Charles Baird
Born	(1766-12-20)20 December 1766
Died	10 December 1843(1843-12-10) (aged 76)
Nationality	Scottish
Occupation	Engineer

Charles Baird (20 December 1766 – 10 December 1843) was a Scottish engineer who played an important part in the industrial and business life of 19th-centurySt. Petersburg. His company specialised in steam-driven machinery and was responsible for Russia's first steamboat.

Born at Westerton, Bothkennar,Stirlingshire, a farm owned by the Gascoigne family, Charles was one of the nine children of Nicol Baird, who later became a toll collector and then superintendent of works for theForth and Clyde Canal. He was originally baptised Gascoigne Baird in January 1767. His younger brotherHugh Baird also became an engineer. Charles Baird started his working life in 1782 as an apprentice at theCarron Ironworks nearFalkirk.

By the age of 19 Baird had a supervisory post in the gun department, and in 1786 he accompanied a Carron Company manager,Charles Gascoigne, a son of the owner's family, to Russia to establish the Aleksandrovsk gun factory atPetrozavodsk, and a cannonball foundry atKronstadt. Gascoigne had been invited to Russia bySamuel Greig, a Scot who was an admiral in the Russian Navy.

Gascoigne Baird came to be known as Charles Baird, perhaps to avoid confusion with Charles Gascoigne, and had his change of name to Charles Baird officially sanctioned by the church authorities in Scotland in February 1792. In 1792, Baird entered into partnership with Francis Morgan, whose daughter Sophia he had married in June 1794. Their St. Petersburg business became known as theBaird Works (Russian:Завод Берда) and specialised in steam-driven machinery. It supplied machinery for theImperialArsenal,Mint, and glassworks, and undertook a range of projects from bridge-building to ornamental metalwork. Baird also had asugar refinery using his own innovative method of refining.

The Baird Works were responsible for theElizaveta, Russia's firststeamship, launched in 1815, and this early start gave them a ten-year monopoly on steamship routes from St. Petersburg, including theElizaveta's run to Kronstadt. They had their ownwharves, andThe St. Petersburg Times has said Baird helped "create a great industrial kingdom on theNeva River that is known today asAdmiralty Shipyard (Admiralteiskiye Verfi), the shipbuilding company."^[1] Baird's supplied the ironwork for several bridges, including the firstcast iron arch bridge in Russia (1805) and from the 1820s,suspension bridges designed by Wilhelm von Traitteur, like thePostoffice Bridge over the riverMoika. The company also worked with the architectAuguste de Montferrand on theAlexander Column andSaint Isaac's Cathedral, and were responsible for technical aspects of the cathedral dome design.

The business was operated by Russianserfs, some of them extremely skilled in fine ornamental metalwork, according toJames Nasmyth's account.^[2] Baird brought other engineers from Scotland to work with him: his sonFrancis and nephewWilliam Handyside made important contributions, with Francis carrying the Baird Works forward after his father's death. Handyside took the lead in the firm's work with Montferrand, and another nephew,Nicol Hugh Baird who spent a few years in St. Petersburg, later became a noted Canadian engineer. Other Handyside brothers came to work in Russia, includingAndrew Handyside. Charles' younger brotherHugh Baird was designer of theEdinburgh & Glasgow Union Canal.

Charles Baird was known for his business skills as well as his technical ability, and his achievements were recognised both in Britain and in Russia. In 1841 he was elected to theInstitution of Civil Engineers, and the many honours he received led to the title ofKnight of St Vladimir. He died on 10 December 1843 and is buried in theSmolenskLutheran Cemetery.

• Carronade

• Robert William Rennison, T. Cox,Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland, Vol 1 (London 2002)ISBN 0-7277-2939-X
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• James Nasmyth,Autobiography (1885);Chap 17
• Carron Works

• Memoir of the late Charles Baird, esq., of St Petersburg, and of his son, the late Francis Baird, esq., of St. Petersburg and 4, Queens Gate, London (London, 1867)]
• Russian Iron Bridges to 1850 (Newcomen Society 1982)

• The Scots-Russian connection
• Early 19th-century map showing Westerton and the Carron Works
• Post Office Bridge (St. Petersburg) atStructurae

• 1766 births
• 1843 deaths
• Scottish civil engineers
• Scottish company founders
• 18th-century Scottish businesspeople
• 19th-century Scottish businesspeople
• Recipients of the Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd class
• People from Falkirk (council area)
• 18th-century Scottish engineers
• 19th-century Scottish engineers
• 19th-century Scottish inventors
• British expatriates in the Russian Empire

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from April 2018
• Use British English from April 2018
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• Articles containing Russian-language text
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