Aaron Manby (15 November 1776 – 1 December 1850) was an English

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

and the founder of the

Horseley Ironworks The Horseley Ironworks (sometimes spelled Horsley) was a major ironworks in the Tipton area in the county of Staffordshire, now the West Midlands, England. History Founded by Aaron Manby, it is most famous for constructing the first iron st ...

, notable for the many fine iron canal bridges that it built. The eponymous

Aaron Manby ''Aaron Manby'' was a landmark vessel in the science of shipbuilding as the first iron steamship to go to sea. She was built by Aaron Manby (1776–1850) at the Horseley Ironworks. She made the voyage to Paris in June 1822 under Captain (later ...

steamboat was the first iron-hulled steamer to go to sea, and it was driven by Manby's patent

Oscillating Engine An oscillating cylinder steam engine (also known as a wobbler in the US) is a simple steam-engine design (proposed by William Murdoch at the end of 18th century) that requires no valve gear. Instead the cylinder rocks, or oscillates, as the c ...

, an effective and durable marine steam engine.

Career

In 1812 Manby was managing partner of the Horseley Coal and Iron Co,

Tipton Tipton is an industrial town in the West Midlands in England with a population of around 38,777 at the 2011 UK Census. It is located northwest of Birmingham. Tipton was once one of the most heavily industrialised towns in the Black Country, w ...

, Staffordshire. It ran coal mines, blast furnaces to make

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

, and assorted workshops. Manby expanded the business into civil engineering. In 1813 Manby obtained patent No 3705 for a means of casting the slag from blast furnaces into blocks for building. In 1815, the firm supplied a cast-iron swing bridge, possibly the first of Horseley's many iron bridges. In 1821, diversifying into mechanical engineering, Manby obtained British Patent No 4558 for his "oscillating engine" designed for use in ships. That same year,

constructed the world's first seagoing iron steamboat, named the ''

'', using his oscillating engine. The boat was built at Tipton using temporary bolts, disassembled for transportation to London, and reassembled on the Thames in 1822, this time using permanent rivets. Between 1819 and 1822, Manby started his engineering works at

Charenton-le-Pont Charenton-le-Pont () is a Communes of France, commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris, to the north of the confluence of the Seine and Marne (river), Marne rivers; the () pa ...

, near

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, with the Scottish chemist Daniel Wilson as manager. This controversial move enabled France to stop buying engines made in England, which made Manby somewhat unpopular. In 1822 Manby and Wilson's ''Compagnie d'Éclairage par de Gaz Hydrogène'' ('Hydrogen Gas Lighting Company') was granted the right to provide gas lighting for several streets in Paris. According to Michel Cotte, "The company Manby & Wilson is certainly the largest company of British origin which set up in France under the Restoration." Their ''"Compagnie Anglaise"'' ran until 1847, expanding to take in the Le Creusot ironworks. Manby's Horseley Ironworks profited from the growing

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...

trade, manufacturing canal bridges in the English Midlands including the

Engine Arm Aqueduct The Engine Arm Aqueduct near Smethwick, West Midlands, England, was built in 1825 by Thomas Telford to carry a water feeder, the Engine Arm, from Edgbaston Reservoir over the BCN New Main Line canal to the adjacent and parallel Old Main Line. ...

(1825) and two

roving bridge A roving bridge, changeline bridge, turnover bridge, or snake bridgeWilliam George Victor Balchin, ed., ''The Country Life Book of the Living History of Britain'', 1983, , p. 109 is a bridge over a canal constructed to allow a horse towing a bo ...

s at

Smethwick Junction Smethwick Junction is a junction on the Birmingham to Worcester via Kidderminster Line. With Galton Junction, northbound trains on the West Coast Main Line's Rugby-Birmingham-Stafford Line can join the Birmingham to Worcester via Kidderminster L ...

(1828). In 1845 Manby sold Horseley Ironworks to John Joseph Bramah (~1798 - 1846), nephew of the

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

and locksmith

Joseph Bramah Joseph Bramah (13 April 1748 – 9 December 1814), born Stainborough Lane Farm, Stainborough, in Barnsley, Yorkshire, was an English inventor and locksmith. He is best known for having improved the flush toilet and inventing the hydraulic pr ...

Family life

Manby was born at Albrighton, Shropshire on 15 November 1776 to Aaron Manby of

Kingston, Jamaica Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley Inter ...

and Jane Lane of Bentley. Manby's first wife was Julia Fewster. They had a son,

Charles Manby Charles Manby, FRS FRSA (4 February 1804 – 31 July 1884) was Secretary of the Institution of Civil Engineers from November 1839 to 1856, and engineer of the first iron steamer to cross the English Channel. Fluent in French, he installed gas ...

, who became Secretary of the

Institution of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, whi ...

.Skempton, 2002. Julia died in 1807.Grace's Guide, 2011. In 1807 Manby married Sarah Ann Haskins, with whom he had one daughter, Sarah Maria (d. 1826), and four more sons. The oldest three of them, John Richard (1813-1869), Joseph Lane (1814-1862), and Edward Oliver (1816-1864), also became civil engineers. Sarah Ann died in 1826.

Notes

References

* Cragg, Roger. ''Wales and West Central England: Wales and West Central England, 2nd Edition'', Thomas Telford, 1997. * Dumpleton, Bernard. ''The Story of the Paddle Steamer'', Antony Rowe, Eastbourne, 1973. New edition 2002. * Grace's Guide.
Aaron Manby
', 2011. * Henderson, W.O., and W. H. Chaloner.
Aaron Manby, Builder of the First Iron Steamship
', Transactions of the Newcomen Society, Vol.29, 1953-5, pages 77–91. * Henderson, W.O.
The Industrial Revolution on the Continent: Germany, France, Russia 1800-1914
', Routledge, 1961. Reprinted 2005. Page 98. * Kemp, Peter (editor). ''The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea'', Oxford University Press, 1976. Revised edition 1979. * Skempton, A.W., Rennison R.W. and R.C. Cox.
A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland
'. Pages 431-433. Institution of Civil Engineers, 2002.

External links

* ttp://www.icevirtuallibrary.com ICE virtual library: John Richard Manby(go to ICE library and enter name in search box)
Michel Cotte: ''Le rôle des ouvriers et entrepreneurs britanniques dans le décollage industriel français des années 1820''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manby, Aaron British ironmasters 1776 births 1850 deaths English civil engineers English mechanical engineers