Fulton R
NAME: Fulton, Robert.
ACHIEVEMENTS: Developed the steamboat.
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None.
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 14th November 1765, in Lancaster County, PA.
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: 24th February 1815, New York, NY. Aged 50.
DISCIPLINE: Engineer and inventor.
FIELD: Engineering.
EDUCATION: Quaker school, Lancaster County.
MAJOR WORK:
‘Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation’ (1796).
‘Torpedo War and Submarine Explosions’ (1810).
‘Report on the Practicability of Navigating with Steamboats on the Southern
Waters of the United States’ (1813).
LIFE AND TIMES:
At the age of twenty-one, Fulton developed a chest ailment and went to Bath, VA, to convalesce. He was by now an accomplished painter of miniatures on ivory and it was suggested that he should go to Europe to study art.
He had been given a letter of introduction to the London-based artist <taught by> West*, who began to tutor him. Two of his paintings were accepted by the Royal Academy in 1791 and in the same year Fulton met the Duke of Bridgewater, who had built a canal to transport the coal mined on his estate in the north of England.
Intrigued by canal engineering, Fulton threw himself into this new occupation. He lived in Devon, in the South-East of England, for two years then went to the main industrial centres, Birmingham and Manchester. In Manchester, Fulton met <formed club with> Robert Owen*, who owned the first textile mill to use steam-power, and they established a club where people with scientific interests met to discuss inventions and philosophy. They called themselves “the philosophers.”
Among club members were the chemist, <formed club with> Dalton*, and the poet <formed club with> Coleridge*.
In 1796, Fulton published his first major work, ‘Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation’. At the same time, he became interested in the ideas for marine propulsion being explored by engineers and inventors at that time, and decided that revolving paddles situated at the stern of a boat could be the most efficient method of propulsion.
In 1797, Fulton went to France, where his plan for a canal connecting Paris with Dieppe and Cambrai had been approved. Two years later, he began work on designs for a submarine, the ‘Nautilus’, which he proposed should be used by the French in their fight against the British. In theory, the submarine would be able to travel under water for up to six hours, guided by a compass. Fulton's idea was that it could steal under the hulls of the British ships and deposit explosives, which could be exploded once the submarine had departed. The initial reaction of the French government was that use of the submarine would be dishonorable.
In 1800, Fulton financed a prototype with his own money. He carried out trials in the Seine, where he could go to a depth of 25 feet. When the trials proved successful, the French had a change of heart and agreed to try it out against Royal Navy warships in the English Channel, but the submarine was too slow. In 1802, the peace treaty of Amiens was signed, France and Britain were no longer at war, and the project was cancelled.
The following year, Fulton began to experiment with small steamboats on the Seine. He met the American minister to France, <collaborated with> Robert R Livingston*, who had been in Paris for a couple of years. Livingston was also interested in marine engineering and already had a monopoly of steamboat navigation in the New York State. He liked Fulton's designs and agreed to share the cost of construction of a boat with a side paddlewheel driven by an eight-horsepower French engine.
During the first trial, the engine broke the hull, but further trials looked promising, so they decided to build a more powerful steamboat for eventual use on the Hudson River in the USA. In preparation for the project, Livingston extended his monopoly and Fulton ordered a twenty-four horsepower engine from the English engineering firm of <bought engine from> Boulton* & <bought engine from> Watt* .
Fulton returned to New York at the end of 1806 to begin work on his <invented> steamboat*. While it was being built, he tried to sell his submarine idea to the government, but the demonstration he gave was a disaster.
<offered work by> Jefferson* asked Fulton to write a report on the possibility of building a canal uniting the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain, but he declined in favour of work on his steamboat.
In 1807, the steamboat was ready: 150 feet long and propelled by two huge side paddlewheels, 15 feet in diameter, which were driven by a single-cylinder condensing steam engine. The trial was a huge success, covering the 150 miles from New York to Albany in 32 hours, a journey that normally took four days under sail.
The terms of Livingston’s monopoly were that a vessel had to move at a speed of four miles per hour, and Fulton’s steamboat beat that by 0.7 mph. Fulton and Livingston went on to built a bigger boat, with an engine house and berths in the cabins, and started commercial service in September 1807. The ‘North River Steamboat’ made three round trips every two weeks between New York and Albany, carrying light freight as well as passengers.
During the winter of 1807-8, Fulton built another improved steamship, among the improvements being guards over the paddlewheels. The new boat was called the ‘North River Steamboat of Clermont.’
Within two years, Fulton steamboats were being used on the Hudson and Raritan rivers and had replaced the horse ferries used in river crossings in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Fulton and Livingston acquired another steamboat monopoly for the New Orleans area and in 1811, Fulton went south on his new boat, the ‘New Orleans’. Although the boat could not travel any further upriver than Natchez, the Mississippi had at last been opened up to steamboats.
In 1812, Fulton was appointed to the commission which recommended the construction of the Erie Canal and he also started work on the world's first steam warship, the ‘Demologus’, which was nothing more than a heavily armoured mobile floating gun platform.
Launched in 1814, it consisted of two parallel hulls with a paddlewheel between them, with the steam engine in one hull and the boilers and stacks in the other. Although it was never used in battle, the ‘Demologus’ served as the prototype for the first seagoing US navy steamship, the ‘USS Fulton,’ which sailed under the command of <designed ship commanded by> Perry*.
In 1814, Fulton wrote a paper on the ‘Advantages of the Proposed Canal from Lake Eerie to the Hudson River’. The canal was built later, largely due to the efforts of <influenced> Clinton*.
ASSESSMENT: Fulton's inventive mind and practical talents produced inventions which were sometimes ahead of their time.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: <knew> John Hancock*
ONELINER: Robert Fulton, developed first operational steamboat
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Sutcliffe, Alice Crary, Robert Fulton, MacMillan Company, New York, 1915.
Dickinson H W, Robert Fulton, Engineer and Artist, 1913.
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
LANGUAGE: English.
PARENTS: Father, Robert Fulton, mother, Mary Smith.
SIBLINGS: 1 brother, Abraham, 3 sisters Elizabeth, Isabella and Mary.
SPOUSE: Harriet Livingston.
CHILDREN: 1 son, Robert, 3 daughters, Julia, Mary and Cornelia.