CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ARTS OF WORKING AND MAKING OF THE FURNITURE, ACCOUTREMENTS, OR APPARATUS USEFUL OR NECESSARY FOR THE EMPLOYMENTS OF HORSES, OR OTHERWISE RELATING TO THE SAME
Year: 1802

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ROBERT
DICKINSON, of Long Acre, in the Parish of Saint Martin in the Fields, and
County of Middlesex, Proprietor of Gowland's Lotion, 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-seventh day
of September, in the forty-second year of His reign, give and grant unto me,
the said Robert Dickinson, His especial licence that I, the said Robert
Dickinson, during the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town
of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
ARTS OF WORKING AND MAKING OF THE FURNITURE, ACCOUTREMENTS, OR APPARATUS
USEFUL OR NECESSARY FOR THE EMPLOYMENTS OF HORSES, OR OTHERWISE RELATING TO
THE SAME;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging
me, the said Robert Dickinson, by an instrument in writing under my hand
and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His
Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one calendar month after the date
of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation being
thereunto had) may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Robert Dickinson, do hereby declare that my said Invention is described in
manner following, that is to say :-
My said improvements consist of five distinct particulars, namely:-First, a
leaping bar; secondly, a feeding box; thirdly, certain apparatus for fixing the

page_text: girths and stirrups of saddles; fourthly, methods of giving elasticity to saddles
and otherwise improving the same; and fifthly, an instrument or apparatus for
measuring the backs of horses, in order to fit them more perfectly with
saddles, and to afford the convenience of transmitting the particulars of such
admeasurement by letter to any distance, without requiring the horse to be
sent to the saler or the sadler to the horse. I shall proceed to describe the
several particulars aforesaid in the order here enumerated.
First, my leaping bar consists of a long square frame, supported horizontally
as to its longest bars by means of two pivots projecting outwards from the
middle of each of the shorter bars of the frame, so that the frame itself is
capable of being turned round upon those pivots, and by that means each of
the horizontal bars may be placed at the greatest possible height immediately
above the other horizontal bar, by making the pivots square or oval, and
causing them to move in contact with a springing collar or hole, or against a
back spring, or by varions other simple and well-known applications of a
spring, such as are seen in clasped knives and other similar instruments. I
give to the said bars a tendency to remain in the position last described, or to
recover it when by any means struck out of that position; or otherwise I
make the pivots cylindrical, and give the required tendency to assume the
upright position unto the bar by means of a counterpoise; and moreover I do
in some constructions make my framing with only one horizontal bar and two
end pieces, framed together in a good and workmanlike manner, and in this
case I give, by the means aforesaid, a tendency to the horizontal bar to remain
in or return to the highest possible situation; and lastly, I do so regulate the
said tendency of the horizontal bar that in case an horse in leaping should
strike the bar, the same shall give way without breaking or injury to the
animal or his rider, and immediately afterwards shall replace itself as before;
and I do fix the sockets in which the said pivots are made to turn at the
proper elevation by holes in the fixed posts for receiving a bolt, as usual, or by
any other of the well-known methods of effecting this object.
Secondly, my feeding box, for the purpose of supplying horses and other
animals with corn in a gradual and regular manner, consists of a receptacle for
the corn, which gradually becomes narrower to the bottom, near which the
corn issues through a side aperture into a small trough. Among the various
dimensions and figures of which this contrivance is susceptible the following
may be recommended as of general utility, and it may be made of wood or
sheet iron, or any other fit material, in order to be set upright or fixed in the
manger. The receptacle or box is twelve inches high and twelve inches
square at top, having a lid or cover; one of its sides, which is applied against

page_text: the wall, has the shape of a triangle, twelve inches high and twelve inches
wide; the two sides which proceed outwards from the wall are also twelve
inches wide at top, but are gradually diminished to six inches at bottom, and
as they are attached to the first-mentioned side, one of them of course stands
upright and the other slanting; and lastly, the fourth side is triangular, and
completes the box, which from these dimensions will terminate within at a
kind of angle or edge. Instead of having any bottom, a square opening of two
inches is made at the bottom of that upright face which stands clear of the
wall, and to this is adapted a slider, which can be regulated and fixed by a
screne, so as to limit the opening, as may be necessary accordingly as the corn
is chaffy or mixed, clean dressed. Immediately opposite the said hole is
fixed, and constitutes part of the apparatus, a square dish, three inches deep,
five inches wide, and in length equal and adapted to the face of the box itself;
the interior cavity of the said dish is sloped so as to terminate in a square or
other figure of about two inches across, so that the whole apparatus constitutes
a machine in effect resembling the bird fountain. The said dish receives a
portion of corn from the box as the horse gradually works it out by the action
of his nose when desirous of feeding, instead of the same being scattered about
and blown upon and the animal becoming stalled or cloyed, so that he inva-
riably feeds with a better appetite, conceiving every portion to be the last, and
above all, by obtaining it in this slow manner, and not being tempted by a
large quantity before him, he is sure to masticate it well, and it may be fairly
estimated that one third of the corn is by this means saved.
Thirdly, some improvements in my new or improved method of fixing the
straps of and to saddles, to which the girths are usually made fast, for which
said method His Majesty did grant unto me, the said Robert Dickinson, His
Letters Patent and the Great Seal, bearing date the Sixth day of February, in
the year of our Lord One

page_text: to afford the stirrup bar G, by the figure of the long hole in the leaver at D,
which is represented by outline at N, or by prominant studs on the lever, and
a key-hole aperture on the tail E; the said tail may be locked at different
distances from the centre of motion at H, so as to afford greater or less resis-
tance, and the application of the intermediate piece between B and C affords a
secure and easy motion, not incumbered by friction or liable to unpleasant
wear.
Fourthly, my methods of giving elasticity to saddles, and otherwise improving
the same, are effected as follows:-I apply two saddle-trees, the one imme-
diately over the other, and I connect the same at the bearings by means of a
screw on each side, the shank.of which passes through an enlarged hole, so as
to afford a loose fitting and permit the cantles to be moveable with respect to
each other, as if there had been hinges at the bearings. The said saddles-trees
are kept asunder by springs placed between them, that is to say, either between
the bars on each side, or between the cantles, or both, or either, according to
the judgment of the artist, and I use either strait, or spiral, or recurved, or
other springs, as may be best suited to the situation in which the same may be
placed, and I prevent the cantles from receeding too far asunder by the action
of the said springs, by means of a stem wire, or tail, or strap, which permits
the same to be pressed together, by the weight of the rider, but does not allow
them to be farther.separated than the limit to which, the adjustment may be
made; or otherwise, in preference, I render the seat of the saddle elastic without
using more than one-saddle-tree, and in this case I fasten.one or both ends of
the webs to an elastic reacting piece, that is to say, I fasten the webs to the
head of the saddle as usual, but instead of fastning the other extremitities to
the cantle, I fix a strait spring by its middle horizontally behind the cantle,
and I attach the webs to the said spring at each end thereof by passing the said
webs thro' a slit in the cantle; or else, in preference, I pass a wire or stem thro'
the cantle; from.each end of the said spring to which the said wire is suitably
attached, and at the extremity of the wire or tail, above the face of the cantle,
there is a short cross bar to which the webs are properly secured; or otherwise
I use a spring or springs for the same purpose at the head of the saddle, and
I vary the form and application of all those my said springs, but I consider
the method here described to be as simple and effectual as any.
Fifthly, and lastly, my instrument or apparatus for measuring the backs of
horses by the proprietor himself, in order to fit them at once more perfectly
with saddles, and to afford the convenience of his transmitting the particulars
of such adineasurement by letter to any distance, without requiring the horse
to be sent to the sadler or the sadler go to the horse, doth consist in a kind of

page_text: saddle-tree formed of tin and leather in alternate layers, or fashioned of such
other materials as shall be pliable and partly rigid, and and possess little or no
elasticity, my intention being that the same when applied to the back of any
horse shall, by moderate pressure or moulding by the hand, acquire and pre-
serve the figure thereof; and in order that the said figure may be minuted down
and communicated, I graduate the whole front from the head or pommel to the
points, and mark the said graduations with correspondent figures or letters on
each side, by which means it becomes easier for the measurer to take account
of the cross measures of the horses back at all or any of the several corre-
spondent graduations, by applying a rule thereto. The horizontal bars of the
tree are fitted to the bearings so as to be fixed thereto by a kind of clip and
screw at different distances from the bead, or by any other obvious method;
and there are holes in the bearings and in the extremities of the bars to facili-
tate the said method of fixing. The hinder part of the said saddle-tree or mea-
suring apparatus is formed of the same flexible materials, and may be graduated,
applied, and used in the same manner, and the whole may be taken asunder for
the convenience of package and carriage. And lastly, as the points of ladies'
saddles are required to be longer than common, I affix certain additional parts
to the said apparatus to give the requisite length when necessary.
In witness whereof, I, the said Robert Dickinson, have hereunto set his
hand and seal, this Twenty-seventh day of October, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and two.
ROBT DICKINSON. (L.s.)
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Twenty-seventh day of
October, in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid Robert Dickinson came
before our Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Speci-
fication aforesaid, 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.