Aaron Manby (ironmaster)

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.

[1] In 1813 Manby obtained patent No 3705 for a means of casting the slag from blast furnaces into blocks for building.

That same year, Horseley Ironworks constructed the world's first seagoing iron steamboat, named the Aaron Manby, using his oscillating engine.

[2][3] 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.

[1] Between 1819 and 1822, Manby started his engineering works at Charenton-le-Pont, near Paris, with the Scottish chemist Daniel Wilson as manager.