exhibited at the Royal Academy in London.With the impending order for the Royal Naval Ironclad Black Prince (sister ship to HMS Warrior, now preserved at Portsmouth) and for some high-pressure marine boilers and engines, there was need for a close scientific analysis of the physical properties of iron and steel. Kirkaldy, now designated Chief Draughtsman and Calculator, was placed in charge of this work, which included comparisons of puddled steel and wrought iron, using a simple lever-arm testing machine. The tests lasted some three years and resulted in Kirkaldy's most important publication, Experiments on Wrought Iron and Steel (1862, London), which gained him wide recognition for his careful and thorough work. Napier's did not encourage him to continue testing; but realizing the growing importance of materials testing, Kirkaldy resigned from the shipyard in 1861. For the next two and a half years Kirkaldy worked on the design of a massive testing machine that was manufactured in Leeds and installed in premises in London, at The Grove, Southwark.The works was open for trade in January 1866 and engineers soon began to bring him specimens for testing on the great machine: Joseph Cubitt (son of William Cubitt) brought him samples of the materials for the new Blackfriars Bridge, which was then under construction. Soon The Grove became too cramped and Kirkaldy moved to 99 Southwark Street, reopening in January 1874. In the years that followed, Kirkaldy gained a worldwide reputation for rigorous and meticulous testing and recording of results, coupled with the highest integrity. He numbered the most distinguished engineers of the time among his clients.After Kirkaldy's death, his son William George, whom he had taken into partnership, carried on the business. When the son died in 1914, his widow took charge until her death in 1938, when the grandson David became proprietor. He sold out to Treharne \& Davies, chemical consultants, in 1965, but the works finally closed in 1974. The future of the premises and the testing machine at first seemed threatened, but that has now been secured and the machine is once more in working order. Over almost one hundred years of trading in South London, the company was involved in many famous enquiries, including the analysis of the iron from the ill-fated Tay Bridge (see Bouch, Sir Thomas).[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsInstitution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland Gold Medal 1864.Bibliography1862, Results of an Experimental Inquiry into the Tensile Strength and Other Properties of Wrought Iron and Steel (originally presented as a paper to the 1860–1 session of the Scottish Shipbuilders' Association).Further ReadingD.P.Smith, 1981, "David Kirkaldy (1820–97) and engineering materials testing", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 52:49–65 (a clear and well-documented account).LRD / FMW -
6 Ransome, Robert
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. 1753 Wells, Norfolk, Englandd. 1830 England[br]English inventor of a self-sharpening ploughshare and all-metal ploughs with interchangeable pans.[br]The son of a Quaker schoolmaster, Ransome served his apprenticeship with a Norfolk iron manufacturer and then went into business on his own in the same town, setting up one of the first brass and iron foundries in East Anglia. At an early stage of his career he was selling into Norfolk and Suffolk, well beyond the boundaries to be expected from a local craftsman. He achieved this through the use of forty-seven agents acting on his behalf. In 1789, with one employee and £200 capital, he transferred to Ipswich, where the company was to remain and where there was easier access to both raw materials and his markets. It was there that he discovered that cooling one part of a metal share during its casting could result in a self-sharpening share, and he patented the process in 1785.Ransome won a number of awards at the early Bath and West shows, a fact which demonstrates the extent of his markets. In 1808 he patented an all-metal plough made up of interchangeable parts, and the following year was making complete ploughs for sale. With interchangeable parts he was able to make composite ploughs suitable for a wide variety of conditions and therefore with potential markets all over the country.In 1815 he was joined by his son James, and at about the same time by William Cubitt. With the expertise of the latter the firm moved into bridge building and millwrighting, and was therefore able to withstand the agricultural depression which began to affect other manufacturers from about 1815. In 1818, under Cubitt's direction, Ransome built the gas-supply system for the town of Ipswich. In 1830 his grandson James Ransome joined the firm, and it was under his influence that the agricultural side was developed. There was a great expansion in the business after 1835.[br]Further ReadingJ.E.Ransome, 1865, Ploughs and Ploughing at the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester in 1865, in which he outlined the accepted theories of the day.J.B.Passmore, 1930, The English Plough, Reading: University of Reading (provides a history of plough development from the eighth century to the in ter-war period).Ransome's Royal Records 1789–1939, produced by the company; D.R.Grace and D.C.Phillips, 1975, Ransomes of Ipswich, Reading: Institute of Agricultural History, Reading University (both provide information about Ransome in a more general account about the company and its products; Reading University holds the company archives).AP -
7 Architecture and building
Biographical history of technology > Architecture and building
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