Mirrlees Blackstone

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The first Mirrlees diesel engine in the Anson Museum

Mirrlees Blackstone was an engineering company founded in Glasgow , Scotland , in 1840 , that built the first UK-made diesel engine .

history

In 1840 the three brothers Peter McOnie, William McOnie and Andrew McOnie founded the mechanical engineering company P. and W. McOnie in Glasgow and began manufacturing machines for processing sugar cane. In 1848 William and Andrew McOnie left the company and James Buchanan Mirrlees stepped in, whereupon it traded as McOnie and Mirrlees . After the death of Peter McOnie in 1851, William Tait joined as Managing Director in 1852, became a partner in 1858, and the company was renamed Mirrlees and Tait . In 1868, Renny Watson became a partner and the company became Tait and Watson . From 1883 the company was named Watson, Laidlaw & Company and from 1885 as Mirrlees Watson Co. In 1888 the eldest son of James Buchanan Mirrlees, WJ Mirrlees, joined the company. After acquiring the patent rights to a vaporizer from Home T. Yaryan in 1887, it merged with the Yaryan Company as Mirrlees, Watson, Yaryan and Co. Ltd. in 1889 . together.

In March 1897 a license agreement was signed with Rudolf Diesel for the reproduction and sale of diesel engines in Great Britain and in November 1897 the first engine, the third diesel engine in the world, was completed. The difficulties in the construction and further development of the diesel engine overstrained the financial possibilities, whereupon MAN bought back parts of the license rights in 1899. In the same year the company changed its name in Co. Mirrlees Watson order. In 1900 Charles Day joined as managing director and promoted engine production. In 1903 the British Admiralty commissioned two diesel engines for operation on the battleship HMS Dreadnought - they were the first diesel engines on a British ship. In 1907 Mirrlees was converted into a public company. In the same year a decision was made to build a new engine factory in Hazel Grove near Stockport , which in October 1908 traded as Mirrlees, Bickerton and Day . In 1926, Mirrlees Watson Co. in Glasgow and Mirrlees, Bickerton and Day merged and Mirrlees Watson Co. worked as part of Mirrlees, Bickerton and Day from 1933.

In 1944, Mirrlees, Bickerton and Day was taken over by Associated British Engineering and the sugar production machinery factory in Glasgow worked again as Mirrlees Watson Co. In 1949, Brush Traction took over Mirrlees Bickerton and Day Ltd and in 1957 Brush was taken over by Hawker Siddeley and in 1961 with National Gas and Oil Engine Co. merged to form Mirrlees National . The sugar production machinery part of the business was taken over in 1967 by A. and W. Smith and Co., continued as Smith Mirrlees and in 1988 by Fletcher and Stewart from Derby.

On June 1, 1969, Hawker Siddeley Mirrlees National merged with the diesel engine manufacturer Blackstone and Co. to form Mirrlees Blackstone - the Mirrlees company part in Stockport traded under Mirrlees Blackstone (Stockport) Limited from 1977 , the Blackstone part in Stamford as Mirrlees Blackstone (Stamford) Limited . In 1988 Mirrlees Blackstone went together with the engine manufacturers Paxman and Ruston to form GEC-Alsthom. In the winter of 1993/94, engine production began to be relocated from Stamford to Stockport, and engine production in Stamford ended in March 1994. In 1997, changed its corporate name to GEC ALSTOM Mirrlees Blackstone Ltd and the following year in Mirrlees Blackstone Division of ALSTOM Engines Ltd . Alstom sold the entire diesel engine business to MAN B&W Diesel AG in 2000. Engine production ended under MAN, the factory in Hazel Grove was demolished in mid-2013 and instead a spare parts warehouse was set up to supply the Mirrlees engines that were still in operation.

literature

  • Doug Woodyard: Pounder's Marine Diesel Engines and Gas Turbines , Butterworth-Heinemann, 2009, pp. 730ff

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Official Blackstone Engine Website (English)