CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS ON AXLE- TREES FOR CARRIAGES OF VARIOUS DESCRIPTIONS
Year: 1817

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, JAMES
MASON CHAMPNESS, Whitesmith, and HENRY BINKS, Watch and Clock Maker,
both of Cheshunt Street, in the County of Herts, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of His United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-eighth day of
August, in the fifty-seventh year of His reign, give and grant unto us, the
said James Mason Champness and Henry Binks, our exors, adññiors, and
assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that we,
the said James Mason Champness and Henry Binks, our exors, adñiors, and
assigns, should and lawfully might, during the term of years therein men-
tioned, make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town
of Berwick-upon-Tweed, our Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS ON AXLE-
TREES FOR CARRIAGES OF VARIOUS DESCRIPTIONS;" in which said Letters Patent
is contained a proviso that if we, the said James Mason Champness and Henry
Binks, or one of us, should not particularly describe and ascertain the nature
of our said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by
an instrument in writing under our hands and seals, or under the hand and
seal of one of us, and cause the same to be inrolled in His Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within two calendar months next and immediately after
the date of the said Letters Patent, that then the said Letters Patent, and
all liberties and advantages whatsoever thereby granted, shall utterly cease,
determine, and become void, as in and by the same, relation being thereunto
had, may more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, the said
James Mason Champness and Henry Binks, do hereby declare that the nature
of our said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed,
are particularly described and ascertained in and by the following description
thereof (that is to say):
The axletree is made perfectly straight, and in the rectilinear progression of
the carriage turns with the wheels, as one end of the axletree is fixed fast
in one of the wheels; but as in the act of turning one wheel must move
faster than the other, the opposite wheel is put on in the usual way. In
the straightforward motion of the carriage the axle .turns with the wheel,
and at all times supports the weight of the carriage upon friction rollers acting
on bolts of steel or iron case-hardened and fixed on the boxes which contain
the oil, the sizes of the boxes and rollers to be regulated by the size of the
different carriages: to which they may be, applied, and the difference of the
weight they may have to support. There is also a brace or steady pin fixed
to the boxes to keep them in their proper position. By this Invention: the
friction upon the axle is reduced to a meer trifle, which considerably reduces
the horses' labour, the wheels being upon a cylindrical and not a conical
form, and standing upright, the friction upon the ground is entirely prevented,
a very serious addition to the draught as well as the injuring the roads
upon the common or conical construction.
In witness whereof, I, the said James Mason Champness, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twentieth day of October, in the year of
JAMES MASON (L.s.), CHAMPNESS..
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twentieth day of October, in the
year of our Lord 1817, the aforesaid James Mason Champness came before
our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according
to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Iurolled the Twenty-first day of October in the year of our Lord One