Dictionary of Scottish Business Biography

SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines

[br]

[br]

[br]

Howden was educated in Prestonpans. While aged only 14 or 15, he travelled across Scotland by canal to Glasgow, where he served an engineering apprenticeship with James Gray \& Co. In 1853 he completed his time and for some months served with the civil engineers Bell and Miller, and then with Robert Griffiths, a designer of screw propellers for ships. In 1854, at the age of 22, Howden set up as a consulting engineer and designer. He designed a rivet-making machine from which he realized a fair sum by the sale of patent rights, this assisting him in converting the design business into a manufacturing one. His first contract for a marine engine came in 1859 for the compound steam engine and the watertube boilers of the Anchor Liner Ailsa Craig. This ship operated at 100 psi (approximately 7 kg/cm²), well above the norm for those days. James Howden \& Co. was formed in 1862. Despite operating in the world's most competitive market, the new company remained prosperous through the flow of inventions in marine propulsion. Shipbuilding was added to the company's list of services, but such work was subcontracted. Work was obtained from all the great shipping companies building in the Glasgow region, and with such throughput Howden's could afford research and experimentation. This led to the Howden hot-air forced-draught system, whereby furnace waste gases were used to heat the air being drawn into the combustion chambers. The first installation was on the New York City, built in 1885 for West Indian service. Howden's fertile mind brought about a fully enclosed high-speed marine steam engine in the 1900s and, shortly after, the Howden-Zoelly impulse steam turbine for land operation. Until his death, Howden worked on many technical and business problems: he was involved in the St Helena Whaling Company, marble quarrying in Greece and in the design of a recoilless gun for the Admiralty.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

[br]

[br]

[br]

After working as a millwright in Halifax, Riley found employment at the Ormesby Ironworks in Middlesbrough until, in 1869, he became manager of the Askam Ironworks in Cumberland. Three years later, in 1872, he was appointed Blast-furnace Manager at the pioneering Siemens Steel Company's works at Landore, near Swansea in South Wales. Using Spanish ore, he produced the manganese-rich iron (spiegeleisen) required as an additive to make satisfactory steel. Riley was promoted in 1874 to be General Manager at Landore, and he worked with William Siemens to develop the use of the latter's regenerative furnace for the production of open-hearth steel. He persuaded Welsh makers of tin plate to use sheets rolled from lowcarbon (mild) steel instead of from charcoal iron and, partly by publishing some test results, he was instrumental in influencing the Admiralty to build two naval vessels of mild steel, the Mercury and the Iris.

In 1878 Riley moved north on his appointment as General Manager of the Steel Company of Scotland, a firm closely associated with Charles Tennant that was formed in 1872 to make steel by the Siemens process. Already by 1878, fourteen Siemens melting furnaces had been erected, and in that year 42,000 long tons of ingots were produced at the company's Hallside (Newton) Works, situated 8 km (5 miles) south-east of Glasgow. Under Riley's leadership, steelmaking in open-hearth furnaces was initiated at a second plant situated at Blochairn. Plates and sections for all aspects of shipbuilding, including boilers, formed the main products; the company also supplied the greater part of the steel for the Forth (Railway) Bridge. Riley was associated with technical modifications which improved the performance of steelmaking furnaces using Siemens's principles. He built a gasfired cupola for melting pig-iron, and constructed the first British "universal" plate mill using three-high rolls (Lauth mill).

At the request of French interests, Riley investigated the properties of steels containing various proportions of nickel; the report that he read before the Iron and Steel Institute in 1889 successfully brought to the notice of potential users the greatly enhanced strength that nickel could impart and its ability to yield alloys possessing substantially lower corrodibility.

The Steel Company of Scotland paid dividends in the years to 1890, but then came a lean period. In 1895, at the age of 54, Riley moved once more to another employer, becoming General Manager of the Glasgow Iron and Steel Company, which had just laid out a new steelmaking plant at Wishaw, 25 km (15 miles) south-east of Glasgow, where it already had blast furnaces. Still the technical innovator, in 1900 Riley presented an account of his experiences in introducing molten blast-furnace metal as feed for the open-hearth steel furnaces. In the early 1890s it was largely through Riley's efforts that a West of Scotland Board of Conciliation and Arbitration for the Manufactured Steel Trade came into being; he was its first Chairman and then its President.

In 1899 James Riley resigned from his Scottish employment to move back to his native Yorkshire, where he became his own master by acquiring the small Richmond Ironworks situated at Stockton-on-Tees. Although Riley's 1900 account to the Iron and Steel Institute was the last of the many of which he was author, he continued to contribute to the discussion of papers written by others.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

[br]

[br]

[br]

At the conclusion of his schooling in the South of England, Yarrow became an indentured apprentice to the Thames engine-builder Ravenhill. During this five-year period various incidents and meetings sharpened his interest in scientific matters and he showed the skills that in later years were to be so beneficial to shipbuilding. For two years he acted as London representative for Ravenhill before joining up with a Mr Hedley to form a shipyard on the Isle of Dogs. The company lasted from 1868 until 1875 and in that period produced 350 small launches and other craft. This massive output enabled Yarrow to gain confidence in many aspects of ship design. Within two years of setting out on his own he built his first ship for the Royal Navy: a torpedo boat, then at the cutting edge of technology.

In the early 1890s the company was building watertube boilers and producing destroyers with speeds in excess of 27 knots (50 km/h); it built the Russian destroyer Sokol, did pioneering work with aluminium and with high-tensile steels and worked on shipboard equipment to nullify vibrational effects. With the closure of most of the Thames shipyards and the run-down in skilled labour, Yarrow decided that the shipyard must move to some other part of the United Kingdom. After careful deliberation a green field site to the west of Glasgow was chosen, and in 1908 their first Clyde-built destroyer was launched. The company expanded, more building berths were arranged, boiler construction was developed and over the years they became recognized as specialists in smaller highspeed craft and in "knock down" ships for other parts of the world.

Yarrow retired in 1913, but at the commencement of the First World War he returned to help the yard produce, in four years, twenty-nine destroyers with speeds of up to 40 knots (74 km/h). At the end of hostilities he gave of his time and money to many charities, including those for ex-servicemen. He left a remarkable industrial organization which remains to this day the most prolific builder of surface craft for the Royal Navy.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

David Dale, the son of a grocer, began his working life by herding cattle. His connection with the textile industry started when he was apprenticed to a Paisley weaver. After this he travelled the country buying home-spun linen yarns, which he sold in Glasgow. At about the age of 24 he settled in Glasgow as Clerk to a silk merchant. He then started a business importing fine yarns from France and Holland for weaving good-quality cloths such as cambrics. Dale was to become one of the pre-eminent yarn dealers in Scotland. In 1778 he acquired the first cotton-spinning mill built in Scotland by an English company at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. In 1784 he met Richard Arkwright, who was touring Scotland, and together they visited the Falls of the Clyde near the town of Lanark. Arkwright immediately recognized the potential of the site for driving water-powered mills. Dale acquired part of the area from Lord Braxfield and in 1785 began to build his first mill there in partnership with Arkwright. The association with Arkwright soon ceased, however, and by c.1795 Dale had erected four mills. Because the location of the mills was remote, he built houses for the workers and then employed pauper children brought from the slums of Edinburgh and Glasgow; at one time there were over 400 of them. Dale's attitude to his workers was benevolent and humane. He tried to provide reasonable working conditions and the mills were well designed with a large workshop in which machinery was constructed. Dale was also a partner in mills at Catrine, Newton Stewart, Spinningdale in Sutherlandshire and some others. In 1785 he established the first Turkey red dye works in Scotland and was in partnership with George Macintosh, the father of Charles Macintosh. Dale manufactured cloth in Glasgow and from 1783 was Agent for the Royal Bank of Scotland, a lucrative position. In 1799 he was persuaded by Robert Owen to sell the New Lanark mills for £60,000 to a Manchester partnership which made Owen the Manager. Owen had married Dale's daughter, Anne Caroline, in 1799. Possibly due in part to poor health, Dale retired in 1800 to Rosebank near Glasgow, having made a large fortune. In 1770 he had withdrawn from the established Church of Scotland and founded a new one called the "Old Independents". He visited the various branches of this Church, as well as convicts in Bridewell prison, to preach. He was also a great benefactor to the poor in Glasgow. He had a taste for music and sang old Scottish songs with great gusto.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

Kennedy was the third son of his father, Robert, and went to the village school in Dalry. On his father's death, he was sent at the age of 14 to Chowbent, Lancashire, where he was apprenticed to William Cannan, a maker of textile machines such as carding frames, Hargreaves's jennies and Arkwright's waterframes. On completion of his apprenticeship in 1791, he moved to Manchester and entered into partnership with Benjamin and William Sandford and James M'Connel, textile machine makers and mule spinners. In 1795 this partnership was terminated and one was made with James M'Connel to form the firm M'Connel \& Kennedy, cotton spinners.

Kennedy introduced improvements for spinning fine yarns and the firm of M'Connel \& Kennedy became famous for the quality of these products, which were in great demand. He made the spindles turn faster during the second part of the mule carriage's outward draw, and from 1793 onwards he experimented with driving mules by steam engines. Like William Kelly at New Lanark, he succeeded in making the spinning sequences power-operated by 1800, although the spinner had to take over the winding on. This made the mule into a factory machine, but it still required skilled operators. He was also involved with Henry Houldsworth, Junior, in the improvement of the roving frame. In 1803 Kennedy joined the Manchester Literary \& Philosophical Society, to which he presented several papers, including one in 1830 on "A memoir of Samuel Crompton". He retired from the spinning business in 1826, but continued his technical and mechanical pursuits. He was consulted about whether the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway should have moving or stationary steam engines and was an umpire at the Rainhill Trials in 1829.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping, Steam and internal combustion engines

[br]

[br]

[br]

John was the third son of David Elder. The father came from a family of millwrights and moved to Glasgow where he worked for the well-known shipbuilding firm of Napier's and was involved with improving marine engines. John was educated at Glasgow High School and then for a while at the Department of Civil Engineering at Glasgow University, where he showed great aptitude for mathematics and drawing. He spent five years as an apprentice under Robert Napier followed by two short periods of activity as a pattern-maker first and then a draughtsman in England. He returned to Scotland in 1849 to become Chief Draughtsman to Napier, but in 1852 he left to become a partner with the Glasgow general engineering company of Randolph Elliott \& Co. Shortly after his induction (at the age of 28), the engineering firm was renamed Randolph Elder \& Co.; in 1868, when the partnership expired, it became known as John Elder \& Co. From the outset Elder, with his partner, Charles Randolph, approached mechanical (especially heat) engineering in a rigorous manner. Their knowledge and understanding of entropy ensured that engine design was not a hit-and-miss affair, but one governed by recognition of the importance of the new kinetic theory of heat and with it a proper understanding of thermodynamic principles, and by systematic development. In this Elder was joined by W.J.M. Rankine, Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics at Glasgow University, who helped him develop the compound marine engine. Elder and Randolph built up a series of patents, which guaranteed their company's commercial success and enabled them for a while to be the sole suppliers of compound steam reciprocating machinery. Their first such engine at sea was fitted in 1854 on the SS Brandon for the Limerick Steamship Company; the ship showed an improved performance by using a third less coal, which he was able to reduce still further on later designs.

Elder developed steam jacketing and recognized that, with higher pressures, triple-expansion types would be even more economical. In 1862 he patented a design of quadruple-expansion engine with reheat between cylinders and advocated the importance of balancing reciprocating parts. The effect of his improvements was to greatly reduce fuel consumption so that long sea voyages became an economic reality.

His yard soon reached dimensions then unequalled on the Clyde where he employed over 4,000 workers; Elder also was always interested in the social welfare of his labour force. In 1860 the engine shops were moved to the Govan Old Shipyard, and again in 1864 to the Fairfield Shipyard, about 1 mile (1.6 km) west on the south bank of the Clyde. At Fairfield, shipbuilding was commenced, and with the patents for compounding secure, much business was placed for many years by shipowners serving long-distance trades such as South America; the Pacific Steam Navigation Company took up his ideas for their ships. In later years the yard became known as the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Ltd, but it remains today as one of Britain's most efficient shipyards and is known now as Kvaerner Govan Ltd.

In 1869, at the age of only 45, John Elder was unanimously elected President of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland; however, before taking office and giving his eagerly awaited presidential address, he died in London from liver disease. A large multitude attended his funeral and all the engineering shops were silent as his body, which had been brought back from London to Glasgow, was carried to its resting place. In 1857 Elder had married Isabella Ure, and on his death he left her a considerable fortune, which she used generously for Govan, for Glasgow and especially the University. In 1883 she endowed the world's first Chair of Naval Architecture at the University of Glasgow, an act which was reciprocated in 1901 when the University awarded her an LLD on the occasion of its 450th anniversary.

[br]

RLH / FMW