A NEW METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING MILLS OR MACHINES, CHIEFLY APPLICABLE TO PRISON DISCIPLINE
Year: 1823

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
HASE, of Saxthorpe, in the County of Norfolk, Ironfounder, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth, did,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of His United Kingdom, bearing
date at Westminster, the Eleventh day of September, One thousand eight
hundred and twenty-three, in the fourth year of His reign, give and grant
unto me, the said William Hase, my exors, adñiors, and assigns, especial
licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said William
Hase, my exors, adñiors, and assigns, during the term of years therein men-
tioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within
England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of
"A NEW METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING MILLS OR MACHINES, CHIEFLY APPLICABLE TO
PRISON DISCIPLINE;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso
that if I, the said William Hase, shall not particularly describe and ascer-
tain 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 advantages
whatsoever thereby granted, shall utterly cease, determine, and become void,
as in and by the same (relation being thereunto had) will more fully and
at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
William Hase, do hereby declare that my said Invention is described in
manner following (that is to say):
==
The building in which the tread or crank machinery is placed is so con-
structed that the prisoners can be worked separately if necessary, or in small
parties or classes of six or eight in each compartment, the seperation between
each class being made close in order to prevent conversation. Each com-
partment is provided with a strong iron grating with a gate in front to admit
the prisoners to the stepping wheel; and to give every possible advantage to a
free access of air, and to prevent the possibility of the escape of prisoners,
iron grating or lattice work is used. And in place of the hand rail usually
employed for the men to rest their hands upon or to take hold of, I substitute
a reel or revolving hand rails moving very slow; this rotative or revolving
motion I produce either by endless bands or chains made of steel, brass, iron,
leather, hemp, or any other material, or I use wheels with teeth or cogs, either
spur or bevil, according to situation and circumstances. These bands, chains,
or wheels are so connected with the machinery that the prisoners' hands, if
they pull at all, contribute in nearly an equal proportion with their feet
towards propelling the machinery. This reel has also the advantage of always
being in a proper place to suit the different heights of men and boys. It also
obviates Doctor Good's objections respecting the numbness of the hands, which
by this means are kept in a sufficient degree of activity. The axis also in the
centre of the reel is provided with a ratchet and stop, so that the prisoners
can at any time bold it still if they please, but then they must rest their whole
weight upon their feet. And in order to prevent imposition, and to dispense
with the constant attendance of an officer, the whole floor next the stepping
wheels within the iron grating or lattice work before mentioned is suspended
by a lever or levers, with weights to counterbalance, on the principle of the
patent weighing machine, or overhead like the common beam and scales; or
I substitute pullies, or the multiplying wheels, or any other kind or form of
machinery to which certain situations may be best adapted, in order to pro-
duce a fall in the floor when a greater number of prisoners than are ordered
by the governor leave the wheels at the same time. This motion or falling of
the floor moves an index in the governor's room, or it rings a bell placed in
the mill or in any other more convenient situation. This at once detects
insubordination in any particular class. The tread boards or steps, which are
generally screwed on arms cast on the wheels themselves, are by my improve-
ment fixed on levers or starts, and being adjustable by screws they can be
fixed at any angle the magistrates may think proper in order to produce more
or less labour to the prisoners.

page_text: But my principal invention or improvement consists in fixing a small
pump or small pumps wrought by the machinery attached to the tread
wheels on which the prisoners work, or to the crank or lever machinery if
used. The pump or pumps may be made of brass, iron, or of any other
metal, and may be single, double, treble, or may have any number of
working barrels, or may be made reciprocating, rotatory, or rotative, so as best
to suit the purpose for which the prisoners' labour is intended to be used.
Sometimes the pump is only used as a regulator to the machinery; the
water, being first received from a cistern below, is then forced into an air-vessel
by the pump, and is then regulated through a small cock or adjustable aper-
ture into the cistern from which it was taken. This cock or aperture is either
adjusted by the hand or the lever is attached to the centrifugal balls, or
governor as they are called, and by making or regulating the passage for the
water to a proper size, the exact time to the tread wheels or to the levers or
cranks of any kind best suited to prison discipline will be produced. The
pump is not only of use as a regulator, but it will produce a most astonishing
yet simple means of communicating motion or force to any reasonable distance
(that is to say), from fifty to even one thousand yards, with scarcely any loss of
power by friction, where the pipe of communication is of a proper size. To
the end of this pipe I fix a second air-vessel similar to the one fixed to the
pump, and from it the water is received or forced into a machine known to
engineers by the name of the pressure engine, exactly on the principle of the
high-pressure steam engine; or I use Hornblower's, Watts and Bolton's,
Rangeley and Dixon's, or any other reciprocating, rototary, or rotative engine
to produce motion to my machinery or mill work, which can as easily be done
at the distance of a hundred or a thousand yards as of one yard, provided the
pipe is sufficiently large to prevent the water from being hurried or wire-
drawn. The size, therefore, depends upon the power or number of men
employed. By this means the combined powers of any number of men,
horses, or cattle, or the power of the steam engine, of the water wheel, or of
the wind-mill, either horizontal or vertical, can be communicated to any
manufactory without inconvenience; and whether the number of prisoners be
large or small their labours may be rendered useful in almost all situations,
either for the silk trade, spinning worsted or yarn, weaving, dying, hot-pressing,
calendering, cylindering, or the common process of dressing bombazines, or
for boring, forging, turning, and rolling metals; so that what has hitherto
proved injurious to the fair trader will now be rendered of the greatest use, as
the power produced by the labour of prisoners may be let for any term of
years. In some situations I should use a second pipe, and return the water

page_text: to the pump; but where sinking a well will not be attended with a heavy
expence it will be better to let the water pass off into the drains.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Hase, have hercunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-seventh day of October, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and twenty-three.
COPEMAN, Extra.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-seventh day of October,
in the year of our Lord 1823, the aforesaid William Hase 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 Sixth day of November, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and twenty-three.