AN IMPROVED STREET AND HALL LAMP, AND THE NECESSARY APPARATUS FOR EXPEDITING THE TRIMMING, LIGHTING, AND CLEANSING THE SAME
Year: 1809

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ELIZABETU
PERRYMAN, of Greek Street, Soho, in the County of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by His
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-ninth day of
March, in the forty-ninth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said
Elizabeth Perryman, my executors, administrators, and assigns, His especial
licence, sole privilege and authority, during the term of fourteen years therein
mentioned, to use, exercise, and vend, within that part of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland called England, His Dominion of Wales, and
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my therein called Invention of "AN IMPROVED
STREET AND HALL LAMP, AND THE NECESSARY APPARATUS FOR EXPEDITING THE
TRIMMING, LIGHTING, AND CLEANSING THE SAME;" in which said Letters Patent
are contained a proviso obliging me, the said Elizabeth Perryman, by an
instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular descrip-
tion 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 one calendar month next and immediately after the date of the said
recited Letters Patent, by the same, relation being thereunto had, may more
fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Elizabeth Perrymau, do hereby declare
that the nature of my said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to

page_text: be performed, is described and ascertained in the annexed Plans and Drawings,
and the following explanation thereof, that is to say:-
The various attempts to improve the methods of lighting public streets
and buildings arrange themselves into two classes: the first, that in which an
actual addition of light is produced by encreasing the quantity of combustible
matter and the apparatus, as in Argand's lamp and its modifications; the
second, that in which it is attempted to improve the effect of the lamp without
encreasing the quantity of light, by concentrating a certain number of rays by
refraction, and giving them a direction to some particular spot where it is sup-
posed they may be the most useful. The advantages of improvement of the first
class are counterbalanced by the great additional expence, from the encrease
of light being produced only by a proportionably greater consumption of oil or
combustible matter. The gross misapplication of a refracting medium in
those of the second class is, in the lighting of streets and public buildings, self-
evident, for, by the interposition of the lens, the rays it receives are disposed in
cones of dense light which remain in the air of no use for the general purposes
of illumination, or, directing them to particular spots, produces an irregularity
and contrast of light and shade equally disagreeable and inconvenient. These
considerations have induced me to examine the subject with great attention,
and to submit my ideas to practical experiments, of which the herein-after
stated Invention and improvement are the result.
1st, my
said Invention and improvement consists of a method or methods
of producing an encreased and beneficial effect in lamps for lighting public
streets and ways, and large buildings, &c., without encreasing the usual
quantity of combustion, and is founded on 'the principle of saving, economizing,
and using in the most beneficial manner certain considerable quantities of
light, which, in the present construction of 'lamps' now used for the purpose of
lighting streets, &c., are wasted and totally lost to the public, either by being
suffered to illuminate objects which for the general and public purposes of
illumination do not require to be illuminated, as the sides of houses, &c., or
by an injudicious construction of the lamp are absorbed in its head and other
parts; and, secondly, in such improvements and arrangements in the con-
struction and mode of trimming, lighting, and general management, as
effectually prevents much inconvenience and danger to the public, and waste
of time, materials, and expence to the contractors.
The leading features, principles, and advantages of my herein-after stated
Invention are as follows, i. e. :-
1st. The top or upper part of the lamp is formed or composed of a
spherically or other curved reflector, which receiving all those rays of light

page_text: which in the common lamp are absorbed and lost in the head, in the air, and
against the sides of buildings, returns them, by a well-known law of catoptrics,
at the same angle at which they are received, and consequently, according
to the nature, shape, extent, and uniformity of the curve or otherwise, either
distributes this economised and additional quantity of light equably on the
footway and surrounding objects below, or directs it to any spot where local
circumstances may require it. For this purpose, and with this view, I mako
my reflector either a portion of a hollow sphere, of a parabola, or of any
description or sort or shape of curvature which the circumstances of the
case may occasionally require. It may be a flat surface, or composed of a
series of flat surfaces of small extent disposed within any of the before-
mentioned curves, or where the extent of the surface required to be illuminated
requires it, it may even present a convex surface to the light, and it may be
placed either concentric with the light, or exentric, in any required quantity to
it, either with respect to its curve or its extent, i. c., it may form what is
understood by a mixed curve, or one which is not of the samo nature in its
whole extent, as a portion of a large sphere, parabola, &c., in one part,
and of a smaller sphere, &c., in another; and that either according to some
regular or geometrical rule or order, as in a flattened glass, or irregularly, as
in an oyster or cockle shell. It may be made of various materials as will be
herein-after stated. And with a view to lighting the horizontal surface of
public streets and ways, it may be inclined more or less from its horizontal
position, as circumstances may require, confining it to so much inclination as
shall under different circumstances be found the most effectual for lighting the
road, or way, or object, to which the effect of the lamp is applied.
2nd. The the lower part or body of the lamp is made of glass, or other
substance sufficiently transparent to transmit light, and is, as will be hero-
in-after more particularly described, of such a shape as that all its parts shall
stand respectively as near as may be at right angles to, and as little distant
as may be from, those parts of the reflector from which tho rays proceed which
are to pass through it. Much light is thus saved by avoiding the loss
which is occasioned by the reflection from the inner surface of the common
lamp glass. This lower and transparent part of the lamp may and occasionlly
is varied in its shape and dimensions, according to the shape, dimensions, and
other circumstances of the reflector above, so as to accomodate itself to it in
the respect already mentioned. Thus, it may be made of such materials,
shape, and dimensions, and of one entire piece or otherwise, so as in all cases
to conformi itself, in all the requisite particulars already stated, to the shape
and limensions of the reflector; and I declare that I do not claim this idea of

page_text: the conforming shape of the glass with any view to its general application to
otlier lamps and purposes, but only as in combination with the reflector
already described, and the other parts of my lamp herein-after to be described.
3rd. The dish; or receptacle for the oil, being, as will be seen in the
annexed Drawings and their explanatory references, at the lowest part of the
glass, and detached from it, prevents any of the dirt and obstruction which in
tlic common lamp arises from the dripping and spilling of oil from the burner,
and the water from the condensation, and being so constructed as to admit
a free ventilation through or about the lamp; materially promotes combustion,
and prevents that condensation of vapour which obscures the common lamp.
This is and occasionally may be made of shape, dimensions, materials, and
capacity different from that herein described, according to the circumstances
of the shape, dimensions, or materials of the lamp, its lower part taken
seperately, its reflectors seperately, or the reflector and lower part or the
whole lamp taken together. Thus it is and may occasionally be made partly
or wholly of some substance more or less transparent; it may be applied to
the lamp immediately at the lower part, or at a small distance from it, and
may be attached to it by different methods, as springs, screws, bolts, catches,
or any other of the well-known mechanical contrivances for such purposes, as
may best accord with the circumstances to be attended to.
4th. The apparatus for lighting without the aid of a ladder affords a facility
in lighting, by which a great, saving of labour and time produced, and con-
siderable expence, of accidents, of fracture. The plan which I consider the
most simple and effectual is.described by Fig. 4 of the annexed Drawing,
and its corresponding references. It is there a chamber or lantern for con-
taining the light, and a sliding tube for raising the lamp out of the apparatus
for lighting the burners.. Various modifications or alterations may be made in
the construction, figure, or dimentions of this apparatus, at the option of the
constructor, as raising the light-by-the application of a screw working on a
-socket similar to a coach or monkey wrench, or the tubes may be made to
screw together in the middle to render them more portable, or the lamp may
be made to ascend and descend by a line attached to the centre of the lamp,
the upper line leading over a small pulley and led down through or a alongside
the tube. Many other methods of producing this sliding or progressive
motion for the light will in practice suggest themselves to the mechanic, but
none in my opinion so simple of construction or so easy of management as
that herein described.
5th. The apparatus for trimming and cleansing afford similar advantages to
those stated for the lighting apparatus. They are more particularly specified

page_text: and described in Figures 9, 10, and 11, of the annexed Drawing, and their
corresponding references.. And further, I declare that the construction,
arrangement, and dimensions, materials, and methods of management of the
apparatus and its parts, which is herein described, are the result of careful and
practical experiment, and are what I prefer and adopt in practice; neverthe-
less, to prevent any such vexatious infringements as may be made merely by
changes of materials, dimensions, or arrangement, or by making the trans-
parent part of the lamp or the reflector according to curves other than the
varieties I have described, all of which may be done without keeping clear of
my herein-stated general principles, I declare that such variations, or any
such, or fixing those parts of my lamp which are now moveable, or making
moveable those which are now fixed, may occasionally be made with beneficial
effect; and although I think it best in general to fix the body or upper part
or reflector of my lamp to the lamp iron or ring or support now in use, never-
theless, I do occasionally, in cases where (from the form of the lamp iron, its
situation, or other circumstances) it is difficult or impracticable to trim and
light from the bottom, place my reflector into the head of the lamp, or so form
it as that it shall of itself compose a moveable top, and then trim and light
the lamp as at present by taking the top off, &c. And, in cases where
circumstances may require that the shape and construction of the common or
any other variation of a lamp glass without an aperture in the bottom should
be used with my principle of reflection, then I suspend my dish or receptacle
for oil by a wire as usual, or fix it on a pivot; and though in such cases
disadvantages will take place from the lamp in that, state approximating-
to the common lamp, considerable advantages will be had from the saving of
light by the reflector.
My Invention and improvements in trimming and lighting and constructing
lamps herein described are therefore in many cases beneficially applicable to
the lamps in present use, and I therefore furthermore declare that, although
for the general use of a lamp for lighting public streets and ways, &c., I adopt
the construction or constructions herein decribed, I also claim all such applica-
tions of any part or parts of my herein-stated principles or apparatus to other
lamps or contrivances for lighting streets, ways, &c., and all such variations of
the same (as before mentioned) as shall clash or interfere with my general
principles of construction, or any of the herein-stated details of management.
In witness whereof, I, the said Elizabeth Perryman, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, the Twenty-eighth day of April, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and nine.
ELIZABETH PERRYMAN. (L.S.)

page_text: Figure 1 is a vertical section of the lamp. A, A, is the curved reflecting
top made of white glass or any of the transparent glasses, and silvered on the
convex surface by any of the common modes of silvering; or it may be made
of pottery or earthenware, in which the surface can be so rendered as to reflect
the rays of light which fall on it, or of any of the metals, or of any body
capable of receiving a sufficient polish for that purpose. (a), a projection or
neck on which the top B is support; it is of tin or any cheap composition of
metals, and is similar to that of the common lamp, to provide an outlet for the
heat and smoke. (b, b,) is a rim of tin projecting from A, A, and by which it
rests on the ring of the lamp iron (c). After A, A, is thus placed on the
ring, three straps of tin of one or two inches wide are passed under (c) and over
the outside of the top A, A, and fastened to B, B. A section of one of these is
seen at (d, d, d,) in Figure 1. C, C, is of transparent glass, and in shape as
short a gothic curve as can be blown, i. c., the first part of it, or that nearest
the bottom, must be nearly perpendicular as may be, and the remaining or
next part of it as nearly horizontal as may be, so that the direct rays proceed-
ing from the wick shall fall as nearly at right angles as may be to the surface
of the glass, and the same of those rays which are thrown down by reflection
from the top A, A. D, D, is a metal rim in which the glass C, C, is suspend
by having a welt on its lower edge, or is fastened thereto with any of the
usual cements or preparations for that purpose. It is furnished with three or
more hooks or brackets, seen at (d), which receive corresponding pieces pro-
jecting from the bottom of the dish or receptacle for the oil and wicks; below
this, and through its centre, there projects a square tapered or other shaped
tube or chamber F, having at its bottom f one or more valves or shutters
opening inwards. The tube or tubes which hold the wicks are attached to the
dish only at the bottom of it, or by a small prop at a short distance from the
bottom, but they must by no means touch or bave communication with
the edges of the tube (c, e). Without this precaution the capillary action of
the cotton would decant a quantity of the oil from the dish, and which would
run down the sides of the tube F to waste. The outer surface or side of
the reflector may be painted or varnished to defend it from the air and
weather.
Figure 2 is a perspective view of the lamp as it would appear to a spectator
situated a few feet distant from it; and below the level of its lower part it is
seen as suspended or attached to the usual lamp iron, and is without the
dish E, in order to shew more clearly the ring D and the loops (d) by which
the dish E is hold

page_text: Figure 3 is the dish E, with its wicks and oil, seen in perspective from
another point of view, i. c., looking down on it; and in both these Figures
the same letters of reference are placed respectively to the same parts as in
Figure 1.
Figure 4 is a vertical section of an apparatus for lighting the lamp. In
this the upper part A, A, is a cylinder of tin, having fixed at its top a larger
cylinder B, B, with an aperture C at its extremity; within this is the body of
a lamp D communicating with a reservoir F by a tube (e), which passing
through the chaff mortice F allows both lamp and reservoir to be raised or
lowered in the cylinder A, A, at pleasure; and for this to afford the lamp a
steady sliding motion, it is provided with two or more projecting rings fixed to
the cylinder D, D, and working against the inner surface of the cylinder A, A.
These are seen in the Figure at (f) below A, A. The outer cylinder is
continued by a smaller G, G, as is also the lamp D, D.
of G, G, is a chaff mortice (9), which admits a handle or
to H. The continuation of the lamp D to be raised or lowered at pleasure.
The use of this apparatus is thus:-The operator places himself immediately
below the lamp, and holding the upper tube G, G, with the left hand, passes
the end C of the apparatus through the valves (f) in Figure 1, and with tho
right moves the inner tube H upwards by the mortice at (9) until the burning
wick x is in contact with the wick a of the lamp to be lighted. The upper
part B of this apparatus has on one side a window by which the light is
seen, to be kept in order or to light the operator; on the opposite side is a
door for trimming and adjusting the wick, &c., of the lamp D.
Near the lower part
projecting piece fixed
Figure 5 is an instrument to disengage the lamp dish F from the lamp,
to lower it down in order to trim it. It is, as in the Figure, a flat circle
A, A, in the centre of which is a square socket B capable of admitting or
passing over the tube F, and attached to tho end of a stick C of a length
equal to the height of the lamp; the operator directs it so as to receive F,
Figure 1, into the socket, and turning it a little in the reverse direction to
that of the hooks (d), Figure 1 and 2, releases it from them; and it is then
detached from the lamp, and resting firmly on the circle may be lowered to
the operation of the trimmer. A stand or support is made for this instrument,
so that the trimmer shall have the opportunity to use both hands in trimming;
thus, a tube is inserted in a vertical direction in any convenient part of the
trimming pot, and of a size to receive the end of the stick C. The trimming
pot is set on the ground, and the stick C placed in the tube.
Figure 6 is an apparatus to lower the lamp with, and to light it without
carrying a burner or open light, and for replacing it in the lamp without risk

page_text: of its being accidently extinguished. This Figure is a vertical section, in
which the dish of the lamp is seen in the socket of a tube similar to that at
Figure 4. It has a sliding motion in an outer tube, as in Figure 4, on the
upper part of the larger tube A, A, furnished with valves or shutters B, B,
képt shut by the springs C, C, and are therefore opened only by the upward.
pressure of the inner sliding tube and lamp. The upper edge of this (D), D,)
is first brought into contact with the ring D, D, of the lamp, Figure 1 and 2;
the inner sliding tube, with the remaining socket, is now thrust up to the
proper height, opening the valves B; B, in its passage; the lower projection
of the lamp is received in it; it is turned round, and the dish is disengaged
from the lamp; the sliding tube is now lowered until the dish has passed the
valve B, which shuts by the action of the springs C, C, and secures the lamp
from injury by weather; the whole apparatus is now withdrawn from the
lamp, and the lighting or fire pot seen in Figure 7 is turned down so as to
bring its lighted wick into contact with the prepared wick of the dish; when
lighted, it is of course replaced in the lamp by inverting the order of the
same process.
:
Figure 7 is a vertical section of the upper part of the apparatus in the cross
direction, to shew the situation and action of the fire pot. The action is
shewn by the dotted representation of it.
Figure 8 is an horizontal section or bird's-eye view of the upper part of the,
apparatus, in which also the action of the fire pot is seen by a dotted repre-
sentation of it: The same letters of reference are in these three Figures set
to the same parts respectively. .
.
Figure 9, a view of the scissars and guards as they appear when opened.
A, the under guard of the scissars, is placed on a rest fixed on the spout, the
wick of the lamp standing within the guard, and by closing the scissars tho
wicks are cut with the greatest accuracy. B, the uppe guard, is placed
merely to prevent the possibility of cutting with or using the wrong side of the
scissars.
Figure 10 is a vertical section of an apparatus for cleansing the inner
surface of the lamp. A is a case or bag, of sheep skin or other suitable mate-
rial, fixed to a block of wood at the top of the hollow tube B. C, a small spiral
spring to keep up the upper part of the bag into the lamp before it is inflated.
D, d, a cock and mouthpiece by which the operator fills the bag with air after
it is introduced into the lamp, and thus presses its outer surface into contact
with the inner surface of the lamp, so that the lamp may be cleaned by
turning the bag round. The cock D being turned off allows the air by which
the bag was distended to pass out, and it may then be withdrawn.

page_text: Figure 11 is a vertical section of another apparatus for the same purpose as
Figure 10, and of nearly the same construction, except that the bag is
distended by spiral springs withinside; to the farthest extremity of each
spring is fastened a string or wire, by straining which the bag collapses and
may be introduced into the lamp, and then suffered to distend itself with the
springs by releasing the strings or wires which held them. The apparatus
necessary to clean the outer surface of the lamp may be a piece of skin or
hemp or other suitable material fixed against a hollow stock suited in shapo
and dimensions to the curvature and circumstances of the outer surface.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Twenty-eighth day of
April, in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid Elizabeth Perrymam came
before our Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specifica-
tion aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained, in form above written.
And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of
the Statute in that caso made and provided.
Inrolled the same Twenty-eighth day of April, in the year above written.