AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND APPLICATION OF WHEELS TO CARRIAGES OF PLEASURE OR OF BURDEN, OR TO MACHINERY FOR MOVING HEAVY BODIES
Year: 1830

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, AUGUSTUS
WHITING GILLET, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwek Merchant, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King William tho Fourth, by
His Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, bearing dato at Westminster, the Fourth day of
November, in the first year of His reign, and in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and thirty, did, for Himself, His heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Augustus Whiting Gillet, my heirs,
executors, administrators, and assigns, His especial licence, full power and
authority; that. I, the said Augustus Whiting Gillet, my executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, or whomsoever I should at any time authorize and appoint,
and no others, during the term of fourteen years, as therein expressed, should
and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within that part of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called England, and the
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, an Invention, communicated to me by George
Bridgman, of New Haven, in Connecticut, one of the United States of
North America, (a foreigner residing abroad,) for "AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE
CONSTRUCTION AND APPLICATION OF WHEELS TO CARRIAGES OF PLEASURE OR OF
BURDEN, OR TO MACHINERY FOR MOVING HEAVY BODIES;" in which said Letters
Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said Augustus Whiting
Gillet, by an instrument in writing under my band and seal, to particularly
describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner

page_text: the same is to be performed, and to 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 in part recited Letters Patent, as in
and by the same, reference being thereto had, will more fully and at large
appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Augustus Whiting Gillet, do hereby declare that the nature of the said
Invention is fully described and ascertained in and by the Drawings hereto
annexed, and the following explanation thereof (that is to say):-
This improvement in the construction and application of wheels to carriages
of pleasure or of burden, or to machines for moving heavy bodies, consists in
the adaptation of what may be called a perpetual railway to carriages of
different kinds, which is formed by a circular rib or rail placed round the
interior of the felloe of the wheel, and upon which circular rib a small wheel
with a grooved periphery is intended to run, which small wheel, bearing its
portion of the burthen of the carriage, by running upon a smooth even surface
greatly facilitates the progress of the carriage when the larger or running
wheel passes over heavy or uneven ground.
Fig. 1 is a side elevation of a railway carriage or tram waggon with the
improvement adapted thereto; Fig. 2 is a back view of the same; and Fig. 3
is a transverse section of the waggon and of the wheels, the similar letters
referring to corresponding parts in all the Figures.
a, a, a, is the running wheel of the carriage; b, b, b, the circular rib or
rail of iron, which is attached to the interior of the felloe of the wheel, within
the range of the spokes; c, c, the main axletree of the carriage, the extremities
of which pass through the boxes and naves of the wheel as usual, and are key'd
or otherwise secured at the outer ends, to prevent the wheel from coming off.
The only peculiarity in this part is that the interior of the box of the wheel is
made something larger than the axle, in order to allow the axle a small
degree of play or free action. A bar of iron d, d, is passed under the
carriage as a strengthener, and from the ends of this bar there are bent
pieces e, e, the ends of which form the axles of the small wheels ff. These
small wheels may be made with any number of spokes, or they may be solid
iron rollers. The only peculiarity is that they must have a flute or groove
round their outer rim or periphery, suited to the form of the circular bar or
rib b, upon which the wheel runs. It will now be perceived, that though the
running wheels a, a, pass over the ground as in ordinary carriages, yet the
weight of the carriage and its burthen is borne by the small wheels, and,
consequently, though the large running wheels should pass over soft, heavy, or

page_text: uneven ground, the wheels which actually bear the weight, and upon which
the carriage travels, move upon a smooth, even, perpetual railway, on which
thero is little or no resistance. This contrivance is equally applicable to the
wheels of any kind of carriage, and is only shewn in the Drawing as adapted
to a tram waggon, for the purpose of illustrating its peculiar construction and
adaptation.
The original Inventor further explains his Invention in theso words: "The
wheels are or may be constructed in the common form and of the same mate-
rials as of the common cart or carriage wheel, with the exception that ono
set or class of wheels (for a cart or carriage) are concave on the periphery,
and the other set are convex both on the periphery and inner circumference
of the rims of the wheels; likewise, that one set must not be larger than to
admit of their moving in their whole diameter between the axle and inner
circle of the rim of the others: It follows, of course, that one set of wheels
will be more than as large again as the other set for the same vehicle,
and likewise that there will be double the number of wheels to a carriage,
that would be required in the common method of applying wheels. In tho
application of the wheels, there are two applied where there is usually one,
the smaller one, as above mentioned, moving on the inner circumference of the
rim of the larger, though in other respects detached from it, and revolving on
its own axis, situated either exactly in a perpendicular line under the centre
of the axis of the larger wheel, or forward; or back of the centre, and are by
their axles attached to the body of the carriage or vehicle, and may be secured
for permanency by straps to the axles of the larger wheels above them. The
rims of the large wheels are made so wide that the rim of the smaller with
the concave on its greatest circumference or periphery may run clear of tho
spokes or support of the centre of tho larger, and on its inner convex side.
The larger wheels must have as little play on their axis as practicable in
order to keep them steady, but the axis may be so attached to the body of tho
vehicle as to allow the body to rise whenover any obstacle intervenes between
the outer periphery of the small and inner periphery or circumference of the
large wheel; the large wheel to run on the ground as a detached wheel, whilst
the lesser wheel moves on the inner side of the large wheel's wide rim. Tho
action of these wheels thus applied to any vehicle will be that of one wheel
running on the inner circumference of the rim of the other, rendering the
moving of any heavy body much easier than in the common method, and being
capable of surmounting any obstacle which may intervene to prevent the
movement or progress of a carriage with less physical or mechanical power
than in any other method heretofore known or used.

page_text: I, the said Augustus Whiting Gillet, on behalf of George Bridgman, there-
fore claims the exclusive right of constructing and applying wheels agreeably
to the foregoing description, as well as the peculiar manner of their action on
each other in expediting the movement of any carriage or heavy body over
rough or even smooth surfaces.
In witness whercof, I, the said Augustus Whiting Gillet, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Third day of January, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and thirty-one.
AUGUSTUS WHITING (L.S.) GILLET.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Third day of January, in the first
year of the reign of His Majesty King William the Fourth, the said Augustus
Whiting Gillet came before our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and
acknowledged the instrument aforesaid, and all and overy thing therein con-
tained and specified, in form above written. And also the instrument aforesaid
was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute made in the fifty-fifth year
of the reign of His late Majesty King George the Third.
Inrolled the Fourth day of January, One thousand eight hundred and
thirty-one.