IMPROVEMENTS IN DOFFING AND PREPARING ROVINGS OF WOOL
Year: 1853

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Bennett, of Bradley Mills, Huddersfield,
in the County of York, Woollen Manufacturer, and Henry
Charlesworth, of Huddersfield, aforesaid, Card Manufacturer,
for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN DOFFING AND PREPARING
ROVINGS OF WOOL."
Sealed the 9th March 1853, and dated the 12th January 1853.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Bennett
and Henry Charlesworth at the Office of the Commissioners of
Patents, with their Petition, on the 12th January 1858.
We, JOHN BENNETT, of Bradley Mills, Huddersfield, in the County of
York, Woollen Manufacturer, and HENRY CHARLESWORTH, of Hudders-
field, aforesaid, Card Manufacturer, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN DOFFING AND PREPARING ROVINGS
OF WOOL" to be as follows:-
This Invention consists of employing only one doffing cylinder to a
carding and condensing engine, such cylinder having a rotatory motion

page_text: but no traversing action. The doffing cylinder is covered all over with
sheet cards or fillet cards, and the wool is fed into the carding engine
in separate slivers, and they pass through it in the same condition without
taking wool from or giving it to each other.. The rubber consists of
two sheets of leather, as heretofore, or other condensing apparatus may
be used
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said John Bennett and Henry Charlesworth in the
Great Seal Patent Office, on the 12th July 1858.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we,
JOHN BENNETT, of Bradley Mills, Huddersfield, in the County of York,
Woollen Manufacturer, and HENRY CHARLESWORTH, of Huddersfield
.aforesaid, Card Manufacturer, send greeting..
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twelfth day of January, 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 us, the said John Bennett and Henry Charlesworth,
Her special licence that we, the said John Bennett and Henry Charles-
worth, our executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as we,
the said John Bennett and Henry Charlesworth, our executors, ad-
ministrators, 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 DOFFING
ÄND PREPARING ROVINGS OF WOOL," upon the condition (amongst others)
that we, the said John Bennett and Henry Charlesworth, or one of us,
by an instrument in writing under our hands and seals, or under the
hand-and seal of one of us, should particularly. describe and ascertain
the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to

page_text: be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent
Office within six calendar months next and imminediately after the date
of the said Letters Patent.
!
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said John Bennett, on behalf of
myself and the said Henry Charlesworth, 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:
This Invention consists of employing only one doffing cylinder to a
carding and condensing engine, such cylinder having a rotatory motion,
but no traversing action. The doffing cylinder is covered all over
with sheet cards or fillet cards, and the wool is fed into the carding
engine in separate slivers, and they pass through it in the same condi-
tion without taking wool or giving it to each other. The rubber
consists of two sheets of leather, as heretofore, or other condensing
apparatus may be used.. And in order that our said Invention may be
most fully understood, and readily carried into effect, we will proceed to
describe the means pursued by us; and in doing so we would first
remark, that the construction of carding and condensing engines used
for carding, doffing, and condensing wool into rovings being well
known, it will not be necessary to enter into a general description
thereof, further than to state, that it has heretofore been usual in such
engines, when slivers have been fed into the same, to employ thin
pieces of metal to divide the width of the machine into nunierous
spaces to guide the several slivers into the machine, and, by thus
keeping them to some extent separated, to cause the feeding at all
parts across the machine to be as uniform and equal as may be; but
such separation of the several slivers has not prevented the fibres at
the edges of the neighbouring slivers coming together, and producing
a sheet of sliver across the machine, which, in doffing, has required to
be again divided into narrow slivers by means of the rings or separate
bands of the cards on the doffing cylinders, which, but for the formi
and mode of working of the doffer cylinders, would not be doffed in
separate slivers; now according to our Invention, as before stated,

page_text: only one dofting cylinder is employed, and that cylinder does not require
to be prepared with rings or separate bands of cards, but is simply
covered with wire cards, and it simply rotates, and has no traversing
motion; and these results are consequent on the so feeding the slivers
into a carding and condensing engine, that each sliver is separated from
its neighbours, and continues to be so throughout the process; and
this is accomplished, when feeding numerous narrow slivers into a carding
and condensing engine, by employing separating guides at such a dis-
tance apart that the fibres composing one sliver will not mix with a
neighbouring sliver or slivers; for this purpose it is necessary to have
the several slivers fed into the machine (whether from beans or
bobbins) at spacės apart further than that, which results from the simple
interposition of a piece of thin sheet metal between each two neigh-
bouring slivers; which narrow pieces of metal have heretofore occu-
pied comparatively a small proportion of the width of a machine, and
the numerous slivers have nearly occupied the whole width of the
machine or engine.
In carrying out our Invention the spaces between neighbouring
slivers may vary, so long as the space in each case is such as to ensure
each sliver pursuing its course through the machine without adding to
or being robbed by neighbouring slivers; and for this purpose we have
found that by having the spaces between each two neighbouring
slivers twice as wide as the narrow space between which a sliver is fed
our objects are advantageously accomplished. In preparing for spinning
fine yarn our machines are sixty inches wide, and we have forty-eight
narrow openings to receive and guide as many slivers into the machine.
We do not, however, confine ourselves to these distances apart, so
long as the complete separation of the numerous slivers is accom-
plished. By this arrangement the several slivers will be received on to
the doffing cylinder separate from each other, and will be removed
therefrom in the ordinary manner, and subjected to the rubbing process
between two endless leathers, as is well understood, or be otherwise
condensed into rovings. And we would state that although ordinarily
we cause a single sliver to be fed into the machine through each narrow

page_text: guiding space, still two or more slivers may be fed through each
guiding space, but in these cases the two or more slivers will be
lelivered as aud become one roving.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Bennett, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Ninth day of July, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three.
Witness,
FRED HARRIS.
JOHN BENNETT. (L.S.)
(L.S.)