Scientist of the Day - John Braithwaite
Novelty, locomotive built by John Braithwaite and John Ericsson for the Rainhill Trials, woodcut in Mechanics' Magazine, Register, Journal, and Gazette, vol. 12, p. 129, Oct. 17, 1829 (Linda Hall Library
John Braithwaite, an English mechanical engineer, was born Mar. 19, 1797, in London. His father manufactured machines and engines, and John and his brother learned their trade in their father's shop. But the father passed away when John was just 21, and the older brother died just 5 years later, leaving John in charge of a large enterprise. Fortunately, he was clever, and he liked making engines, especially steam engines.
Portrait of John Braithwaite, engraved by F.C. Lewis after a drawing by John Boaden, frontispiece to Mechanics' Magazine, Register, Journal, and Gazette, vol. 13, 1830 (Linda Hall Library)
I am not sure how Braithwaite met John Ericsson, a Swedish surveyor 6 years his junior, who moved to London in 1826 to make steam engines. In 1829, they heard about the upcoming Rainhill Trials, sponsored by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, to choose a locomotive for the 35-mile railroad that they intended to open in 1830. In the 2 months remaining, Braithwaite and Ericsson collaborated to build a locomotive from scratch, which they called Novelty, and which they entered in the Trials, which began on Oct. 6, 1829. They built the engine in London and shipped it to Manchester by canal boat.
The Rainhill Trials underway on Oct. 7, 1829, a re-imagining, with Novelty at the left on the rear track, wood engraving in Lives of the Engineers, by Samuel Smiles, vol. 5, p. 215, 1877 (Linda Hall Library)
The Novelty was the favorite of the crowd and the journalists at the Trials, since it was about half the size of the Rocket, the eventual winner, yet scooted down the track faster than any other engine. It had an unusual vertical boiler, designed by Ericsson, where you dropped pieces of coke by hand into the hopper at top, and an unusual heat exchanger that ran the length of the floor. But it had structural problems, so that parts broke on the day of the trials that could not be fixed in time, and Braithwaite and Ericsson had to withdraw, to the great relief of Robert and George Stephenson, who saw the Novelty as their only worthy rival.
Rocket, Novelty, and Sans Pareil, locomotives built for the Rainhill Trials, lithograph in Mechanics' Magazine, Register, Journal, and Gazette, vol. 12, p. 236, Nov. 28, 1829 (mounted following p. 114 in our copy) (Linda Hall Library)
We mentioned in our post last fall on the Rainhill Trials that writers for the recently founded Mechanics Magazine, which covered the trials, took quite a fancy to Novelty and were disappointed when it had to retire. The next year, 1830, the magazine included a handsome engraving of Braithwaite as the frontispiece to the entire volume (second image) and followed it two pages later with a long folding plate showing a new Braithwaite and Ericsson locomotive, Henry the Fourth (sixth image). The two men did have a passionate following. And there were not many people building second-generation locomotives in 1830.
Novelty, with John Braithwaite and John Eicsson aboard (we don’t know which is which), detail of center panel of lithograph in Mechanics' Magazine, Register, Journal, and Gazette, vol. 12, p. 236, Nov. 28, 1829 (mounted following p. 114 in our copy) (Linda Hall Library)
Braithwaite and Ericsson also built fire engines, and they designed a cold-weather steam engine for John Ross's second voyage into the Arctic archipelago (1829-33), an engine that Ross discarded on the shore (and a story we have yet to tell), and in the mid-1830s, the two men developed the first efficient screw propellers for ships. Braithwaite then turned more toward civil engineering, consulting on laying out railways, while Ericsson moved to the United States and built screw-powered ships like the USS Princeton, and, during the Civil War, the first ironclad warship, the USS Monitor. We told the story of the Monitor in an earlier post. But we have yet to discuss the invention of screw propellers, which transformed ship propulsion systems, and we will do so in a future post on Ericsson.
The locomotive Henry the Fourth, built by John Braithwaite and John Ericsson, detail of fold-out engraving, Mechanics' Magazine, Register, Journal, and Gazette, vol. 13, p. 1, 1830 (Linda Hall Library)
Braithwaite lived a full life and died on Sep. 25, 1870, at the age of 73. He was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in London, where you can also find the graves of fellow engineers Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and the man who threw away his steam engine, John Ross.
William B. Ashworth, Jr., Consultant for the History of Science, Linda Hall Library and Associate Professor emeritus, Department of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Comments or corrections are welcome; please direct to ashworthw@umkc.edu.
