IMPROVE- MENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HORSE-SHOES."
Year: 1860

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Alexander Southwood Stocker, of Clifton, in the
County of Gloucester, Manufacturer, for the Invention of "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HORSE-SHOES."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Alexander Southwood
Stocker at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 31st August 1860.
I, ALEXANDER SOUTHWOOD STOCKER, of Clifton, in the County of Gloucester,
Manufacturer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "Iм-
PROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HORSE-SHOES," to be as follows:-
I use, instead of the ordinary wrought iron now used for the purpose, a
combination of iron & steel iron, "blister," or other steel, the two metals
being placed together in the "piling" before passing through the rolls, which
reduce the "pile" or "billet" to the bar required for the shoe. The steel
or steel iron may be inserted alternately with the iron, so as to produce
"ribs," "lines," or "layers" of steel or steel iron, or it may be placed on one
side only, so as to give a steel or steel iron surface to the under or wearing.

page_text: side of the shoe, or the steel iron may be used & applied in its entire or
seperate state. The shoes may be afterwards hardened or not, as the case
may require.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Alexander Southwood Stocker in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 28th February 1861.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ALEXANDER
SOUTHWOOD STOCKER, of Clifton, in the County of Gloucester, Manufacturer,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Thirty-first day of August, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty, in the twenty-fifth year of Her reign,
did for Herself,-Her- heirs-and successors, give and grant, unto me,..the said
Alexander Southwood Stocker, Her special licence that I, the said Alexander
Southwood Stocker, my executors, administrators, and assigns; or such others
as I, the said Alexander Southwood Stocker, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time
and at all. times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and
lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HORSE-SHOES," upon
the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Alexander Southwood
Stocker, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under
my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly describe
and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same
was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent
Office within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the
said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Alexander Southwood Stocker, do
hereby declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by
the following statement, that is to say :-
My said Invention relates to an improved mode or method of manufacturing
horse-shoes, and consists in the employment for that purpose of a combination
of (part only) ordinary wrought iron and part steel iron piled, faggotted,

page_text: welded, and rolled together in the same bar, and disposed in any desirable
form and proportions, so as to make a solid bar which shall combine not only.
such hardness as will enable the shoes made from it to bear a much larger
amount of wear and tear than those ordinarily made, but also such a degree
of toughness and fibre as will prevent them breaking; or, I employ for the
same purpose steel iron only, which I have found to possess a singular amount
of toughness and hardness combined in the same material.
The process by which I manufacture the bars already referred to, and out'
of which I make horse-shoes, is very simple (viz.), I take one or more bars
of ordinary wrought iron of convenient dimensions, and lay upon them one or
more bars of steel iron of similar or other suitable dimensions, forming a con-
venient pile, the upper part of which consists of steel iron, and the lower part
ordinary wrought iron, or vice versa. I then place the pile of differently con-
stituted metals in an ordinary heating furnace, and when it has attained a
suitable welding heat, I take it from thence and pass it through the rolls, and
roll it into a bar of dimensions and form suitable for the size and kind of
horse-shoes intended to be produced; or I form the pile of alternate layers of
steel iron and iron in any desirable number or proportions, or of bars or layers
of steel iron and iron placed or piled in any convenient and desirable position
and proportion, and roll it into a bar of the size and shape required; or I take
billets, piles, slabs, or other convenient pieces and forms of steel iron only,
and heat and roll them into bars in like manner to those combined of steel
iron and iron. And in order to render the manufacture of shoes made out of
bars according with my Invention to be more economical and considerably less
laborious, I cause some of the bars to be thickened at places agreeing with the
toes or heels, or toes and heels of the shoes, and some to be seated, also shaped
of other different and desirable sections, configurations, and patterns, which I
accomplish by cutting, sinking, and shaping the surface or surfaces of the rolls
in such manner as will give the bars the figures required to produce the kind
of shoes intended to be made.
I use the ordinary rolling mills now in common use for rolling the bars, and
complete the formation of the shoes by any present methods also well known.
I would observe in using the term steel iron, I intend to describe the metal
known commercially by that name, also equally well known by the name of
puddled steel.
I have described the best manner I am acquainted with of carrying out
the Invention secured to me by the herein-before in part recited Letters
Patent, but I do not confine myself to the precise details herein set forth, for

page_text: it may be varied in any convenient manner, so that I do not depart from my
Invention as herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Alexander Southwood Stocker, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-seventh day of February,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-one.