CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MANUFACTURING SOAP
Year: 1808

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESNETS SHALL COME, I, SAMUEL
PHELPS, of Cuper's Bridge, Lambeth, in the County of Surry, Esquire, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-third day of
January, in the forty-eighth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the
said Samuel Phelps, my exors, admors, and assigns, His special licence, full
power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Samuel Phelps, my
exors, adiñiors, 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 "CERTAIN
IMPROVEMENTS IN MANUFACTURING SOAP;" in which said Letters Patent there
is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said Samuel Phelps, 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 six calendar
months after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the
same (relation being thereunto had) may and will more fully and at large
appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Samuel Phelps, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and

page_text: the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described
and ascertained as follows, that is to say:-
Instead of constructing and using a vessel of the usual materials, form, and
dimensions for boiling or making soap, commonly called a soap copper, with
a fire-place beneath the same, I do construct and use a boiler or vessel of any
materials whatever which are or may be proper to contain the component parts
of soap during the process of boiling the same, and of much more considerable
dimensions (if required) than the common boilers or soap coppers; and that
instead of raising the temperature of the goods, namely the lees and the fat
or oily component part of the soap, to the boiling heat by the application of
fire alone, as hath hitherto been done, I do introduce steam thro' one or more
pipes or passages into the said goods, and I do avail myself of the usual means
of obtaining the said steam, and of introducing the same at such temperature
as may be required, at or above the common boiling water point, by subjecting
the same (if needful) to pressure or reaction; and that in general 1 find
that the reaction or pressure afforded by suffering the said steam to pass into
the said goods at the depth of about four feet below the surface is sufficient to
cause the same to boil very speedily, and to produce a very perfect combination
or union of the component parts throughout, in much less time, and with a less
expenditure of lees, than in the ordinary process of making soap; and that.in
preference I suffer the steam to escape into the goods at a distance not exceed-
ing one foot from the bottom of the said boiler or vessel; and further, that I do
prevent any introduction or rising of the goods from the boiler or vessel, or soap
copper, into the steam boiler (at such times as the varying efficacy of the fire
beneath the said steam boiler might otherwise allow that effect to take place).
by interposing a cock or cock, valves or valves, or other similar well-known
contrivances, in the pipes, passages, or communications between the said steam
boiler and tlie said other boiler, copper, or vessel in which the soap is to be
made; and 1 do further declare that it is not requisite as to my said improve-
ments that the said pipes, passages, or communications for the steam should be
made of any precise dimensions or proportional magnitude, and that in practice,
upon a scale of considerable magnitude, I find that one pipe having its
aperture one inch in diameter does effectually answer the intended purpose;
and further, that whereas, by the introduction of steam as aforesaid, the
strength of the lees or the relative proportion of water to the alkaline salt
therein contained is in some measure altered by the condensation of the said
steam or part thereof, I do make an allowance for the same by using an
additional quantity of lees of such greater strength at the first or any sub-
sequent supply as may be needful or advantageous.

page_text: And, lastly, that as to my steam boilers and the furnaces thereunto and
therewith to be adapted and used, I do adopt and use the best means of con-
structing and working the same in my said improvements according to the
methods adopted and used in steam engines and other works wherein a supply
of steam is or may be required.
In witness whereof, I, the said Samuel Phelps, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-first day of July, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and eight.