William Armstrong Fairburn (12 October 1876 – 1 October 1947) was a noted American author,
naval architect This is the top category for all articles related to architecture and its practitioners.
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Occupations
Occupation commonly refers to:
*Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role ...
,
marine engineer
Marine engineering is the engineering of boats, ships, submarines, and any other marine vessel. Here it is also taken to include the engineering of other ocean systems and structures – referred to in certain academic and professional circl ...
, industrial executive, and
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...
.
[
]
Biography
He was the son of Thomas W. Fairburn and Elizabeth Jemima Frosdick,[Census, immigration, vital records and passport applications, England and USA, for William Armstrong Fairburn, Thomas W. Fairburn, Jemima Elizabeth Frosdick and families at http://ancestry.com .]
who married in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, in 1867.
Census information shows that Thomas worked as a ship fitter, then foreman at a ship yard in Braintree, Massachusetts
Braintree (), officially the Town of Braintree, is a municipality in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Although officially known as a towBraintree is a city, with a mayor-council government, mayor-council form of government, and ...
. He made trips home to visit family still in Huddersfield, and his passport application (1923) shows that he was born in Hull, England in 1849, and that his father was another Thomas.
William was born in Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...
, England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, 12 October 1876, the 1891 census showing that he had already begun work as a "Post Office boy" by the age of 14. He emigrated in May 1891 from Liverpool to New York on the "S.S. Servia" with his mother Elizabeth, and sisters Alice and Annie, following his father who had emigrated the year before. He attended the public schools in Bath, Maine
Bath is a city in Sagadahoc County, Maine, in the United States. The population was 8,766 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Sagadahoc County, which includes one city and 10 towns. The city is popular with tourists, many drawn by its ...
, became an apprentice, and by age 18 was a master mechanic. In 1896, he went to the University of Glasgow
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, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
Flag
, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
and studied naval architecture and marine engineering for a year.
He returned home to work at Bath Iron Works
Bath Iron Works (BIW) is a major United States shipyard located on the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine, founded in 1884 as Bath Iron Works, Limited. Since 1995, Bath Iron Works has been a subsidiary of General Dynamics. It is the fifth-largest ...
where he built an all-steel freighter, the first in America. By 1900 he was an independent consultant. In this capacity, he met O. C. Barber and Edward R. Stettinius, Sr., at the Stirling Boiler Co. (later merged into Babcock & Wilcox
Babcock & Wilcox is an American renewable, environmental and thermal energy technologies and service provider that is active and has operations in many international markets across the globe with its headquarters in Akron, Ohio, USA. Historicall ...
).[ They were also executives at the ]Diamond Match Company
The Diamond Match Company has its roots in several nineteenth century companies. In the early 1850s, Edward Tatnall of Wilmington, Delaware was given an English recipe for making matches by a business acquaintance, William R. Smith. In 1853, Tatn ...
, and in 1909 they put Fairburn in charge of its operations in hopes of solving some problems it had encountered. In the 1910 census (Groton, Connecticut
Groton is a town in New London County, Connecticut located on the Thames River. It is the home of General Dynamics Electric Boat, which is the major contractor for submarine work for the United States Navy. The Naval Submarine Base New London i ...
), Fairburn is shown as a naval architect.
A major problem at Diamond Match was the white phosphorus
Elemental phosphorus can exist in several allotropes, the most common of which are white and red solids. Solid violet and black allotropes are also known. Gaseous phosphorus exists as diphosphorus and atomic phosphorus.
White phosphorus
White ...
used in making matches which caused health problems for workers and poisoned children who ate the matches. Fairburn discovered company patents which provided an alternative, and, working with company chemists, by 1911 an improved match, which substituted sesquisulfide for the phosphorus, was introduced.[
At Diamond Match, Fairburn also discovered and worked out a chemical process for extracting ]potash
Potash () includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form. from kelp
Kelps are large brown algae seaweeds that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. Despite its appearance, kelp is not a plant - it is a heterokont, a completely unrelated group of organisms.
Kelp grows in "underwa ...
. Owing to this discovery, the price of matches did not increase when the start of World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
shut off the old sources of potash supply. Fairburn later became president of the Diamond Match Company in 1915, succeeding Stettenius.[ In the 1930 census ( Morris, New Jersey), he is shown as an executive in a match factory.
The Fairburn Marine Education Foundation, Inc., of Center Lovell, Maine, was established in his honor.
]
Writings
Fairburn published several dozen books in the early twentieth century concerned generally with sociology in the workplace, theories and speculations on human potentialities, and other topics. Among his works are:
* ''Human Chemistry'' (1914) This work describes workers as chemical element
A chemical element is a species of atoms that have a given number of protons in their nuclei, including the pure substance consisting only of that species. Unlike chemical compounds, chemical elements cannot be broken down into simpler sub ...
s in a well-stocked laboratory
A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physic ...
and handlers of people as chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...
s.
* ''Man and his health; Liquids'' (1916)
* ''Life and Work'' (1916)
* ''Mentality and Freedom'' (1917)
* ''The Diagnosis of the German Obsession'' (1918)
* ''Organization and Success'' (1923)
* ''Justice and Law'' (1927)
* ''Russia, the Utopia in chains'' (1931)
* ''Work and workers: Essays and miscellaneous writings'' (1933)
Family
He married Isabella Louise Ramsay (born 4 August 1878, Summerfield, Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", ...
, Canada) in September 1904.
References
Further reading
*Manchester, Herbert. (1940). ''William Armstrong Fairburn; a Factor in Human Progress''. New York, N.Y., The Blanchard press.
*Ingham, John N. (1983) ''Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders: Vol. 1, A-G''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fairburn, William Armstrong
1876 births
1947 deaths
American non-fiction writers
American engineers
English emigrants to the United States
American chemists
American businesspeople