George Herman Babcock was born on June 17, 1832, in Unadilla Forks, New York. He was the son of Asher M. and Mary E. (Stillman) Babcock. He came by his mechanical aptitude naturally from both sides of the family, his father being a well-known mechanic and inventor, and his mother coming from a family of mechanics. The family moved to moved to Westerly, Rhode Island, when he was twelve.
He did not at once take up engineering but devoted himself to daguerreotypy and newspaper work, which last in connection with job printing was his vocation until 1854. Then followed the invention, with his father, of the first polychromatic printing-press, which was ahead of its time, and of a job printing-press which was commercially successful.
In 1860, Babcock moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he was engaged for several years in the office of Stetson, patent solicitor. In the evenings he gave instruction in drawing at Cooper Institute, New York. He was employed for a time at the Mystic Iron Works and then became chief draftsman of the Hope Iron Works at Providence, Rhode Island. Here he fell in with Wilcox, and they invented and brought out the Babcock and Wilcox steam-engine, one of the early automatic cut-off engines of excellent design and much utility. It was manufactured in Providence and Baltimore until the expiration of the early Corliss patents flooded the market with cheap engines with which the Babcock and Wilcox engine could not compete in price.
During this association at Providence, the two inventors formed a partnership and secured a patent for a boiler. Wilcox had patented a safety water-tube boiler in 1856, and the joint patent of 1867 is based, in principle, on the earlier one. The primary idea of the boiler was the ability to withstand high pressures and safety against disastrous explosion, which made possible a far more powerful machine than had previously been used. In 1868 the partners moved to New York to carry on the manufacture of the boiler. They had other manufacturing interests also, but by 1878 the boiler business took all their time, and in 1881 the firm was incorporated, with Babcock as president. He appears to have devoted himself mainly to the exploitation of the merits of the boiler by lectures at technical institutes and colleges, attendance at technical societies, and the business end of affairs, Wilcox giving his special attention to design, invention, manufacture, and experiment. The boilers were built, at first, at Elizabethport, New Jersey, and later at the specially designed plant at Bayonne, New Jersey.
He died on December 16, 1893.
Babcock was a devoutly religious man, a member of the Seventh-Day Baptists, to whose interests he devoted much of his time and means.
He was president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for 1887.
He was a man of commanding presence and attractive personality, a good friend and a considerate employer.
He was married four times.
