William Symington's biographer, the late Bill Harvey of Glasgow, published the following essay in a now defunct website in 2003.
This website has been set up to celebrate the career of William Symington, one of Scotland's great inventors and engine builders. It also marks the bi-centenary of the series of experiments that led to the steamboat for which he is best remembered, the Charlotte Dundas. This vessel was powered by the horizontal steam engine that Symington patented in 1801, and made its historic voyages along the Forth and Clyde Canal to Glasgow in 1803. Although remembered for his part in the early development of steam navigation, Symington also had an important role as engineer to Carron Company, and more than thirty engines were built to his designs.
William Symington was born in Leadhills, Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1764. Leadhills and the neighbouring village of Wanlockhead were once major centres of lead mining, and William's father was described as a "practical mechanic" at the Leadhills mines.
William wrote that his family was "respectable but not wealthy". But his parents gave him a good education and intended he should enter the Ministry However, he looked to make a career as an engineer, and in 1785 he joined his brother George who was building a steam engine at Wanlockhead, Dumfriesshire. Wanlockhead is about 2 Km from Leadhills and had its own lead mining industry.
Here, the manager of the mining company, Gilbert Meason, was so impressed by William's ability that he sent him to the University in Edinburgh in 1786 to spend a few months attending lectures in science subjects.
William's brother George had built an engine to pump the Margaret mine at Wanlockhead in 1779. It was to James Watt's design, the second such engine built in Scotland. When William joined him, George was working on another, and larger, engine.
Watt's separate condenser was the turning point in the history of the steam engine, but the engine's construction and upkeep made demands that the engineers of the time found it difficult to meet. The resulting problems were compounded by Watt's insistence on an annual premium, which amounted to £240 for the Wanlockhead engine.
William Symington quickly saw a way that might marry the efficiency of the Watt engine with the simplicity of that devised by Thomas Newcomen. By then Newcomen's atmospheric engines had been worked in Scotland for nearly 70 years, and mechanical problems had been long overcome. Encouraged by Gilbert Meason, and using parts of the now disused first engine, William demonstrated the practicality of his ideas, and his Improved Atmospheric Engine was patented in 1787.
James Watt was obsessed with finding out what other engine builders were doing, so arranged for one of his erectors to visit Wanlockhead and make a sketch showing how the engine worked.
In it the steam was condensed under a second, balanced, piston and this was then pushed down when fresh steam entered the working cylinder, forcing out the condensate. The power piston was driven by the atmospheric pressure acting on the vacuum created by the condensing steam.
To promote the engine, Symington drew up a Prospectus setting out its advantages, and copies were circulated by Gilbert Meason and his influential friends.
The motivation for the Dalswinton steam boat came from Patrick Miller, banker and shareholder in Carron Company, Scotland's premier engineering company at that time.
Miller had made a lengthy series of experiments with manual-powered paddleboats, and was persuaded by James Taylor, a school friend of Symington, to try "the power of steam".
The trial would be "on a small scale", and seemingly it was only intended to demonstrate that an engine would work on the unsure foundation of a boat, and the whole would not set it on fire.
The vessel chosen had been built in 1785 as a "pleasure boat". It had twin hulls and was fitted with two paddle wheels, placed between the hulls and turned by hand cranks. It was agreed that Symington would install an engine to his new patent and connect it to the wheels via chains and ratchets. The mechanism had been demonstrated on a model steam carriage Symington had built in 1785.
The paddleboat with its engine was tried out on the loch by Patrick Miller's house at Dalswinton, near Dumfries, on the 14th October, 1788. An account by James Taylor only claimed that the vessel was "put in motion by a steam engine", and the trial "answered Mr Miller's expectations".
However, later accounts were increasingly fulsome, leading to claims that the boat crossed the water at 5 mph with Robert Burns amongst those on board.
His presence was said to be included in the sketch of the boat made in 1848. But if Burns was present, then he made no mention of it in a letter he wrote that day, and he failed to mark the occasion in verse.
Those on board did include the local Minister, the Reverend Archibald Lawson, and his son. The latter subsequently reported on the trial to Robert Cleland of Glasgow, who later wrote how the little engine "failed to do its duty after a short interval", and had to be aided by the hand cranks. But the trial did demonstrate that a steam engine would work on a boat and could be made to turn its paddlewheels.
Miller was then persuaded to take the scheme further and to commission a larger engine that would be tried in a boat on the Forth and Clyde Canal.
The parts were ordered from Carron Company and, with assistance from James Taylor, an engine similar to that used at Dalswinton, but a great deal larger, was erected on another of Miller's twin hull paddle boats. It was 60 ft long and had been worked on the Firth of Forth in 1787.
This was tried on the canal on 2nd December, 1789, but, to Miller's consternation, the paddle wheels were unequal to steam power and they began to break up when an attempt was made to increase the speed He had already quarrelled with Symington over the cost to the venture, and he returned to Dalswinton expressing his disgust with steam engines.
However, lie did sanction repairs and, on 26th and 27th December further, successful, trials were made and the vessel travelled some distance along the canal at a "motion of nearly seven miles an hour".
William Symington is best remembered for his attempts to power vessels by steam. These attempts demonstrated this was practical, but had no commercial success. It is a perversity of history that the successful engines he built for mines and mills have been forgotten.
The first of them was built on the Bay, or Charles, mine Wanlockhead in 1790, with castings supplied by Carron Company of Falkirk. It was followed by engines in nearby
Sanquhar, and in London. In 1792 Symington built a large pumping engine on the Humby mine at Leadhills. James Watt had been asked to tender, but after much deliberation the mining company decided "Mr Symington's engine would be the most proper to pump the Humby mine".
In the same year, he built a pumping engine for the Kinnaird colliery of James Bruce, the explorer. This marked a move to live near Falkirk and, in time, Symington's place as engine consultant for Carron Company.
Single acting atmospheric engines were ideal for pumping mines, but were not well suited to turn a crank and thus provide rotative power. Symington began by using ratchets, as with the paddleboats for Patrick Miller and the two mill engines he built in London. In 1793 he developed a crank drive with a crosshead above the cylinder, and built such an engine to wind coal from one of Bruce's pits. The engine proved very successful, and about fifteen were built, some for coal mines, some to power mills.
There are firm references to thirty-two engines built by Symington to 1808, and passing mention of several more.
(Whereas) Patrick Miller had initiated the first steamboat trials, it was Thomas, Lord Dundas who would motivate the others. By the end of the 18th C., the Dundasses were perhaps the most powerful family in Scotland. Sir Thomas, had extensive business interests on the East and West coasts and was Governor of the Forth and Clyde Canal Company. The canal was essential to his businesses, and the delay occasioned by towing vessels through the canal with horses was a restriction that might be resolved by using steam powered tugs. A tug designed by an authority on small vessels, Captain John Schank. had been tried on the Bridgewater canal in 1799, and although it had not been a success, it was a pointer to the future.
At a meeting of the canal company's directors on the 5th June, 1800, Dundas "produced a model of a boat by Captain Schank to be worked by a steam engine by Mr Symington", and it was agreed this should be immediately put in hand. Those concerned clearly believed one of Symington's engines would turn a failure at Bridgewater into a success on the Forth and Clyde.
A diagrammatic sketch, made by Symington himself, has now come to light and it shows an engine driving a forward wheel within the hull; or perhaps two wheels, one on either side. Carron Company's invoices demonstrate that the engine was similar in size to a beam winding engine Symington had previously installed on a colliery at Alloa.
The boat was built by Alexander Hart at Grangemouth, and was tried out on the river Carron in June 1801, when it was reported that it moved with ease and dispatch. It was less successful when tried on the canal and the Committee decided it would "by no means answer the purpose"
The atmospheric engine had the advantage of simplicity, but its power was limited to what could be achieved with atmospheric pressure. By 1800 Watt's patents had expired so engineers could now build steam engines and develop new ideas.
Symington turned his attention to a horizontal engine and patented an engine to his design in 1801. It had the simple sort of construction that later became commonplace. Yet in 1801 it was ahead of its time. Most engine builders believed a horizontal piston would just grind on the bottom of the cylinder. There is no record that Watt ever tried to build a horizontal engine, and it was 1825 before the design became accepted.
The Canal Company did not regard the first steamboat as a success and refused further trials. But Symington now had a much more powerful engine. If he could match it with a suitable hull, and make a new trial, he could demonstrate that he could build a tug that would secure business not only for himself but for Carron Company. Lord Dundas had instigated the building of the first steamboat and now gave Symington his support.
A model of the vessel was made to show Dundas and, to further secure his interest, it was called the Charlotte Dundas, after one of his Lordship's daughters.
It was a "total design", for the hull and propulsion were conceived by Symington as a single entity. To reduce any damage to the canal banks, he used a large, slow turning, wheel which was constructed so that the wheel would receive an adequate flow of water.
The vessels Symington had previously engine had all been designed by others, but the experience would have given him a unique knowledge of paddleboats.
The hull was built by John Allan to Symington's direction, and Carron Company made the engine. This was placed above the, so called, wagon boiler, which, with its surrounding flues, would have almost filled the hull.
The Charlotte Dundas made her debut in Glasgow on 4th January 1803, with Lord Dundas and some of his relatives on board. Although a watching crowd were "exceedingly well pleased", Symington saw the need for modifications and another, more ambitious, trial was made on the 28th March. On this occasion the steamboat towed two loaded vessels through the canal to Glasgow, covering 18 ½ miles in 9 ¼ hours, in spite of a strong breeze ahead.
The Charlotte Dundas was the first steamboat to do more than move itself, and by successfully towing the two vessels along the canal, it demonstrated the unique way Symington must have married propulsion and the hull.
But, having refused to pursue the first vessel, the Canal Company were not prepared to entertain another. To add to Symington's disappointment, a scheme to build tug boats for the Duke of Bridgewater collapsed on the Duke's death a few days before the March trial.
William Symington was not only an engine builder for he was also a colliery manager, a Viewer. His first appointment was at Kinnaird and followed the death of James Bruce in 1794. Bruce's son was a minor, so the Trustees asked Symington to take over. He had a salary of £100 p.a. and a house on the estate. The appointment ended in 1800 and Symington then took over management of the Grange colliery near Bo'ness for William Cadell.
In 1804, Symington joined a local business man, James Miller, in a partnership to manage the Callendar colliery at Falkirk. A new pump was needed to expand the operation, and this provided Symington with the opportunity to develop what he called a Lifting Engine, a direct acting pump. He may have built one of them for the Wanlockhead mines in 1819.
But the Callendar venture ended badly for the partners quarrelled, and took their disputes to the High Court in Edinburgh in actions that continued until 1810 and were not resolved in Symington's favour.
Patrick Miller had not been inclined to pursue the potential of the 1789 trial. Lord Dundas, perhaps faced with the opposition of his fellow directors on the Canal Company, now not only lost interest in steamboats but failed to ensure that the costs of the Charlotte Dundas were met Symington himself was then left out of pocket, and to add to this he was later to be faced with considerable legal expenses arising from the cases in the High Court.
The resulting financial pressures coloured the memories passed down to his children Leaving the impression that their father's career was measured in terms of the unsuccessful steamboats, and blotting out his successful engine building.
In 1829, in ill health and dogged by debts, Symington and his wife moved to London to live with their daughter Margaret and her husband, Dr Robert Bowie. Symington died in March 1831 and was buried in St Botolph's churchyard. In 1890 a bust was unveiled in Edinburgh, in what is now the National Museum, in memory of "William Symington Engineer".
I am indebted to Dr Graeme Symington of Victoria, Australia, for Symington's sketch of the first of the Dundas steamboats. And to my son George for setting up this website.
William S Harvey
Copyright 2001 W. S. Harvey
Updated September 2003