Charles Baird (engineer)
Encyclopedia
Biography
Born at Westerton, Bothkennar, StirlingshireStirlingshire
Stirlingshire or the County of Stirling is a registration county of Scotland, based around Stirling, the former county town. It borders Perthshire to the north, Clackmannanshire and West Lothian to the east, Lanarkshire to the south, and Dunbartonshire to the south-west.Until 1975 it was a county...
, Charles was one of the nine children of Nicol Baird, superintendent of the Forth and Clyde Canal
Forth and Clyde Canal
The Forth and Clyde Canal crosses Scotland, providing a route for sea-going vessels between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde at the narrowest part of the Scottish Lowlands. The canal is 35 miles long and its eastern end is connected to the River Forth by a short stretch of the River...
. His younger brother Hugh Baird
Hugh Baird (engineer)
Hugh Baird was a Scottish civil engineer, who designed and built the Union Canal. Born at Westertown, Bothkennar, Stirlingshire, he was the son of Nicol Hugh Baird, surveyor to the Forth and Clyde Canal, and was the younger brother of engineer Charles Baird.Nicol Baird died in 1807, and Hugh Baird...
also became an engineer. Charles Baird started his working life in 1782 as an apprentice at the Carron Ironworks near Falkirk
Falkirk
Falkirk is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies in the Forth Valley, almost midway between the two most populous cities of Scotland; north-west of Edinburgh and north-east of Glasgow....
.
By the age of 19 Baird had a supervisory post in the gun department, and in 1786 he accompanied a Carron Company manager, Charles Gascoigne
Charles Gascoigne
Charles Gascoigne was a British industrialist at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. He was a partner and manager of the Carron Company ironworks in its early years, but left in 1786, before the company's success became obvious, to reorganise the production of iron and cannon in Russia...
, to Russia to establish the Aleksandrovsk gun factory at Petrozavodsk
Petrozavodsk
Petrozavodsk is the capital city of the Republic of Karelia, Russia. It stretches along the western shore of the Lake Onega for some . The city is served by Petrozavodsk Airport. Municipally, it is incorporated as Petrozavodsky Urban Okrug . Population:...
, and a cannon ball foundry at Kronstadt
Kronstadt
Kronstadt , also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt |crown]]" and Stadt for "city"); is a municipal town in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, located on Kotlin Island, west of Saint Petersburg proper near the head of the Gulf of Finland. Population: It is also...
. Gascoigne had been invited to Russia by Samuel Greig
Samuel Greig
Samuel Greig, or Samuil Karlovich Greig , as he was known in Russia - Scottish-born Russian admiral who distinguished himself in the Battle of Chesma and the Battle of Hogland...
, a Scot who was an admiral in the Russian Navy.
In 1792 Baird entered into partnership with Francis Morgan, whose daughter Sophia he married in June 1794. Their St. Petersburg business became known as the Baird Works and specialised in steam-driven machinery. It supplied machinery for the Imperial
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
Arsenal
Arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, issued to authorized users, or any combination of those...
, Mint
Mint (coin)
A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins for currency.The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins. One difference is that the history of the mint is usually closely tied to the political situation of an era...
, and glassworks, and undertook a range of projects from bridge-building to ornamental metalwork. Baird also had a sugar refinery
Sugar refinery
A sugar refinery is a factory which refines raw sugar.Many cane sugar mills produce raw sugar, i.e. sugar with more colour and therefore more impurities than the white sugar which is normally consumed in households and used as an ingredient in soft drinks, cookies and so forth...
using his own innovative method of refining.
The Baird Works were responsible for the Elizaveta, Russia's first steamship, launched in 1815, and this early start gave them a ten-year monopoly on steamship routes from St. Petersburg, including the Elizaveta's run to Kronstadt. They had their own wharves, and the St. Petersburg Times
St. Petersburg Times (Russia)
The St. Petersburg Times is a weekly, English-language newspaper based in St. Petersburg, Russia. It serves the expatriate community, tourists, and Russians interested in an international perspective on local and world affairs...
has said Baird helped "create a great industrial kingdom on the Neva River that is known today as Admiralty Shipyard
Admiralty Shipyard
The Admiralty Shipyard is one of the oldest and largest shipyards in Russia, located in Saint Petersburg. The shipyard's building ways can accommodate ships of up to , 250 meters in length and 35 meters in width...
(Admiralteiskiye Verfi), the shipbuilding company. Baird's supplied the ironwork for several bridges, including the first cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
arch bridge in Russia (1805) and from the 1820s, suspension bridge
Suspension bridge
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. Outside Tibet and Bhutan, where the first examples of this type of bridge were built in the 15th century, this type of bridge dates from the early 19th century...
s designed by Wilhelm von Traitteur, like the Postoffice Bridge over the river Moika. The company also worked with the architect Auguste de Montferrand
Auguste de Montferrand
Auguste de Montferrand was a French Neoclassical architect who worked primarily in Russia. His two best known works are the Saint Isaac's Cathedral and the Alexander Column in St. Petersburg.-Family:...
on the Alexander Column
Alexander Column
The Alexander Column also known as Alexandrian Column , is the focal point of Palace Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The monument was erected after the Russian victory in the war with Napoleon's France...
and Saint Isaac's Cathedral
Saint Isaac's Cathedral
Saint Isaac's Cathedral or Isaakievskiy Sobor in Saint Petersburg, Russia is the largest Russian Orthodox cathedral in the city...
, and were responsible for technical aspects of the cathedral dome design.
The business was operated by Russian serf
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
s, some of them extremely skilled in fine ornamental metalwork, according to James Nasmyth
James Nasmyth
James Hall Nasmyth was a Scottish engineer and inventor famous for his development of the steam hammer. He was the co-founder of Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company manufacturers of machine tools...
's account. Baird brought other engineers from Scotland to work with him: his son Francis
Francis Baird
Francis Baird was an engineer of Scottish ancestry in St. Petersburg, who took over his father's flourishing business manufacturing machinery, ships, and metalwork for some of the city's major structures....
and nephew William Handyside
William Handyside
William Handyside was a Scottish engineer who was involved in several important construction projects in St. Petersburg.-Biography:...
made important contributions, with Francis carrying the Baird Works forward after his father's death. Handyside took the lead in the firm's work with Montferrand, and another nephew, Nicol Hugh Baird
Nicol Hugh Baird
Nicol Hugh Baird was a Scottish surveyor who worked for his uncle Charles Baird in St Petersburg for several years, and emigrated to Canada in 1828....
who spent a few years in St. Petersburg, later became a noted Canadian engineer. Other Handyside brothers came to work in Russia, including Andrew Handyside
Andrew Handyside
Andrew Handyside and Company was an iron founder in Derby, England in the nineteenth century.-Biography:Born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1805, Handyside worked in his uncle Charles Baird's engineering business in St. Petersburg before taking over the Brittania Foundry in 1848...
. Charles' younger brother Hugh Baird
Hugh Baird (engineer)
Hugh Baird was a Scottish civil engineer, who designed and built the Union Canal. Born at Westertown, Bothkennar, Stirlingshire, he was the son of Nicol Hugh Baird, surveyor to the Forth and Clyde Canal, and was the younger brother of engineer Charles Baird.Nicol Baird died in 1807, and Hugh Baird...
was designer of the Edinburgh & Glasgow Union Canal
Union Canal (Scotland)
The Union Canal is a 31.5-mile canal in Scotland, from Lochrin Basin, Fountainbridge, Edinburgh to Falkirk, where it meets the Forth and Clyde Canal.-Location and features:...
.
Charles Baird was known for his business skills as well as his technical ability, and his achievements were recognised both in Britain and in Russia. In 1841 he was elected to the Institution of Civil Engineers
Institution of Civil Engineers
Founded on 2 January 1818, the Institution of Civil Engineers is an independent professional association, based in central London, representing civil engineering. Like its early membership, the majority of its current members are British engineers, but it also has members in more than 150...
, and the many honours he received led to the title of Knight of St Vladimir
Order of St. Vladimir
The Cross of Saint Vladimir was an Imperial Russian Order established in 1782 by Empress Catherine II in memory of the deeds of Saint Vladimir, the Grand Prince and the Baptizer of the Kievan Rus....
. He died on 10 December 1843 and is buried in the Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River. Situated west-southwest of Moscow, this walled city was destroyed several times throughout its long history since it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk...
Lutheran Cemetery.
Further reading
- Memoir of the late Charles Baird, esq., of St Petersburg, and of his son, the late Francis Baird, esq., of St. Petersburg and 4, Queens Gate, London (London, 1867)]
- Russian Iron Bridges to 1850 (Newcomen Society 1982)