Today in Technology History
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March 22
Schoolchildren are taught that Robert Fulton invented the steamboat in 1807. That is simply not true: several steamboat pioneers preceded Fulton. We have already written about John Fitch, another American whose steamboat plied the Delaware River starting in the 1780s. Other people had been working on steamboats even earlier, such as Briton Jonathan Hulls, who designed and patented (but probably never built) a steamboat in the 1730s.
Another oft-neglected steamboat pioneer was William Symington, who was born in Scotland in 1763. He studied for the ministry at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh but he instead chose to become a civil engineer. Working with his brother, he built one of the earliest steam-powered land vehicles, a street carriage.
In the late 1780s, Symington collaborated on a project to power a boat with a steam engine similar to the one he designed for his street carriage. After several mildly successful tests, the project was quashed because Symington's engine, designed for road use, was too awkward for the paddleboat.
In 1801, a certain Lord Dundas, the head of a canal company, hired Symington to try again. Symington designed a new steam engine and found a less clumsy way of connecting the engine to the paddlewheel.
Symington's new engine was put aboard a tugboat, the Charlotte Dundas, named for Lord Dundas's daughter. A series of successful tests on the canal began in 1802, and Symington received an order to build eight similar boats for the Duke of Bridgewater. Unfortunately, when the duke died in 1803, so did the project. Symington never again found funding to work on steamboats. He died on March 22, 1831, having lived to see others get wealthy from steam-powered navigation.
Robert Fulton was certainly inspired by Symington's work; Fulton was actually on board the Charlotte Dundas in 1801 while Symington was working on it.
Related links:
Click here for a short biography of Symington.
Click here to read much more about Symington and to see pictures of some of his inventions.
Click here and here to read more about other early steamboat designers.
Click here for a picture of Symington's steam-powered carriage.
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