CASTING AND MAKING BUTTONS AND BUTTON SHANKS
Year: 1786

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOSEPH
ASHTON, of Bordesley, in the Parish of Aston, near Birmingham, in the
County of Warwick, Iron Founder, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Third,
by: His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date
at Westminster, the Fifth day of August, in the twenty-sixth year of His
reign, did give and grant to me, the said Joseph Ashton, His special licence
that I, the said Joseph Ashton, during the term of years therein expressed,
should and lawfully might use, exercise, and vend, within that part of His
Kingdom of Great Britain called England, His Dominion of Wales, and
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "CASTING AND MAKING BUTTONS
AND BUTTON SHANKS;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso
obliging me, the said Joseph Ashton, under my hand and seal, to cause a
particular description of the nature of the said Invention, and how the same
is to be performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery
within a certain time in the said proviso mentioned, and not yet expired, as in
and by the said Letters Patent, reference being thereunto had, will at large
appear.

page_text: NOW THEREFORE KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso,
I, the said Joseph Ashton, do hereby declare that my said Invention of
Casting and Making Buttons and Button Shanks is to be performed in the
following manner (that is to say):-
Cast from pig iron or cast iron, brass, copper, or any other metal or com-
pound of metals, button shanks with a stool or leg in this form
and
with a nick or hollow in the stool or leg; then force the stool or leg of the said
shanks into a guage hole made at one end of a steel chock or hubb cut for
that purpose, and which, at the time of such operation, must be turned round
by a lathe or engine. Then prepare patterns of button heads or buttons
without shanks, with holes or hollows in the centre of them of such size as
will admit the stools or legs of the shanks, prepared as before mentioned,
to go or drop easy into them, and lay the patterns so prepared in a mould or
flask with the heads downwards, and place or set the stools or legs of the
said shanks in the said holes or hollows, and take of impressions from such
paterns of the heads of buttons or buttons without shanks, with loam or sand;
in performing of which operation the patterns will quit the stools or legs of
the shanks so set or placed as aforesaid, and leave the shanks sticking in the
loam or sand. Then pour melted pig iron or cast iron, brass, copper, or any
other metal or compound of metals into the moulds or flasks wherein such
impressions are taken off and the shanks left sticking therein as aforesaid;
by which process the heads or tops of the buttons thus run or cast will adhere
to the shanks, and the buttons will be completely formed; but the shanks, cast
as above mentioned, from pig or cast iron, must be nealed before they are
worked, or cut down in the chock or hubb above mentioned.
In witness whereof, I, the said Joseph Ashton, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Thirtieth day of August, in the year of our Lord
One thousand seven hundred and eighty-six.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the Thirtieth day of August, in the
twenty-sixth year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Third, the
said Joseph Ashton came before our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and
acknowledged the Instrument, and all and every thing therein contained
and specified, in form above written. And also the Instrument aforesaid
was stamped according to the tenor of the several Statutes made in the
sixth year of the reign of the late King and Queen William and Mary
of England, and in the seventeenth and twenty-third years of the reign of His
Majesty King George the Third.
Inrolled the Second day of September, in the year of our Lord One
thousand seven hundred and eighty-six.