William Fairbairn had pioneered tensile strength measurement as well as assessing creep and fatigue on large structures as well as small.

Entirely at his own expense, Kirkaldy commissioned his machine from the Leeds firm of Greenwood & Batley, closely supervising its production.

The load is measured by a weighing system consisting of a number of levers with the final one carrying a jockey weight.

[2] It also helped accident analysis by testing materials from structures that failed, including the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879 and the BOAC Flight 781 De Havilland Comet crash of 1954.

Since Kirkaldy tested several samples of each of the lower and upper lugs, he was able to show that they exhibited a range of strengths, the lowest results being caused by defects like blow holes in the cast metal.

They were found after the accident at the bottom of the Tay estuary and had sustained relatively little damage compared with the cast iron columns which supported them.

Some were reused in local houses, and when they were demolished in the 1960s, some were removed to the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, where they are on public display.

[2] His business was successful, and he moved the machine to larger purpose-built new premises at 99 Southwark Street, leased from the Crown Estate, in 1874.

It operates with the help of volunteers and offers visitors a chance to see the Universal Testing Machine in action, breaking materials to demonstrate its capabilities.

The four-storey building has five bays, and was built of brown and yellow stock bricks with buff banding and stucco details around the door and windows.

In the centre of the facade is a sign "Kircaldy's Testing and Experimenting Works" and over the door is the motto "Facts not Opinions".