AN IMPROVEMENT UPON THE MANUFACTURE OF WAFERS
Year: 1820

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
HUDSWELL, of Addle Street, in the City of London, Wafer Manufacturer,
send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth did,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twentieth day of July,
in the first year of. His reign, give and grant unto me, the said John
Hudswell, my exors, admors, and assigns, His especial licence, full power,
sole privilege and authority, that I, the said John Hudswell, my exors, admors,
and assigns, should, and lawfully might, during the term of years therein
expressed, make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "AN IMPROVEMENT UPON THE
MANUFACTURE OF WAFERS;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained
a proviso that if. I, the said John Hudswell, shall 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 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 advan-
tages whatsoever hereby granted, shall utterly cease, determine, and become
void, anything therein-before contained to the contrary thereof in anywise
notwithstanding, as in and by the same, relation being thereunto had, may
more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, 1, the said
John Hudswell, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
in what manner the same is to be performed, are particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following description thereof, that is to say:-
of
My Improvement in the Manufacture of Wafers consists in the application
pressure to wafer sheets in a certain state of the process of the manufacture,
by which I effect, the valuable properties of closeness, firmness, and thinness
of the wafer without reducing its actual substance, or depriving it of any of
its adhesive qualities. By this pressure the wafer is compressed into less than
half its ordinary thickness, its pores are closed, and its substance rendered
perfectly compact, from which operation the wafer is better calculated to
answer the purpose of securing a letter than any other wafer which has
hitherto been manufactured, howevever fine its quality, because in the operation
of making the wafer sheet between the two heated plates (which bakes its
outsides or surfaces) the steam of the batter is drawn into the interior or
middle of the sheet, and that means it is necessarily rendered porous or
spongy; hence after sealing a letter with an ordinary wafer it is easy to
separate the wafer in the middle, and open the letter, by the application of
steam to the spongy part of it; and tho' the surfaces adhere firmly to the
paper, yet the spongy interior part of the wafer easily yields and separates,
by which the letter is opened and again closed without detection. My
improved mode of manufacture is as follows:-After the wafer sheet is made
by the usual materials and process I damp the same, and then place each
sheet between two plates of smooth polished copper or other metal of polished
surface, till a pile of plates and wafer sheets is raised. These plates and sheets
are then submitted to the action of a screw press or other suitable press,
having power equal to three or four tons weight, under which the plates, with
the wafer sheets between them, are allowed to remain from three to six hours.
The plates and wafer sheets are then removed from the press, and the latter,
after being again damped, as usually practised, are cut into wafers and dried
off ready for use. By this process the external appearance of the wafer is also
improved, as it becomes extremely smooth, a quality by which the goodness of
wafers are judged of, and it likewise retains its firmness when wetted much
better than any other description of wafer heretofore made.
In witness whereof, I; the said John Hudswell, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Nineteenth day of September, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and twenty.
JOIN (L.S.) HUDSWELL.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Nineteenth day of September, in
the year of our Lord 1820, the aforesaid John Hudswell came before our
said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according
to the tenor of the Statutes made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Nineteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord One
Inrolled the Nineteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and twenty.