James Howden | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 21 November 1913 | (aged 81)
Occupation(s) | Engineer and inventor |
James Howden (29 February 1832 – 21 November 1913) was a Scottish engineer and inventor who is noted for his invention of the Howden forced draught system for steam boilers.
Howden was born in Prestonpans, East Lothian, in 1832, [1] the son of James Howden and his wife, Catherine Cowden, [2] [3] and was educated at the local parish school. [4] His first marriage was to Helen Burgess Adams, with whom he had one daughter, Catherine Spence Howden (1873–1925), [5] and his second to Allison Moffat Hay, with whom he had two sons, James Howden (1883–1908) and William Hay Howden (1884–1943). [6] [3] His two wives both predeceased him, [3] and he died in Glasgow in 1913. [1]
Howden served as an apprentice from 1847 with James Gray & Co., a Glasgow engineering firm, [1] [7] passing through the various departments and eventually becoming chief draughtsman. [4] Having finished his apprenticeship he started work first with Bell and Miller, the civil engineers, then with Robert Griffiths, who designed marine screw propellers. [1]
In 1854, Howden launched himself as a consultant engineer and designer, his first major invention being a rivet-making machine. The selling of the patent rights to a company in Birmingham [3] for this secured him financially and James Howden & Co. was established as a manufacturer of marine equipment. [1] In 1857, Howden began work on the design and supply of boilers and steam engines for the marine industry; [8] his first contract was with Hendersons to supply the Anchor Liner Ailsa Craig with a compound steam engine and water boilers, using steam at 100 lb pressure. [1] [3] That same year, together with Alexander Morton of Glasgow, he was awarded a patent for the "invention of improvements in obtaining motive power." [9] On 28 February 1859, he applied for a patent for the "improvements in machinery, or apparatus for cutting, shaping, punching, and compressing metals." [10] In 1860 he patented a method of preheating combustion air; [8] his patent was granted for the invention of "improvements in steam engines and boilers, and in the apparatus connected therewith". [11] In 1862, he decided to construct main boilers and engines to his own design and started manufacturing in his first factory on Scotland Street in Glasgow's Tradeston district. [12] A breakthrough came in 1863 when he introduced a furnace mechanical draught system which used a steam turbine driven axial flow fan. [8]
Howden is chiefly remembered as the inventor of the Howden forced draught system, which forced heated waste gases into the combustion chamber by means of a fan and ductwork and which appeared in the 1880s. [7] This system dramatically reduced the amount of coal used in ships' boilers. Howden patented this device in 1882 as the 'Howden System of Forced Draught' [8] and during the 1880s more than 1000 boilers were converted to this specification or constructed to Howden's patent. [12] The first vessel to use the system was the New York City, built in 1885. [1] Amongst the liners to use the Howden system in their boilers were the Lusitania [13] and Mauretania, [13] the fastest liners in the world when they were built.
Howden's original Glasgow factory being too small for his expanding operation, he had a new, larger one designed by Nisbet Sinclair at 195 Scotland Street, down the road from his original factory. This opened in 1898 and featured overhead cranes, handling equipment and central-heating (a rarity at the time). [12] As a result of an overflowing order book, the factory was enlarged, first in 1904, and again in 1912, to a design by Bryden & Robertson. [12] As of 2009, this redbrick factory – "one of the last remaining Victorian heavy engineering works in Glasgow", and the place where the tunnel boring machines used in the excavation of the Channel Tunnel were made [12] – lies empty.
In the 1900s, Howden designed a fully enclosed high-speed marine steam engine. This was later modified for use in land-based systems as the Howden-Zoelly steam turbine. [1] At the onset of the First World War, a year after Howden's death, the Admiralty ruled that all ships were to be fitted with Howden "blowers" so that they could outrun U-boats. [12]
Amongst the projects that Howden worked on were assisting the St Helena Whaling Company, quarrying marble in Greece and working on the design of a recoilless gun for the Admiralty. [1]
Howden was the last surviving founder member of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, founded in 1857. [1] Although he was a lifelong Liberal, he took no part in politics or public life. [4]
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