MURDOCK, William (1754-1839), inventor, was born near the village of Auchinleck in Ayrshire on 25th August 1754. His father, John Murdoch (as the name is spelt in Scotland), was a millwright and miller, and William was brought up in the same occupation until 1777, when, at the age of twenty-three, he entered the employment of Boulton and Watts in the Soho Works at Birmingham. Shortly afterwards he was sent to Cornwall to superintend the fitting of Watts’s engines, which had come to be in demand there. While staying at Redruth he had carried a series of experiments in the distillation of coal-gas so far that in 1792 he was able to apply the new invention to the purpose of lighting his cottage and offices; renewing his researches after his return to Birmingham (where he had become a partner in the firm), he made such progress in the discovery of practical methods for making, storing, and purifying the new illuminant that in 1802 the whole exterior of the factory was lighted with it in celebration of the peace of Amiens. Murdock was also the inventor of important improvements in the steam-engine; besides introducing the double D slide-valve, he was the first to devise an oscillating engine, and as early as 1784 he had constructed a model high-pressure engine to run on wheels. His inventive ingenuity was also directed to various applications of compressed air and of the exhausted air-tube; and in 1803 he also constructed a steam-gun. He retired from business in 1830, and died in 1839. His “Account of the Application of the Gas from Coal to Economical Purposes” appeared in the Phil. Trans, for 1808.