A NEW OR IMPROVED STREET LAMP AND BURNER, AND LANTERN HEAD FOR STREET AND OTHER LAMPS AND LANTERNS
Year: 1809

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CHARLES
SEWARD, of Lancaster, in the County Palatine of Lancaster, Tin Plate
Worker, do send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-sixth day of July
now last past, did give and grant unto me, the said Charles Seward, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, His special licence, full power, sole
privilege and authority, that I, the said Charles Seward, my executors, admi-
nistrators, and assigns, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my
Invention of "A NEW OR IMPROVED STREET LAMP AND BURNER, AND LANTERN
HEAD FOR STREET AND OTHER LAMPS AND LANTERNS;" in which said Letters
Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Charles Seward,
under my hand and seal to cause a particular description of the nature of my
said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, to 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, otherwise the
said Letters Patent to utterly cease, determine, and become void, as in and by
the same, relation being thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that, in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Charles Seward, do hereby declare that my said Invention is fully described
and ascertained by the Drawings in the margin of these presents, and the
following description thereof, and is as follows, that is to say :-
I shall first give a full description of what I term my new or improved

page_text: lamp or lantern head, and then proceed to describe my improved street lamp,
observing that the Patent being granted for the head and the lamp separately,
the head may be used with any other lamp having but one burner, and that
these new or improved heads may be applied to different sorts of lamps and
lanterns, for the size and even the form of the head may be infinitely varied
and yet the principle thereof remain the same.
The following is a description of the most useful and common form of these
heads for street lamps. Fig. 1, in the Drawings in the margin hereof, is a
section of a street lamp complete. It consists of the head h, h, d, d, f, f, e, e,
the lamp or burner A, B, and the globe or glass C, C, D. The head and
lamp are of my improved construction and the globe is the same as that in
common use.
The head consists of a cover d, h, h, d, and of a pipe or chimney e, e, which
passes through the centre of the cover and reaches down to within about two
inches of the top of the lamp at i. This pipe or chimney is open at the lower
end and the upper end is covered by a scalloped cap f,f, which allows the smoke
to escape but excludes the wind and rain. The rim d, d, of the cover is
pierced all round with a number of holes for the admission of fresh air; the
air entering at these holes passes between the rim d, d, and the inner rim k, k,
which is fixed to the top of the globe or glass. The inner rim is not quite so
deep as the rim of the cover, and being made to slope inwards allows a free
passage to the circumambient air through the holes in the rim of the cover to
the inside of the globe or glass. In order effectually to exclude rain and wind
these holes are placed lower than the top of the inner rim k, k.
The size of the pipe or chimney e, c, is not very material. In general for
street lamps its length may be about ten inches and the diameter about three
inches; the height of the chimney above the lamp A, B, ought to be deter-
mined by experiment, for it varies with the size of the chimney and the size
of the lamp. A chimney of the above dimensions for a street lamp may be
placed about two inches above the top of the lamp A, B.
Fig. II., in the Drawings of the margin hereof, represents my improved
street lamp, of which A, B, Fig. I., is a section. The same letters refer to
similar parts in both Figures. B is the body of the lamp or reservoir of the
oil; it is made very shallow, about three-fourths of an inch deep, in order that
the oil may be always near the flame and have as little as possible to ascend
up the wick. It is also of some importance that the lamp be made no larger
than to contain a sufficient quantity of oil for each time of burning; I would;
therefore, recommend these lamps to be made of different sizes according to
the different lengths of time they are required to burn. The part A, which

page_text: is one-eighth of an inch deeper than the body of the lamp B, contains the
wick tube; the oil also is poured in at A, the reservoir B being perfectly closed,
excepting where it communicates with A. b, b, is the flat tube to contain
the wick. This tube is made so long as to reach quite to the bottom of the
lamp; and, in order to admit the oil to the wick, the bottom of the wick
tube is cut out as represented in the Figure. This construction of the wick tube
admits of its being made very wide without the wick being liable to slide down
and extinguish the light, a defect frequently met with in lamps having tubes of
the common construction. The width of the wick tube should not be less than
one-sixth of an inch: a wide tube is absolutely necessary to make a lamp burn
well with common oil. By making the wick tube reach to the bottom of the
lamp the oil is warmed and prevented from coagulating, especially that part
of it which immediately surrounds the wick and is in contact with the tube.
The wick tube is soldered or otherwise fixed into a small round plate of tin or
other suitable metal, the edge of which rests upon a shoulder in the inside of A.
In this situation the round metal plate is level with the top of the body B of
the lamp. The wick tube should not project more than one-eighth of an inch
above the round metal plate, in which case the top of the wick tube will be
level with the top of A. If the tube were longer, so as to reach higher above
the oil, the lamp would not burn so long as street lamps are necessarily
required to do.
This lamp is suspended by a wire or wires l, l, in the usual manner of street
lamps, excepting that I take care to suspend or otherwise place it so that the
flame may be right under or in the axis of the cylindrical pipe or chimney e, e;
and this is also to be observed of any other lamp which may be used with the
above described lamp or lantern head.
The proper wick for these lamps is the broad flat wick commonly called
garter or ribbon wick, which I prepare by soaking it in melted tallow, and
afterwards squeezing or pressing out the superfluous grease. Wick, thus pre-
pared, not only burns with a clearer flame but lasts longer, as the incineration
of the wick and formation of crust takes place slower than if the wick were
unprepared. I then cut it into pieces of one quarter of an inch longer than
the wick tube. Those pieces being stiff with the tallow they are easily and
without trouble put in at the top of the wick tubes of my street lamps. I think
it proper
to observe that the wick must be renewed every night.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Eighth
day of September, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred
CHARLES (I.S.) SEWARD.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Eighth day of September, in the
forty-ninth year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Third, the said
Charles Seward came before our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and
acknowledged the instrument aforesaid, and all and every 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 forty-eighth
year of Ilis said Majesty's reign.
Inrolled the Twenty-sixth day of September, One thousand eight hun-
dred and nine.