A FLEXIBLE ELASTIC HORSE SHOE
Year: 1816

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, BENJAMIN
ROTCH, late of Castle Hall, Milford Haven, in the County of Pembroke, but
now of the City of Bath, in the County of Somerset, Gentleman, 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 Eleventh day of May,
in the fifty-sixth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said Benjamin
Rotch, my exors, adñors, and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole
privilege and authority, that I, the said Benjamin Rotch, 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 FLEXIBLE ELASTIC HORSE SHOE;"
n which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso that if I, the
said Benjamin Rotch, shall not particularly describe and ascertain the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner is to be performed, by
an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to

page_text: 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 whatso-
ever 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.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Benjamin Rotch, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described
and ascertained in the following description thereof (that is to say):-
:-
That my Invention doth consist in a flexible horse shoe, so formed that
when it is applied to the foot of the horse it accomodates itself in some
measure, if not entirely, to the motion occasioned by the natural elasticity of
the different parts of the foot, thereby allowing the natural expansion of the
heel, and at the same time protecting the hoof from injury on the road. The
flexible horse shoe consists of two or more pieces of iron, steel, or any other
metal, attached either by the nails which fasten the shoe to the foot, or by
rivetts expressly for the purpose, or sometimes by both, or otherwise fastened
or applied to one or more pieces of leather, hat, indian rubber, or any other
flexible substance, which substance, on applying the shoe to the foot, is
interposed between the horn and the iron or other metal. The flexible shoe
is nailed to the foot in the ordinary manner, with more or less nails, as
occasion may require. The most simple method of making the flexible
borse shoe is by cutting a piece of stout sole leather to the size of the horse's
foot, and which may be in other respects also formed like a common horse
shoe, the web being something wider than usual; then forge an iron shoe in
the ordinary way, and divide it into three parts, by cutting it across at those
parts of the quarters to where the points of the coffin bone would extend, and
rivett the three pieces so made on to the before-mentioned piece of leather.
The shoe thus made is applied with nails in the ordinary manner. The
flexible horse shoe is sometimes also made by rivetting several studds of iron
on to a piece of leather such as before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Benjamin Rotch, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Ninth day of July, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixteen.
BENJAMIN (L.S.) ROTCH.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Ninth day of July, in the year
of our Lord 1816, the aforesaid Benjamin Rotch 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 stamped according to the tenor of the
Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Ninth day of July, in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and sixteen.