engine maker

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Steam and internal combustion engines

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He was the sixth son of James Hancock, a cabinet-maker and merchant of Marlborough, Wiltshire. Initially Walter was apprenticed to a watchmaker and jeweller in London, but he soon turned his attention to engineering. In 1824 he invented a steam engine in which the cylinder and piston were replaced by two flexible bags of several layers of canvas and rubber solution, which were alternately filled with steam. The engine worked satisfactorily at Hancock's works in Stratford and its simplicity and lightness suggested its suitability for road carriages. Initial experiments were not very successful, but Hancock continued to experiment. After many trials in and around London, the Infant began a regular run between Stratford and London in February 1831. The following year he built the Era for the London and Brighton Steam Carriage Company. The Enterprise was next put on the road, by the London and Paddington Steam Carriage Company in April 1833. The Autopsy started to run from Finsbury Square to Pentonville in October of the same year and ran alternately with the Erin between the City and Paddington. Hancock's interest in steam road locomotion continued until about 1840, by which time he had built ten carriages. But by then public interest had declined and most of the companies involved had failed. Later, he turned his attention to indiarubber, working with his brother Thomas Hancock. In 1843 he obtained a patent for cutting rubber into sheets and for a method of preparing a solution of rubber.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Weapons and armour

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Maxim was born the son of a pioneer farmer who later became a wood turner. Young Maxim was first apprenticed to a carriage maker and then embarked on a succession of jobs before joining his uncle in his engineering firm in Massachusetts in 1864. As a young man he gained a reputation as a boxer, but it was his uncle who first identified and encouraged Hiram's latent talent for invention.

It was not, however, until 1878, when Maxim joined the first electric-light company to be established in the USA, as its Chief Engineer, that he began to make a name for himself. He developed an improved light filament and his electric pressure regulator not only won a prize at the first International Electrical Exhibition, held in Paris in 1881, but also resulted in his being made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. While in Europe he was advised that weapons development was a more lucrative field than electricity; consequently, he moved to England and established a small laboratory at Hatton Garden, London. He began by investigating improvements to the Gatling gun in order to produce a weapon with a faster rate of fire and which was more accurate. In 1883, by adapting a Winchester carbine, he successfully produced a semi-automatic weapon, which used the recoil to cock the gun automatically after firing. The following year he took this concept a stage further and produced a fully automatic belt-fed weapon. The recoil drove barrel and breechblock to the vent. The barrel then halted, while the breechblock, now unlocked from the former, continued rearwards, extracting the spent case and recocking the firing mechanism. The return spring, which it had been compressing, then drove the breechblock forward again, chambering the next round, which had been fed from the belt, as it did so. Keeping the trigger pressed enabled the gun to continue firing until the belt was expended. The Maxim gun, as it became known, was adopted by almost every army within the decade, and was to remain in service for nearly fifty years. Maxim himself joined forces with the large British armaments firm of Vickers, and the Vickers machine gun, which served the British Army during two world wars, was merely a refined version of the Maxim gun.

Maxim's interests continued to occupy several fields of technology, including flight. In 1891 he took out a patent for a steam-powered aeroplane fitted with a pendulous gyroscopic stabilizer which would maintain the pitch of the aeroplane at any desired inclination (basically, a simple autopilot). Maxim decided to test the relationship between power, thrust and lift before moving on to stability and control. He designed a lightweight steam-engine which developed 180 hp (135 kW) and drove a propeller measuring 17 ft 10 in. (5.44 m) in diameter. He fitted two of these engines into his huge flying machine testrig, which needed a wing span of 104 ft (31.7 m) to generate enough lift to overcome a total weight of 4 tons. The machine was not designed for free flight, but ran on one set of rails with a second set to prevent it rising more than about 2 ft (61 cm). At Baldwyn's Park in Kent on 31 July 1894 the huge machine, carrying Maxim and his crew, reached a speed of 42 mph (67.6 km/h) and lifted off its rails. Unfortunately, one of the restraining axles broke and the machine was extensively damaged. Although it was subsequently repaired and further trials carried out, these experiments were very expensive. Maxim eventually abandoned the flying machine and did not develop his idea for a stabilizer, turning instead to other projects. At the age of almost 70 he returned to the problems of flight and designed a biplane with a petrol engine: it was built in 1910 but never left the ground.

In all, Maxim registered 122 US and 149 British patents on objects ranging from mousetraps to automatic spindles. Included among them was a 1901 patent for a foot-operated suction cleaner. In 1900 he became a British subject and he was knighted the following year. He remained a larger-than-life figure, both physically and in character, until the end of his life.

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See also: Pilcher, Percy Sinclair

CM / JDS

SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering

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Morland was one of several sons of the Revd Thomas Morland and was probably initially educated by his father. He went to Winchester School from 1639 to 1644 and then to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1648 and MA in 1652. He was appointed a tutor there in 1650. In 1653 he went to Sweden in the ambassadorial staff of Bulstrode Whitelocke and remained there until 1654. In that year he was appointed Clerk to Mr Secretary Thurloe, and in 1655 he was accredited by Oliver Cromwell to the Duke of Savoy to appeal for the Waldenses. In 1657 he married Susanne de Milleville of Boissy, France, with whom he had three children. In 1660 he went over to the Royalists, meeting King Charles at Breda, Holland. On 20 May, the King knighted him, creating him baron, for revealing a conspiracy against the king's life. He was also granted a pension of£500 per year. In 1661, at the age of 36, he decided to devote himself to mathematics and invention. He devised a mechanical calculator, probably based on the pattern of Blaise Pascal, for adding and subtracting: this was followed in 1666 by one for multiplying and other functions. A Perpetual Calendar or Almanack followed; he toyed with the idea of a "gunpowder engine" for raising water; he developed a range of speaking trum-pets, said to have a range of 1/2 to 1 mile (0.8–1.6 km) or more; also iron stoves for use on board ships, and improvements to barometers.

By 1675 he had started selling a range of pumps for private houses, for mines or deep wells, for ships, for emptying ponds or draining low ground as well as to quench fire or wet the sails of ships. The pumps cost from £5 to £63, and the great novelty was that he used, instead of packing around the cylinder sealing against the bore of the cylinder, a neck-gland or seal around the outside diameter of the piston or piston-rod. This revolutionary step avoided the necessity of accurately boring the cylinder, replacing it with the need to machine accurately the outside diameter of the piston or rod, a much easier operation. Twenty-seven variations of size and materials were included in his schedule of'Pumps or Water Engines of Isaac Thompson of Great Russel Street', the maker of Morland's design. In 1681 the King made him "Magister mechanicorum", or Master of Machines. In that year he sailed for France to advise Louis XIV on the waterworks being built at Marly to supply the Palace of Versailles. About this time he had shown King Charles plans for a pumping engine "worked by fire alone". He petitioned for a patent for this, but did not pursue the matter.

In 1692 he went blind. In all, he married five times. While working for Cromwell he became an expert in ciphers, in opening sealed letters and in their rapid copying.

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['weë:] v.,n. -v. ( wore; worn) 1. vesh; mbath; mbaj; wear a hat mbaj kapeië; wear white vishem me të bardha; wear one's hair long i mbaj flokët të gjatë. 2. mbaj, kam; wear an air of satisfaction kam një pamje të kënaqur. 3. mbaj, përballoj; wear one's age /years well mbahem mirë për moshën që kam. 4. konsumoj, ha, prish; wear holes in a shoe, wear the shoe into holes i hap vrima këpucës; the rug was worn thin/threadbare qilimi qe holluar sa i patën dalë penjtë. 5. Br. duroj, lejoj, pranoj; they won't wear that ata nuk do ta pranojnë/nuk do ta hanë këtë. 6. rron, reziston, mban (rroba etj); this hat will wear forever kjo kapelë rron tërë jetën; she has worn well gj.fol. ajo është mbajtur mirë; a friendship that did not wear një miqësi që nuk mbajti gjatë. 7. hahet, grihet (rroba etj); konsumohet (edhe fig.); that excuse has worn thin! ky justifikim nuk shkon më! 8. përfundon; wear towards its end/a close i afrohet fundit. 9. lodh; the job was extremely wearing puna ishte rraskapitëse /-n 1. veshje; mbathje; mbajtje; clothes for evening wear rroba që vishen në mbrëmje; compulsory wear for officers veshje e detyrueshme për oficerët; these shoes have had/seen some hard wear këto këpucë janë veshur goxha gjatë. 2. përdorim, konsumim; ngrënie; it has had a lot of wear and tear është përdorur goxha; the wear and tear on the engine konsumimi i motorit. 3. treg. rroba, veshje; children's wear rroba për fëmijë; winter wear veshje dimri

● wear away ['weë: ë'wei] a) hahet, grihet; b) gërryhet; c) shuhet; d) ha, grin; e) gërryen; f) shuan

● wear down ['weë: daun] a) hahen (takat); b) harxhohet (lapsi); c) sos (durimin); d) ul, dobësoj (rezistencën); e) lodh

● wear off ['weë: of] a) del (boja); b) shuhet, zhduket; c) bie, pakësohet; qefesoi set (dhimbja); d) ha, konsumoj

● wear on ['weë: on] a) ecën, kalon (koha); b) vazhdon (diskutimi)

● wear out ['weë: aut] a) hahet, konsumohet (rroba, këpuca); b) soset (durimi); c) konsumoj; d) sos; e) lodh; wear oneself out lodh veten, këputem

● wear through ['weë: thru:] i hap vrimë

● wearable ['vveërëbël] adj. në gjendje të mirë, që mund të vishet

● wearer ['vveërë:] n. mbajtës; përdorues; direct from maker to wearer direkt nga prodhuesi te përdoruesi

● wearied ['wiërid] adj. i lodhur; lodhjeje (psherëtimë)

● wearily ['wiërili] adv. me ton të lodhur; me përtesë; me mundim

● weariness ['wiërinis] n 1. lodhje; këputje. 2. mërzi

● wearing ['weëring] adj. lodhës, i lodhshëm

● wearisome ['wiërisëm] adj 1. i lodhshëm. 2. i mërzitshëm

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vesh; veshje

1) (of tree) tronco m., fusto m.; (of body) tronco m.

2) (of elephant) proboscide f.

3) (for travel) baule m., cassa f.

4) AE (car boot) portabagagli m., baule m. (posteriore)

5) (duct) collettore m., condotto m.

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1) (the main stem (of a tree): The trunk of this tree is five metres thick.) tronco

2) (a large box or chest for packing or keeping clothes etc in: He packed his trunk and sent it to Canada by sea.) baule

3) (an elephant's long nose: The elephant sucked up water into its trunk.) proboscide

4) (the body (not including the head, arms and legs) of a person (and certain animals): He had a powerful trunk, but thin arms.) tronco, torso

5) ((American) a boot (of a car): Put your baggage in the trunk.) bagagliaio

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- trunks

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1 tronco ( d'albero, del corpo umano, ecc.); busto; fusto ( d'albero, d'una colonna, ecc.); torso

2 baule; grossa cassa ( di marinaio, ecc.)

3 ( d'elefante) proboscide

4 (mecc., = trunk piston) pistone tubolare: trunk engine, motore a pistoni tubolari

5 (autom. USA; cfr. ingl. boot /1/) bagagliaio; vano bagagli: trunk lid, cofano del bagagliaio; cofano posteriore

6 (pl.) calzoncini ( da atleta, da bagno)

7 (pl.) pantaloncini ( da pugile)

8 (tecn.) tronco principale; collettore ( di fogna e sim.)

9 ( boxe) tronco; figura; bersaglio grosso

● (telef.) trunk call, chiamata interurbana □ (telef.) trunk circuit, circuito di collegamento □ trunk drawers, calzoni a pallone, calzoni corti ( al ginocchio o sopra) □ (tel.) trunk exchange, centrale interurbana □ ( ginnastica) trunk exercises, esercizi del tronco □ (stor.) trunk hose, brache a sbuffo ( in uso nel '500) □ trunk line, (ferr.) linea principale; (telef.) linea interurbana □ trunk maker, valigiaio □ (autom.) trunk motorway, autostrada principale □ trunk nail, borchia □ trunk road, strada nazionale (o camionale) □ ( ginnastica) trunk rotation, rotazione del tronco □ ( ginnastica) trunk twisting, torsione del busto.

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1) (of tree) tronco m., fusto m.; (of body) tronco m.

2) (of elephant) proboscide f.

3) (for travel) baule m., cassa f.

4) AE (car boot) portabagagli m., baule m. (posteriore)

5) (duct) collettore m., condotto m.

- auto accident

- auto-change electrode attachment

- auto-compound current transformer

SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology, Land transport

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The son of a market gardener, Albone's interest lay in mechanics, and by 1880 he had established his own business as a cycle maker and repairer. His inventive mind led to a number of patents relating to bicycle design, but his commercial success was particularly assisted by his achievements in cycle racing. From this early start he diversified his business, designing and supplying, amongst other things, axle bearings for the Great Northern Railway, and also building motor cycles and several cars. It is possible that he began working on tractors as early as 1896. Certainly by 1902 he had built his first prototype, to the three-wheeled design that was to remain in later production models. Weighing only 30 cwt, yet capable of pulling two binders or a two-furrow plough, Albone's Ivel tractor was ahead of anything in its time, and its power-to-weight ratio was to be unrivalled for almost a decade. Albone's commercial success was not entirely due to the mechanical tractor's superiority, but owed a considerable amount to his ability as a showman and demonstrator. He held two working demonstrations a month in the village of Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, where the tractors were made. The tractor was named after the river Ivel, which flowed through the village. The Ivel tractor gained twenty-six gold and silver medals at agricultural shows between 1902 and 1906, and was a significant contributor to Britain's position as the world's largest exporter of tractors between 1904 and 1914. Albone tried other forms of his tractor to increase its sales. He built a fire engine, and also an armoured vehicle, but failed to impress the War Office with its potential.

Albone died at the age of 46. His tractor continued in production but remained essentially unimproved, and the company finally lost its sales to other designs, particularly those of American origin.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering

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Joseph Rogers Brown was the eldest son of David Brown, who was modestly established as a maker of and dealer in clocks and watches. Joseph assisted his father during school vacations and at the age of 17 left to obtain training as a machinist. In 1829 he joined his father in the manufacture of tower clocks at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and two years later went into business for himself in Pawtucket making lathes and small tools. In 1833 he rejoined his father in Providence, Rhode Island, as a partner in the manufacture of docks, watches and surveying and mathematical instruments. David Brown retired in 1841.

J.R.Brown invented and built in 1850 a linear dividing engine which was the first automatic machine for graduating rules in the United States. In 1851 he brought out the vernier calliper, the first application of a vernier scale in a workshop measuring tool. Lucian Sharpe was taken into partnership in 1853 and the firm became J.R.Brown \& Sharpe; in 1868 the firm was incorporated as the Brown \& Sharpe Manufacturing Company.

In 1855 Brown invented a precision gear-cutting machine to make clock gears. The firm obtained in 1861 a contract to make Wilcox \& Gibbs sewing machines and gave up the manufacture of clocks. At about this time F.W. Howe of the Providence Tool Company arranged for Brown \& Sharpe to make a turret lathe required for the manufacture of muskets. This was basically Howe's design, but Brown added a few features, and it was the first machine tool built for sale by the Brown \& Sharpe Company. It was followed in 1862 by the universal milling machine invented by Brown initially for making twist drills. Particularly for cutting gear teeth, Brown invented in 1864 a formed milling cutter which could be sharpened without changing its profile. In 1867 the need for an instrument for checking the thickness of sheet material became apparent, and in August of that year J.R.Brown and L.Sharpe visited the Paris Exhibition and saw a micrometer calliper invented by Jean Laurent Palmer in 1848. They recognized its possibilities and with a few developments marketed it as a convenient, hand-held measuring instrument. Grinding lathes were made by Brown \& Sharpe in the early 1860s, and from 1868 a universal grinding machine was developed, with the first one being completed in 1876. The patent for this machine was granted after Brown's sudden death while on holiday.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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Darby's father, John, was a farmer who also worked a small forge to produce nails and other ironware needed on the farm. He was brought up in the Society of Friends, or Quakers, and this community remained important throughout his personal and working life. Darby was apprenticed to Jonathan Freeth, a malt-mill maker in Birmingham, and on completion of his apprenticeship in 1699 he took up the trade himself in Bristol. Probably in 1704, he visited Holland to study the casting of brass pots and returned to Bristol with some Dutch workers, setting up a brassworks at Baptist Mills in partnership with others. He tried substituting cast iron for brass in his castings, without success at first, but in 1707 he was granted a patent, "A new way of casting iron pots and other pot-bellied ware in sand without loam or clay". However, his business associates were unwilling to risk further funds in the experiments, so he withdrew his share of the capital and moved to Coalbrookdale in Shropshire. There, iron ore, coal, water-power and transport lay close at hand. He took a lease on an old furnace and began experimenting. The shortage and expense of charcoal, and his knowledge of the use of coke in malting, may well have led him to try using coke to smelt iron ore. The furnace was brought into blast in 1709 and records show that in the same year it was regularly producing iron, using coke instead of charcoal. The process seems to have been operating successfully by 1711 in the production of cast-iron pots and kettles, with some pig-iron destined for Bristol. Darby prospered at Coalbrookdale, employing coke smelting with consistent success, and he sought to extend his activities in the neighbourhood and in other parts of the country. However, ill health prevented him from pursuing these ventures with his previous energy. Coke smelting spread slowly in England and the continent of Europe, but without Darby's technological breakthrough the ever-increasing demand for iron for structures and machines during the Industrial Revolution simply could not have been met; it was thus an essential component of the technological progress that was to come.

Darby's eldest son, Abraham II (1711–63), entered the Coalbrookdale Company partnership in 1734 and largely assumed control of the technical side of managing the furnaces and foundry. He made a number of improvements, notably the installation of a steam engine in 1742 to pump water to an upper level in order to achieve a steady source of water-power to operate the bellows supplying the blast furnaces. When he built the Ketley and Horsehay furnaces in 1755 and 1756, these too were provided with steam engines. Abraham II's son, Abraham III (1750–89), in turn, took over the management of the Coalbrookdale works in 1768 and devoted himself to improving and extending the business. His most notable achievement was the design and construction of the famous Iron Bridge over the river Severn, the world's first iron bridge. The bridge members were cast at Coalbrookdale and the structure was erected during 1779, with a span of 100 ft (30 m) and height above the river of 40 ft (12 m). The bridge still stands, and remains a tribute to the skill and judgement of Darby and his workers.

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SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Land transport

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He began his career in the bicycle trade, in which he invented a number of devices. He launched his own business in Peoria, Illinois, and later moved to Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1891 he had designed a motor-driven carriage and a gas engine and, with his brother, J.Frank Duryea, he built the first successful American car, which was demonstrated in Springfield in September, 1893. An improved version, largely designed by Frank Duryea, won several races both at home and abroad in 1895–6. The Duryea Motor Wagon Company made the first sale of an American-made automobile in 1896. Charles later organized the Duryea Power Company, manufacturing a three-cylinder car until 1914, the brothers parting company in 1898. Frank developed the Stevens-Duryea between 1903 and 1914.

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SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing

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Ruggles, a Bostonian, made a cylinder press in 1827 and also a card press, but neither was manufactured. In 1839 he completed his "Engine" press, the first self-inking, treadle-driven jobbing platen press. The machine presses that had been developed from Koenig and Bauer c. 1810 were suitable for large-scale printing but less so for the small miscellaneous work of the jobbing printer. For these needs, the bed and platen press was developed. The bed (carrying the type) and the platen (which pressed the paper onto the inked type) were pivoted and brought together like the jaws of a nutcracker instead of moving on a separate carriage. With automatic inking and treadle operation, the press offered a rapid and simple action for the small printer. In Ruggles's first press of this kind, the bed and platen were still horizontal, the bed being uppermost. If the type became loose, however, it fell onto the platen, so in 1851 Ruggles constructed a new version in which bed and platen were vertical. Later designers modified the form of the press, but it was the Ruggles that opened up a new era for the jobbing printer.

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SUBJECT AREA: Horology

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Little is known about Tompion's early life except that he was born into a family of blacksmiths. When he was admitted into the Clockmakers' Company in 1671 he was described as a "Great Clockmaker", which meant a maker of turret clocks, and as these clocks were made of wrought iron they would have required blacksmithing skills. Despite this background, he also rapidly established his reputation as a watchmaker. In 1674 he moved to premises in Water Lane at the sign of "The Dial and Three Crowns", where his business prospered and he remained for the rest of his life. Assisted by journeymen and up to eleven apprentices at any one time, the output from his workshop was prodigious, amounting to over 5,000 watches and 600 clocks. In his lifetime he was famous for his watches, as these figures suggest, but although they are of high quality they do not differ markedly from those produced by other London watchmakers of that period. He is now known more for the limited number of elaborate clocks that he produced, such as the equation clock and the spring-driven clock of a year's duration, which he made for William III. Around 1711 he took into partnership his nephew by marriage, George Graham, who carried on the business after his death.

Although Tompion does not seem to have been particularly innovative, he lived at a time when great advances were being made in horology, which his consummate skill as a craftsman enabled him to exploit. In this he was greatly assisted by his association with Robert Hooke, for whom Tompion constructed a watch with a balance spring in 1675; at that time Hooke was trying to establish his priority over Huygens for this invention. Although this particular watch was not successful, it made Tompion aware of the potential of the balance spring and he became the first person in England to apply Huygens's spiral spring to the balance of a watch. Although Thuret had constructed such a watch somewhat earlier in France, the superior quality of Tompion's wheel work, assisted by Hooke's wheel-cutting engine, enabled him to dominate the market. The anchor escapement (which reduced the amplitude of the pendulum's swing) was first applied to clocks around this time and produced further improvements in accuracy which Tompion and other makers were able to utilize. However, the anchor escapement, like the verge escapement, produced recoil (the clock was momentarily driven in reverse). Tompion was involved in attempts to overcome this defect with the introduction of the dead-beat escapement for clocks and the horizontal escapement for watches. Neither was successful, but they were both perfected later by George Graham.

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