William Murdoch

William Murdoch (sometimes spelled Murdock) (August 21, 1754 - November 15, 1839) was a Scottish engineer and inventor. He was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham. He was the inventor of gas lighting in the early 1790s and coined the term gasometer. In addition to gas he made a number of innovations to the steam engine, including the sun and planet gear and D slide valve, invented the steam gun and pneumatic tube message system, worked on the first British paddle steamer to cross the English Channel, built a prototype steam locomotive in 1784 and made a number of discoveries in the field of chemistry. He remained an employee of Boulton and Watt until the 1830's and his reputation as an independent inventor has tended to be obscured by the reputations of those two men and the firm they founded.

Early Life

He was born near Cumnock, Ayrshire in Scotland, the third of seven children and the first son to survive beyond infacy. The son of John Murdoch, a former Hanoverian artillery gunner and a Millwright and tenant of Bellow Mill on the estate of James Boswell in Auchinleck, he was educated until the age of ten at the Old Cumnock Kirk School before attending Auchinleck school under William Halbert, author of a highly regarded arithmetic textbook. There he excelled in mathematics.

Related Topics:
Cumnock - Ayrshire - Scotland - Hanoverian - Artillery - Millwright - James Boswell - Auchinleck - Kirk - Arithmetic

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In addition to formal education he learned the principles of mechanics, practical experimentation and the working of metal and wood from watching and assisting his fathers work. There are numerous reports that in his youth William was responsible for the construction of one of the 30 bridges over the River Nith, although it is possible that this derives from his fathers work in building the Craikston Bridge over Lugar Water in 1774, which William would certainly have been involved in.

Related Topics:
River Nith - Lugar Water - 1774

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Tales also abound of William carrying out early experiments into natural gas using coal heated in a copper kettle in a small cave 70 feet from his fathers mill, there is however no contemporary documentation for these claims.

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