Chapter 1

Historical

Few people realise how nearly the modern motor car was anticipated by the early steam carriage makers seventy years ago, and how close these inventors were to ultimate success.

The story of Cugnot’s road locomotive is told in most of the treatises on the steam engine which touch on the early history of steam. The same may be said of Murdoch’s model and of Trevethick’s steam coach. It is very difficult to ascertain the truth of any historical events, unless there is documentary evidence to prove what was really done.

Almost all those who rode in the early steam carriages of Hancock and of Gurney in the early thirties must have passed away, or, if not, memory cannot be fairly trusted after seventy years.

Fortunately, Water Hancock, the most successful of the early inventors, has left us a record of what he did in the years 1824 to 1836 in a small book entitled “Narrative of Twelve Years’ Experiments: Demonstrations of the Practicability and Advantage of Employing Steam Carriages on Common Roads,” a very readable book which bears internal evidence of being fairly accurate and truthful, although if it gave more details of the machinery it would be more acceptable to engineers. This book, published by John Weale, High Holborn, has long been out of print.

In the first chapter is a description of an attempt to make a light steam engine by using two india-rubber bags in place of a cylinder. Then follow descriptions of various boilers used in the steam carriages. Hancock’s boiler in its final form consisted of flat chambers placed side by side threaded at the upper and lower end by two bolts, which held them all together and the annular spaces round these bolts formed the communication for steam and water. In order to prevent the surfaces touching, and to allow space for the flame to pass between the sections, cup-shaped bosses were stamped on the sides of the sections or chambers.

Hancock devised an ingenious method of removing the clinkered fire bars and drawing in a clean set by making a rack at the side of the bars, which geared in a pinion outside the fire box, so the old bars could be moved from under the fire and the fresh set drawn in.

Hancock drove his driving wheels by chains - not, as far as we know, by pitch chains, but by ordinary chains. They would doubtless wear quickly and stretch; but if the drawings can be taken as reliable, there were not more than sixty or seventy links in the chain, and if these got out of pitch there would be no great difficulty in a skilful smith upsetting the links to gauge.

Hancock’s wheel was what is now known as the artillery wheel. It seems strange that the inventor of this wheel should be practically forgotten. His wheel is shown in fig. 1. which is copied from his book. The cast iron plates at each side gripped all the spokes, which, it will be noticed,  are wedge shaped where they meet at the boss.

Fig. 2 shows Hancock’s “Infant”, one of the earlier carriages. The cylinders were oscillating. All the rest of the carriages which he made had engines of the ordinary type, and eventually the “Infant” had “fixed" engines.

A representation of the “Infant” has been adopted on the badge of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland.

Hancock had many breakdowns to contend with; also the difficulty of finding coke and water on the road, but the following letter from the Mechanic’s Magazine in August, 1835, may be read with interest. This was before any railway was open from London:

“JOURNEY FROM LONDON TO MARLBOROUGH IN MR. WALTER HANCOCK’S STEAM CARRIAGE, THE ‘ERIN.’

Sir, - The ‘ Erin ‘ steam carriage, which was built by Mr.W. Hancock to run on the Paddington Road, and originally called the ‘ Era,’ started from Stratford on Tuesday morning last, at half-past four, for Marlborough, with a party of gentlemen. Mr. Hancock had attached a small tender to the carriage, containing coke and water sufficient to have lasted us to Reading, but the bar of wood through which the bolts ran that fixed the tender to the carriage gave way in Cheapside, and we were obliged to leave the tender behind us.

The carriage reached Hyde Park corner by six o’clock, where we remained about half an hour to take in some more of our party, and proceeded on to Reading, which we reached at eleven minutes past eleven o’clock. The company stopped there an hour and a half and dined, after which the journey was resumed.

The carriage reached Marlborough by half-past six o’clock with no other accident than the breaking of one of the bands of the blower. The total time on the road was a minute or two short of twelve hours, of which four and a half were occupied in stoppages, leaving seven and a half hours for travelling, being at the rate of just ten miles an hour.

No one who has not travelled by steam carriages can imagine the inconvenience and delay which result from the want of regular and ample supplies of water, the carriage having to stop from fourteen to eighteen minutes every ten or twelve miles to fill the tanks by hand buckets from pumps, with sometimes the additional inconvenience of having to take the supply from some neighbouring stream or pond.

While the carriage is stationary the fire slackens, in consequence of the blower being stopped, and it requires about two miles running to get it again into full play. By observations which I made on the road while timing the carriage, I found that the rate of the first three miles after taking in water averaged seven and a half minutes to the mile, whist the latter part of the distance till the carriage again stopped for water averaged one mile in five minutes.

Frequently the men were obliged to use any kind of water they could get, some being filled with duckweed, straw, and filth of every description, which, of course, very much retarded the generation of steam. The inconveniences arose in the present case chiefly from the loss of our tender, which would have carried us to Reading without any stoppage.

All these delays would, of course, not happen if water stations, having tanks with large hose, which might fill the carriage in a minute, were provided. There is no doubt that had such arrangements been made for supplying the ‘Erin’ on the present journey it would have performed it, including stoppages, in six hours, though the carriage was not built, I am informed, nor intended for long journeys, but for such short distances as between London and Paddington.

Mr. Hancock started from Marlborough to return to London on Friday at half-past five. The carriage accomplished the ascent of Marlborough Hill - the steepest acclivity on the Bristol road, being full one mile long, and having a rise of about one in twelve - in six minutes, with a stoppage of four minutes. The ‘ Erin ‘ reached Reading by ten, and stayed one hour and a half for breakfast. After running through the town we continued our journey, and reached London by half-past five, being again twelve hours on the road, and having lost nearly about the same time in stoppages as on our journey down.

Our reception on the road was very cordial; there was scarcely any manifestation of bad feeling throughout the journey - indeed, wherever we stopped to take in water we had every assistance given us by the bystanders. We were particularly well received at Marlborough, where we stayed two days. The carriage made a trip through the town each day, and Mr. Hancock astonished the inhabitants by the easy manner in which he could turn, stop, or back his carriage. Two gentlemen of Marlborough most hospitably entertained the steam travellers whilst they remained in that town. ....And remain, yours truly,

“London, August 10th, 1835        “R”

There are several other accounts in Hancock’s “Narrative of Runs to Brighton, Birmingham, etc.” These carriages ran regularly for months from Paddington to the Bank, almost the route that nearly thirty years later was taken by the Metropolitan Railway. But prejudice, vested interest, and outrageous tolls killed the steam carriage in the thirties. After Hancock’s death, Bish, who was his foreman, made a carriage, which was sent to France.

Gurney’s carriages differed from Hancock’s in many particulars. The engines worked on to a cranked driving-axle, on which the driving wheels were fixed, after the manner of an inside cylinder locomotive. The boiler was tubular and very light, but it must have been very extravagant in fuel. The steering was done by a pair of wheels acting as pilot wheels. This method was adopted and patented twenty-five years later by Aveling and Porter, of Rochester, the traction engine makers. Several of these carriages ran regularly for passengers between Gloucester and Cheltenham.

At this period carriages were made by Church, Macerone, and many others, but probably all records of these are lost.

Later, Rickets made two or three - one for the Earl of Caithness, which was used by him for travelling in Scotland. Mr. Yarrow, of torpedo-boat fame, made one, which was shown in the exhibition of 1862. Others were made by Messrs. Tangye, H. A. O. Mackenzie, Percy Holt, by the writer, and several others, but they were mostly too heavy. Probably the lightest was the steam dogcart of the late Mr. Blackburn, of Tunbridge Wells. The boiler was a coil of copper pipe heated by a benzoline flame; the engine a three-cylinder one of the Brotherhood type.

Mention must be made of the Thompson steamers, which were introduced about 1868 or 1869. These were the first engines with indiarubber tyres. The tyres were loose on the wheels, being kept in place by flanges at each side, but the creeping of the tyre as it expanded under the weight caused wear between the rim of the wheel and the inner surface of the rubber. To prevent the rubber expanding, a sort of chain armour was applied to the rubber; this not only protected it from the wear on the road, but reduced the creeping and internal wear.

The writer saw a good deal of the working of two of these engines at Aldershot in or about 1871. They were very handy engines, and were used for ordinary transport. The most successful working of these engines was in India, where they were used to draw trains of goods and passengers for some years under the superintendence of Mr. R. E. (now Col.) Crompton.

About 1870 a steam omnibus was constructed by Mr. Nairn, of Leith, and ran for some months between Edinburgh and Portobello. The peculiarity of this omnibus was that the wheels were provided with rope tyres. (See Engineer, January 28th, 1870.)

No sooner was the gas engine a commercial success than attempts were made to use its power for drawing tramcars. The Patent Office records show many inventors were at work, but a tricycle propelled by gas, in which the firing was by electricity, was patented by L. Hardaker in 1880 (2290).

C. Benz, of Mannheim, took out his first English patent on April 28th, 1886 (5,789). It shows a vehicle of the tricycle type, with seats for two passengers; a single-cylinder engine, with a large horizontal fly-wheel the object of having the fly-wheel horizontal appears to have been the fear that the gyroscopic action would interfere with the steering if the fly-wheel were in its usual position.  An illustration of this interesting car, which was constructed in 1885, is shown in fig. 3.

About this time a petroleum tricycle was constructed by Mr. Butler, of Newbury. To start the engine the road wheels were lifted off the ground. This little machine only carried one person.

The writer commenced the construction of a small motor carriage early in 1895, and had it running in July, using benzoline. A vaporiser was afterwards fitted, and it ran very well with heavy oil - lamp oil, or paraffin - but it was impossible to entirely prevent smoke and smell, and the vaporiser after some months’ experimenting was removed, and the car run with benzoline. Originally it ran on three wheels,  but as this was not thought safe for its high centre of gravity, it was altered into a four-wheel carriage, and as such was shown at the opening of the Motor Car Show at the Crystal Palace, May, 1896, when it ran with a British flag in front, being the only home-made vehicle running; the other three carriages running being of French or German manufacture.

This car is shown in fig. 4. There were (or, rather, are, for the car is still in existence) two speeds, corresponding to about four and nine miles an hour. It was originally fitted with hot tube ignition, but afterwards altered to electricity. The carriage underwent a good many alterations. In its present state it has a 4 1/2in. x 6in. cylinder. In the engraving the original water-cooling arrangement is shown. The pump circulated the water, which ran over two shallow trays in the upper part of the cooling tank; the exhaust was discharged downwards through a 3in. vertical pipe, creating a draught of air over the surface of the water in the tray.