IMPROVED CASTORS
Year: 1811

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAS
WILLIAM STURGEON, of Howland Street, in the Parish of Saint Pancras, in the
County of Middlesex, Esquire, 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 Sixth day of March, in
the fifty-first year of the reign, give and grant unto me, the said Thomas
William Sturgeon, my exors, adñññors, and assigns, His especial licence, full
power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Thomas William Sturgeon,
my exors, adiñors, and assigns, should and lawfully might, during the term of
years therein expressed, make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales,
and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "IMPROVED CASTORS ;"
in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging me, the
said Thomas William Sturgeon, by an instrument in writing under my hand
and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be enrolled in His
Majesty's High Court of Chancery within two calendar months after the date
of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, relation being there-
unto had, may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Thomas William Sturgeon, do hereby declare that the nature of my said
Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are par-
ticularly described and ascertained as follows, that is to say:

page_text: Instead of constructing castors in the usual manner, so as to support the
feet or bearing parts of furniture or other articles upon a wheel, or roller, or
other revolving cylindrical instrument, turning upon pivots and allowed to
traverse in any horizontal direction by means of a. vertical axis or centre of
motion, I do construct my improved castors with the substitution of a ball or
spherical piece instead of the said wheel, or roller, or revolving cylindrical
instrument, and I do place the said ball beneath the said foot or bearing part
so to be supported in a fit cell or cavity in a mettallic cavity, which I do fix or
fasten to the said foot or bearing part; and in order that the said ball or
spherical piece shall not be liable to fall out of its cell, I do include the same
therein by means of a perforated cove, screwed or properly adapted and secured
to the lower part of the said metallic cap, so as to admit a certain portion
of the surface of the said ball or spherical piece to be prominent thro' the
perforation, and beyond the surface of the said cover, to the extent or quantity
of about one-third part of the circumference of the said ball or spherical
piece. And in order, moreover, that the said ball or spherical piece may be at
liberty to revolve or roll in any manner whatsoever, and thereby to perform
the office of a castor with ease and facility whensoever the said furniture or
other articles shall be moved, I do dispose and fix in the said cell or cavity a
set of friction rollors, consisting of three or more in number; but in general,
and by preference, I use six of the same size and form, having the axis or
bearing parts of revolution thereof circularly or polygonally disposed in such a
manner as that the faces of the said rollers shall all be in regular contact with
and around and sideways against the said ball or spherical piece when put in
its place, and that a line supposed or conceived to be drawn from the centre
of the ball when so placed to the point of bearing of any one roller shall form
an angle of about one hundred and twenty degrees, more or less, with another
line drawn perpendicularly from the said centre to the point of bearing of the
said ball upon a level floor, or otherwise. By way of example, and in illustra-
tion of the preceding description, I do declare that if a ball of one inch
diameter be made use of, and six friction rollers of one-third part of an inch
in diameter each be disposed in one and the same horizontal plain, so that the
lines joining the pivots of each roller shall be made to range in the sides of an
hexagon, circumscribing a circle of one inch and one-sixth part in diameter
nearly, then the said ball, if made to rest upon or against the interior faces
of the said rollers, will be confined by a suitable reaction as well sideways
as downwards, and will be duly disposed to roll in any direction, and if
applied to a floor or other surface will perform the office of a castor, as afore-
said. But I do further declare, that the said construction of my improved