The Fall and Rise of the Southwark Foundry and Machine Company. Popular
Appreciation of the High-speed Engine.
The reader may be amused by some examples which came to my knowledge
of the achievements of the new management. The expensive new vice
president was of course a mere figurehead, as he knew nothing of
the engine or the business or my system of work, so Mr. Merrick’s
superintendent had a free hand.
He adhered to his long pistons, and obtained silent running by an
enormous compression of the exhaust steam, commencing soon after the
middle of the return stroke and rising to initial. This involved a
corresponding premature release of the steam during the expansion.
Between the two, about one-third of the power of the engine was
sacrificed, and they were in continual trouble from the failure of the
engines to give their guaranteed power.
I had always advocated giving our attention as much as possible to
large engines, where all the profit lay. My views had so much weight
that, unknown to me, Mr. Merrick and his superintendent were, before I
left, planning a smaller engine, to be called the “Southwark Engine,”
intended to drive isolated incandescent lighting plants. As soon as
I had been gotten rid of the manufacture of this engine proceeded
actively. It was largely exhibited and advertised, much to the neglect
of anything else. This was pursued persistently until over twenty
thousand dollars had been sunk in it, when it was abandoned.
They had an order from the Pennsylvania Steel Company for an engine to
drive a rolling mill which they were about to establish at Sparrow’s
Point on the Chesapeake Bay below Baltimore, for the manufacture of
steel rails from Cuban ores, which were found to be especially adapted
to the Bessemer process, and where the then new method of rolling was
to be employed, the method by which rails are rolled direct from the
ingot without reheating, which is now in universal use. This engine
was to be much larger than any previously made, and so requiring new
drawings. In making the cylinder drawings the draftsman omitted the
internal ribs, which are necessary to connect and stiffen the walls
of the square steam chest. The consequence of this almost incredible
oversight soon appeared. The engine had been running but a few days
when the steam chest blew up.
The Porter-Allen valve-gear required in its joints eleven hardened
steel bushings, which had to be finished inside and out. These we had
always made from cast steel bars. This process was extremely wasteful
of both material and time. Shortly before I left I had ascertained
experimentally that I could import from England solid drawn steel
tubing of any size and thickness, sufficiently high in carbon to
harden perfectly well. The new management undertook to carry out my
plans. For this purpose a list was prepared of all sizes that would be
required, with the finished dimensions external and internal. From this
another list was prepared, giving the additional material required for
finishing. A large lot of the tubing was ordered. When it arrived they
discovered they had sent the wrong list, the tubes were too thin to be
finished and were useless for any purpose.
They had an opportunity to estimate for a pair of very large blowing
engines. They got out their estimate for one engine, forgot to multiply
the amount by two, and were astonished the morning after they had sent
in their tender to receive the acceptance of it by telegraph.
[Illustration: JAMES C. BROOKS]
Performances of this kind were expensive. When their capital was all
gone, they borrowed five hundred thousand dollars on their bonds,
secured by a blanket mortgage. This did not last a great while. Only
five or six years after I left the affairs of the company reached a
crisis. They had no money to carry on the business, and no business
worth mentioning to carry on, and they owed a floating debt of one
hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. In this emergency the
directors invited Mr. James C. Brooks to take the presidency of the
company. Mr. Brooks was then a member of the firm of William Sellers
and Company. He was already well acquainted with the high character
of the engine. He found the works well equipped with tools, nothing
wanting but brains. He felt encouraged to make this proposition to the
directors, that if they would raise two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars by an issue of preferred stock, to pay off the floating debt
and give him seventy-five thousand dollars to start with, he would take
hold and see what he could do. This proposition was accepted and Mr.
Brooks took hold; and by a rare combination of engineering skill and
business ability and force of character, having no one to interfere
with him, he soon set the business on its feet, and started it on a
career of magnificent development, which under his management, has
continued for nearly twenty years to the present time.
Of all this, however I was ignorant. I was so situated as not to have
any knowledge of the company. I only observed that their advertisements
had long ago disappeared from the engineering journals. In the fall
of 1905, being in Philadelphia on a social visit, in the course of
conversation I asked my host “Is the Southwark Foundry still running?”
With a look of amazement he exclaimed, “Running! I should say it was
running and is doing a tremendous business.” “Is Mr. Brooks still at
the head of it” I asked. “Yes,” he replied, “you will find him at his
old post, and no doubt he will be glad to see you.”
The next day I called, and was most cordially received by Mr. Brooks.
He said he discontinued advertising a number of years ago, “because
the business was not of a nature to be benefited by advertising, it
rested entirely upon its reputation.” “Our correspondence,” he added,
“is enormous, employing six typewriters.” He took me to the erecting
floor of the shop. I was filled with amazement and delight at the
sight which met my eyes. This floor, which had been greatly enlarged,
was crowded with large engines in process of completion, most of them
larger and some a great deal larger, than the largest I had built. I
confess to a feeling bordering on ecstasy, heightened of course by the
suddenness of the relevation, when I realized the commanding height
to which the Porter-Allen Engine had been raised by this remarkable
man. Mr. Brooks offered to take me through the shops; this however I
declined, not being willing to trespass further on his time. He showed
me the old shop engine which I had not seen for twenty-three years.
Everything looked familiar except its speed. He said to me, “we have
never done anything to this engine, except to increase its speed from
230 revolutions to 300 revolutions per minute, to supply the additional
power required by the growth of the business.” Respecting their system,
he mentioned only one feature, which he evidently regarded as of
special importance, and which he seemed to suppose would be new to me.
It was this: “We make a separate drawing of every piece.”
Under date of Oct. 31, 1907, Mr. Brooks writes me, “the business now
employs ten typewriters, and the engine which was started in 1881, and
which has run at 300 revolutions per minute for the last seven years,
has now been compelled by their increased requirements to give place to
a compound condensing engine of more than twice its power.”
* * * * *
Three or four years ago I was spending a few days at the Mohonk Lake
Mountain House, Mr. Albert K. Smiley’s famous summer resort, and one
day strolled into the power house, where were three dynamos, each
driven by a Ball & Wood engine, the latter making, I think, something
over 200 revolutions per minute.
I fell into conversation with the engineer, rather an old man and
quite communicative. He told me he had been in Mr. Smiley’s employ
for seventeen years, and was voluble in his praises; said he was a
wonderful man, repeating “wonderful” with emphasis, but he added “he
don’t know nothin about machinery, nothin, no more’n you do.” My
attention was attracted by the dynamos, which were new to me and the
framing of which I thought presented a remarkably well studied design.
I mentioned this to the old man, who replied impatiently: “O, that
aint nothin, the engine is the wonder, that’s the wonder; why, when
I was a young man we did not suppose an engine _could_ be run more’n
about fifty or sixty turns a minute, nobody never thought o’ such a
thing; now we can run ’em any speed we like, no poundin, no shakin, no
heatin, it’s just wonderful.” I did not respond or show any interest,
and the old man did not waste any more enthusiasm on me. Did not say a
word when I left directly after, but I fancied him saying to himself:
“Another o’ them stuck ups, that don’t know nothin’.”
Transcriber’s Notes
The text of this document follows that of the source; inconsistent
spelling and hyphenation have been retained, except as mentioned
below.
Depending on the hard- and software used to read this text, and on
their settings, not all elements may display as intended. The scales
as provided in the indicator diagrams are, of course, not necessarily
correct.
Page 93: ... H laid on its side, thus ⌶: the symbol is used to
represent the shape of the rotated letter H, not an I or an I-beam.
Page 137, bill for American belt: there are some errors in the
calculations, these have not been corrected.
Page 147, paragraph starting The day after the opening ...: the
single and double quote marks do not match.
Page 155, ... exposition of the action of the reciprocating parts was
given Mr. Edwin Reynolds ...: should possibly read ... exposition of
the action of the reciprocating parts was given by Mr. Edwin Reynolds
....
Page 202, ... half the distance to the mid-stroke or to _E_, Fig. 32,
...: presumably this refers to the figure on page 201; there is no
figure 32 in the book.
Page 217, If I went, that I would be the end of the business: the
second I should probably be deleted.
Page 293: Presumably the references in the text to Figure 1 and
Figure 2 are to the top and bottom illustration respectively; the
source document does not provide figure numbers.
Page 328-330: The use of quote marks in these letters differs from
that in other correspondence; this has not been standardised.
Changes made
Illustrations and tables were moved out of text paragraphs.
Some obvious minor typographical and punctuation errors have been
corrected silently.
Dimensions m×n and m × n have been standardised to m×n,
multiplications x×y and x × y to x × y; cross-head and crosshead were
standardised to cross-head.
Page xii: illustration numbers have been added; Diagrams from English
Locomotive ... has been changed to Diagrams from English Locomotives
... as in the illustration caption.
Page 40: a closing single quote mark was inserted after ... do not
require any governor,
Page 79: pièce de resistance changed to pièce de résistance.
Page 91, illustration caption: English Locomtlvoes changed to English
Locomotives.
Page 175: ... told me had had supplied all the money ... changed to
... told me he had supplied all the money ....
Page 287: ... this they had been keen kept in ignorance of ...
changed to ... this they had been kept in ignorance of ....
Page 294: b′ and c′ in the text changed to b¹ and c¹ as in the
illustration.
Page 303: ... to very the speed ... changed to ... to vary the speed
....
Page 331: ... before I left planning a smaller engine ... changed to
... before I left, planning a smaller engine ....
Page 333: closing quote mark inserted after ... employing six
typewriters.