NEILSON

James Beaumont (younger son of Walter Neilson, engine-wright at the Govan coal works, near Glasgow). b. Shettleston, near Glasgow 22 June 1792; engine-wright of a colliery at Irvine 1814–7; foreman of the Glasgow gas works 1817, manager and engineer of the works 1822–47; invented the swallow-tail burner, which came into general use; invented the hot blast in the manufacture of iron, which is now in general use; patented the invention with his partners, Charles Macintosh and John Wilson 1 Oct. 1828; established the validity of the patent after a ten days’ trial 1843; this invention made available the black band ironstone, formerly usele ; M.I.C.E. 1832; F.R.S. 15 Jany. 1846. d. Queens hill, near Kirk cud bright 18 Jany. 1865. Macle hose’s Glasgow Men ii 245–8 (1886) portrait ; Min. of proc. of Instit. of C.E. xxx 451–3 (1870); S. Smiles’s Industrial biography (1879) 149–61; Chambers’s Biog. Dict. of eminent Scotsmen iii 215–6 (1870); Report of the case Neilson v. Harford in the court of exchequer , Edinb. (1841); Report of case of Neilson v. Baird (1843).