page_title: Aveling and Porter
section_title: Aveling and Porter up to 1881
hierarchical_section_title: Aveling and Porter / Business / Aveling and Porter up to 1881
caption_attribution_description: Record of the demolition of the Aveling and Porter offices, in Strood, Rochester, Kent during February 2010. The architect, G E Bond built this and many other public buildings in The Medway Towns including the former Chatham Town Hall, St Andrews Church, the River Medway Conservancy Board Offices, and the now derelict Theatre Royal Chatham. Camera location51°&#160;23′&#160;27.6″&#160;N, 0°&#160;30′&#160;04.68″&#160;E&#160;View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap - Google Earth Before the demolition in 2009.
context_page_description: Aveling and Porter was a British agricultural engine and steamroller manufacturer. Thomas Aveling and Richard Thomas Porter entered into partnership in 1862, and developed a steam engine three years later in 1865. By the early 1900s, the company had become the largest manufacturer of steamrollers in the world.
context_section_description: With all this expansion Aveling needed extra capital, and so in 1862 he went into partnership with Richard Porter to create the firm of Aveling & Porter.  As well as the capital, Aveling was freed of some of the commercial work.
  The firm exhibited their Patent Agricultural Locomotive Engine for Threshing, Ploughing and General Traction Purposes at Battersea in 1862.  Aveling moved the cylinder forward from over the firebox to the front of the boiler.  The steam jacket that surrounds the cylinders did away with the need for a separate dome (the patent stated that the cylinders were placed within the dome).  The jacket reduced condensation, and hence priming, in the cylinders, valve gear and now non-existent supply piping.  Ports between the jacket and boiler communicated live steam.  The crankshaft was now close to the wheels and the long chain could be first shortened, then disposed of in favour of gears.  In 1863 Aveling patented two-speed gearing.  Exports at this period were to Prussia and Australia.
  Testing traction engines was a public affair, one was tested by driving it through Rochester to the station and back, another by driving it up Frindsbury hill. The local public turned out to see such trials and according to the Chatham News of August 1862 they were "well pleased and altogether favourably impressed". Whilst the local public might have been impressed, more generally opposition to road locomotives was building. In 1865 the Locomotive Act (the "red flag" act) was introduced which reduced speeds from the previous limit of 10 miles per hour (16 km/h) to 2 miles per hour (3.2 km/h) in town and 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h) outside.  To enforce the speeds a man had to walk in front carrying a red flag to warn bystanders.
  Aveling pursued his interest in steamrollers, producing the first practical example in 1865. It was tested in Military Road, Chatham, Star Hill in Rochester and in Hyde Park, London. The machine proved a huge success. Aveling and Porter steam rollers were exported to Europe and as far afield as India and North America.
  Starting in 1868 Aveling & Porter started to supply the government with road locomotives, traction engines and rollers. Up until 1894 they were known as Steam Sappers, since they were built to requirements issues by the Royal Engineers (the Sappers). In 1875, the French government conducted trials of steam sappers and were satisfied enough to order some; subsequently the Russian government conducted extensive trials in 1876 involving soft ground, steep inclines and tests of the ability of a train to be safely brought down hill. The test engine was fitted with a wire cable by which guns could be pulled up hill. Several engines were subsequently purchased and gave satisfactory service in the Russo-Turkish war. Sappers were also sold to Italy.
  Technical innovation continued. Unlike railway locomotives where equipment is mounted on a frame, traction engines use the boiler as the frame. This cuts down on weight but introduces stresses and holes for the rivets which could be a source of leaks or failures. In 1870 Aveling introduced horn plates which were extensions of the outer firebox and which carried all the motion, cranks and gearing. Preston regards this as one of Aveling's most important inventions. Also in 1870 he took out a patent on a simplified reversing gear. Eight years later he managed to move the gears between the bearings, not overhanging. The resultant motion was stronger and narrower allowing a more compact engine.
  At the Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE) meeting at Leicester in 1868 Aveling showed "Little Tom", a small engine fitted with a crane. By 1874 the catalogue listed a 2-ton crane engine with a rear differential to permit tight cornering without disconnecting either wheel.
caption: Aveling & Porter building in Strood immediately prior to demolition in 2010
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