(Portrait by Graham Gilbert)
William Murdock 1754 - 1839
William Murdock was born at Bellow Mill near Cumnock, Ayrshire on August
21 1754.
His rise to engineering fame began at the Soho works of Boulton and
Watt. In 1777 he walked to the factory in Birmingham and on his arrival,
Matthew Boulton remarked on his peculiar oval shaped wooden hat. When asked
where he got it, Murdock replied that he turned it on a lathe that he himself
had made - not surprisingly he got the job.
In 1779 he was sent off to Cornwall, where many of Boulton & Watts
steam engines were being introduced to the mines. He stayed in Redruth
for 19 years setting up steam engines, but while he was there he made some
of the greatest, but unsung, discoveries.
The Steam Locomotive
William Murdock was obviously a clever man and excelled in all areas
of engineering, but he wasn't overly ambitious. This is probably why his
Steam Locomotive is virtually unheard of. Way back in 1784 he built a number
of small steam carriages powered by tiny, yet 'space aged' high pressure
steam engines.
Where B & W were persisting with using the power of atmospheric
pressure to force a piston to move, Murdock used the pressure of the steam
to move a tiny 20mm piston inside a small cylinder. This produced enough
power to drive the small model carriage which he 'made travil a mile or
two in River's great room, making it carry the fire shovel, poker and tongs.'
You would think that he would be off in a flash to patent this fantastic
development. Well, he did. He hopped on a coach to London with his model
but co-incidentally he ran into Matthew Boulton at Exeter.Boulton had a
'parley' with him and convinced him to forget about high pressure steam
locomation. Indeed, Boulton and Watt wanted Murdoch to concentrate on their
mining engines and 'let such as Symington and Sadler throw away their time
and money hunting shadows'.
It was clearly a great idea, and it pre-empted Trevithics locomotive
by 20 years but the world was deprived its use for a generation because
of the stubborness of Boulton and Watt.
Murdock turned his talents to a host of other things. He is credited
with inventing coal gas lighting - he ran a pipe into his front room at
Redruth as early as 1792. He invented a way of making stone pipes out of
the granite that was prevalent in Cornwall and, most importantly, he devise
a new way of clarifying beer!
During the Napoleonic war, supplies of Isinglass, made from the dried
swim bladders of the Sturgeon fish, were cut off. Murdock found a way of
clearing the beer with 'Isinglass made from British Fish', which after
a few court cases was recognised as a suitable replacement for the very
expensive and hard to get Sturgeon's Isinglass.
Profile By BBC Eduvcation
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