Signed William Fairburn Construction of Britannia & Conway Tubular Bridges 1849

Author: William Fairbairn (Inscribed by the Author)   

Title: An Account of the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges with a Complete History of Their Progress,From the Conception of the Original Idea,to the Conclusion of the elaborate experiments which determined the exact form and mode of Construction ultimately adopted  History of British Railways Down to the Year 1830  

Publication:  First Edition 1st Impression Published By John Neale and Longman,Brown,Green and Longmans London 1849…………………………….. (See Pictures)  

Condition Of Book:

This is a Very Good Copy of this book in quarter black calf (leather) over patterned silk style boards with gilt title lettering along backstrip.The book has been inscribed by the Author and reads if I decipher correctly ” To His Excellancy Mr Van Der Meyer with the authors respectful compliments ” (see pic) there is one further small previous owner’s name and place name of Inverness to the front endpaper.Many technical drawings with some twenty large fold out plans of The Conway Bridge and Brittania Bridge and also of the Chester and Holyhead Railways.The book has a firm binding with no hinge weakness.There are just a few foxing marks showing mainly to the pre-lims.Scarce title in very decent collectable condition.
William Fairbairn was a Scottish engineer and was one of the first of his kind to conduct systematic investigations of failures of structures, including the collapse of textile mills and boiler explosions. His report on the collapse of a mill at Oldham showed the poor design methods used by architects when specifying cast iron girders for supporting heavily loaded floors.He condemned the use of trussed cast iron girders, and was a key adviser to Robert Stephenson not to use the concept in a bridge then being built over the river Dee at Chester in 1846. The bridge collapsed in May 1847, killing 5 people who were passengers on the local train passing over the structure at the time. The Dee Bridge disaster raised concerns about the integrity of many other railway bridges already built or about to be built on the rail network.Scarce title 291pp plus fold out diagrams and drawings First Edition [1849] 



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