Late, great engineers: Robert William Thomson - of aerial wheels and fountain pens

On 29th March 1873 the Illustrated London News published a brief obituary of ‘the late Mr R. W. Thomson, C.E., of Edinburgh.’ Perhaps it was a sign of more dignified times, but the short column of quietly written prose outlining the career of ‘this distinguished Scottish engineer’ contrasts markedly in tone with the 21st century assessment in the Scots Magazine of the man who ‘didn’t get credit for his new tyres but he made his mum happy.’ This informal assumption is based on an anecdote describing how Thomson’s ‘inventive career began aged 17, when he rebuilt his mother’s mangle so that wet washing could be passed through the rollers in both directions.’ Often described at Scotland’s forgotten inventor, Thomson’s name doesn’t spring to mind so readily as those of his compatriots – John Logie Baird, Alexander Graham Bell, Charles Macintosh, James Watt or John Dunlop – but the innovator who created ‘aerial wheels’ (as well as ushering improvements to the fountain pen, steam gauges and the hydraulic dry dock) had as much influence on 19th century engineering.