INTRODUCTION

Dr. Robert Bowie published a biography of William Symington in 1833. Bowie's "Brief Narrative" was based on a Memorial which William Symington had prepared at considerable expense and which he submitted to the Lords of the Treasury. Bowie reports that when Symington attempted to retrieve his drawings and documents, he was told they could not be procured. 

Bowie's Narrative indicated that the Memorial had been presented in about 1825. [1] Seeking William Symington's original submission in the Public Records Office, in 1977, I searched the indexes to Treasury papers for 1825 and for the years to either side of that date. My initial search was unsuccessful. There was no entry registered under the name of Symington. 

Having undertaken post-graduate Neurology studies in London, I returned to the Public Record Office at Kew a couple of years later and made a further concerted review of the Treasury files.  Again, there was no record under Symington.  William Symington had failed to retrieve his drawings, which were presumed lost.  A review of the BRIEF NARRATIVE revealed that Bowie, in his concluding remarks, paid tribute to Sir Ronald Ferguson and others for the interest they had taken in William Symington's welfare.  

Lieutenant General Sir Ronald Ferguson (1773-1841) was the Member of Parliament for the Kirkcaldy burghs at the time. His wife was a sister of Lady Dumfries who had connections with the Wanlockhead Mining Company. Having noted Bowie's acknowledgement, I reviewed the Treasury Index which immediately revealed the following entry under Ferguson dated April 27, 1826, in the index of “Treasury Board Papers, Alphabetical, Individual”:  [2]

“FERGUSON, Sir R.C. with Documents from W. Symington in confirmation of his Statement of being the original inventor of the steam boat " – No. 8026 D Reg; 27th April 1826   

Sir Robert Ferguson had directed William Symington’s documents to J. C. Herries, Joint Secretary of the Treasury with the following covering letter dated Rotten Row, 24th April 1826:

5 Rotten Row, 

24th April 1826 

My Dear Sir,  

You will be alarmed at the voluminous papers I send to you – 

you will find among them a petition to the House of Commons 

from Mr. W. Symington stating himself to be the original 

inventor of the steam boat, accompanied by various documents, in 

confirmation of his statement and by some original Drawings 

one of which was made in 1789 – 

He is a man of great genius, & unfortunately labours 

under the united misfortunes of poverty & old age. 

I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will consider him 

or his wife, as an object deserving of his further Bounty.  

I am My Dear sir,  

 Yours truly,  

 R. C. Ferguson 

 J. C. Herries Esq. [3]

Sir R. C. Ferguson with Documents from W. Symington in confirmation 

of his Statement of being the original Inventor of the Steam Boat –  

No. 8086 

Reg.d 27th April 1826  

William Symington’s submission to Treasury comprised a Petition to the House of Commons, dated 4th November 1825, with a set of accompanying drawings which are referred to in its text, a Memorial [4] to the Lords of the Treasury dated 1st December 1824, a set of eleven affidavits collected between October 1824 and September 1825, and a copy made in 1815 of the Extract of the Specification of his 1801 invention.  Accompanying the Petition is Symington’s own affidavit, signed and dated 29th December 1825.  The text of William Symington’s Petition is presented here in full, together with the affidavits and the drawings which are referred to in the Petition, none of which has been published.  Of the drawings which accompany the Petition, only that of the 1788 experiment shows engine detail.  Although the other drawings are simple diagrams only, two are important:  – “No. 2” which depicts the improved version of the 1789 boat and “No 3” which represents the first boat built for Lord Dundas. These sketches by William Symington are the only original drawings which survive to depict these two concepts. 

PETITION BY WILLIAM SYMINGTON DATED 29th DECEMBER 1825

The following is the transcript of William Symington's Petition to Parliament:

To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain & Ireland in the present Parliament assembled.

The Humble Petition of William Symington, Civil Engineer, residing in Falkirk, Stirlingshire.

Sheweth

That your Petitioner has been advised by several of his Friends and Acquaintances to lay before your Honourable House the following brief Statement of facts relative to his connexion with the perfecting of Steam-Boat Navigation, in the hope that your Honourable House may be induced to afford him that relief which should have been made to him by the Invention itself, had not fortuitous circumstances interfered, to deprive him of the remuneration which might have been expected upon bringing to perfection so useful an Invention.

Your Petitioner was born at Lead-Hills, in the County of Lanark North Britain, in the year 1764, of not wealthy but respectable parents.  He was intended for & partly educated with a view to the Church, but his turn for Mechanical Philosophy soon led him to change his object, and to direct his studies to the exercise of the profession of a Civil Engineer.

Having commenced his pursuit, he made several improvements on the Steam Engine, for some of which he procured His Majesty’s letters Patent, and introduced them with considerable advantage into different parts of England & Scotland.

In July 1786, he went to Edinburgh, and submitted to the Professors of that University, and to other Learned & Scientific Gentlemen, the model of a Carriage, which he had invented and intended to be moved on public Roads by the power of Steam.  Upon this occasion, he met the late Patrick Miller Esq.re of Dalswinton, who had been informed not only of his model of a steam Carriage, but of his previous improvements on the Steam Engine, by Mr James Taylor, a school companion of the Petitioner, and who was then tutor in Mr Millars [5] family.

When Mr Miller called on the Petitioner, at the house of his much respected friend, the late Gilbert Meason Esq.re he was shown the model of the Steam Carriage, and Mr Miller was pleased to say, “it bids fair to improve greatly, the commerce of the Country, by facilitating conveyance and reducing the rates of carriage.”  

Mr Miller also mentioned that he had spent much time making experiments as to the propelling of Vessel upon water, by using wheels in place of Sails or Oars.  These wheels, he had hitherto put in motion by applying the Strength of men to the turning of a handle or winch.  He said he had also attempted to work them by the power of horses, but none of these powers had sufficiently answered his purpose.

Your Petitioner stated, without hesitation that he believed a Steam Engine might be constructed to propel Mr Miller’s Boats, by communicating a Rotatory motion to the paddles by the alternate action of two rachet wheels, in the same manner as proposed in the model of the Steam Carriage, then before him, which would render altogether unnecessary the aid of a fly-wheel to regulate and equalize the effects of the Steam Engine in turning the revolving Oars. 

The model then before Mr Miller and the description given by your Petitioner of the manner by which he proposed applying the same power to produce a rotary motion in his paddle wheels, seemed to convince him of the practicability of applying the Steam Engine to the propelling of Boats, and he said with a becoming diffidence, as to his knowledge in mechanical powers, that if your Petitioner should think it possible to construct & work a Steam Engine with safety on board of a Vessel, he would have an experiment made on a small scale, as soon as the Petitioner could attend to it; and he left it entirely to the Petitioner to devise the plan of the Steam Engine - the mode of producing rotary motion, and the placing of the apparatus with safety in the Vessel; only stipulating, that the whole energy and ability of your Petitioner was to be directed to the only end he had in view, that of making his paddle wheels constantly revolve with a sufficient degree of velocity.  

Upon this mutual understanding your Petitioner accepted the employment of Mr Miller, and proceeded to erect a small Steam Engine, upon the principle, for which he had previously procured a patent, having two cylinders of four Inches diameter, each making an Eighteen inches Stroke.  This Engine, having been constructed by the direction and under the eye of your Petitioner, he caused it to be fitted on board a Double keeled Vessel, then lying upon a piece of water near the house of Dalswinton; and this being done, an experiment was made, in the autumn of the year 1788, in presence of Mr Miller and various other respectable persons, and the Boat was propelled in a manner that gave such satisfaction that it was immediately determined to commence an Experiment upon a more extended scale.

The second experiment was made, on the Forth & Clyde Canal.  The machinery was executed at Carron Iron Works under the direction of your Petitioner, and was erected in a Boat belonging to Mr Miller, which he had previously caused to be built and fitted with paddle wheels, for the purpose of making experiments as to the effect of these wheels turned by the labour of men as already described.  The Petitioner fitted into this Boat a Steam Engine with two cylinders, each Eighteen Inches in diameter and making a three feet stroke; and in the month of October 1789, he took on board Mr Miller, - the late John Adam - John Balfour- Ambrose Tibbets Esquires, Members of the Carron Company, Mr Taylor his School Companion and David Drysdale an experienced Sailor, to whom he gave the helm; and in presence of hundreds of Spectators who lined the Banks of the Canal, the Boat glided along, propelled at the rate of five miles an hour, and all parties interested declared themselves satisfied with the success of the experiment.

Your Petitioner has herewith produced the original Drawing, with an Account of the Expence of the Machinery, which, exclusive of the cost of the Boat that previously belonged to Mr Millar, amounted to £363.10.10 Strg as Certified by the Affidavit of Joseph Stainton Esq.re Manager of the Carron Company.

These experiments having been completed under the patronage of Mr Miller, your Petitioner was completely satisfied that the application of paddle wheels was capable of giving a considerable velocity to the motion of Vessels when an impetus was derived from a machine so powerful as the Steam Engine; but as Mr Miller at this period very unaccountably withdrew himself from public business, and devoted his talents to the improvement of his Estate of Dalswinton, it was left to the Petitioner & to the public in general either to carry into effect the practical results that had been hitherto ascertained, or still further to improve upon them.

Your Petitioner at this time was also unfortunately obliged to go away to the Wanlockhead Lead Mines, to construct machinery upon a large scale, to enable the Proprietors to work these Mines to advantage; and the attention of all Parties connected with the Steam Boat experiments, being for a time directed to other important objects, the Boat was dismantled, and its machinery laid up in the Carron Works, and thus ended the trials made upon Steam Boats, under the patronage of Patrick Miller Esq.re of Dalswinton. 

In the Summer of the year 1800 the late Thomas Lord Dundas of Kerse applied to your Petitioner, and after alluding to the Experiments that had been made eleven years before, expressed a wish that your Petitioner should employ himself in constructing a Vessel, capable of being propelled by the power of Steam through the Forth Clyde Canal (of which he was a large Proprietor) and of dragging Vessels in place of using horses - the power then, and still employed in dragging Vessels in that Canal.  

Your Petitioner accordingly under the auspices & patronage of that Enlightened Nobleman, commenced a series of experiments in January 1801, and continued them till April 1803, which cost upwards of Seven Thousand Pounds, and which produced the happy results now to be described.

A Steam Engine was erected with a cylinder of double power, 22 inches in diameter, and making a four feet stroke, and fitted into a Boat adapted to the power of the Engine, and after making various experiments, your Petitioner in March 1803 took on board of the boat at lock No. 20 of the Canal, the late Lord Dundas, his Patron - Archibald Spiers Esq.re of Elderslee & several Gentlemen of their Acquaintance; and he made the Steam Boat take in drag two loaded Vessels, the Active and Euphemia of Grangemouth - Gow and Esplin Masters, each Vessel upwards of Seventy Tons burden; and with great ease they were carried through the summit level of the Canal to Port Dundas, a distance of Nineteen miles & a half, in Six hours; altho’ it blew so strong a breeze right a-head during the whole course of the day, that no other Vessel in the Canal attempted to move to windward, and this Experiment not only satisfied your Petitioner, but every person who witnessed it, of the utility of Steam Boat Navigation.  

When it was proposed however to the Proprietors of the Canal to substitute Steam Boats in place of Drag-Horses, it was alleged that the undulation created upon the Water by the use of the paddle wheels, would have the effect of washing down the Banks of the Canal, and thereby doing a greater injury to the Canal itself, than any benefit that could be expected to be derived from the use of such an improvement, and as the Proprietors of the Canal were entitled to judge of their own affairs, the late Lord Dundas & your Petitioner, altho’ differing from them in opinion, were bound to submit to their decision, and the result of these experiments was that your Petitioner at the desire of his Patron caused a beautiful model of the Steam Engine & Boat to be executed, with a Set of Ice Breakers attached to it; which was sent to the house of Lord Dundas in Arlington Street London.

Your Petitioner thus a second time thrown upon his own resources, in attempting to achieve the much desired & ultimate object of his invention, viz.r the application of Steam to the general use of Navigation, was, with great reluctance obliged to lay up the original Boat, upon which these experiments were tried, in a creek of the Canal near the Bainsford Drawbridge, where it remained for many years exposed to public view.  While lying there, Mr Henry Bell from Glasgow, who had also witnessed the experiments in 1789, was frequently seen to inspect it; and it was this Gentleman, who, in conjunction with others, constructed, in the year 1811, the Steam Boat “The Comet” which first plied on the River Clyde, and the immense advantages resulting from this exemplification of the invention, made it be taken advantage of by the Companies who have since so flourishingly prosecuted Steam Boat Navigation in this Country.

It happened one day during the period that your Petitioner was employed in conducting the experiments under the patronage of Lord Dundas, viz.r in July 1801, that a Stranger came to the banks of the Canal, and requested to see the Petitioner.  He very politely announced himself as Mr Fulton, a Native of North America, and told your Petitioner that he intended to return to his native Country in a few months, but having heard of the Steam Boat Experiments, he could not think of leaving the country without waiting upon the Petitioner in the hope of seeing the Boat & Machinery, and procuring some information as to the principles upon which it was moved.  He remarked that however beneficial such an Invention might be to Great Britain, it would certainly be of much more importance to North America, considering the many navigable Rivers and Lakes in that Country, and the ease with which Timber could be had, either for building such Vessels or supplying the Engines with fuel.  He thought fit to say that the usefulness of these Vessels in a Mercantile point of view could not fail to attract the attention of every Observer and that if he was allowed to carry the plan to North America, it could not but turn out to the advantage of the Petitioner because if the Petitioner were inclined, or if his other engagements would permit of it, the making or at least the superintending the making of such Vessels would naturally fall upon him.

Your Petitioner was flattered by the stranger's attention, and in compliance with his earnest request; he caused the Engine fire to be lighted up & the machinery put in motion. Several persons entered the Boat, and these along with Mr Fulton were carried from Lock No. 16, where the Boat then lay, about four miles west along the Canal, and they returned to the place of Starting in one hour & twenty minutes to the great astonishment of Mr Fulton & the other Gentlemen present.  

Mr Fulton asked the Petitioner if he had any objection to his taking Notes regarding the form, the size, the construction, &c: of the Steam Boat and Steam Apparatus; to which your Petitioner answered that he had none; as he was of the opinion that the greater publicity that could be given to a Discovery intended for general good, so much the better.  He accordingly took out a Memorandum Book, and put several pointed questions to the Petitioner regarding the general Construction & effect of the machine, which were answered with a wish to be explicit; and Mr Fulton noted down the answers, and everything that was described to him, and made his own remarks, while the Boat was moving along the Canal, with him & others on board.  The Petitioner never heard of him again, till he saw an account of his Death in an American Newspaper, dated Baltimore " " year 1818.

The foregoing detail can all be proved by the testimony of respectable Witnesses, and there are herewith produced the Affidavits of several Gentlemen and creditable Tradesmen to the truth of the principal averments made by the Petitioner; and should any part of the narrative be challenged, he is confident of being able to substantiate the same in the most satisfactory manner, but as he means in this Petition to confine himself strictly, to facts it is unnecessary for him to draw any Inference from what he has already stated.  He may be permitted however to say that Mr Fultons Steam Vessel did not make its appearance on the Hudson River, earlier than the year 1806, being several years after the Petitioner had completed the whole series of his experiments, and some years after Mr Fulton himself had been on board the “Charlotte Dundas” Steam Boat, and had minutely examined her while at work upon the Forth & Clyde Canal, and about Eighteen years after your Petitioner had made his first experiment on the Lake of Dalswinton - thus satisfactorily establishing the Invention to be British.

Previous to finishing the Experiments upon the Forth & Clyde Canal, your Petitioner went to London, and presented his patron Lord Dundas with the model of the Steam Boat & steam apparatus already described.  Upon this occasion, his Lordship suggested the propriety of shewing the model to his Grace the Duke of Bridgewater whom he knew to be an ingenious & spirited Nobleman, besides being sole Proprietor of extensive Canals, and who could, if he approved of the Invention, adopt it upon his own.

His Lordship accordingly called upon the Duke, and told him that the Petitioner was in Town, and requested that he might be allowed to wait upon his Grace with the model of the Steam Boat, to which he replied “that it appeared to him altogether needless to amuse themselves further with anything regarding Steam Boats, as he could well assure his Lordship they would never be made to answer any useful purpose, having himself, subsequent to the first Experiments which your Petitioner had made in Scotland, bestowed upon the subject much pains & great expence without affording the least hope of success; yet with this impression as to the improbability of utility, he was still willing to see anything new upon the Subject,” and consented to examine your Petitioners model.

Your Petitioner waited upon the Duke next day, and shewed & explained the model to him, when he declared that such a Vessel as that before him, had every appearance of answering the purpose he wished, and pointing to his Collection of Paintings, which he said had cost him upwards of £100,000, he stated his belief that the advantages which trade might annually derive at some future period from the use of such Steam Boats would many times exceed the value of his excellent Gallery of Pictures; and to shew his conviction of the fact, he gave the Petitioner an immediate order to build Eight such Boats for the use of his Canal, and pressingly requested him to devote his time to the executing of this order, with as little delay as possible.

Your Petitioner returned to Scotland, elated with the prospect of being able in a short time thus to turn his Invention to a useful purpose, and satisfactorily completed his last experiment, then only in progress; but to his great mortification upon the very day he had finished it, he heard of the much lamented Death of that very worthy and Enterprising Nobleman, which, together with the determination of the Proprietors of the Forth & Clyde Canal, not to use the Boats, after the pains that had been taken to perfect them, so affected your Petitioner that probably he did not use that energy, he otherwise might have done to introduce his Invention to public notice; and perhaps it was from this circumstance that the introduction of Steam Boat Navigation was postponed in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, till after the Americans had taken advantage of it and carried the Invention into general practice.

Your Petitioner was advised to apply for his Majesty’s Letters Patent to cover his Invention, which are dated October 1801; but after having put himself to this Expence, he discovered that the general principle of the application of Steam to the propelling of Boats, is an Invention much earlier than his time.  So far back as the year 1736, Jonathan Hulls of England procured a Patent for the propelling of Boats by Steam, conform to a plan which he published with a Copy of his patent.  This Boat however was unfit for any useful purpose, in consequence of the imperfection of the Steam Engine and the awkward manner of applying its power.  That ingenious machine was not then brought to such a degree of perfection as to be capable of being used for the production of rotatory motion in a manner sufficient for the propelling of Boats, and your Petitioner humbly presumes to say (but with perfect confidence in the truth of what he advances) that he is the first Individual who every effectually applied the power of the Steam Engine to the propelling of Vessels, without saying anything of your Petitioners own original invention of a Steam Carriage.

While advancing this pretension, he is confident of being able to maintain it; but at the same time he is far from wishing to detract from the merits of any of the Ingenious Men who have laboured in the same department.  Much is due to Jonathan Hulls, and perhaps it is impossible to expect greater progress to have been made in the Invention at the time he wrote.  Much merit is also due to his first Patron Mr Miller, to whom the country is indebted for the improvements he made upon Boats & Wheels; but it was your Petitioner alone who invented a Steam Engine and actually applied it with effect to the propelling of Boats, (althou’ he hesitates not to declare that the improved Engine of Messrs. Watt & Bolton has now deservedly superseded every other) and he thus first put upon something like a firm basis of fact the grand principle, before but dreamt of, as it were, that this mighty Agent could be rendered subservient to the purposes of Navigation.  In doing this, he has spent the greater part of his life, and he has devoted to the subject many hours of anxious thought, and has suffered much loss of time & great labour.

Upon a moderate estimate of his outlay, the Invention has cost him upwards of Five Thousand Pounds, and as he is now advanced in life & has a family to support, and has incurred some debt which hangs heavily upon him, he has presumed to lay his Case before your Honourable House, as the Guardians of the public purse, in the hope that he may be remunerated, at least to some extent for the pains & disbursements he has employed in perfecting an Invention, of which the Public now reap the whole benefit.  

It would be quite unnecessary for your Petitioner to make any allusion to the advantages which the public now derive from this invention - They are obvious & great, and every Class of Society, for pleasure or in commerce, avail themselves of the certainty of dispatch it affords. 

The above considerations appear to your Petitioner to make out a claim on his part against the Public, and this claim he humbly submits to the Wisdom of your Honourable House.

Praying your Honourable House to take the foregoing Petition into your consideration and award to your humble Petitioner the Remuneration which the Wisdom of your Honourable House shall deem the justness & importance of his claim deserving of.

Falkirk Twenty ninth December 1825.

As a result of his submission, William Symington was awarded £100 from the Treasury.  Viscount Goderich was then Chancellor of the Exchequer.  The following year he received a further sum of £50 but no pension was granted.  He had hoped for an annual allowance, but that was not to be the case. Symington was advised to bring his claim before Parliament in 1828 by means of a Petition but Goulburn, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, refused to allow a Petition to be presented, alleging that he had already dealt with the subject. [6]

[1] Bowie page 23

[2] National Archive, Treasury Board Papers T 1/2424/No. 8026

[3] J. C. Herries (1778-1855) Joint Secretary, Treasury Office, Whitehall. (Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1827) 

[4] The wording of the Petition and the Memorial is almost identical, the Petition being derived from the earlier document.

[5] Both spellings, Millar and Miller, are used.

[6] Bowie

Inventory of Drawings accompanying, and referred to in, Petition by William Symington To The Honble. The Commons House of Parliament dated 4th Novr. 1824.

No. 1st The method projected by William Symington Civil Engineer then residing at Wanlockhead Dumfriesshire, for propelling Vessels by means of a Steam Engine.  Agreeably to this plan experiments were made by him at Dalswinton in August 1788

No. 2nd An improvement, by William Symington, upon No. 1, which was put in execution at Carron Iron Works in 1789. 

N.B. The above schemes were performed under the patronage of Patrick Miller Esquire of Dalswinton.

Nos. 3rd & 4th Other methods, which were found better adapted for producing the above effect, also projected by William Symington.  These were tried on the Forth & Clyde Canal, under the patronage of The Right Honble. Lord Dundas of Kerse in the years 1801-2 & 3.

Nos. 5th 6th & 7th Three different modes of sculling Vessels by the power of Steam Engine, projected by William Symington in the year 1814, from suggestions by Lord Dundas and Thomas Bruce Esquire of Grangemuir Fifeshire.

This set of  drawings which illustrate William Symington’s Petition nicely chronicle the evolution of his concepts of steam boat design: from the first experiment in 1788 in which a double keeled vessel was propelled by a small twin cylinder engine driving a pair of paddle wheels, through several transitional forms to the 1802 design with a single cylinder engine supported on an inclined cradle above deck which drove a single paddle wheel placed within a split keel at the stern. The addition of the drawings of boats propelled by sculling oars was an aberration. The references to Lord Dundas and Thomas Bruce were no doubt intended to add cachet but distracted from the main thrust of the Petition.

Text written on these drawings:

"For Mr. Miller of Dalswinton" (Drawing of twin cylinder steam engine)

"For  Mr. Miller of Dalswinton No. 2- Steam Boat by William Symington August 1789 Falkirk 4th Nov. 1825. This is the Drawing referred to in page 6th of my Petition of this date." 

"For Lord Dundas No 3rd - Steam Boat, by William Symington - 1801"

"For Lord Dundas No 4th Steam Boat, by William Symington, 1802 for which he obtained Letters Patent"

"No. 5th Steam Boat by William Symington 1814 From an Idea of Lord Dundas & Mr. Bruce Grangemuir - To be moved by Sculling Oars"

"No. 6th Steam Boat, by William Symington 1814"

"No. 7th Steam Boat, by William Symington 1814"

Affidavits

The affidavits which accompany the Petition were later reproduced in a pamphlet titled "Symington Testimonial" which was issued by William Symington's supporters. (See the section headed 1841 Symington Testimonial)