AN IMPROVED METHOD OF INSTANTLY RELEASING OR UNHARNESSING ONE OR MORE HORSES FROM CARRIAGES OF EVERY DESCRIPTION
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Edward Gedge at the
Ofl.ce of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 18th
July 1866A communication from abroad by Elie Lanvière, of No. 15,
Passage des Petites Ecuries, Paris, France, Mechanician.
I, WILLIAM EDWARD GEDGE, of the Firm of John Gedge and Son, of No 11,
Wellington Street, Strand, in the County of Middlesex, Patent Agent, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF
INSTANTLY RELEASING OR UNHARNESSING ONE OR MORE HORSES FROM CARRIAGES OF
EVERY DESCRIPTION," (a communication to me from abroad by Elie Larivière, of
No 15, Passage des Petites Ecuries, Paris, France, Mechanician,) to be as
follows.-
The method of unharnessing which forms the subject of this Invention
is simple, cheap, and at the same time strong; it also presents the advantage
of being applicable to every description of carnage or vehicle, whether diawn
by one or several horses, without any apparent alteration in the vehicle, and
without modification of the harness. The movement by which the release
of the horses is effected is placed in the axle of the vehicle, the pole
pin modified and made hollow serving for basis of the system in four-wheeled
carriages, and an equivalent piece being fitted with the same object in the
longitudinal axle of two-wheeled vehicles.

page_text: The mechanism consists of an iron trace bar furnished at each end
with a hook for attaching the trace; this trace bar is moveable, that is
to say, it turns in a bearing fixed on the draw bar of the carriage. In
the middle of the length and perpendicularly to the trace bar is fixed a
hinged rod in three pieces lengthwise, so as to act as a lever on the trace
bar, in order to give it a rotary movement on itself, which uplifts the hooks
inwards for the withdrawal of the traces, which is the normal position attained
by bringing the said rod beneath the carriage framing, where it is held by a
vertical shaft turning in the pole pin, hollowed for this purpose, or in two-
wheeled vehicles in an analogous piece. At the end of this rod is a plate
pierced with an opening through which passes a hook fixed at the bottom of
the revolving shaft. It is only necessary to cause this shaft to turn to make
the hook slide under the solid part of the plate and hold it until the coach-
man gives another rotary motion so as to bring the hook into the opening in
the plate, which then escaping from the shaft, being drawn away by the tension
of the diaw bar is pushed back by a spiral spring which the plate closes in
attaching itself to the shaft. In order to facilitate the fall of the traces they
are furnished at their ends with a small friction roller, to which they are
attached by a buckle or otherwise, and it is this roller which hooks on to the
trace bar. The backing apparatus is fixed to a moveable catch which places
itself in the ordinary manner against the shaft or the pole, according to whether
it is a two or a four wheeled carriage, on a fixed plate, against which it is
held by a spring sufficient to hold of itself, but which comes off easily directly
the horse leaves the shafts. A small strap attached to the driver's box
The
facilitates this movement by causing this spring catch to come off
releasing handle is placed indifferently in any part of the carriage, either within
reach of the coachman or of the persons inside the coach, and the cord may be
bidden in the casing.