4 | The Fisher Story
1880s
1880 William Fisher invents the Type 1
constant pressure pump governor.
1884 The company, Fisher & Beebe,
receives a basic design patent on the
Type 1 pump governor (patent
number 305,167).
William forms a partnership with
George Henry Beebe, who owns a
wooden, two-story machine shop on
the corner of First Avenue and
Linn Street in Marshalltown, Iowa,
United States.
William Fisher
1887 40 pump governors are sold.
1888 Partnership takes in an
investor, Erastus A. Harris.
First product catalog is handwritten.
William Fisher, sixth from left, and employees, 1897
William Fisher
and His Type 1
T
he Fisher story began in the
late 1800s with a talented
young engineer and inventor
who dedicated himself to solving
a process control problem.
Born in Cambridgeshire,
England, in 1838, William Fisher
came to America as a boy of 10.
His family settled along the
Mississippi River near Clinton,
Iowa. Young William
distinguished himself as a
mechanic in a small engine shop
and learned as much as he could
about steam, the major source
of power at that time.
In 1876, at age 38, William
accepted a job as the chief
engineer for the city of
Marshalltown, Iowa, and helped
install the water works. When a
raging fire threatened the levee
area of town, William was called
from his home to maintain
water pressure for the town’s
firemen. Exhausted from handthrottling the steam-driven
pumps through the night, he felt
there must be a better way to
control the pumps and maintain
them at a constant pressure.
Many months and trials later,
he was satisfied with one of his
product designs—the Fisher
Type 1 constant pressure pump
governor (which is actually a
regulator). In 1880, he applied
for a patent and began to
manufacture his invention in a
building on the corner of
First Avenue and Linn Street.