AN IMPROVED AND EXPEDITIOUS METHOD OF MAKING AND MANUFACTURING HORSE SHOES AND OTHER ARTICLES FORMED OF METALS
Year: 1796

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
MOORCROFT, of the Parish of Saint Marylebone and County of Middlesex,
Veterinary Surgeon, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, on or about the Sixteenth day of April, in the thirty-sixth year
of His said Majesty's reign, did give and grant unto me, the said William
Moorcroft, His special licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I,
the said William Moorcroft, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should
and lawfully might, during the term of years therein expressed, make, use,
exercise, and vend my Invention of "AN IMPROVED AND EXPEDITIOUS METHOD
OF MAKING AND MANUFACTURING HORSE SHOES AND OTHER ARTICLES FORMED OF
METALS," within that part of His Majesty's Kingdom of Great Britain called
England, the Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, in such
manner as to me, the said William Moorcroft, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, should in my or their discretion seem moet; in which said Letters
Patent is contained a proviso, whereby it was and is declared, that if I, the
said William Moorcroft, should not particularly describe and ascertain the
nature of my said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be
performed, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the
same to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one
calendar month next and immediately after the date of the said recited
Letters Patent, that then the said Letters Patent should be void, as in and by
the said Letters Patent, relation being thereunto had, may more fully appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
William Moorcroft, do hereby declare that the following is a particular

page_text: description of the nature of iny said Invention, and of the manner in which
the same is to be performed, that is to say:-
1st, I take bars of iron or steel, or a composition of metals, of a breadth and
thickness suitable to the horse shoes I intend to make; having heated these
bars red hot (as is usual in the process of rolling and slitting iron), I run them
betwixt and through a pair of grooved rolls, turned by a horse mill or other
power. The grooves in these rolls are various, according to the surfaces of the
shoes intended to be made, and form the groove and impressions for the heads
of the nails, and regulate the thickness of the shoes, or simply regulate the
thickness of the shoes without making the groove or impressions for the
nails. 2dly, after the bars have been run betwixt and through the rolls,
1 cut them into different lengths, according to the size of the shoes intended
to be made. Sdly, I bend or turn them into the proper shape, either
by hammer and anvil, or otherwise. 4thly, when the shoes have been so
turned, I heat them again red hot, and strike them between dies fixed in a
common fly press (such as is used for coining money, or in stamps such as are
used for the sanie operation, or for giving impressions to other pieces of metal.
These dies are engraved and formed in such a manner as to confirm to the
shoo the proper thickness in the usual parts, and also to form the groove and
impressions for the nails, when not formed by the operation of rolling, as above
mentioned, or by any other operation, or they give the groovo without the
impressions for the nails, or they give the impressions for the nails without
the groove. The rolls and dies respectively are to be cut with projecting
parts adapted to give the impressions for the nails or groove if such impressions
or groove are intended to be made, or plain if those impressions or groove
are not to be made by the rolls and dies respectively. The dies for
theso shoes must be formed in such a manner as to correspond with those
parts of a horso's foot to which shoes are usually affixed, and in con-
sequence of the dies being so formed, the shoes struck by them are more
perfect in their shape, afford a truer and better support to the foot of the
horse than the shoes in common use, and prevent many of the diseases
incident to that part from the manner of manufacturing horse shoes now in
common use.
'
In witness whereof, I, the said William Moorcroft, have 'hereunto set.
my hand and seal, this Fourteenth day of May, One thousand sevon
hundred and ninety-six.
Sealed and delivered in the presence of
JOSEPH WILSON.
WM MOORCROFT. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Fourteenth day of May,
in the year above written, the aforesaid William Moorcroft came before our
Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification afore-
said, and all and every thing therein contained, in form above written. And
also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the
Statute in that case made and provided.
Inrolled the said Fourteenth day of May, in the year above written.