A CERTAIN MACHINE OR APPARATUS, TO BE ATTACHED TO THE AXLETREE AND NAVE OF WHEEL CARRIAGES, WHEREBY THEIR MOTION MAY BE GRADUALLY CHECKED AND STOPPED, AND ALSO AGAIN LOOSENED OR UNSTOPPED AT THE PLEASURE OF THE DRIVER OR PASSENGERS, DURING THE PROGRESS OF THE CARRIAGE
Year: 1811

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
TAYLOR, of Gomersall, in the County of York, Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Third
did, by His Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United King-
dom of Great Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Seventh
day of August, in the fifty-first year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the
said William Taylor, my executors, administrators, and assigns, His especial
licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said William
Taylor, my executors, administrators, and assigns, during the term of years
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend
my Invention of "A CERTAIN MACHINE OR APPARATUS, TO BE ATTACHED TO THE
AXLETREE AND NAVE OF WHEEL CARRIAGES, WHEREBY THEIR MOTION MAY BE
GRADUALLY CHECKED AND STOPPED, AND ALSO AGAIN LOOSENED OR UNSTOPPED
AT THE PLEASURE OF THE DRIVER OR PASSENGERS, DURING THE PROGRESS OF THE
CARRIAGE," within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed,
in such manner as to me, the said William Taylor, my executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, should, in our discretion, seem meet; in which said
Letters Patent is contained a proviso that if I, the said William Taylor,
should not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument in writing

page_text: under my hand and seal, 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, should utterly
cease, determine, and become void, as in and by the said recited Letters
Patent, relation being thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
William Taylor, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
in what manner the same is to be performed, is particularly described and
ascertained in the Drawings hereunto annexed, and the following description
thereof, and references thereunto (that is to say):-
Fig. 1 represents an inside view of the wheel which is intended to be
locked by means of an arm of steel or any other suitable metal to be attached
to the axletree, as at A, which arm is to be the point of resistance. To the
end of this arm there are fixed two half hoops in the form of half a circle,
with one or more joints, which, being placed as shewn at B, form nearly a
whole circle round the nave of the wheel; and in order to lock or retard the
revolutions of the wheel, the two half hoops are forcibly brought into contact
with the nave by means of a common screw and shoulder, or of a right and left
screw without a shoulder, as at C, the whole communicating with the body
of the carriage by an upright rod D. About the middle of the rod is a com-
pound joint consisting of the forked rod E, which is made to work in two
holes of a circular top of the rod E, or against a crutched top, to allow the
upper part of the rod to move with, the motions of the body of the carriage,
in order to prevent the lower part from breaking (that part of the apparatus
being fixed and not elastic), when; by turning the winch or handle F, the
wheel will be stopped, and again set at liberty, at the pleasure of the guard or
any other person having access to the winch or handle F, whether the carriage
may be proceeding at the rate of two or twelve miles an hour, without the
necessity of stopping the carriage either to lock or unlock the wheel. If this
application to the nave should not under all circumstances for every, kind of
carriage be considered sufficiently powerful, the same contrivance may act
upon a small wheel attached to the spokes of the carriage wheel, as described
in Fig. 2.
:
Fig. 2 represents another method of producing the same effect. The axle-
tree has an arm, fixed to it at. A, which extends beyond the outside of a
smaller wheel (for distinction coloured red in the Drawing), which, is firmly
attached and fixed to the spokes of the carriage wheel. To the end of the
said arm is fixed a spring hoop, which wraps round the small wheel, and at B

page_text: the hoop is joined to a lever, which lever is carried up to the place where
the guard of a mail coach commonly sits, and when it is necessary to lock the
wheel, the guard or any other person may pull the lever backwards; or, by
having the lever conducted in a different direction, as shewn by a dotted line
in the Drawing, he may force it down with his foot. Either method. will
cause the spring hoop to come into close contact with and cramp the small
wheel so as to prevent the revolutions of the carriage wheel, and thereby
obtain. the object proposed.
Fig. 3 shews another method of checking or stopping the wheels of
carriages during their progress, and represents an inside view of the wheel.
The apparatus is fixed upon the axletree at the square aperture A, with two
arms extending beyond an oval hoop surrounding the nave. To the hoop
are two projecting pieces, which pass through the extremities of the arms at
B and C, and keep the hoop in its position. The upper part of the projecting
piece passing from the hoop at C is a male screw acting in a screw box or
female screw D communicating with a rod E, which rod and screw box, when
turned by a winch or handle, draw the male screw upwards, and with it the
oval hoop, strongly pressing the lower part thereof against the under part of
the nave, and by that means retards or quite stops the motion of the wheel.
And in order that this apparatus, which is fixed, may not be broken by being
attached to the body of the carriage, there is a socket joint F, enabling the
rod to be carried out of a perpendicular position, and at G is a sliding joint
and socket moving up and down as the swinging action of the body of the
carriage may require.
.
Fig. 4 is a side view of Fig. 3. In carriages where there is no guard or
other person travelling behind, the rod or lever described in the above several
methods may be conducted to the coach box or such other part of the carriage
as may be thought necessary, in order that they may be put into action by the
driver or any of the passengers, at pleasure. The above methods, or any
combination of them or of their several parts, or any variation in the form or
construction thereof, or of any part thereof, or of the materials of which they
are made, I hereby declare to be my Invention for which the above recited
Letters Patent were granted to me.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Taylor, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Seventh day of October, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and eleven.
WILLIAM TAYLOR. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Seventh day of October, in
the fifty-first-year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Third, the
said William Taylor came before our said Lord the King in His Chancery,
and acknowledged the Indenture aforesaid, and all and every thing therein
contained and specified, in form above written. And also the Instrument
aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute made in the
forty-eighth year of His said Majesty's reign.