Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, just north of Dumfries (1730–1815) was a Scottish banker and shareholder in the Carron Company engineering works and an enthusiastic experimenter in ordnance and naval architecture, including double- or triple-hulled pleasure boats propelled by cranked paddle wheels placed between the hulls. He attempted to interest various European navies in his design for a super warship, but only Sweden showed any notable interest; their great naval architect Chapman called it the "English (sic) sea-spook". The Swedish king Gustav III, as thanks for the actual vessel, "Experiment", that Miller sent him, despatched Miller seeds of the Swede in a magnificent snuff-box, featuring marine illustrations, now in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. On seeing a steam-carriage model made by the engineer William Symington (or on the suggestion of Symington's friend James Taylor), he got Symington to build his patent steam engine with its drive into a twin-hulled pleasure boat. This was successfully tried out on Dalswinton Loch near Miller's house on the 14 October 1788. The next year a larger engine was fitted to a 60-foot (18 m) long twin-hull paddle boat and tried on the Forth and Clyde Canal. After initial problems of paddle wheels breaking up on 2 December, the vessel travelled some distance along the canal at a "motion of nearly seven miles an hour"[citation needed] on 26 December and 27 December 1789. Miller had been complaining about the cost of the venture, and he then abandoned the project. Ten years later, Lord Dundas restarted Symington's work on a steamboat, leading to the famous paddle steamer Charlotte Dundas.
[edit] References
- Michael S. Moss, ‘Miller, Patrick (1731–1815)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Oct 2007
- Charles Dawson, "Patrick Miller's 'Sea Spook'", The Mariner's Mirror, Vol. 88, No.1, Feb. 2002, page 95.
[edit] External links
| Persondata |
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Miller, Patrick |
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| Date of birth |
1730 |
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| Date of death |
1815 |
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