Fairbairn went from Dublin to Liverpool and proceeded to Manchester, the city to which Nasmyth, Roberts, Whitworth and Bodmer all gravitated. He found work with an Adam Parkinson, remaining with him for two years as a millwright, at good wages. “In those days,” wrote Fairbairn, “a good millwright was a man of large resources; he was generally well educated, and could draw out his own designs and work at the lathe; he had a knowledge of mill machinery, pumps, and cranes, could turn his hand to the bench or the forge with equal adroitness and facility. If hard pressed, as was frequently the case in country places far from towns, he could devise for himself expedients which enabled him to meet special requirements, and to complete his work without assistance. This was the class of men with whom I associated in early life,--proud of their calling, fertile in resources, and aware of their value in a country where the industrial arts were rapidly developing.”[68] [68] “Useful Information for Engineers, Second Series,” p. 212. In 1817 Fairbairn and James Lillie, a shopmate, started out as general millwrights. They hired a small shed for 12 shillings a week and equipped it with a lathe of their own making, to turn shafts, and “a strong Irishman to drive it.” Their first order of importance came from Mr. Adam Murray, a large cotton spinner, who took them over his mill and asked them whether they were competent to renew his main drive. They boldly replied that they were willing and able to execute the work, but were more than apprehensive when Mr. Murray told them he would call the next day and look over their workshop to satisfy himself. He came, pondered over “the nakedness of the land,” “sized up” the young partners and told them to go ahead. Although a rush job, the work was done on time and so well that Murray recommended the new firm to Mr. John Kennedy, the largest cotton spinner in the kingdom. For his firm, MacConnel & Kennedy, Fairbairn & Lillie equipped a large, new mill in 1818, which was an immediate success and at once put the struggling partners in the front rank of engineering millwrights. “They found the machinery driven by large, square cast-iron shafts on which huge wooden drums, some of them as much as four feet in diameter, revolved at the rate of about forty revolutions a minute; and the couplings were so badly fitted that they might be heard creaking and groaning a long way off.... Another serious defect lay in the construction of the shafts, and in the mode of fixing the couplings, which were constantly giving way, so that a week seldom passed without one or more breaks-down.”[69] [69] Smiles: “Industrial Biography,” p. 389.