Sir Alfred Fernandez Yarrow. 1842-1932

Alfred Fernandez Yarrow was born in London in 1842, and at a very early age gave evidence of the attraction which engineering held for him. So much was this the case that when quite a boy his schoolmaster said that he undoubtedly had talent for mechanics. At thirteen, he was sent to University College School, and when between fifteen and sixteen years of age he was apprenticed to Ravenhill Salkeld and Co., Marine Engine Builders, where he went through the usual thorough training of that time. But in addition to his regular work it is recorded that he spent his leisure hours in study and work in his own workshop. During this period he made friends with a boy named James Hilditch, who also had a strong mechanical bent. Between them they developed a number of original inventions and they took out several patents, including some relating to ploughing machinery which proved very successful. The actual ploughing machinery was made by Coleman and Sons, of Chelmsford, and young Yarrow soon became London representative of the firm. About this time, Hilditch and Yarrow made a notable contribution to practical telegraphy by installing the first overhead telegraph line in London between their two homes. These two young men had certainly a very wide range of interests, and not only worked at their special inventions, but they explored keenly the possibilities of the use of steam for road traction, and in 1861 their proposals were taken up by the late T. W. Cowan, at Greenwich.