Jon Baddeley
Specialist Consultant Collectors, Science & Marine
Lot 80
Portfolio of thirty-one engineering drawings, by the famous Scottish Engineer Charles Baird and others, 1800-1850, (31)
Amended
22 September 2015, 13:00 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £8,500 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our Scientific Instruments specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
Claire Tole-Moir
Head of Department
Portfolio of thirty-one engineering drawings, by the famous Scottish Engineer Charles Baird and others, 1800-1850,
including, ink and wash designs for various projects in Russia and Europe including windmill, blast furnace, the Russian paddle steamer 'Hukuma', a dockyard quay, a horizontal beam engine, a 4-horse engine, a paddle steamer signed D. Scott archt. Glasgow 1818, a 20-horse engine in glasshouse St. Petersburg dated 1809, and a Maudlsay 6-horse engine with crane. various sizes, the largest 23 ins (58cm) x 29 ins (74cm) (31)
Footnotes
Charles Baird (1766–1843) born in Bothkenner, Scotland, was the son of Nicol Baird, superintendent of the Forth and Clyde Great Canal. From a poor family, Charles studied at Edinburgh University, and in 1782 became apprenticed to the Carron Company which produced guns and traded with Russia. By 1785 Charles Baird was in sole charge of the casting and finishing of guns, and in 1786 accompanied the director to St Petersburg when the Russian government invited the company to establish a canon foundry there.
The Baird Works or Iron Foundry, became famous for its order and efficiency, so much so that the Baird name became part of a phrase in Russian; 'As at the Baird Works,' roughly translating as 'everything is in apple-pie order'.
In a document dated 18th February 1811 and signed by Alexander I, Charles Baird was accepted as a Russian subject and decorated for his work in the mechanical field. On the 9th September 1815, in a document signed by D. Gurev he was decorated again, this time for construction machinery which he supplied to the St Petersburg mint and for helping the Perm Mining Administration. In August 1834 Nicholas I gave him the Order of St Vladimir 3rd class, for making the angel at the top and the bas-reliefs at the base of the Alexander column outside the Winter Palace, and in August 1839 he gave him another decoration for his contribution to manufacturing industry.
A typescript produced by the museum of the "Admiralty Dockyard which today covers the area of the 19th century Baird Works, states that the Bairds produced manufacturing and building equipment: stoves for sugar refineries, equipment for mills, fireplaces, doors, dampers for stoves, irons, tableware.
In 1800 Charles Baird was given permission to build two wooden boats for "commercial purposes" and employed the expertise of the Galerny Island dockyard as shipbuilding was something which at that stage he did not know anything about. At the turn of the century Charles Baird also began building boilers and steam-engines, which he then supplied to other factories. According to this typescript, during the first quarter of the 19th century the Baird Works built 139 steam engines for various factories and eleven for ships. As a result in 1806 a hundred men were sent to the Baird Works by the government for five years to learn how to build steam-engines.
According to a privately published family memoir of 1867 about Charles and Francis Baird, the Baird foundry "has continued uninterruptedly to the present time" and by 1832 father and son owned more steam-engines than anyone else in Russia, had the largest sugar refinery ever built in Russia, as well as many steam-boats.
Saleroom notices
Please note: There are 27 drawings in this portfolio, not 31 as initially thought.
