Aaron Manby

Aaron Manby (15 November 1776 – 1 December 1850) was an English civil engineer and the founder of the Horseley Ironworks, notable for the many fine iron canal bridges that it built. The eponymous Aaron Manby steamboat was the first iron-hulled steamer to go to sea, and it was driven by Manby's patent Oscillating Engine, an effective and durable marine steam engine.

Family life

Manby was born at Albrighton, Shropshire on 15 November 1776 to Aaron Manby of Kingston, Jamaica and Jane Lane of Bentley.

Manby's first wife was Julia Fewster. They had a son, Charles Manby, who became Secretary of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Julia died in 1807.

In 1807 Manby married Sarah Ann Haskins, with whom he had one daughter, Sarah Maria (d. 1826), and four more sons. The oldest three of them, John Richard (1813-1869), Joseph Lane (1814-1862), and Edward Oliver (1816-1864), also became civil engineers. Sarah Ann died in 1826. The boat was built at Tipton using temporary bolts, disassembled for transportation to London, and reassembled on the Thames in 1822, this time using permanent rivets. Their "Compagnie Anglaise" ran until 1847, expanding to take in the Le Creusot ironworks. including the Engine Arm Aqueduct (1825) and two roving bridges at Smethwick Junction (1828).

In 1845 Manby sold Horseley Ironworks to John Joseph Bramah (~1798 - 1846), nephew of the inventor and locksmith Joseph Bramah.

After returning from France in about 1840, he lived at Fulham, London, before retiring to the Isle of Wight where he died.