(1789-1874), a British civil engineer, born at Kelso, Roxburghshire. He was apprenticed to a machinist at a colliery in North Shields and commenced business on his own account in 1817 with a Mr. Lillie, in Manchester, where he made many improvements in machinery, such as the use of iron instead of wood in the shafting of cotton mills. About 1831, his attention having been attracted to the use of iron as a material for shipbuilding, he built the first iron ship. His firm became extensively employed in iron ship-building at Manchester and at Millwall, London, and had a great share in the development of the trade. Fairbairn shares with Stephenson the distinction of building the great tubular bridge across the Menai Strait, and he built more than a hundred bridges upon this principle. He was president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1861 and later was made a baronet.