This paper examines one area of the work of the mid-nineteenth century Manchester engineer, William Fairbairn (1789-1874), namely, ‘Fairbairn’ cranes.

It shows technology from his iron shipbuilding influencing his design of the Britannia Tubular Bridge, rather than vice versa, and the transfer of that technology to tubular swan-neck cranes, patented in 1850. Robert Stephenson’s statement that Fairbairn's experience of iron structures "is greater than any other man’s in England” is noted. Construction of the cranes is examined.

Reasons are given, including the 1851 Exhibition, for the speed at which this type of crane (including the strongest in the world) became first choice for docks and shipyards, for a window of opportunity barely more than the decade of the 1850s, when 'Fairbairn' cranes were exported throughout Europe and to Australia. The diffusion of technology is followed to Holland, and thence to Yokosuka, Japan, after the visit of a Japanese delegation to the west for the 1862 London Exhibition.

The paper then shows how the 'Fairbairn' crane was challenged by others, including an 1859 swan-neck with lattice sides at Dublin, by Wm Anderson, who had been one of Fairbairn’s premium apprentices. Other derivatives are examined, including cranes serving the steam hammer at Le Creusot, and railway travelling cranes.

By the mid 1860s 'Fairbairn' cranes were ousted by lattice jibs and Titans, with steam power replaced by hydraulic or electric. In the first decades of the 20th century most 'Fairbairn' cranes were unceremoniously scrapped.

A continuing area of influence of these cranes is orthopaedics, due to the interdisciplinary work of the German engineer Karl Culmann and the Swiss anatomist Georg von Mayer in the 1850s. Culmann’s drawing of the stresses in Fairbairn’s crane was found to resemble von Meyer’s trabecular drawing of the proximal femer. This research has continues and is referred to in current textbooks and by C Jacobs in the Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, where he states that the work of Culmann and von Meyer has led in the 21st century “to novel technology with the potential to revolutionise the clinical treatment of cancellous bones”.

The paper ends with reference to the conservation of the few remaining 'Fairbairn' cranes.