“Officers patrolled the square, whose business it was to keep the peace, to collect the dues imposed on the various kinds of merchandise, to see that no false measures or fraud of any kind were used, and to bring offenders at once to justice. A court of twelve judges sat in one part of thetianguezclothed with those ample and summary powers which, in despotic countries, are often delegated even to petty tribunals. The extreme severity with which they exercised those powers, in more than one instance, proves that they were not a dead letter.”
“Officers patrolled the square, whose business it was to keep the peace, to collect the dues imposed on the various kinds of merchandise, to see that no false measures or fraud of any kind were used, and to bring offenders at once to justice. A court of twelve judges sat in one part of thetianguezclothed with those ample and summary powers which, in despotic countries, are often delegated even to petty tribunals. The extreme severity with which they exercised those powers, in more than one instance, proves that they were not a dead letter.”
But notwithstanding the great antiquity of fairs, their charters are comparatively modern—the oldest known being that of St Denys, Paris, which Dagobert, king of the Franks, granted (A.D.642) to the monks of the place “for the glory of God, and the honour of St Denys at his festival.”
In England it was only after the Norman conquest that fairs became of capital importance. Records exist of 2800 grants of franchise markets and fairs between the years 1199 and 1483. More than half of these were made during the reigns of John and Henry III., when the power of the church was in ascendancy. The first recorded grant, however, appears to be that of William the Conqueror to the bishop of Winchester, for leave to hold an annual “free fair” at St Giles’s hill. The monk who had been the king’s jester received his charter of Bartholomew fair, Smithfield, in the year 1133. And in 1248 Henry III. granted a like privilege to the abbot of Westminster, in honour of the “translation” of Edward the Confessor. Sometimes fairs were granted to towns as a means for enabling them to recover from the effects of war and other disasters. Thus, Edward III. granted a “free fair” to the town of Burnley in Rutland, just as, in subsequent times, Charles VII. favoured Bordeaux after the English wars, and Louis XIV. gave fair charters to the towns of Dieppe and Toulon. The importance attached to these old fairs may be understood from the inducements which, in the 14th century, Charles IV. held out to traders visiting the great fair of Frankfort-on-Main. The charter declared that both during the continuance of the fair, and for eighteen days before and after it, merchants would be exempt from imperial taxation, from arrest for debt, or civil process of any sort, except such as might arise from the transactions of the market itself and within its precincts. Philip of Valois’s regulations for the fairs of Troyes in Champagne might not only be accepted as typical of all subsequent fair-legislation of the kingdom, but even of the English and German laws on the subject. The fair had its staff of notaries for the attestation of bargains, its court of justice, its police officers, its sergeants for the execution of the market judges’ decrees, and its visitors—of whom we may mention theprud’hommes,—whose duty it was to examine the quality of goods exposed for sale, and to confiscate those found unfit for consumption. The confiscation required the consent of five or six representatives of the merchant community at the fair. The effect of these great “free fairs” of England and the continent on the development of society was indeed great. They helped to familiarize the western and northern countries with the banking and financial systems of the Lombards and Florentines, who resorted to them under the protection of the sovereign’s “firm peace,” and the ghostly terrors of the pope. They usually became the seat of foreign agencies. In the names of her streets Provins preserved the memory of her 12th-century intercourse with the agents and merchants of Germany and the Low Countries, and long before that time the Syrian traders at St Denys had established their powerful association in Paris. Like the church on the religious side, the free fairs on the commercial side evoked and cherished the international spirit. And during long ages, when commercial “protection” was regardedas indispensable to a nation’s wealth, and the merchant was compelled to “fight his way through a wilderness of taxes,” they were the sole and, so far as they went, the complete substitute for the free trade of later days.
Their privileges, however, were, from their very nature, destined to grow more oppressive and intolerable the more the towns were multiplied and the means of communication increased. The people of London were compelled to close their shops during the days when the abbot of Westminster’s fair was open. But a more curious and complete instance of such an ecclesiastical monopoly was that of the St Giles’s fair, at first granted for the customary three days, which were increased by Henry III. to sixteen. The bishop of Winchester was, as we have seen, the lord of this fair. On the eve of St Giles’s feast the magistrates of Winchester surrendered the keys of the city gates to the bishop, who then appointed his own mayor, bailiff and coroner, to hold office until the close of the fair. During the same period, Winchester and Southampton also—though it was then a thriving trading town—were forbidden to transact their ordinary commercial business, except within the bishop’s fair, or with his special permission. The bishop’s officers were posted along the highways, with power to forfeit to his lordship all goods bought and sold within 7 m. of the fair—in whose centre stood “the pavilion,” or bishop’s court. It is clear, from the curious record of theEstablishment and Expenses of the Householdof Percy, 5th earl of Northumberland, that fairs were the chief centres of country traffic even as late as the 16th century. They began to decline rapidly after 1759, when good roads had been constructed and canal communication established between Liverpool and the towns of Yorkshire, Cheshire and Lancashire. In the great towns their extinction was hastened in consequence of their evil effects on public morals. All the London fairs were abolished as public nuisances before 1855—the last year of the ever famous fair of St Bartholomew; and the fairs of Paris were swept away in the storm of the Revolution.
English Fairs and Markets.—For the general reasons apparent from the preceding sketch, fairs in England, as in France and Germany, have very largely given way to markets for specialities. Even the live-stock market of the metropolis is being superseded by the dead-meat market, a change which has been encouraged by modern legislation on cattle disease, the movements of home stock and the importation of foreign animals. Agricultural markets are also disappearing before the “agencies” and the corn exchanges in the principal towns. Still there are some considerable fairs yet remaining. Of the English fairs for live stock, those of Weyhill in Hampshire (October 10), St Faith’s, near Norwich (October 17), as also several held at Devizes, Wiltshire, are among the largest in the kingdom. The first named stands next to none for its display of sheep. Horncastle, Lincolnshire, is the largest horse fair in the kingdom, and is regularly visited by American and continental dealers. The other leading horse fairs in England are Howden in Yorkshire (well known for its hunters), Woodbridge (on Lady Day) for Suffolk horses, Barnet in Hertfordshire, and Lincoln. Exeter December fair has a large display of cattle, horses and most kinds of commodities. Large numbers of Scotch cattle are also brought to the fairs of Carlisle and Ormskirk. Nottingham has a fair for geese. Ipswich has a fair for lambs on the 1st of August, and for butter and cheese on the 1st of September. Gloucester fair is also famous for the last-named commodity. Falkirk fair, or tryst, for cattle and sheep, is one of the largest in Scotland; and Ballinasloe, Galway, holds a like position among Irish fairs. The Ballinasloe cattle are usually fed for a year in Leinster before they are considered fit for the Dublin or Liverpool markets.
French Fairs.—In France fairs and markets are held under the authority of the prefects, new fairs and markets being established by order of the prefects at the instance of the commune interested. Before the Revolution fairs and markets could only be established byseigneurs justiciers, but only two small markets have survived the law of 1790 abolishing private ownership of market rights, namely, theMarché Ste Catherineand theMarché des enfants rouges, both in Paris. Under the present system markets and fairs are held in most of the towns and villages in France; and at all such gatherings entertainments form an important feature. The great fair of Beaucaire instituted in 1168 has steadily declined since the opening of railway communication, and now ranks with the fairs of ordinary provincial towns. Situated at the junction of the Rhone and the Canal du Midi, and less than 40 m. from the sea, it at one time attracted merchants from Spain, from Switzerland and Germany, and from the Levant and Mediterranean ports, and formed one of the greatest temporary centres of commerce on the continent. One trade firm alone, it is said, rarely did less than 1,000,000 francs worth of business during the fortnight that the fair lasted.
German Fairs.—In Germany the police authorities are considered the market authorities, and to them in most cases is assigned the duty of establishing new fairs and markets, subject to magisterial decision. The three great fairs of Germany are those of Frankfort-on-Main, Frankfort-on-Oder and Leipzig, but, like all the large fairs of Europe, they have declined rapidly in importance. Those of Frankfort-on-Main begin on Easter Tuesday and on the nearest Monday to September 8 respectively, and their legal duration is three weeks, though the limit is regularly extended. The fairs of the second-named city areReminiscere, February or March;St Margaret, July;St Martin, November. Ordinarily they last fifteen days, which is double the legal term. The greatest of the German fairs are those of Leipzig, whose display of books is famous all over the world. Its three fairs are dated January 1, Easter, Michaelmas. The Easter one is the book fair, which is attended by all the principal booksellers of Germany, and by many more from the adjoining countries. Most German publishers have agents at Leipzig. As many as 5000 new publications have been entered in a single Leipzig catalogue. As in the other instances given, the Leipzig fairs last for three weeks, or nearly thrice their allotted duration. Here no days of grace are allowed, and the holder of a bill must demand payment when due, and protest, if necessary, on the same day, otherwise he cannot proceed against either drawer or endorser.
Russian Fairs.—In Russia fairs are held by local authorities. Landed proprietors may also hold fairs on their estates subject to the sanction of the local authorities; but no private tolls may be levied on commodities brought to such fairs. In Siberia and the east of Russia, where more primitive conditions foster such centres of trade, fairs are still of considerable importance. Throughout Russia generally they are very numerous. The most important, that of Nijni Novgorod, held annually in July and August at the confluence of the rivers Volga and Kama, was instituted in the 17th century by the tsar Michael Fedorovitch. In 1881 it was calculated that trade to the value of 246,000,000 roubles was carried on within the limits of the fair. It still continues to be of great commercial importance, and is usually attended by upwards of 100,000 persons from all parts of Asia and eastern Europe. Other fairs of consequence are those of Irbit in Perm, Kharkoff (January and August), Poltava (August and February), Koreunais in Koursk, Ourloupinsknia in the Don Cossack country, Krolevetz in Tchernigoff, and a third fair held at Poltava on the feast of the Ascension.
Indian Fairs.—The largest of these, and perhaps the largest in Asia, is that of Hurdwar, on the upper course of the Ganges. The visitors to this holy fair number from 200,000 to 300,000; but every twelfth year there occurs a special pilgrimage to the sacred river, when the numbers may amount to a million or upwards. Those who go solely for the purposes of trade are Nepalese, Mongolians, Tibetans, central Asiatics and Mahommedan pedlars from the Punjab, Sind and the border states. Persian shawls and carpets, Indian silks, Kashmir shawls, cottons (Indian and English), preserved fruits, spices, drugs, &c. , together with immense numbers of cattle, horses, sheep and camels, are brought to this famous fair.
American Fairs.—The word “fair,” as now used in the United States, appears to have completely lost its Old World meaning. It seems to be exclusively applied to industrial exhibitions and to what in England are called fancy bazaars. Thus, during the Civil War, large sums were collected at the “sanitary fairs,”for the benefit of the sick and wounded. To the first-named class belong the state and county fairs, as they are called. Among the first and best-known of these was the “New York World’s Fair,” opened in 1853 by a company formed in 1851. (SeeExhibition.)
Law of Fairs.—As no market or fair can be held in England without a royal charter, or right of prescription, so any person establishing a fair without such sanction is liable to be sued under a writ ofQuo warranto, by any one to whose property the said market may be injurious. Nor can a fair or market be legally held beyond the time specified in the grant; and by 5 Edward III. c. 5 (1331) a merchant selling goods after the legal expiry of the fair forfeited double their value. To be valid, a sale must take place in “market-overt” (open market); “it will not be binding if it carries with it a presumption of fraudulence.” These regulations satisfied, the sale “transfers a complete property in the thing sold to the vendee; so that however injurious or illegal the title of the vendor may be, yet the vendee’s is good against all men except the king.” (In Scottish law, the claims of the real owner would still remain valid.) However, by 21 Henry VIII. c. 2 (1529) it was enacted that, “if any felon rob or take away money, goods, or chattels, and be indicted and found guilty, or otherwise attainted upon evidence given by the owner or party robbed, or by any other by their procurement, the owner or party robbed shall be restored to his money, goods or chattels,” but only those goods were restored which were specified in the indictment, now could the owner recover from abona fidepurchaser in market-overt who had sold the goods before conviction. For obvious reasons the rules of market-overt were made particularly stringent in the case of horses. Thus, by 2 Philip & Mary c. 7 (1555) and 31 Eliz. c. 12 (1589) no sale of a horse was legal which had not satisfied the following conditions;—Public exposure of the animal for at least an hour between sunrise and sunset; identification of the vendor by the market officer, or guarantee for his honesty by “one sufficient and credible person”; entry of these particulars, together with a description of the animal, and a statement of the price paid for it, in the market officer’s book. Even if his rights should have been violated in spite of all these precautions, the lawful owner could recover, if he claimed within six months, produced witnesses, and tendered the price paid to the vendor. Tolls were not a “necessary incident” of a fair—i.e.they were illegal unless specially granted in the patent, or recognized by custom. As a rule, they were paid only by the vendee, and to the market clerk, whose record of the payment was an attestation to the genuineness of the purchase. By 2 & 3 Philip & Mary c. 7 every lord of a fair entitled to exact tolls was bound to appoint a clerk to collect and enter them. It was also this functionary’s business to test measures and weights. Tolls, again, are sometimes held to include “stallage” and “picage,” which mean respectively the price for permission to erect stalls and to dig holes for posts in the market grounds. But toll proper belongs to the lord of the market, whereas the other two are usually regarded as the property of the lord of the soil. The law also provided that stallage might be levied on any house situated in the vicinity of a market, and kept open for business during the legal term of the said market. Among modern statutes, one of the chief is the Markets and Fairs Clauses Act 1847, the chief purpose of which was to consolidate previous measures. By the act no proprietors of a new market were permitted to let stallages, take tolls, or in any way open their ground for business, until two justices of the peace certified to the completion of the fair or market. After the opening of the place for public use, no person other than a licensed hawker may sell anywhere within the borough, his own house or shop excepted, any articles in respect of which tolls are legally exigible in the market. A breach of this provision entails a penalty of forty shillings. Vendors of unwholesome meat are liable to a penalty of £5 for each offence; and the “inspectors of provisions” have full liberty to seize the goods and institute proceedings against the owners. They may also enter “at all times of the day, with or without assistance,” the slaughter-house which the undertaker of the market may, by the special act, have been empowered to construct. For general sanitary reasons, persons are prohibited from killing animals anywhere except in these slaughter-houses. Again, by the Fairs Act 1873, times of holding fairs are determined by the secretary of state; while the Fairs Act 1871 empowers him to abolish any fair on the representation of the magistrate and with the consent of the owner. The preamble of the act states that many fairs held in England and Wales are both unnecessary and productive of “grievous immorality.”The Fair Courts.—The piepowder courts, the lowest but most expeditious courts of justice in the kingdom, as Chitty calls them, were very ancient. The Conqueror’s lawDe Emporiisshows their pre-existence in Normandy. Their name was derived frompied poudreux,i.e.“dusty-foot.”1The lord of the fair or his representative was the presiding judge, and usually he was assisted by a jury of traders chosen on the spot. Their jurisdiction was limited by the legal time and precincts of the fair, and to disputes about contracts, “slander of wares,” attestations, the preservation of order, &c.Authorities.—See Herbert Spencer’sDescriptive Sociology(1873), especially the columns and paragraphs on “Distribution”; Prescott’sHistory of Mexico, for descriptions of fairs under the Aztecs; Giles Jacob’sLaw Dictionary(London, 1809); Joseph Chitty’sTreatise on the Law of Commerce and Manufactures, vol. ii. chap. 9 (London, 1824); Holinshed’s and Grafton’sChronicles, for lists, &c. , of English fairs; Meyer’sDas grosse Conversations-Lexicon(1852), under “Messen”; article “Foire” in Larousse’sDictionnaire universelle du XIXesiècle(Paris, 1866-1874), and its references to past authorities; and especially, the second volume, commercial series, of theEncyclopédie méthodique(Paris, 1783); M’Culloch’sDictionary of Commerce(1869-1871); Wharton’sHistory of English Poetry, pp. 185, 186 of edition of 1870 (London, Murray & Son), for a description of the Winchester Fair, &c. ; a note by Professor Henry Morley in p. 498, vol. vii.Notes and Queries, second series; the same author’s uniqueHistory of the Fair of St Bartholomew(London, 1859); Wharton’sLaw Lexicon(Will’s edition, London, 1876); P. Huvelin’sEssai historique sur le droit des marchés et des foires(Paris, 1897);Report of the Royal Commission on Market Rights and Tolls, vols. i. (1889), xiv. (1891);Final Report(1891); Walford’sFairs, Past and Present(1883);The Law relating to Markets and Fairs, by Pease and Chitty (London, 1899).
Law of Fairs.—As no market or fair can be held in England without a royal charter, or right of prescription, so any person establishing a fair without such sanction is liable to be sued under a writ ofQuo warranto, by any one to whose property the said market may be injurious. Nor can a fair or market be legally held beyond the time specified in the grant; and by 5 Edward III. c. 5 (1331) a merchant selling goods after the legal expiry of the fair forfeited double their value. To be valid, a sale must take place in “market-overt” (open market); “it will not be binding if it carries with it a presumption of fraudulence.” These regulations satisfied, the sale “transfers a complete property in the thing sold to the vendee; so that however injurious or illegal the title of the vendor may be, yet the vendee’s is good against all men except the king.” (In Scottish law, the claims of the real owner would still remain valid.) However, by 21 Henry VIII. c. 2 (1529) it was enacted that, “if any felon rob or take away money, goods, or chattels, and be indicted and found guilty, or otherwise attainted upon evidence given by the owner or party robbed, or by any other by their procurement, the owner or party robbed shall be restored to his money, goods or chattels,” but only those goods were restored which were specified in the indictment, now could the owner recover from abona fidepurchaser in market-overt who had sold the goods before conviction. For obvious reasons the rules of market-overt were made particularly stringent in the case of horses. Thus, by 2 Philip & Mary c. 7 (1555) and 31 Eliz. c. 12 (1589) no sale of a horse was legal which had not satisfied the following conditions;—Public exposure of the animal for at least an hour between sunrise and sunset; identification of the vendor by the market officer, or guarantee for his honesty by “one sufficient and credible person”; entry of these particulars, together with a description of the animal, and a statement of the price paid for it, in the market officer’s book. Even if his rights should have been violated in spite of all these precautions, the lawful owner could recover, if he claimed within six months, produced witnesses, and tendered the price paid to the vendor. Tolls were not a “necessary incident” of a fair—i.e.they were illegal unless specially granted in the patent, or recognized by custom. As a rule, they were paid only by the vendee, and to the market clerk, whose record of the payment was an attestation to the genuineness of the purchase. By 2 & 3 Philip & Mary c. 7 every lord of a fair entitled to exact tolls was bound to appoint a clerk to collect and enter them. It was also this functionary’s business to test measures and weights. Tolls, again, are sometimes held to include “stallage” and “picage,” which mean respectively the price for permission to erect stalls and to dig holes for posts in the market grounds. But toll proper belongs to the lord of the market, whereas the other two are usually regarded as the property of the lord of the soil. The law also provided that stallage might be levied on any house situated in the vicinity of a market, and kept open for business during the legal term of the said market. Among modern statutes, one of the chief is the Markets and Fairs Clauses Act 1847, the chief purpose of which was to consolidate previous measures. By the act no proprietors of a new market were permitted to let stallages, take tolls, or in any way open their ground for business, until two justices of the peace certified to the completion of the fair or market. After the opening of the place for public use, no person other than a licensed hawker may sell anywhere within the borough, his own house or shop excepted, any articles in respect of which tolls are legally exigible in the market. A breach of this provision entails a penalty of forty shillings. Vendors of unwholesome meat are liable to a penalty of £5 for each offence; and the “inspectors of provisions” have full liberty to seize the goods and institute proceedings against the owners. They may also enter “at all times of the day, with or without assistance,” the slaughter-house which the undertaker of the market may, by the special act, have been empowered to construct. For general sanitary reasons, persons are prohibited from killing animals anywhere except in these slaughter-houses. Again, by the Fairs Act 1873, times of holding fairs are determined by the secretary of state; while the Fairs Act 1871 empowers him to abolish any fair on the representation of the magistrate and with the consent of the owner. The preamble of the act states that many fairs held in England and Wales are both unnecessary and productive of “grievous immorality.”
The Fair Courts.—The piepowder courts, the lowest but most expeditious courts of justice in the kingdom, as Chitty calls them, were very ancient. The Conqueror’s lawDe Emporiisshows their pre-existence in Normandy. Their name was derived frompied poudreux,i.e.“dusty-foot.”1The lord of the fair or his representative was the presiding judge, and usually he was assisted by a jury of traders chosen on the spot. Their jurisdiction was limited by the legal time and precincts of the fair, and to disputes about contracts, “slander of wares,” attestations, the preservation of order, &c.
Authorities.—See Herbert Spencer’sDescriptive Sociology(1873), especially the columns and paragraphs on “Distribution”; Prescott’sHistory of Mexico, for descriptions of fairs under the Aztecs; Giles Jacob’sLaw Dictionary(London, 1809); Joseph Chitty’sTreatise on the Law of Commerce and Manufactures, vol. ii. chap. 9 (London, 1824); Holinshed’s and Grafton’sChronicles, for lists, &c. , of English fairs; Meyer’sDas grosse Conversations-Lexicon(1852), under “Messen”; article “Foire” in Larousse’sDictionnaire universelle du XIXesiècle(Paris, 1866-1874), and its references to past authorities; and especially, the second volume, commercial series, of theEncyclopédie méthodique(Paris, 1783); M’Culloch’sDictionary of Commerce(1869-1871); Wharton’sHistory of English Poetry, pp. 185, 186 of edition of 1870 (London, Murray & Son), for a description of the Winchester Fair, &c. ; a note by Professor Henry Morley in p. 498, vol. vii.Notes and Queries, second series; the same author’s uniqueHistory of the Fair of St Bartholomew(London, 1859); Wharton’sLaw Lexicon(Will’s edition, London, 1876); P. Huvelin’sEssai historique sur le droit des marchés et des foires(Paris, 1897);Report of the Royal Commission on Market Rights and Tolls, vols. i. (1889), xiv. (1891);Final Report(1891); Walford’sFairs, Past and Present(1883);The Law relating to Markets and Fairs, by Pease and Chitty (London, 1899).
(J. Ma.; Ev. C.*)
1In Med. Lat.pede-pulverosusmeant an itinerant merchant or pedlar. In Scots borough law “marchand travelland” and “dusty fute” are identical.
1In Med. Lat.pede-pulverosusmeant an itinerant merchant or pedlar. In Scots borough law “marchand travelland” and “dusty fute” are identical.
FAIRBAIRN, ANDREW MARTIN(1838- ), British Nonconformist divine, was born near Edinburgh on the 4th of November 1838. He was educated at the universities of Edinburgh and Berlin, and at the Evangelical Union Theological Academy in Glasgow. He entered the Congregational ministry and held pastorates at Bathgate, West Lothian and at Aberdeen. From 1877 to 1886 he was principal of Airedale College, Bradford, a post which he gave up to become the first principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. In the transference to Oxford under that name of Spring Hill College, Birmingham, he took a considerable part, and he has exercised influence not only over generations of his own students, but also over a large number of undergraduates in the university generally. He was granted the degree of M.A. by a decree of Convocation, and in 1903 received the honorary degree of doctor of literature. He was also given the degrees of doctor of divinity of Edinburgh and Yale, and doctor of laws of Aberdeen. His activities were not limited to his college work. He delivered the Muir lectures at Edinburgh University (1878-1882), the Gifford lectures at Aberdeen (1892-1894), the Lyman Beecher lectures at Yale (1891-1892), and the Haskell lectures in India (1898-1899). He was a member of the Royal Commission of Secondary Education in 1894-1895, and of the Royal Commission on the Endowments of the Welsh Church in 1906. In 1883 he was chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. He is a prolific writer on theological subjects. He resigned his position at Mansfield College in the spring of 1909.
Among his works are:—Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History(1876);Studies in the Life of Christ(1881);Religion in History and in Modern Life(1884; rev. 1893);Christ in Modern Theology(1893);Christ in the Centuries(1893);Catholicism Roman and Anglican(1899);Philosophy of the Christian Religion(1902);Studies in Religion and Theology(1909).
Among his works are:—Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History(1876);Studies in the Life of Christ(1881);Religion in History and in Modern Life(1884; rev. 1893);Christ in Modern Theology(1893);Christ in the Centuries(1893);Catholicism Roman and Anglican(1899);Philosophy of the Christian Religion(1902);Studies in Religion and Theology(1909).
FAIRBAIRN, SIR WILLIAM, Bart. (1789-1874), Scottish engineer, was born on the 19th of February 1789 at Kelso, Roxburghshire, where his father was a farm-bailiff. In 1803 he obtained work at three shillings a week as a mason’s labourer on the bridge then being built by John Rennie at Kelso; but within a few days he was incapacitated by an accident. Later in the same year, his father having been appointed steward on a farm connected with Percy Main Colliery near North Shields, he obtained employment as a carter in connexion with the colliery. In March 1804 he was bound an apprentice to a millwright at Percy Main, and then found time to supplement the deficiencies of his early education by systematic private study. It was at Percy Main that he made the acquaintance of George Stephenson, who then had charge of an engine at a neighbouring colliery. For some years subsequent to the expiry of his apprenticeship in 1811, he lived a somewhat roving life, seldom remaining long in one place and often reduced to very hard straits before he got employment. But in 1817 he entered into partnership with a shopmate, James Lillie, with whose aid he hired an old shed in High Street, Manchester, where he set up a lathe and began business. The firm quickly secured a good reputation,and the improvements in mill-work and water-wheels introduced by Fairbairn caused its fame to extend beyond Manchester to Scotland and even the continent of Europe. The partnership was dissolved in 1832.
In 1830 Fairbairn had been employed by the Forth and Clyde Canal Company to make experiments with the view of determining whether it were possible to construct steamers capable of traversing the canal at a speed which would compete successfully with that of the railway; and the results of his investigation were published by him in 1831, under the titleRemarks on Canal Navigation. His plan of using iron boats proved inadequate to overcome the difficulties of this problem, but in the development of the use of this material both in the case of merchant vessels and men-of-war he took a leading part. In this way also he was led to pursue extensive experiments in regard to the strength of iron. In 1835 he established, in connexion with his Manchester business, a shipbuilding yard at Millwall, London, where he constructed several hundred vessels, including many for the royal navy; but he ultimately found that other engagements prevented him from paying adequate attention to the management, and at the end of fourteen years he disposed of the concern at a great loss. In 1837 he was consulted by the sultan of Turkey in regard to machinery for the government workshops at Constantinople. In 1845 he was employed, in conjunction with Robert Stephenson, in constructing the tubular railway bridges across the Conway and Menai Straits. The share he had in the undertaking has been the subject of some dispute; his own version is contained in a volume he published in 1849,An Account of the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges. In 1849 he was invited by the king of Prussia to submit designs for the construction of a bridge across the Rhine, but after various negotiations, another design, by a Prussian engineer, which was a modification of Fairbairn’s, was adopted. Another matter which engaged much of Fairbairn’s attention was steam boilers, in the construction of which he effected many improvements. Amid all the cares of business he found time for varied scientific investigation. In 1851 his fertility and readiness of invention greatly aided an inquiry carried out at his Manchester works by Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and J.P. Joule, at the instigation of William Hopkins, to determine the melting points of substances under great pressure; and from 1861 to 1865 he was employed to guide the experiments of the government committee appointed to inquire into the “application of iron to defensive purposes.” He died at Moor Park, Surrey, on the 18th of August 1874. Fairbairn was a member of many learned societies, both British and foreign, and in 1861 served as president of the British Association. He declined a knighthood, in 1861, but accepted a baronetcy in 1869.
His youngest brother,Sir Peter Fairbairn(1799-1861), founded a large machine manufacturing business in Leeds. Starting on a small scale with flax-spinning machinery, he subsequently extended his operations to the manufacture of textile machinery in general, and finally to that of engineering tools. He was knighted in 1858.
SeeThe Life of Sir William Fairbairn, partly written by himself and edited and completed by Dr William Pole (1877).
SeeThe Life of Sir William Fairbairn, partly written by himself and edited and completed by Dr William Pole (1877).