Stephen Wilcox, Jr. (February 12, 1830 – November 27, 1893) was an American

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

, best known as the co-inventor (with George Herman Babcock) of the

water-tube boiler A high pressure watertube boiler (also spelled water-tube and water tube) is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by fire. Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which boils water in the steam-generat ...

. They went on to found the Babcock & Wilcox Company. He was born in

Westerly, Rhode Island Westerly is a New England town, town on the Coast, southwestern coastline of Washington County, Rhode Island, Washington County, Rhode Island, United States, first settled by English colonists in 1661, and incorporated as a List of municipalitie ...

. and died in November 1893 at age 63 in Rhode Island. He is the namesake of Wilcox Park.

References

Biography at National Inventors Hall of Fame
1830 births 1893 deaths 19th-century American inventors People of the American Industrial Revolution {{US-inventor-stub