Matthew Murray

Matthew Murray (1765 to 1826) was an English steam engine and machine tool manufacturer who designed and built the first commercially viable steam locomotive, the twin-cylinder Salamanca, in 1812. He was an innovative designer in several fields at once, working on steam engines, machine tools and machinery for the textile industry. That spread of work is typical of the early Industrial Revolution, when the same mechanical skills served mills, workshops and the new steam power that drove them. In the history of energy he is remembered for the Salamanca, the locomotive that showed a steam engine could be built as a working commercial product and not only as an experiment.