A NEW METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING CHIMNEYS, AND OF SUPPLYING FIRES WITH FUEL
Year: 1816

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I JOSEPHI
GREGSON, of Charles Street, Grosvenor Square, in the County of Middlesex,
Surveyor, 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 First day of November, in the
fifty-seventh year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said Joseph
Gregson, my exors, adiñors, and assigns, His special licence, full power, sole
privilege and authority, that I, the said Joseph Gregson, my exors, admors,
and assigns, should and lawfully might, during the term of years therein men-
tioned, make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of
Berwick upon Tweed, my Invention of "A NEW METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING CHIMNEYS,
AND OF SUPPLYING FIRES WITH FUEL;" in which said Letters Patent there is con-
tained a proviso that if I, the said Joseph Gregson, shall not particularly describe
and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, and 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 Letters
Patent, that then the said Letters Patent, and all liberties and advantages
whatsoever thereby granted, shall utterly cease, determine, and become void, as
in and by the same, relation being thereunto had, may more fully and at large
ADDear.

page_text: NOW KNOW. YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Joseph Gregson, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, is described and ascertained
in the following explanation thereof with reference to the Drawings hereunto
annexed:-
By the common and ordinary mode of constructing chimneys the smoke
ascends immediately from the fire into the chimney. Now instead of that direct
communication, I do, with bricks and mortar, iron, or other materials used for
chimneys, before the grate is introduced into the fire-place), begin the basement
of the chimney from the hearth, from whence I continue it in a perpendicular
direction, if practicable, to the top of the building, as at A, Figure 1, in the plan
hereunto annexed, but in that side of the chimney next to which the grate will
stand I leave a space or cavity proportioned to the size of the fire, or equal to
the width of the grate, and about four inches deep, marked B in the said plan,
and of the same distance from the chimney's basement as the bottom of the
grate may happen to be from the hearth, which space or cavity is the only one
I make for receiving such unconsumed smoke as may issue from the fire.
Having so constructed the chimney, in which no particular dimension or size is
requisite, I then place [the grate in the fire-place, which I do not fix quite close to
the chimney, but place it so as to] leave a space marked Cin the plan between its
back (which I shall call the back plate, marked D in the plan) and the front of
the chimney before described. The grate which I so set in the firc-place may be
made of the same materials of which grates aro usually made, and according to
any form or pattern which fancy prescribes, so that in the part which I call the
back plate there be left at the bottom of it an aperture of the width of the bottom
of the grate and of about two inches in depth, and so that such grate be made
with such projection at the sides, top, and bottom, before, and behind the said back
plate, as will when enclosed form a flue or chimney to convey the smoke from the
top of the fire round the boiler, and descend behind the back plate, where it mixes
with the heated air coming from the bottom aperture of the back plate, and is then
discharged into the chimney, but in grates not having a boiler over them that
circuitous rout will be avoided by the smoke immediately ascending, and then
descending over the back plate, and so into the chimney. And in further
explanation of my said Invention, the novelty of which embraces not only the
construction of the said chimney, so as to make the smoke descend and pass
through the heated air, and so consume itself as before particularized, but also
the mode herein-after described of introducing atmospheric air to assist the
draft of the fire, 1 do hereby declare that I erect with any materials that arc
fit an air shaft, marked Z in the plan, Figure 1, in a direction perpendicular, if

page_text: possible, from the basement of the hearth to the house top, and on either side
of but to run parallel with the chimney, unless it happens there should be an
external wall near to and at the back part of the hearth or fire-place, in which
case I terminate it in the nearest convenient part thereof, as at Y in the plan
and in order to effect a communication between such air shaft and the fire, as
well as to observe uniformity, I make apertures in the hearth stone, marked X
in the plan, at the foot of each of the jambs or piers of the fire-place, and carry
the air shaft underneath the floor or hearth stone, as at I in the plan, till it is
connected with both the said apertures, and I make the dimensions of the
said apertures in all cases to correspond with the dimensions of the aper-
ture B in the chimney and the said air shaft to encrease gradually in dimen-
sion from the said aperture X until it goes to the top; and to increase or
diminish at pleasure, as well as equally distribute the air which will be so
admitted by such air shaft, valves or dampers capp'd with fret-work may be
placed over such apertures, which by means of turning a screw or handle will
have such regulating effect accordingly. And I further declare that my mode
of supplying fires with fuel (which applies principally to furnaces and other
large fires) is as follows: presuming that the bars of a furnace in which a fire
is to be made to extend three feet wide, I place it at its front or mouth, twelve
inches higher than the grating a bed plate marked E, Figure 1, in the Drawing
hereunto annexed, of the following dimensions, namely, three feet in the clear
between the brickwork from side to side, and eighteen inches from front to
back, and three quarters of an inch thick at least, and I make the said bed
plate to rest its sides in and upon brickwork, as at H in the plan, Figure 1, to
be raised and carried a sufficient length and heighth further than the fire's
mouth, so as to be capable of supporting the same, and to fill up the under
space of twelve inches left between the said bed plate and the grating. I
make a door of iron, marked F in the plan, Figure 1, to open and shut in the
usual way, the only purpose of which door, however, is to facilitate the making
and raking of the fire. On such bed plate I make a rail, which I call a
sliding rail, with a shelf, both which rail and shelf, marked K in the plan,
Figure 1, are rivited together, and are three feet from end to end; the rail is
five inches high, standing nearly in a perpendicular direction, and the shelf
is seven inches wide, but laid in an horizontal direction, or parallel with the
bed plate, and I attach such rail by screws, bolts, and rivets to the nearest
centre of a double eliptic spring, as at L, Figure 2, in the plan, the other centre
M in the plan being fastened to a block, which is made stationary by the
frame work constructed as herein-after mentioned. At about the distance of
nine inches higher than the shelf I place a box, marked in the plan P, Figure 1,
.

page_text: open at the top side, the dimensions of which are three feet wide, four feet
long, and twelve inches deep, the sides and bottom of which box nearest tho
fire to project twelve inches further than the divisional end marked N in the
plan, Figure 3, and such projection to be of the circular form as shewn in the
plan, Figure 3, at the bottom of which last-mentioned end are left holes about
five inches square, and three inches from each other, with projecting inner
starlings, to prevent the holes being choaked, as at the letter O, in the plan,
Figure 4. I then.cause the said coal box to be suspended by its extreme end
nearest the fire on a pivot or axle, whose ends rest upon and are received into
iron thimbles fixed in the wall for the purpose, the contrary or back end of the
said coal box resting upon the notches of the spiral wheel herein-after described,
and marked in the plan Q, Figure 1; and as to the vacancy occasioned by the
placing of the said coal box nine inches higher than the sliding shelf, I fill up
the same by a piece of cast iron, marked R, which I firmly fix at each end in
the brickwork, at the bottom of which is placed a brush to brush the small
coals from the sliding shelf, and which brickwork or other materials encom-
passing the fire, it must be remembered, must be arched over from the point or
place marked S to the point or place marked T, both in the same Figure 1,
and also enclosed at the sides thereof, so as to leave no other space either in
the top, bottom, or sides than what will be sufficient for the motion of such
coal box and sliding shelf, and for the falling of the coals. The notches spiral
wheel marked Q moves on an axis resting on any substantial frame-work
made of wood or iron sufficient to support it, and from the top of which frame-
work, as at U, Figure 1, in the plan, I suspend by an iron pivot and thimble 'a
louble lever with a cross bearing piece marked V, which also rests upon and is
moved by such notches of the said spiral wheel marked Q, both the bottom
ends of which lever are attached to the sliding shelf by an iron rod, chain, or
rope marked W in the plan, and at such places in the said sliding shelf as will
not bear more on one side than another, and the notches of which spiral wheel
are of such form and dimensions as are particularly delineated in and expressed
by the said plan concerning the same. The effect of which machinery (no part
of which is novel except the sliding shelf, bed plate, and coal box,) is that when
the wheel marked Q, Figure 1, is .set in motion by hand or machinery its
notches will, at the same moment any one of them elevates the hind part of
the box P in the plan, (by which elevation coals deposited therein will natu-
rally fall and lodge on the shelf of the sliding rail marked K), force back the said
lever, to which the sliding shelf is attached by the iron ron, chain, or rope before
mentioned, and consequently draw back the said sliding shelf and rail, which
when released by the said notch will be propelled by the said eliptic.spring

page_text: marked G in such manner as that its force will cast from the said bed plate
marked E into and equally upon the fire all the coals which are there laying
within the operative effect of such propelsion. And I declare that the said
coal box, sliding rail, and shelf, springs, and other matters lastly explained by
this my Specification may be made of iron, steel, wood, or other materials
fitting to the purposes for which the same are to be used, and that the said
construction of chimneys, and also the mode of supplying fires with fuel are
applicable to and may be adopted as well in dwelling-houses as in manufac-
torics and places where the use of furnaces and other large fires is required
and although I have herein expressed the particular dimensions of constructing
my said Invention, yet I do not confine myself thereto, as such dimensions will
in the application of my Invention be occasionally varied by local and other
circumstances.
In witness whercof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this thirty-first
day of December, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred