CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR PROPELLING BOATS OR OTHER VESSELS TO BE EMPLOYED EITHER FOR MARINE OR INLAND NAVIGATION, AND TO BE WORKED BY STEAM OR OTHER. POWER
Year: 1839

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
HOLME BEGINBOTHAM, of Stockport, in the County of Chester, Gentleman, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at Westminster, the
Seventeenth day of January, in the second year of Her reign, did, for Herself,
Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said William Holme
Heginbotham, Her especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that
I, the said William Holme, Heginbotham, my .executors, administrators,
and assigns, and such others as I, the said William Holme. Heginbotham;
my executors, administrators, and assigns,, should. agree with, and no
other, from time to time and at all times during the term of years therein
expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within
England and Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Inven-
tion of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR PROPELLING
BOATS OR OTHER VESSELS TO BE EMPLOYED EITHER FOR MARINE OR INLAND NAVIGATION,
AND TO BE WORKED BY STEAM OR OTHER. POWER;" in which Letters..Patent is
contained a proviso that I, the said William Holme Heginbotham, shall cause
a particular description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what,
manner the same is to be performed, to be enrolled in Her Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately after the
date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference
being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
William Holme Heginbotham, do hereby declare that the nature of my said

page_text: Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, is parti-
cularly described and ascertained in and by the Drawings hereto annexed,
and the following explanation thereof, that is to say:-
My improvements in machinery or apparatus for propelling boats or other
vessels to be employed either for marine or inland navigation, and to be
worked by steam or other power, consist in the peculiar construction and
arrangement of certain mechanism or apparatus to be substituted for and
employed in the place of ordinary paddle wheels, as generally used for the
purposes of propelling vessels, and have for their particular object the property
of presenting the edge of the paddle board to the water when entering and
retreating from it, having a much greater hold or resistance than the ordinary
paddle wheel, and at the same time not having any "backwater" resistance to
overcome.
Another peculiar feature of novelty and improvement in my present Inven-
tion consists in the compactness, both in breadth and depth, of the propelling
apparatus, which renders the same particularly applicable to ships of war, and
also to canal boats, as in the former instance the whole of the line of guns may
be employed, not being necessarily broken by the paddle box, as in ordinary steam
vessels; and, secondly, no great displacing of the water taking place, the banks
of canals are not injured. But in order that these improvements may be
more perfectly explained, and their application to all the purposes of propelling
vessels properly understood, I have attached to these presents a sheet of
Drawings containing such views of my improved apparatus, and its peculiarly
advantageous appliance to ships of war, as will sufficiently illustrate my
Invention, having marked the same with figures and letters of reference,
placing similar letters upon corresponding parts of the apparatus in all the
Figures.
In the accompanying Drawing Fig. 1 represents a side elevation of a steam
ship or war brig with my propelling apparatus attached, having the front of
the paddle box removed; Fig. 2 being an end or stern view of the same.
Fig. 3 is a side elevation of my apparatus detached and drawn upon a larger
scale. Fig. 4 is a plan or horizontal view, and Fig. 5 an end view of the
same, with the side of the vessel and the paddle box drawn in section in their
relative position. This propelling apparatus is to be placed upon each side of
the vessel, and to be actuated or driven by the engines exactly in a similar
manner as the ordinary paddle wheel is now done, and consists of a series of
vertical paddle boards a, a, a, a, which are mounted or fixed in suitable iron
carriages or framings b, b, b, b; the extremities of the frames are furnished with
bearings c, c, c, c, and attached to a pair of double cranks d, d, d, d, of such a

page_text: sweep or throw that at every revolution cach paddle board in one carriage
will pass over two paddle wheels in the other carriage, as shewn in Fig. 3,
where the paddle d' in the upper frame is seen just about to pass over
paddle a² in the lower carriage, and thus by the revolutions of the cranks the
upper and lower carriages or frames, with their system of paddles, will dip and
actuate upon the water alternately. It will be seen that the outer ends e, e,
of the crank shafts must have their support or bearings placed in the side of
the paddle box f,f, and that the shafts g, g, themselves must extend entirely
through the vessel from one side to the other, having the engines or driving
power in the centre between the two crank shafts, and connected to them by
suitable gearing.
Having thus described my improvements in machinery or apparatus for
propelling boats or other vessels, and the manner of carrying the same into
practical operation, I desire it to be particularly understood that I claim as my
Invention (and which is secured to me by the above Letters Patent) the
peculiar and novel arrangement of the mechanism herein described and shewn
in the Drawings for the purposes and in the manner thercin set forth, without
being in any way confined to the number or shape of the paddle boards,
or either to the materials or dimensions of which the apparatus may be
constructed.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Holme Heginbotham, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Sixteenth day of July, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine.