page_title: Coldharbour Mill Working Wool Museum
section_title: Steam power
hierarchical_section_title: Coldharbour Mill Working Wool Museum / Sources of power / Steam power
caption_attribution_description: English: Coldharbour Mill - beam engine, near to Smithincott, Devon, Great Britain. Former Alboin brewery beam engine by Kittoe &amp; Brotherhood of London in 1867. Now re-erected in an original beam engine house.
context_page_description: Coldharbour Mill, near the village of Uffculme in Devon, England, is one of the oldest woollen textile mills in the world, having been in continuous production since 1797. The mill was one of a number owned by Fox Brothers, and is designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building.
context_section_description: Thomas Fox's brother Edward was part owner of a Cornish mine, and was instrumental in installing an early example of a Boulton and Watt engine. Edward told Thomas about this new technology, with the result that James Watt was invited to Wellington in 1782, just six months after his patent for the sun and planet gear that allowed reciprocating motion. Thomas missed the meeting, but wrote to him afterwards: 
  Wellington 25th fourth month 1782
  I was very sorry to miss the opportunity of seeing thee when so obliging as to call on us at my brothers request, with whom I had lately been conversing on some proposed improvement of thine for stamping mills, to be worked by steam with a very small quantity of fire. I hinted to him my apprehensions that the same principle might be applied to fulling mills and rendered very extensively useful when water was scarce...On thy return through this country it would be esteemed a particular favour couldst thee favour us with a day or two of thy company.
  
  However, the visit came to nothing, partly due to the very high cost of coal, and partly due to the discontent about mechanisation, which would culminate in the later Luddite Movement. A letter in 1785 from Thomas states 
  We do not much wonder at manufacturers being individually fearful of introducing new machines, since, however useful, the first promoters usually suffer from popular violence without being sufficiently protected by the laws."
  
  Thus it was that the first mechanised wool spinning machinery, purchased from Backhouse of Darlington, were powered by horses. These arrived in September 1791, bringing the Industrial Revolution to the West Country. It was evident from a letter of 1786 that Thomas wished he could have had a cheap source of coal, as in those parts of the country fed by canals: 
  When we consider the situation in this part of the country and what distresses our poor sufferer for want of fuel and how many manufactures for that reason cannot be carried on, we lament the fact that the fine coal which abounds in the Mendippe Hills is not rendered more generally useful by some navigable cuts through a country they would at the same time help to drain.
  Although the Wellington mill purchased a steam engine for £90 (and a £20 boiler) in 1840, Coldharbour Mill did not get a steam engine until 1865, by which time the Bristol and Exeter Railway was supplying cheap coal to Tiverton Junction. The mill has two Lancashire boilers in the boiler house, only one of which is still operational. Initially a 25 hp beam engine was installed, followed by a second beam engine in the 1890s (possibly 1896). A Pollit & Wigzell 300 hp, cross compound engine superseded the beam engines in 1910 and continued in use, along with the water wheel, until Fox Brothers closed the mill in April 1981. Today the cross compound steam engine remains fully operational and runs regularly at steam up weekends. It drives the shafting on all five floors of the mill via an operational rope drive. In 1993 a salvaged 1867 Kittoe and Brotherhood beam engine was painstakingly restored and installed at the mill, in one of the disused beam engine sheds. 
  The mill contains a number of other steam powered exhibits, including a working Ashworth fire pump, already at Coldharbour, but repaired in 1984 with components from Bliss Mill; a very rare example of a low pressure wagon boiler dating from the late 1700s; and a (non-operational) steam powered flue fan.
caption: The restored Kittoe and Brotherhood beam engine at Coldharbour, which is steamed up regularly on Bank Holiday weekends.
exif: {}