David Kirkaldy

Background

David Kirkaldy was born on April 4, 1820, in Dundee, Scotland, in a merchant family.

Education

Kirkaldy was educated at Dundee and at Merchiston Castle, Edinburgh, and then he went to the University of Edinburgh.

Career

Kirkaldy worked first in his father’s shipping office and then as an apprentice in the shipbuilding works of Robert Napier in Govan (Glasgow) in 1843. He was transferred to the drawing office where he developed skills which, in 1855, brought him the signal honor of having his engineering drawings exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He took an early interest, entirely novel in his day for its quantitative approach, in the performance of ships on trial. He showed how to rectify defects in a vessel by the comparative study of performance figures.

Kirkaldy’s main contribution to science and engineering, however, proved to be in the field of testing. He became engaged in this in 1858 when Napier asked him to compare the merits of iron and steel for some high-pressure boilers. He studied testing methods for some years and published his findings in papers and in Results of an Experimental Enquiry (1862), a book of great importance. Some of his tests gave rise to new methods of improving steel, for example, an oil-hardening process which he patented.

He eventually became independently established in his profession and spent the rest of his life as a testing consultant and manufacturer of testing machinery. Kirkaldy’s first machine was publicly demonstrated on January 1, 1866, and one of his first public commissions was for testing the materials for the Blackfriars Bridge. He was able to attract many commissions, for testing and for supplying testing machinery, from foreign governments, construction firms, and even a laboratory at University College, London.

Achievements

• David Kirkaldy went down in history as a prominent engineer who established a test house in Southwark, London, built a large hydraulic tensile test machine, or tensometer, and developed ways of examining the microstructures of materials using a simple optical microscope after polishing and etching specimens taken from components.
  
  He received many awards for the excellence of his drawings, among them a gold medal at the 1862 International Exhibition in London.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Results of an Experimental Inquiry Into the Tensile Strength and Other Properties of Various Kinds of Wrought-Iron and Steel 1863

Personality

Forthright in manner, Kirkaldy commanded respect but fell foul of more conservative professional colleagues.

Physical Characteristics: Kirkaldy was poor in health when he was a child.

Connections

Kirkaldy was married and had a son William George, who took over the Works after his death.

Son:

William George Kirkaldy

colleague:

Robert Napier

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Volume 7
  1973