William Murdoch (August 21,1754 - November 15, 1839) was a Scottish engineer and inventor. He was employed by Boulton and Watt and worked for them as a steam engine erector for 20 years. He was the inventor of the oscillating cylinder steam engine, the steam gun, the pneumatic tube message system, and the first to exploit the flammability of gas for the practical application of lighting. An important invention for which his name is little known is Britain's first working model of a steam carriage, in 1784. The mechanics of the model locomotive incorporated a number of innovations, such as a boiler safety valve, having the cylinder partly immersed in the boiler and using a new valve system on the lines of the D-slide valve. He died in 1839 at the age of 85. His reputation as an inventor has been obscured by the reputations of Boulton and Watt and the firm they founded.