AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HATS, AND AN IMPROVED DESCRIPTION OF FELT SUITABLE FOR HATS AND VARIOUS OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES, AND IMPROVEMENTS IN PREPARING THE MATERIAL OR MATERIALS CHIEFLY USED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF SUCH FELT
Year: 1839

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
PONSFORD, late of Wangye House, in the County of Essex, now of Lower
Islington, in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at Westminster the
Twelfth day of January, One thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine, did, for
Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said William
Ponsford, my exors, admiors, and assigns, Her especial licence, full power, sole
privilege and authority, that I, the said William Ponsford, my exors, adñiors,
and assigns, and such others ns I, the said William Ponsford, my exors, adñiors,
and assigns should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time
and at all times thereafter 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, and also in all Her Majesty's Colonies and
Plantations abread, an Invention, communicated to me by a foreigner residing
abroad, of "AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HATS, AND AN IMPROVED
DESCRIPTION OF FELT SUITABLE FOR HATS AND VARIOUS OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES,
AND IMPROVEMENTS IN PREPARING THE MATERIAL OR MATERIALS CHIEFLY USED IN
THE MANUFACTURE OF SUCH FELT;" in which said Letters Patent is contained a
proviso, that I, the said William Ponsford, shall by an instrument in writing
under my hand and seal, particularly describe the nature of my said Invention
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, and cause the same
to be inrolled in Her Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters

page_text: Patent, as reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large
appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
William Ponsford, do hereby declare that whereas Letters Patent for England,
Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also for all Her Majesty's
Colonies and Plantations abroad were granted to William Angus Robertson,
of date the Fourth day of April, One thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight,
for certain improvements in the manufacture of hosiery, shawls, carpets, rugs,
blankets, and other fabrics, communicated to him by a foreigner residing abroad;
and, whereas by the Specification thereof, afterwards duly inrolled, the said
William Angus Robertson declared that some of the said improvements con-
sisted in manufacturing, by means of the process of felting, long continuous
fabrics of a close firm texture of or with wool or fur with or without certain
admixtures therewith, or of or with the hair of horses, cows, oxen, or other
cattle prepared in manner detailed in the said Specification, and which he
proposed to designate generally by the name of "cattle hair," either alone.or
mixed with wool or with dressed flax or hemp cut into short lengths or with
tow, or with refuse hair obtained from skins which contain fur, or with cotton,
or waste silk; and, where as the same foreigner, residing abroad, by whom
the said last-recited improvements were communicated to the said William
Angus Robertson, has communicated to me, the said William Ponsford, certain
further and additional improvements which be has invented in the manu-
facture of felt by which an improved description of felt is produced, and in the
preparation of the said cattle hair for felting, and has also communicated to
me a certain improvement in the manufacture of hats, and how the said
description of felt may be made applicable to the manufacture of hats and
various other useful purposes; and, whereas the said last-mentioned addi-
tional improvements and applications are those for which the first herein-before
recited Letters Patent were granted to me, the said William Ponsford, now
I declare that the said Letters Patent and the Specification thereof are to be
considered as having reference to the improvements previously patented by.
the said William Angus Robertson, and as being supplementary and auxiliary
thereto, and I declare that the nature of the said additional improvements
and applications, and the manner in which the same are to be performed, are
fully set forth and detailed in the following description thereof, and in the
explanatory Drawings hereunto annexed, that is to say :-
Firstly, "my improvement in the manufacture of hats," communicated to me
as aforesaid, consists in forming the felted bodies of hats wholly of cattle hair, or
of cattle hair mixed with other materials after the said hair has been prepared

page_text: either in the manner directed in the Specification of the said William Angus
Robertson, or in the improved manner berein-after specified. A loose and very
imperfectly felted article has been, as stated in the Specification of the said Wil-
liam Angus Roberts manufactured wholly or partially of cattle hair and applied
as a sheathing to ships, and hat bodies have been made of felts manufactured
from wool and furs, both separately and mixed in various proportions, the one
with the other, but I am not aware that a felt made either wholly, or chiefly;
or in any considerable proportion of cattle hair has ever been applied to the
making of. hat bodies, and I verily believe this application of cattle hair félt
to be entirely new.. The manner in which cattle hair is recommended; by my
infornant, to be felted and formed into hat bodies is as follows:-
The hair being cleansed or prepared in the way directed in the Specification
of the said William Angus Robertson, or in that herein-after specified by me,
should be passed through a blowing machine, such as is in common use, and then
formed into a bat or fleece by means of mechanical arrangements founded on
the principle of exhaustion, explained in the Specification of the said William
Angus Robertson; that is to say, the hair as it passes from the blowing machine
is to be tossed or thrown into the air, from which it is to be sucked or drawn down
upon hollow perforated cones or moulds of metal or wood with an exhausting
cylinder beneath; when the hair has been received on one of these perforated
cones or moulds to a sufficient thickness a cowl of linen or flannel is to be
drawn gently over it, and then a hollow perforated cover of copper or any other
suitable metal is to be dropped over the cowl; the cone or mould is then to be
immersed in a vat or tub of boiling hot water, and there allowed to remain for
about a minute, after which it is to be taken out and the metal cover and
flannel or linen cowl removed, when the bat or layer of hair will be found felted
to a degree that it may be readily finished off by the workman in the usual,
manner at the oven. If long hairs be used, the hat body when finished may
be combed out so as to cause the hairs to form a rough nap... About a fourth
but not more of the whole materials used in forming a hat body, as above
directed, may consist of tow, or dressed flax, or waste silk cut into short lengths
of about two inches each; but I declare that, though I have berein-before:
described what my informant considers to be a ready mode and the best mode
with which he is acquainted of felting cattle hair into hat bodies with or with
out the intermixture of other materials, yet that I do not limit myself to.
that mode, but claim generally the application of cattle hair to the making of
felted bodies for hats. I proceed-
Secondly, to describe my "improved description of felt suitable for hats and
various other useful purposes, communicated to me as aforesaid. The improved

page_text: description of felt to which I lay claim is a felt made either of cattle bair, or
of wool, or of fur, with or without the admixture with each of small portions of
cotton, or silk, or tow, or dressed flax, or other material, observing always that
when the fibres of these admixtures exceed three inches inches in length they
should be cut into short lengths of not more than two inches, and so far as
concerns the materials employed my improved felt differs in nothing from the
felt patented by the said William Angus Robertson; but by certain improve-
ments in the mode of manufacturing the same to be herein-after described, the
felt produced is not only of a closer, and firmer, and stronger texture, and of
much greater continuous lengths than any common felts, but closer, and firmer,
and stronger, and better finished than even those felts which are made by the
process specified by the said William Angus Robertson; and I declare that
the manner in which this improved description of felt is manufactured is as
follows: I take either cattle hair, or woo!, or fur, with or without an admixture
of other materials with each, but in case of admixture following the proportions
recommended in the said last-mentioned Specification, and I pass them through
a blowing machine, whence the fibres are drawn to and upon an exhausting
cylinder, where they are formed into a bat or fleece, which is then passed
between a set of hardening rollers, all as described in detail in the before-
mentioned Specification of the said William Angus Robertson; but, whereas
by the said Specification it is directed that where the felting materials used are
of inferior felting quality, the bat should be passed through two or more sets
of hardening rollers, similar to and worked like the set first mentioned. I
declare that in producing my improved felt, whatever may be the quality of
the materials employed the bat is passed through at least two sets or pairs
of hardening rollers before it is carried forward to the planking machine,
excepting only when the felting material is a wool which does not felt
readily, in which case my informant substitutes for an additional set or sets of
hardening rollers, an apparatus such as is represented in Figure 1 of the
Drawings hereunto annexed, and of which the following is. a description:-
The Figure represents a transverse section view of the apparatus. A, A, is
a close hollow cylinder, which turns on a hollow axle B, the outer surface of
which axle is perforated all over with small holes to the inner circumference
of this hollow cylinder; and along the length thereof are fixed clects or ribs of
about two inches in depth, and about ten inches distant from each other; and
at C there is a sliding door which gives admission into the interior of the
cylinder. After the bat has been passed between one or more sets of harden-
ing rollers, and then cut into convenient lengths, the pieces are rolled up and
put into bags and introduced into the cylinder A through the sliding door C,

page_text: each piece being placed on one of the ribs or cleets on the under half of the
cylinder. The cylinder may be advantageously filled to the extent of one
quarter of its depth with boiling solution of sulphuric acid and water; the
door is then closed, and steam admitted into the cylinder through the hollow
perforated axle B till it attains a pressure as indicated by a steam guage
attached to the cylinder of about fifty inches, when the steam is shut off. The
cylinder is then made to rotate at the rate of sixty revolutions per minute.
(The appendages and connections by which the steam and water are introduced
and regulated, and the cylinder made to rotate, are such as any competent
workman will readily supply, and need not be here particularly detailed.) As
the cylinder rotates the pieces of bat will fall from one rib or cleet on to
another in succession, and at the end of about twenty minutes they may be
taken out, when they will be found in a state of excellent preparation for the
planking machine to which they are to be next transferred.
And now as to the planking machine. I further declare that, in the manu-
facturing of the said improved description of felt, the planking machine employed
so far from that described in the Specification of the said William Angus
Robertson, and represented in Figures 3º, 3º, and 3° of the Drawings thereunto
annexed, that there is passed round each of the two sets of rollers indicated by
the letters D, D, an endless webb or band of coarse cloth of linen, wool, or
hair, which my-informant finds to be a material improvement in the machine,
as originally constructed. The addition of these endless webs or bands is
shewn in Figure 2 of the Drawings annexed to this present Specification.
After the bat has been passed as often as the workman may find needful
through this improved machine it is next subjected to a rubbing process, but
instead of employing for this purpose machinery such as is described in the
Specification of the said William Angus Robertson, and represented in the
Drawings annexed thereto by the Figures 4, 4, and 4º, which machinery
operates horizontally and angularly, an apparatus is made use of whereby the
rubbing is effected by a series of circular motions with a brush or brushes,
worked by machinery connected with or forming part of the general system of
machinery by which the other processes are performed. Figure 3 of the
Drawings annexed to this present Specification represents a circular rubbing
or brushing apparatus of this description. The bat or nearly finished
felt is delivered directly from the planking machine, or, where it is of
considerable length, delivered through the medium of a hand reel on to an
endless cloth or web (a, a,) passed round the two rollers (b, b,) affixed to the
opposite sides of a flat table A, having two other rollers (c, c,) fixed imme-
diately over them, so that the bat when resting on the endless cloth or web is

page_text: carried forward between the two sets of rollers. The table A is perforated all
over with small holes to let steam pass through from below to thic bat or felt,
which may be accomplished in many convenient ways, which it would be
superfluous, for the information of any competent workman, to describe. B is a
circular brush turning on its centre; the bristles of which are about three-
eighths of an inch in length, and which may-be so fixed as to-press.more or less
on the bat or felt as it passes beneath. The whole breadth of the table may
be occupied by one such brush (as represented in the Drawing), or by two or
more brushies of smaller diameter, and there should be as many circular
brushes of one size or other, and so arranged that they shall cover as nearly as
practicable the table throughout its whole length; a circular movement being
given to all these brushes they operate so equally, yet variously, on the bat or
felt as it passes beneath them as to impart to it a high degree of uniformity
and finish. Instead of circular brushes turning on their centres, circular pieces
of wood or metal with grooved, or diamond, or other figured faces.in low relief
may be used when there is but little finishing. required, or where. the felted
fabric is of a thin and delicate texture.
'
And having now described the manner in which the improved description of
felt is manufactured, I declare that the various useful purposes to which the
same has been hitherto found suitable, that is to say, the articles which may
be made of it are chiefly as follows:-Hats, caps, or bonnets (when they are
made by cutting the bodies out of large pieces of felt, and suitably forming and
uniting the pieces cut out so as to form the shape of hat required by the manu-
facturer, a mode of making felted hat bodies not heretofore adopted and which
may be advantageously practised, especially with respect to coarse or common
hats, or military caps. The labour of felting each individual hat body by hand
as in the ordinary process, being thus much economized); printers' blankets,
pilot cloths, horse cloths, and carpeting; I also contemplated. the application
thereof generally to all purposes to which woollen cloths are now ordinarily
applied; all that is necessary to fit it for these purposes being that it should
be fulled, dressed, dyed, and otherwise finished as woollen cloths usually are.
This improved felt has also been found to make an excellent foundation for
imitation leather, as it takes the coating or glazing of varnish well.
I now proceed to describe my improvements in preparing the material or
materials chiefly used in the manufacture of such felt;" by the words material
or materials, I here mean the cattle hair before mentioned in all. its numerous
varieties. The Specification of the said William Agnes Robertson directs that
this cattle hair shall be prepared or cleansed by means of sulphurous acid, but
the experiments of my informant have led him to the conclusion that muriatio

page_text: acid will serve the purpose better, and the manner in which the said hair is
prepared with muriatic acid is as follows:-A quantity of hair, which is
generally, as bought from the tanners, in a dirty state and mixed with lime, is
taken and washed well in clean water; the hair is then put into a wicket
basket, and this basket put into a, tight wooden vessel fitted in the bottom,
with a plug to draw off the waste liquor; the basket should be fitted with
handles to enable the operator to move it up and down inside the outer vessel.
The basket being put into the vessel and filled with hair, a quantity of diluted
muriatic acid is poured over the hair till it completely covers it.. The hair.is
then moved about by lifting it, opening it, and stirring it about so as to allow
the liquor to circulate freely through the hair, and carry away the lime and
dirt. When this operarion has been carried on for some time, the basket is
lifted out, and by means of the plug before-mentioned, the waste liquor is
allowed to run off; should the lime and dirt appear not to have been completely
removed, the same process must be repeated till it is perfectly cleansed. The
hair is then once more well washed in clean water. My informant finds that
muriatic acid is not so liable to injure the hair as sulphurous acid, and that at
the present prices of these commodities there is considerable economy in using
the former, but he states also that any other acid will serve the purpose, which
in a diluted state will dissolve and separate the lime without injuring the hair,
and as prices vary with places, times, and circumstances, I do not therefore
limit myself to the use of muriatic acid, but claim a right to use any other
acid (sulphurous acid excepted) by which the same cleansing effects may at any
time be as effectually and as cheaply performed.
And having now described the different invented improvements communi-
cated to me, as aforesaid, and the manner in which the same are to be
performed, I declare that what I claim as comprehended within my Patent as
distinct from that of the said William Angus Robertson, is,-
First, the making of the felted bodies of hats wholly, or chiefly, or in any
considerable proportion of horses' hair, cows' hair, or any of the other sorts of
hair included under the general title of cattle hair.
Second, the improved description of felt which is obtained or manufactured
by employing the different improved processes herein-before described, in con-
junction with such of the processes specified by the said William Angus
Robertson, as the said improved processes have not superseded, that is to say,
the planking, by means of rollers with endless webs or bands passed round
them; the brushes with circular movements, worked by and forming part of the
machinery as aforesaid; and in certain cases, the close steaming by means of

page_text: the hollow cylinder, represented in Figure 1 of the Drawings hereunto
annexed.
And third, the cleansing of all descriptions of cattle hair, by means of
muriatic, or any other suitable acid, excepting only sulphurous acid.
And such the invented improvements communicated to me as aforesaid,
being to the best of my knowledge and belief new and never before used
within that part of Her said Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland called England, Her Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, and also in all Her Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, I do
hereby declare this to be my Specification of the same, and that I do verily
believe that this my said Specification doth comply in all respects fully and
without reserve or disguise with the proviso in the said in part recited Letters
Patent contained, wherefore I hereby claim to maintain exclusive right and
privilege to my said Invention.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Ponsford, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Eleventh day of July, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Eleventh day of July, in the year
of our Lord 1839, the aforesaid William Ponsford came before our said Lady
the Queen in Her 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 Twelfth day of July, in the year of our Lord One thousand