Captain Samuel Brown Totally Explained

Everything about Captain Samuel Brown totally explained

This article is about the English naval officer, engineer and inventor. See Samuel Brown for other persons of the same name. Captain Samuel Brown (1776 - 13 March 1852) was an early pioneer of chain design and manufacture and of suspension bridge design and construction. He is best known for the Union Bridge of 1820, the first vehicular suspension bridge in Britain.

Naval career

Brown joined the Royal Navy in 1795, serving initially on the Newfoundland and North Sea stations. He served as lieutenant on HMS Royal Sovereign (1803) and in 1805 joined HMS Phoenix as first lieutenant. The following year he was appointed to HMS Imperieuse, followed by periods of service aboard the HMS Flore and HMS Ulysses.
   During his service, he carried out tests on wrought iron chain cables, using them as rigging for HMS Penelope in 1806 on a voyage to the West Indies. This so impressed the Admiralty that on his return in 1808 it immediately ordered four vessels of war to be fitted with chain cables.
   By 1811, he was promoted to Commander (in 1842 he accepted the rank of retired captain), based initially at Millwall in east London from 1812 and then, from 1816 at a larger works (a nail works previously operated by William Crawshay Brown), establishing the Newbridge Chain & Anchor Works (Pontypridd) at Ynysangharad, beside the Glamorganshire Canal, in Pontypridd, south Wales, close to large reserves of iron and coal.
   His firm went on to supply all the chain to the Navy until 1916, and made the chains for Brunel's SS Great Eastern, shown in the famous photograph by Robert Howlett.

Bridge building

He took out a patent for chain-making in 1816, and patented wrought iron chain links suitable for a suspension bridge in 1817. In the same year, others built Dryburgh Bridge, the first chain-supported bridge in Britain. Brown had been experimenting with a chain-supported suspension bridge already, building a 32m span test structure in 1813.
Brown was also invited to participate in abortive proposals for a suspension bridge at Runcorn. In September 1818, he submitted drawings for Union Bridge over the River Tweed, which was completed in 1820.
Brown went on to build several further chain bridges, including the Trinity Pier Bridge in Newhaven, Edinburgh (1820-21) and the Chain Pier at Brighton (opened in 1823 but ultimately destroyed in a storm in 1896). Most of his designs used an unstiffened bridge deck, before it became clear that this form was vulnerable to wind forces and unstable under concentrated loads. His designs were reviewed by eminent engineers including John Rennie and Thomas Telford, and generally approved. However, Brown's designs were significantly less conservative than his contemporaries, adopting a higher tensile strength for his iron chains.

Major Bridges

Union Bridge, River Tweed, 1820
The Royal Suspension Chain Pier, Brighton, 1823 (destroyed 1896)
Welney Bridge, Norfolk, 1826 (replaced 1926)
Hexham Bridge, River Tyne, 1826 (replaced 1903)
South Esk Bridge, Montrose, 1829 (collapsed in 1830 under crowd loading, killing three, and collapsed again in 1838, oscillating in a hurricane)
Stockton and Darlington Railway Suspension Bridge, River Tees, 1830 (first railway suspension bridge in the world)
Wellington Bridge, Aberdeen, 1830-1831
Norfolk Suspension Bridge, Shoreham-by-Sea was opened in 1834, designed by Brown and William Tierney Clark. Replaced in 1922.
Kalemouth Bridge, River Teviot, 1835
Kenmare Bridge, Ireland, 1840 (demolished 1932)

Domestic life

One of his homes was close to the Brighton project, at 48 Marine Parade, now known as Chain Pier House. In 1827, Brown purchased Netherbyres, a country house near Eyemouth in Berwickshire, south-east Scotland,. He had the existing house demolished and a new house built (c.1836), which he later sold on 5 March 1852, days before his death.
Brown was elected a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 7 February 1831. In 1838, Brown was knighted by Queen Victoria.
He died, aged 75, at Vanbrugh Lodge, Blackheath, London on 13 March 1852.Further Information

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