Aaron Manby

Aaron Manby (born November 15, 1776 Albrighton , Shropshire , England , † December 1, 1850 Isle of Wight , England) was an English engineer and founder of the Horseley Iron Works . The ship named after him, Manby, was the first steamship to have an iron hull and it was powered by an oscillating steam engine patented by Aaron Manby .

Life

Aaron Manby was the third son of Aaron Manby of Kingston , Jamaica and his wife Jane Lane. His mother was from the Lanes of Bentley. From this house came another Jane Lane, who in 1651 helped Charles II escape after the lost battle of Worcester . In his early years, Aaron Manby probably worked in a bank on the Isle of Wight. From 1812 he was a partner in the Horseley Coal and Iron Company in Tipton in Staffordshire . The company operated coal mines, blast furnaces for the production of iron and various commercial enterprises. In 1813 Manby received a patent (No. 3705) on the use of the slag from blast furnaces as a building material. Around this time he founded the Horseley Iron Works in Tipton where he produced steam engines and cast iron .

The Manby , the first steamship with an iron hull.

In 1821 he applied for a patent (No. 4558) in England for a special steam engine for use in watercraft, which he called the oscillating machine. He was not the inventor of this steam engine, which was developed by William Murdoch in 1785 and patented by Richard Witty in 1813 . However, he was the first to use the oscillating steam engine in practice. In France , too , he acquired a patent for this machine in the same year and expanded it to include ships made of iron and an improved feathered paddle wheel. Now he began building the iron steamship Manby , which was built at Horseley Iron Works. The individual parts were transported to the Surrey Docks in Rotherhithe near London and assembled there. On May 9, 1822, the 32.56 m long and 5.23 m wide ship was tested on the Thames . Aaron Manby planned a steamship company that made trips to France. He found a supporter in Captain Charles John Napier . At the beginning of June 1822 he started the crossing to France with Charles Napier and his son Charles Manby . To the amazement of the residents, they reached Paris on June 11th . The Manby was thus the first iron ship to go on a sea voyage and the first ship to sail from London to Paris. The ship operated on the Seine in the following years . The Horseley Iron Works built more iron steamers in the following years.

In 1819, Aaron Manby founded an ironworks in Charenton-le-Pont which Daniel Wilson, a chemist from Dublin , ran. The establishment of this company led to the establishment of other similar factories in France. In 1825 the founders were awarded a gold medal by the Societe d'Encouragement. Manby's success led to the development of steam engine production in France independent of England. On May 12, 1821, Aaron Manby, along with Daniel Wilson and Henry, filed a patent for the production and purification of gas . The patent also included "portable gas" which was supplied in compressed form in stable pressure vessels. In May 1822 Manby and Wilson received a concession to illuminate the city of Paris with gas light. Despite the great competition, the Manby-Wilson Company was able to exist until 1847. In 1826 Aaron Manby bought the largest iron foundry in France in Le Creusot . The factory was equipped with improved machinery from the Charenton-le-Pont factory. About two years later, the two companies were combined in the Society Anonyme des Mines, Forges et Fonderies du Creusot et de Charenton.

Aaron Manby returned to England around 1840 and initially lived in Fulham . He later lived in Ryde on the Isle of Wight. He spent the last years of his life in Shanklin where he died on December 1st, 1850.

Aaron Manby was married twice. From his first marriage to Juliana Fewster, he had a son, Charles. After Juliana died in 1807, he married Sarah Haskins that same year. With his second wife he had a daughter Sarah and three sons John Richard (1813-1869), Joseph Lane (1814-1862) and Edward Oliver (1816-1864). All of the sons were engineers who mainly worked abroad.

literature

• Dictionary of National Biography , 1885-1900, Volume 36, Lemma Manby, Aaron

Web links

• Grace's Guide to British Industrial History: Aaron Manby

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Aaron Manby's will