IMPROVEMENTS IN METALLIC BEDSTEADS
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Frederick Thomas Stokes at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 3rd November 1870:
I, FREDERICK THOMAS STOKES, of Birmingham, in the County of
Warwick, Manager of Works, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN METALLIC BEDSTEADS," to be as follows:-
My Invention has for its object the converting in an easy and
expeditious manner of an ordinary French bedstead into a half tester
bedstead or a tent or canopy bedstead, without detaching any of the
parts of the said French bedstead or removing the bed clothes. This I
effect by constructing the head rail or head and foot rails of the said
French bedstead in the manner herein-after described, and adapting to
the said head rail or head and foot rails a half tester or canopy frame
constructed in the manner herein-after described.
I will first describe my Invention as applied to the converting of a
French bedstead into a half tester bedstead, that is, a bedstead having at
the head end a frame for supporting the head covering and hangings.
Instead of making the terminal ornaments or parts of the pillars of the
foot rail of the French bedstead solid as usual, I make in each of the

page_text: terminal ornaments or parts a tubular opening of about the same
diameter as and forming a continuation of the tubular pillars of the
said end rail.
The openings described and the upper tubular ends of the pillars
constitute sockets for the reception of the pillars of the half tester
frame, the ends of the pillars of the said half tester frame being provided
with tubular socket pieces of a size proper to pass into the said sockets.
Between the reduced socket pieces described of the half tester frame and
the pillars of the said frame ornamental collars, concave at bottom, are
made, the said collars being by preference of the same ornamental
configuration as that of the collars situated below the terminal orna-
ments or parts of the rail of the bedstead. When the socket pieces of
the half tester frame are inserted into the sockets of the head rail of the
bedstead, the bottoms of the collars on the said socket pieces are
supported upon the tops of the terminal ornaments or parts of the head
rail, and by means of removable brackets (secured to the side rails of
the bedstead), the upper ends of the said brackets being made to spring
into holes in the sockets and socket pieces described, the half tester
frame is securely fastened to the head rail of the bedstead, and the said
bedstead is thereby converted into a half tester bedstead. I prefer to
make the pillars of the half tester frame and head rail of the same
diameter so as to resemble those of the ordinary half tester bedstead.
To remove the half tester frame from the bedstead it is only necessary
to withdraw the upper ends of the brackets from the sockets and socket
pieces described, when the half tester frame may be lifted from the head
rail and removed.
In order to convert the French bedstead into a tent or canopy bed-
stead, the head and foot rails are provided with sockets of the con-
struction described with respect to the head rail only, and the pillars
of the tent or canopy frame are provided with socket pieces which are
inserted and fixed in the said sockets in the manner before described
with respect to a half tester frame.