John Farey Jr. (20 March 1791 – 17 July 1851) was an English mechanical engineer, consulting engineer and patent attorney, known for his pioneering contributions in the field of mechanical engineering.

As consulting engineer Farey worked for many well-known inventors of the later Industrial Revolution, and was a witness to a number of parliamentary enquiries, inquests and court cases, and on occasion acted as an arbitrator. He was polymathic in his interests and contributed text and drawings to a number of periodicals and encyclopaedias.

Farey is also remembered as the first English inventor of the ellipsograph, an instrument used by draughtsmen to inscribe ellipses.

Biography

Youth and education

Born 20 March 1791, in Lambeth, Farey was the eldest son of John Farey Sr. (1766–1826), the geologist, and Sophia Hubert (1770–1830). He was the older brother of Joseph Farey (1796–1829), who also became a known mechanical engineer and draughtsman and member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1822. He remained in the shadow of his older brother and died young.

From 1791 to 1802, he lived in Woburn, Bedfordshire, where his father was stationed as a surveyor and a land agent for Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford. Back in London, he possibly received training at the school of William Nicholson, established in 1799 in London's Soho Square. He did later work together with Nicholson on patent assignments. From 1804 to 1806, he studied the machinery and processes in manufacturing factories in and around London.

For the Rees's Cyclopædia, which appeared serially between 1802 and 1820, Farey wrote several articles, including articles on Machinery, Manufactures, Mechanics, Mill, Steam Engine, Water etc.

He came into the possession of the manuscript and drawings of the engineer John Smeaton and made extensive use of them in his writing and drawing. He was involved in the production of the second volume of Smeaton's Reports (1812), the plates engraved by Wilson Lowry.

In 1819, he went to Russia for a month, where be was engaged as a civil engineer in the construction of ironworks.

The drawing device was described in many other publications in his days, for example in Smith's The Mechanic; Or, Compendium of Practical Inventions, 1825 (see image), and it was described in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia (1832) along with four other devices by Farey. For this invention the gold medal of the same society was awarded hun.

The first volume covered the early developments of steam pumps, atmospheric engines and low pressure steam engines through the eighteenth century. In particular, the work of Savery, Newcomen, Smeaton and Watt. It was published in 1827. Rekers & Koetsier (2007) commented on this work:

The second volume covered the development of high-pressure steam and the simple expansion steam engine from 1800, by Trevithick and Woolf. This volume was never published; at the time of Farey's death it had been typeset, but not sold.

The book was never sold as the sheets were pulped. It was reprinted in facsimile since from the author's proof, with hand-written corrections by the author, that is now in the National Reference Library of Science and Invention.

See also

  • Aerial steam carriage
  • John Hick - awarded a silver medal by the Society of Arts for his invention of an elliptograph in 1840.

References

;Attribution

  • John Farey at gracesguide.co.uk