Charles Manby, FRS FRSA was Secretary of the Institution of Civil Engineers from November 1839 to 1856, and engineer of the first iron steamer to cross the English Channel. Fluent in French, he installed gas piping into Paris and advised on the construction of the Suez Canal.
Blue plaque commemorating Manby
Charles Manby's house with blue plaque
Aaron Manby was an English civil engineer and the founder of the Horseley Ironworks, notable for the many fine iron canal bridges that it built. The eponymous Aaron Manby steamboat was the first iron-hulled steamer to go to sea, and it was driven by Manby's patent Oscillating Engine, an effective and durable marine steam engine.
The Aaron Manby, the world's first seagoing iron-hulled ship
Engine Arm Aqueduct, 1828, one of Manby's iron canal bridges in the English Midlands