IMPROVEMENTS IN GRATES AND STOVES
Year: 1853

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Lee Stevens, of 63, King William
Strect, in the City of London, Civil Engineer, for the Invention of
"IMPROVEMENTS IN GRATES AND STOVES."
Sealed the 17th November 1853, and dated the 17th May 1853.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Lee Stevens
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 17th May 1853.
I, JOHN LEE STEVENS, of 63, King William Street, in the City of
London, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN GRATES AND STOVES" to be as follows:
These improvements consist in the admission of currents of hot air
behind the backs or back plates of grates or stoves about or above the
level of the fire, which currents of air pass in channels or passages
formed underneath or at the sides of the fire, and are partly heated
thereby, and partly by the backs or back plates of the grates or stoves;
and the object thereof is the better combustion of the gases arising from
the fuel used in such grates or stoves, as well as to reduce the formation
of smoke, and concurrently to increase the draught of the chimnies or
flues.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said John Lee Stevens in the Great Seal Patent
Office, on the 17th November 1853.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,
JOHN LEE STEVENS, of 63, King William Street, in the City of London,
Civil Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Seventeenth day of May, in the
year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, in the six-
teenth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said John Lee Stevens, Her special licence
that I, the said John Lee Stevens, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as I, the said John Lee Stevens, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the
Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
GRATES AND STOVES," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the
said John Lee Stevens, by an instrument in writing under my hand
and seal, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the
said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed,
and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within
six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said
Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said John Lee Stevens, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement thereof (that is to say):
My improvements consist in the admission of currents of hot air
behind the backs or back plates of grates or stoves about or above the
level of the fire, which currents of air pass in channels or passages
formed underneath or at the sides of the fire, and are partly heated
thereby, and partly by the backs or back plates of the grates or stoves;

page_text: and the object thereof. is the better combustion of the gases arising
from the fuel used in such grates or stoves, as well as to reduce the
formation of smoke, and concurrently to increase the draught of the
chimnies or flues. And the manner in which I perform the same will.
be understood by reference to the accompanying Drawings.
Figure 1, is a front elevation; Figure 2, a transverse section;
Figures 3, and 5; horizontal sections; Figure 4, a. vertical section; and
Figure 6, a back or back plate of a sitting room grate or stove.
a, a, a, a, a, grates or fire bars; b, b, b, b, b, and f, f, f, backs and back
plates of the grates c, c; and d, d, d, d, d, d, d, d, air channels or passages;.
c, e, guards to deflect the heated air, and to prevent the fuel from closing
the air passages; i, i, i, i, spaces leading to the backs or back plates b,
and f, within which the air is partially heated underneath the fire.
Which letters of reference apply also to the following Figures:
Figures 7, 8, and 9, show the application of the Invention to a
kitchen grate or stove, which may be modified by adapting the parts b,
and f, and the air passage c, to the side of the fire-place, when the flue
takes off at the side instead of the back.
Figures 10, and 11, show the application of the Invention to an
oven grate; and Figures 12, and 13, to a copper pan or still grate; in
each of which the parts b, and f, may be cast together when not made
of wrought iron; h, h, the fire-places.
And Figures 14, and 15, shew the application of the Invention to a
boiler grate g, g, g, being studs to keep the back at the distance
proper
from the brickwork or bridge k, when such back is not connected with
the back plate f, as shown in previous Figures.
It will be obvious, without further diagrams, that the Invention
can be applied to or with other grates than those particularly de-
scribed; and where the heat is likely to be so intense as otherwise to
melt the iron I recommend that the back or back plate be protected
with fire bricks or lumps in front, as is shewn in Figures 10, and 12.
I would remark, that I am aware of hollow bridges having been
employed for similar kinds of grates, but in such cases they have not
been formed with the inclined plates b, descending below the grate a,
:

page_text: so as to become heated, and thereby give off heat to the air passing
upwards in the manner described.
By the foregoing arrangements it will be seen that the parts
indicated, being necessarily heated by the action of the fire, must
proportionately increase the temperature of the air in the air passages
or channels through which it ascends, and by that means supplies of
heated oxygen are caused to mix with and assist the combustion of the
gases arising from the fuel of the respective fires, thereby effecting a
corresponding prevention of the formation of smoke, or, by the greater
rarification of such currents of air, contributing to improve the draught
of the chimnies or flues used in connexion with the said improvements
in grates and stoves. I make no claim to the several parts herein
described when separately considered; but what I do claim is, the
combinations hercin shown and described.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Lee Stevens, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Fourteenth day of November, One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-three.
Witness,
A. CARPMAEL.
J. LEE STEVENS. (L.S.)