John Scott (shipbuilder)

John Scott FRSE (5 September 1830, Greenock – 19 May 1903) was a Scottish engineer and shipbuilder.

He was born at Greenock on 5 September 1830, and was eldest son in the family of five sons and six daughters of Charles Cuningham Scott of Haikshill, Largs, Ayrshire, and Helen, daughter of John Rankin. His father was member of Messrs. Scott & Co., a leading firm of shipbuilders on the Clyde, which was founded by an ancestor in 1710. After education at Edinburgh Academy and Glasgow University, John served an apprenticeship to his father, and, on attaining his majority, was admitted to partnership in the firm. In 1868, he became its responsible head, in association with his brother, Robert Sinclair Scott, and directed its affairs for thirty-five years. The ships constructed in the Scott yard during his charge of it included many notable vessels for the mercantile marine as well as for the British navy ; others, such as the battleships HMS Canopus (1897) and HMS Prince of Wales (1902), were engined there.

Scott was closely connected with the development of the marine steam-engine. At an early date he recognised the economy likely to result from the use of higher steam-pressures, and about 1857 he built the Thetis, of 650 tons, which was fitted with a two-cylinder engine of his own design and with water-tube boilers of the Rowan type, the working-pressure being 125 lbs. per square inch. The result was satisfactory so far as economy of fuel was concerned, though internal corrosion of the tubes rendered it necessary to withdraw the boilers after a short time. A little later, with the assent of Henri Dupuy de Lôme, then head of the French navy department, Scott introduced the water-tube boiler into a corvette which his firm built for the French navy — the first French warship fitted with compound engines. Similar boilers and engines were proposed by him and accepted for a corvette for the British navy, but owing to the impossibility of complying with the requirement that the tops of the boilers should be at least one foot below the load-line, the adoption of the water-tube boiler was deferred. Further pursuit of the question of higher steam-pressures brought him the acquaintance of Samson Fox, with whom he was associated for many years in the development of the corrugated flue. He became chairman of the Leeds Forge Company, and carried out in conjunction with Fox the first effective tests of the strength of circular furnaces.

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