Charles Patrick Stewart
Charles Patrick Stewart (1823-1882) of Sharp, Stewart and Co
1823 May 27th. Born
He was the son of Lt.-Col. James Henry Keith Stewart and Henrietta Anne Madan.
1859 August 4th. Married Frances Anne Cruttenden, daughter of William Courtenay Cruttenden
1859 Charles Patrick Stewart, Atlas Works, Manchester.[1]
1882 July 7th. Died age 59. See The Engineer 1882/07/14, page 26 for full Obituary.
1883 Obituary [2]
CHARLES PATRICK STEWART was born in 1823 in Dublin, where his father, the Hon. Keith Stewart, was at that time occupied in the Irish administration.
He completed his education at Trinity College, Cambridge. On leaving the University he became a. pupil in the then well-known marine engineering firm of Seward and Capel, and after completing his term of apprenticeship he entered into closer connection with the firm.
In 1852 he because a partner in the firm of Sharp Brothers and Co., Atlas Works, Manchester, and so continued until 1863, when the private partnership was converted into a limited company. This change enabled Mr. Stewart to diminish the amount of his personal attendance in Manchester, but did not prevent bins from devoting his continuous and almost daily attention to the interests of the business with which he bad become so closely allied. He took great interest in all the mechanical inventions and developments of his time, and allied himself very closely with those engineers who led the van of mechanical and engineering progress.
He became a Member of the Institution in 1859, Member of Council in 1862, and Vice-President in 1875. Suffering as he did from chronic deafness, he was unable to take prominent part in the more public work connected with the Institution, or to accept the post of President which would otherwise have been offered to him; but he was a frequent attendant at the meetings both of the Institution and of the Council, where his opinion always carried the greatest weight. His quick appreciation of the successful adaptation of scientific principles to mechanical applications was especially shown in his rapid conclusion as to the value of the apparatus afterwards known by the name of the Giffard injector, which was first brought under his notice almost accidentally during a short trip on a French Mediterranean steamboat: on his recommendation the development of this invention was taken up by his firm, and the result has been almost to revolutionise the methods of water-supply for steam-raising purposes.
To all other matters of practical engineering he gave the most continuous and careful attention, the benefit of which was evidenced in the continued success of the business with which lie had connected himself.
His death took place on 7th July 1882, at his residence, Silwood Park, Sunninghill, in the fifty-ninth year of his age.
1882 Obituary [3]
Mr. C. P. STEWART, who died at his Berkshire residence, Suninghill, on Tuesday, July 7th, was the senior member of the firm of Sharp, Stewart, & Co., of the Atlas Works, Manchester, and commenced his career in that city as a merchant and engineer.
The above-named firm, with which the late Mr. Stewart had been so long connected, was established about half a century ago by Thomas Sharp, an iron merchant, and Richard Roberts, well known not only for his invention of the self-acting mule, but for the production of many ingenious self-acting tools.
At first the business of the firm was chiefly that of machinists, carried on at the Faulkner Street Works, but subsequently locomotive building was introduced, and the new works, subsequently so well and widely known as the Atlas Works, were erected. This was followed by a division of the concern, Mr. Roberts taking into partnership Messrs. Fothergill and Robinson, and carrying on the machine-making at the old works, while the locomotive building branch was carried on at the new works, under the style of Sharp Brothers.
About the year 1852, Mr. Stewart was admitted a partner, when the style of the firm became Sharp, Stewart, & Co., by which it has since been known. A few years later, by the retirement from the firm of the brothers Sharp, the concern came into the hands of Mr. Stewart and Mr. Robinson, and in 1864 was formed into a limited company, with Mr. Stewart as chairman, a position which he held until his death.
Messrs. Sharp, Stewart, & Co. usually employ from 1200 to 1300 hands at their Atlas Works, and are known chiefly as builders of locomotives, with the gradual development and improvement in the construction of which Mr. Stewart has been prominently identified. Mr. Stewart was mainly instrumental in introducing to the steam users of this country the Giffard injector (It may be noted that M. Giffard died in April last, in the fifty-eighth year of his age.), which was brought out in 1859, the advantages of which so struck him whilst travelling abroad, that he made arrangements for bringing it over to England, where, as is already known, it was speedily so largely adopted as to fully justify Mr. Stewart's conclusions as to the value of the discovery.
Mr. Stewart became a member of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1869, but he never spoke at any of its meetings. He had also been a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers since 1859, and contributed to that Society one paper on "Seller's screwing machine."