NEW MACHINE FOR FULLING WOOLLEN OR OTHER CLOTHS THAT REQUIRE SUCH PROCESS
Year: 1816

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
LEWIS, of Brimscomb, in the County of Gloucester, Dyer, 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 Fifth day of April,
in the fifty-sixth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said William
Lewis, my exors, admors, and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole
privilege and authority, that I, the said William Lewis, my exors, adñiors,
and assigns, during the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town
of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of a "NEW MACHINE FOR FULLING
WOOLLEN OR OTHER CLOTHS THAT REQUIRE SUCH PROCESS;" in which said Letters
Patent there is contained a proviso, that if I, the said William Lewis, 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 six calendar months next and immediately
after the date of the said Letters Patent, that then the said Letters Patent,
and all liberties and advantages whatsoever thereby granted, shall utterly
cease, determine, and become void, 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, I, the said
William Lewis, do declare that my said Invention is particularly described and
ascertained in manner following, and by the Drawings and references hereunto
annexed (that is to say):-
This machine is contrived to operate without the imperfections of the
machinery at present in common use for fulling cloths. The operation of
fulling may be considered as divided into two stages, namely, cleansing and
felting. Among the chief imperfections of the common machine or stock may
be enumerated, that it cleanses the cloth unequally; that it requires the
assistance of stale urine, or a chemical substitute, in this first stage of process;
that it felts the cloth in a degree during the cleansing so as to injure its
texture and render the burling more difficult, and that it occasions considerable
damage in every part of the operation of fulling. On the other hand, in this
new machine, the cloth being made to run between rollers, which are made to
press it with any desirable force, it is cleansed without being felted in the least
or in any degree injured; and in this stage fullers' earth and water, moderately
heated by steam or otherwise, are quite sufficient without using seg or stalo
urine. The work is also performed more equally, with much less mechanical
power, and more speedily than with the stock. This new machine will cleanse
wool-dyed cloths at one operation, while two operations are necessary with the
stock to answer the same purpose; first, segging, or cleansing with stale urine;
the second, fuzing, or cleansing with fullers' earth after the cloths have been
burled.
With regard to the last part of the process of fulling, namely, felting,
the cloth is placed in and supported by a kind of cask in the new machine,
open at both ends, and made to revolve round its horizontal axis with any
desirable speed, for the purpose of presenting the cloth in different directions
to receive, through the open ends of the cask, the blows by which it is felted.
A power of encreasing or diminishing the action in the cloth is obtained by an
adjustment to the apparatus which makes the cask revolve; by this means the s
cloth is less rubbed than in the common stock, and consequently there is less
waste of its substance; and it is not liable to the damage of rents, so common
with the latter machine. The cask is at rest while the blows aro made in
opposite directions against the cloth contained in it, and moves a portion of
revolution only in the interval of time between every two, every three, or more 8
blows. This part of the machine may be usefully applied to cleansing linens
or cottons. Instead of a cask for supporting and turning the cloth in the
interval between the blows of the beaters, I have had a machine constructed

page_text: with a bowl, sufficiently wide, supported and turned round by a vertical axis,
but I consider the cask as preferable.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Second day of October, in
the year of our Lord 1816, the aforesaid William Lewis 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 stampt according
to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Fourth day of October, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixteen.

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM,
LEWIS, of Brimscomb, in the County of Gloucester, Dyer, 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 Fifth day of April,
in the fifty-sixth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said William
Lewis, my exors, admors, and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole
privilege and authority, that I, the said William Lewis, my exors, admors,
and assigns, during the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town
of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of a "NEW MACHINE FOR FULLING:
WOOLLEN OR OTHER CLOTHS THAT REQUIRE BUCH PROCESS;" in which said Letters
Patent there is contained a proviso, that if I, the said William Lewis, 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 six calendar months, next and immediately
after the date of the said Letters Patent, that then the said Letters Patent,
and all liberties and advantages whatsoever thereby granted, shall utterly
cease, determine, and become void, 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, I, the said
William Lewis, do declare that my said Invention is particularly described and
ascertained in manner following, and by the Drawings and references hereunto
annexed (that is to say):-
This machine is contrived to operate without the imperfections of the
machinery at present in common use for fulling cloths. The operation of
fulling may be considered as divided into two stages, namely, cleansing and
felting. Among the chief imperfections of the common machine or stock may
be enumerated, that it cleanses the cloth unequally; that it requires the
assistance of stale urine, or a chemical substitute, in this first stage of process;
that it felts the cloth in a degree during the cleansing so as to injure its
texture and render the burling more difficult, and that it occasions considerable
damage in every part of the operation of fulling. On the other hand, in this
new machine, the cloth being made to run between rollers, which are made to
press it with any desirable force, it is cleansed without being felted in the least
or in any degree injured; and in this stage fullers' earth and water, moderately
heated by steam or otherwise, are quite sufficient without using seg or stale
urine. The work is also performed more equally, with much less mechanical
power, and more speedily than with the stock. This new machine will cleanse
wool-dyed cloths at one operation, while two operations are necessary with the
stock to answer the same purpose; first, segging, or cleansing with stale urine;
the second, fuzing, or cleansing with fullers' earth after the cloths have been
burled.
With regard to the last part of the process of fulling, namely, felting,
the cloth is placed in and supported by a kind of cask in the new machine,
open at both ends, and made to revolve round its horizontal axis with any
desirable speed, for the purpose of presenting the cloth in different directions
to receive, through the open ends of the cask, the blows by which it is felted.
A power of encreasing or diminishing the action in the cloth is obtained by an
adjustment to the apparatus which makes the cask revolve; by this means the
cloth is less rubbed than in the common stock, and consequently there is less
waste of its substance; and it is not liable to the damage of rents, so common
with the latter machine. The cask is at rest while the blows are made in
opposite directions against the cloth contained in it, and moves a portion of
revolution only in the interval of time between every two, every three, or more
blows. This part of the machine may be usefully applied to cleansing linens
or cottons. Instead of a cask for supporting and turning the cloth in the
interval between the blows of the beaters, I have had a machine constructed

page_text: with a bowl, sufficiently wide, supported and turned round by a vertical axis,
but I consider the cask as preferable.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Second
day of October, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred
and sixteen