subject that was of much moment in his day, was limited to a single patent
and generally to discouraging the plans of others in that direction, owing
to his fear that the introduction of high-pressure steam use would harm
the engine business. In the patent granted to him in 1784 he proposed that
the boiler of his carriage should be made of wooden staves, fastened with
iron hoops, like a cask, and the furnace to be of iron, and placed in the
inside of the boiler, surrounded with water.
Watt, however, never built the steam carriage. He retained the deepest
prejudices against the use of high-pressure steam, saying: "I soon
relinquished the idea of constructing an engine on this principle; from
being sensible it would be liable to some of the objections against
Savery's engine, viz., the danger of bursting the boiler, and also that a
great part of the power of the steam would be lost, because no vacuum was
formed to assist the descent of the piston."
ROBERT FOURNESS
Born in Otley, Yorkshire, England. Died at an early age.
Fourness became a practical engineer and invented several labor-saving
machines. One of his first inventions was for a machine to split hides,
that was set up and operated in the establishment of his father. Later in
life he established works for himself in Sheffield, and afterwards in
Gainsborough. In 1788, he was a resident of Elland, Halifax, and there
made a steam carriage that was run by a three-cylinder inverted engine.
Spur-gearing transmitted the driving power from the crank shaft to the
axle. His patent was taken out in conjunction with James Ashworth. This
vehicle was mounted on two driving wheels and had a smaller steering wheel
in front.
GEORGE MEDHURST
Born at Shoreham, Kent, England, in February, 1759. Died in September,
1827.
Medhurst was educated as a clock maker, but in 1789 started as an
engineer. In the same year he secured a patent for a windmill and pumps
for compressing air to obtain motive power. One of the first investigators
in this direction, the idea on which he worked and which continued to
absorb his energy throughout life, was to make use of the wind when it
served in order to compress large bodies of air for use when needed. In
1800, he took out a patent on an aeolian engine and demonstrated how
carriages could be driven upon the common roads by compressed air stored
in reservoirs underneath the body of the vehicle. He also contemplated
applying this engine to other useful purposes and calculated that small
carriages could be worked by a rotary engine and larger ones by
reciprocating engines with special gear for varying power.
In describing his inventions and explaining his ideas regarding compressed
air, Medhurst said: "The power applied to the machinery is compressed air,
and the power to compress the air I obtain generally by wind, assisted and
improved by machinery described in this specification, and in order to
render my invention universally useful I propose to adapt my machinery
and magazine so that it may be charged by hand, by a fall of water, by a
vacuum obtained by wind and also by explosive and effervescent substances,
for the rapid conveyance of passengers, mails, dispatches, artillery,
military stores, etc., and to establish regular stage coaches and wagons
throughout the kingdom, to convey goods and passengers, for public
accommodation, by erecting windmills, water-mills, etc., at proper
intervals upon the roads, to be employed in charging large magazines at
these stations with compressed air, or in raising large magazines of water
by wind, etc., by the power of which portable magazines may be charged
when required by machinery for that purpose."
Medhurst contemplated establishing regular lines of coaches, with pumping
stations at regular stopping places. He endeavored to form a company to
work his inventions and develop his plans and published a pamphlet on the
subject of compressed air. About 1800, he established himself as a
machinist and ironmaster in Denmark street, Soho, and about ten years
later was the first to suggest pneumatic tubes for the carriage of parcels
or passengers. Some two years later he brought out the proposition for
what has come to be known as the atmospheric railway, an appliance for
conveying goods and passengers by the power of a piston in a continuous
tube laid between the rails.
ANDREW VIVIAN
A resident of Cornwall, England, Andrew Vivian, a cousin of Richard
Trevithick, became much interested in the engineering experiments of his
famous relative. He worked with his cousin and particularly assisted him
in experiments on steam engines for propelling road carriages. In 1802, he
was a joint patentee with Trevithick, in the early steam vehicle that was
taken to London and was exhibited in that city, where for a short time it
occasioned a great deal of public curiosity.
DU QUET
A Frenchman who, in 1714, designed a small windmill to give motion to the
wheels of his carriages.
J. H. GENEVOIS
A Swiss clergyman, of the early part of the eighteenth century. He
proposed to use windmills or sails on his wagon and by a system of springs
to store the energy thus obtained until such time as it should be needed
for driving purposes.
JOHN DUMBELL
In 1808, John Dumbell secured a patent for an engine that had many
peculiar features. He planned to have the steam act on a series of vanes,
or fliers, within a cylinder, "like the sails of a windmill," causing them
to rotate together with the shaft to which they were fixed. Gearing
transmitted the motion of this shaft to the driving wheels. The inventor
proposed to raise steam by permitting water to drop upon a metal plate,
kept at an intense heat by means of a strong fire, which was stimulated by
a pair of bellows.
WILLIAM BRUNTON
Born at Dalkeith, Scotland, May 26, 1777. Died at Camborne, Cornwall,
England, October 5, 1857.
The eldest son of Robert Brunton, a watch and clock maker, William Brunton
studied mechanics first in his father's shop and then in England, under
the guidance of his grandfather, who was a colliery viewer. When he was
thirteen years of age, in 1790, he began work in the fitting shops of the
New Lanark cotton mills of David Dale and Richard Arkwright. Remaining in
that establishment for six years he then went to the Boulton & Watt shops,
at Soho, where he was gradually promoted, until he finally became the
foreman and superintendent of engine manufacturing.
In 1813, he went to the Jessop's Butterley Works, but remained there only
three years, when he became a partner and mechanical manager of the Eagle
Foundry, at Birmingham, a connection that he maintained for ten years.
From 1825 to 1835, he was engaged in the practice of civil engineering in
London. In the last-mentioned year, he became a share owner in the Cwm
Avom tin works in Glamorganshire, Wales, where he superintended the
erection of copper-smelting furnaces and rolling mills. He was also
connected with the Maesteg Works in the same county and a brewery at
Neath. Through the failure of these enterprises he lost the savings of his
lifetime and was never again engaged actively in business. He invented
many ingenious modes of reducing and manufacturing metals; made some of
the original engines used on the Humber and the Trent and also some of the
earliest that were seen on the Mersey, including those four vessels first
operated on the Liverpool ferries in 1814. He also invented the calciner
that was put in use in the tin mines at Cornwall and the silver ore works
in Mexico.
Like nearly all the other engineers of his day, Brunton planned a steam
carriage. This was built when he was at the Butterley Works, in 1813, and
was called "the mechanical traveller." Although a peculiar machine it
worked with some degree of success, at a gradient of one in thirty-six,
all the winter of 1814, at the Newbottle Colliery. The machine was a steam
horse rather than a steam carriage. It consisted of a curious combination
of levers, the action of which nearly resembled that of the legs of a man
in walking, with feet alternately made to press against the ground of the
road or railway, and in such a manner as to adapt themselves to the
various inclinations or inequalities of the surface. The feet were of
various forms, the great object being to prevent them from injuring the
road, and to obtain a firm footing, so that no jerks should take place at
the return of the stroke, when the action of the engine came upon them;
for this purpose they were made broad, with short spikes to lay hold of
the ground. The boiler was a cylinder of wrought iron, five feet six
inches long, three feet in diameter, and of such strength as to be capable
of sustaining a pressure of upwards of four hundred pounds per square
inch. The working cylinder was six inches in diameter, and the piston had
a stroke of twenty-four inches; the step of the feet was twenty-six
inches, and the whole machine, including water, weighed about forty-five
hundredweight. In 1815, the engine of this carriage exploded and killed
thirteen persons.
THOMAS TINDALL
A steam engine was patented, in 1814, by Thomas Tindall, of Scarborough.
The inventor proposed to use this for an infinitude of purposes, such as
driving carriages for the conveyance of passengers, ploughing land, mowing
grass and corn, or working thrashing machines. The carriage had three
wheels--one for steering. The steam engine drove, by spur gearing, four
legs, which, pushing against the ground, moved the carriage. The engine
could also be made to act upon the two hind wheels for ascending hills, or
for drawing heavy loads. A windmill, driven partly by the action of the
wind, and partly by the exhaust steam from the engine, was used as adjunct
power.
JOHN BAYNES
A very ingenious modification of William Brunton's mechanical traveler,
was the subject of a patent granted to John Baynes, a cutler, of
Sheffield, England, in September, 1819. The mechanism was designed to be
attached to carriages for the purpose of giving them motion by means of
manual labor, or by other suitable power, and consisted of a peculiar
combination of levers and rods. The patentee also stated that there might
be several sets of the machinery above described for working each set with
a treadle, or even only one set and treadle. Then he added: "I prefer two
for ordinary purposes, particularly when only a single person is intended
to be conveyed in the carriage, who may work the same by placing one foot
on each treadle, in which the action will be alternate. The lower parts of
the leg should be so formed or shod as not to slip upon the ground. This
machinery may be variously applied to carriages, according to
circumstances, so as that the treadles may be worked either behind or
before the carriage, still producing a forward motion; in some cases it
may be advantageous to joint the front end of the treadles to the carriage
and press the feet on the hind ends."
JULIUS GRIFFITHS
Among those who came to the front with plans for steam carriages for the
public highways, soon after the roads began to be improved, was Julius
Griffiths, of Brompton Crescent. In 1821, he patented a steam carriage
that was built by Joseph Bramhah, a celebrated engineer and manufacturer.
It is said that part of the mechanism was designed by Arzberger, a
foreigner.
The carriage has been termed by some English authorities "the first steam
coach constructed in this country, expressly for the conveyance of
passengers on common roads." It was repeatedly tested during a period of
three or four years, but failed on account of boiler deficiencies.
Alexander Gordon said of it: "The engines, pumps, and connections were all
in the best style of mechanical execution, and had Mr. Griffiths' boiler
been of such a kind as to generate regularly the required quantity of
steam, a perfect steam carriage must have been the consequence." The
carriage moved easily and answered very readily to guidance. The vehicle
was a double coach and could carry eight passengers.
This locomotive had two vertical working steam cylinders, which with the
boiler, condenser, and other details were suspended to a wood frame at the
rear of the carriage. The engineer was seated behind and did his own
firing. The boiler was a series of horizontal water tubes, one and
one-half inches in diameter and two feet long; at each end the flanges
were bolted to the vertical tubes forming the sides of the furnace.
Attached to the wood frame in front of the driving wheels, was a small
water tank, and a force pump supplied the boiler with water. The steam,
passing through the cylinder, went into an air condenser. The power of the
engines was communicated from the piston rods to the driving wheels of the
carriage by sweep rods, the lower ends of which were provided with driving
pinions and detents, which operated upon toothed gear fixed to the hind
carriage axle. The object of this mechanism was to keep the driving
pinions always in gear with the toothed wheels, however the engine and
other machinery might vibrate or the wheels be jolted upon uneven ground.
The boiler, engine, and other working parts were suspended to the wood
frame by chain slings, having strong spiral springs so as to reduce the
vibration from rough roads.
EDMUND CARTWRIGHT
Born at Marnham, Nottinghamshire, England, April 24, 1743. Died at
Hastings, October 30, 1823.
Cartwright was educated at Oxford and secured a living in the English
church. He devoted himself to the ministry and to literature until 1784,
when he became interested in machinery and in the following year invented
the power loom. He took out other patents and also gave some attention to
devising a mechanical carriage propelled by man power. In 1822, he made a
vehicle that was moved by a pair of treadles and cranks worked by the
driver.
Even the steam engine engaged his attention. Some improvements which he
proposed in it are recorded in works on mechanics. While residing at
Eltham, in Lincolnshire, he used frequently to tell his son that, if he
lived to be a man, he would see both ships and land-carriages impelled by
steam. At that early period he constructed a model of a steam engine
attached to a barge, which he explained, about the year 1793, to Robert
Fulton. It appears that even in his old age, only a year before his death,
he was actively engaged in endeavoring to contrive a plan of propelling
land-carriages by steam.
T. BURTSALL
An engineer, of Edinburgh, Scotland, T. Burtsall, in conjunction with J.
Hill, of London, got out, in 1824, a patent for flash or instantaneous
generation boilers. His aim was to make the metal of the boiler store heat
instead of a mass of water, and he accomplished this by heating the boiler
to anywhere from two hundred and fifty degrees to six hundred degrees
Fahrenheit, keeping the water in a separate vessel and pumping it into the
boiler as steam was required. A coach that he built to run with this
boiler weighed eight tons, and it was a failure, simply because the boiler
could not make steam fast enough.
T. W. PARKER
A working model of a light steam carriage was made by T. W. Parker, of
Illinois, in 1825. Three wheels supported the carriage, the two hind
wheels being eight feet in diameter. The double-cylinder engine was used.
GEORGE POCOCK
One of the most curious of the wind vehicle productions that held the
fancy of scientists to a slight extent in the early part of the nineteenth
century was the charvolant or kite carriage that was devised by George
Pocock in 1826, and built by Pocock and his partner, Colonel Viney. This
was a very light one-seated carriage, drawn by a string of kites harnessed
tandem. With a good wind these kites developed great power and it is said
that the carriage whirled along, even on heavy roads, at the rate of a
mile in three or even two and one-half minutes. Once Viney and Pocock made
the trip from Bristol to London, and they often ran their carriage around
Hyde Park and the suburbs of London. As the wind could not always be
depended upon the charvolant was provided with a rear platform, upon which
a pony was carried for emergencies.
SAMUEL BROWN
In 1826, Samuel Brown applied his gas-vacuum engine to the propulsion of a
carriage, which was effectively worked along the public roads in England.
It even ascended the very steep acclivity of Shooter's Hill, in Kent, to
the astonishment of numerous spectators. The expense of working this
machine was, however, said far to exceed that of steam, and this formed a
barrier to its introduction. Experiments with this engine for the
propulsion of vessels on canals or rivers were also made by the Canal Gas
Engine Company. Brown patented a locomotive for common roads in 1823.
JAMES NEVILLE
In January, 1827, James Neville, an engineer of London, took out a patent
for a "new-invented improved carriage," to be worked by steam, the chief
object of which appears to have been to provide wheels adapted to take a
firm hold of the ground. He proposed to make each of the spokes of the
wheels by means of two rods of iron, coming nearly together at the nave,
but diverging considerably apart to their other ends, where they were
fastened to an iron felly-ring of the breadth of the tire, and this tire
was to be so provided with numerous pointed studs about half an inch long
as to stick into the ground to prevent the wheel from slipping round. A
second method of preventing this effect was to fasten upon the tire a
series of flat springing plates, each of them forming a tangent to the
circumference, so that as the wheels rolled forward each plate should be
bent against the tire and recover its tangential position as it left the
ground in its revolution. It was considered that the increased bearing
surface of the plate, and the resistance of its farthest edge, would
infallibly prevent slipping. For propelling the carriage Neville proposed
to use a horizontal vibrating cylinder to give motion direct to the crank
axis by means of the compound motion of the piston rod, as invented by
Trevithick, the motion to the running wheels to be communicated through
gear of different velocities.
T. S. HOLLAND
Among the singular propositions for producing a locomotive action that
were brought out early in the eighteenth century was that invented by T.
S. Holland, of London, for which he took out a patent in December, 1827.
The invention consisted in the application of an arrangement of levers,
similar to that commonly known by the name of lazy-tongs, for the purpose
of propelling carriages. The objects appeared to be to derive from the
reciprocating motion of a short lever a considerable degree of speed, and
to obtain an abutment against which the propellers should act
horizontally, in the direction of the motion of the carriage, instead of
obliquely to that motion, as is the case when carriages are impelled by
levers striking the earth.
JAMES NASMYTH
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, August 19, 1808. Died in South Kensington,
England, May 6, 1890.
While yet in his teens James Nasmyth showed great mechanical ability and
constructed a small steam engine. In 1821, he became a student at the
Edinburgh School of Arts. Six years later he had made a very substantial
advance in his experiments. The story of what he endeavored to accomplish
is best told by himself. In later life he wrote:
"About the year 1827, when I was nineteen years old, the subject of steam
carriages to run upon common roads occupied considerable attention.
Several engineers and mechanical schemers had tried their hands, but as
yet no substantial results had come of their attempts to solve the
problem. Like others, I tried my hand. Having made a small working model
of a steam carriage, I exhibited it before the members of the Scottish
Society of Arts. The performance of this active little machine was so
gratifying to the Society, that they requested me to construct one of such
power as to enable four or six persons to be conveyed along the ordinary
roads. The members of the Society, in their individual capacity,
subscribed three hundred dollars, which they placed in my hands as the
means for carrying out their project. I accordingly set to work at once,
and completed the carriage in about four months, when it was exhibited
before the members of the Society of Arts. Many successful trials were
made with it on the Queensferry Road, near Edinburgh. The runs were
generally of four or five miles, with a load of eight passengers sitting
on benches about three feet from the ground. The experiments were
continued for nearly three months, to the great satisfaction of the
members.
"I may mention that in my steam carriage I employed the waste steam to
create a blast or draught, by discharging it into the short chimney of the
boiler at its lowest part; and I found it most effective. I was not at
that time aware that George Stephenson and others had adopted the same
method; but it was afterwards gratifying to me to find that I had been
correct as regards the important uses of the steam blast in the chimney.
In fact, it is to this use of the waste steam that we owe the practical
success of the locomotive engine as a tractive power on railways,
especially at high speeds.
"The Society of Arts did not attach any commercial value to my road
carriage. It was merely as a matter of experiment that they had invited me
to construct it. When it proved successful they made me a present of the
entire apparatus. As I was anxious to get on with my studies, and to
prepare for the work of practical engineering, I proceeded no further. I
broke up the steam carriage, and sold the two small high-pressure engines,
provided with a strong boiler, for three hundred and thirty-five dollars,
a sum which more than defrayed all the expenses of the construction and
working of the machine."
F. ANDREWS
It is said that F. Andrews, of Stamford Rivers, Essex, England, was the
inventor of the pilot steering wheel which was used by Gurney and has been
often used since then. He also made other improvements in steam carriages
in 1826. One of his patents was for the oscillating cylinders that were
used by James Neville in his steam carriage. Andrews' steam carriage was a
failure, like many others of that period, on account of imperfect working
of the boiler.
HARLAND
Dr. Harland, of Scarborough, in 1827 invented and patented a steam
carriage for running on common roads. A working model of the steam coach
was perfected, embracing a multi-tubular boiler for quickly raising
high-pressure steam, with a revolving surface condenser for reducing the
steam to water again by means of its exposure to the cold draught of the
atmosphere through the interstices of extremely thin laminations of copper
plates. The entire machinery placed under the bottom of the carriage, was
borne on springs; the whole being of an elegant form.
This model steam carriage ascended with ease the steepest roads. Its
success was so complete that Harland designed a full-sized carriage; but
the demands upon his professional skill were so great that he was
prevented going further than constructing a pair of engines, the wheels,
and a part of the boiler. Harland spent his leisure time in inventions and
in that work was associated with Sir George Cayley. He was Mayor of
Scarborough three times. He died in 1866.
PECQUEUR
Chief of shops at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metier, Paris, Pecqueur
made a steam wagon in 1828. His vehicle had two drive wheels keyed to two
pairs of axles. His planet gearing was the origin of the balance gear.
JAMES VINEY
Colonel James Viney, Royal Engineers, in 1829 patented a boiler intended
for steam carriages. His plan was to have two, three, four, or six
concentric hollow cylinders containing water, between which the fire from
below passed up. An annular space for water, and an annular space or flue
for the ascending fire, were placed alternately, the water being between
two fires.
CHEVALIER BORDINO
An Italian officer of engineers, Bordino devised and constructed a steam
carriage for the diversion of his little daughter. It was a carriage à la
Dumont, and for forty years was used regularly in the carnival festivities
of Turin in the early part of the nineteenth century. It is still
preserved as donated by the widow of Bordino to the Industrial Museum of
Turin.
CLIVE