Allan Stirling
Allan Stirling (1844-1927)
1927 Obituary[1]
"THE LATE MR. ALLAN STIRLING.
The death of Mr. Allan Stirling at his home in Norfolk, Virginia, on February 3, 1927, at the age of 82, removes one whose name has been familiar for two generations, but of whose career little is probably known by British engineers. Mr. Stirling was born at Rutherglen, Scotland, on July 25, 1844, and attended the High School of Glasgow. In 1860 he went to America, and in the course of time graduated in engineering at the Cooper Institute, New York. His first appointment was at the well-known De Lamater Ironworks, New York, but in 1862 he entered the service of the Navy Department, and during the Civil War was employed on the machinery designs for some of the monitors. The war over, he entered the shops of Anderson and MacLaren, and later on, as a draughtsman with Winslow, Griswold and Holley, of Troy, N.Y., was connected with the design of one of the first Bessemer steel plants in the United States. Subsequently for eleven years he held an important position with the Burden Ironworks, of Troy, and from 1878 to 1880 was in charge of the mechanical department of the Metropolitan Elevated Railway of New York.
About this time he determined to specialise in steam boiler work, and it was in 1883 he suggested to his old friend, De Lamater, the construction of a boiler for working at 300 lb. pressure. Later on he established works in Canada, and the design of the three-drum Stirling boiler is said to have come to him during a night journey in a Canadian train. From this sprang the well-known four-drum Stirling boiler, patented by him in 1892, for the manufacture of which the International Boiler Co was formed. The remainder of Mr. Stirling’s career was bound up with the development of this boiler, and, though it is many years since he retired from business, he occasionally designed a boiler for an old customer. Through his friend, Alexander Holley, Stirling joined the American Society of Mechanical Engineers at its foundation in 1880, and read a paper on boilers at its first meeting. He also served as manager of the Society from 1861 to 1884, and for two years was one of its vice-presidents."