IMPROVEMENTS IN PUMPS
Year: 1856

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to George Tomlinson Bousfield, of Sussex Place,
Loughborough Road, in the County of Surry, for the Invention of
TunDYDD " A communication
Sealed the 30th September 1856, and dated the 15th July 1856..
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said George Tomlinson Bousfield
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
15th July 1856.
I, GEORGE TOMLINSON BOUSFIELD, of Sussex Place, Loughborough Road,
in the County of Surry, do hereby declare the nature of the Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN PUMPS," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists in using two buckets in the same or different barrels,
in combination with two spiral cams, so arranged that each one lifts one of
the buckets for more than half its revolution with a perfectly uniform ascend-
ing motion, while at the same time the other bucket is descending with a more
rapid motion, and consequently reaches the lower end of the stroke, and begins
to ascend before the other bucket has reached its extreme height; the con-
sequence is a perfect equable flow of water in a reciprocating pump.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said George Tomlinson Bousfield in the Great Seal Patent Office
ou the 14th January 1857.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, GEORGE
TOMLINSON BOUSFIELD, of Sussex Place, Loughborough Road, in the County
of Surry, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Fifteenth day of July, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, in the twentieth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
George Tomlinson Bousfield, Her special licence that I, the said George
Tomlinson Bousfield, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said George Tomlinson Bousfield, 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 PUMPS," a communication, upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said George Tomlinson Bousfield, my executors or adminis-
trators, 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 George Tomlinson Bousfield, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is
to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement thereof, that is to say:-
This Invention consists in using two buckets in the same or different barrels,
in combination with two spiral cams, so arranged that each one lifts one of the
buckets for more than half its revolution with a perfectly uniform ascending
motion, while at the same time the other bucket is descending with a more
rapid motion, and consequently reaches the lower end of the stroke, and begins
to ascend before the other bucket has reached it extreme height; the con-
sequence is a perfectly equable flow of water in a reciprocating pump.
A problem which has occupied much of the attention of engineers is that of the
conversion of the rotary motion of the shafts of steam engines or water wheels
into the progressive motion of a rising column of water, without any loss of

page_text: power by irregular motion, or any shock or concussion to the pumps-or-the
water; but until this Invention it never has been solved. The difficulties
which have prevented this result are either the irregular motion of the pump
buckets or plungers, whereby the speed of the column of water is constantly
varied, or the total cessation of motion at the termination of each stroke of
the water through the pump, whereby the momentum of the column is
diminished or lost, requiring an expenditure of power to restore it, generally
resulting in a slamming of the valves, and a concussion to the whole me-
chanism, or both of these causes combined. These difficulties have been
found so great up to the time of this Invention tliat a simple-acting Cornish
engine without a crank is very generally preferred, on the score of economy
of fuel, to any combination of a reciprocating steam engine, having a rotatory
shaft with reciprocating pumps; although it is well established that a higher
duty can be obtained from a given amount of fuel by the use of a reciprocating
rotating engine than by a Cornish engine for any other purpose than lifting
water.
This Invention consists in imparting to the column of water, put in motion
by the buckets of a reciprocating pump, a perfectly' uniform and constant
motion, requring no aid from an air vessel or other analogous device beretofore
resorted to, in order to obtain uniformity. Two buckets only are necessary to
accomplish the result. The motion is transferred from a rotary shaft to the
buckets by a cam, whose shape is such that it lifts the bucket upon which it is
acting with a uniform speed. A true spiral is the proper shape of the rotating
cam, in order to produce a uniform lift, but this is only true when the bucket
is suspended by a narrow edge of metal, under which the perimeter of the cam
slides, but when the bucket is suspended to the journals of a roller, which it
always ought to be, to save friction; the true spiral form of the cam is some-
what modified by the size of the roller, and, therefore, in laying down the
shape of the cam for the pattern maker, the true spiral line should be first
laid down at as much greater a distance from the centre of the cam shaft than
the perimeter of the cam is to be as the radius of the roller designed to be
used, and the true perimeter of the cain will then be ascertained by, measuring
inward from that line a distance equal to the radius of the roller. The true
spiral which is to lift the bucket should be carried a little further than half the
revolution of the cam, and then the curve should be modified, gradually:
approaching a circle, and then gradually reflected inward, so as to permit the
roller to descend to the starting point upon a reversed spiral, which occupies
less than half the perimeter of the cam. By applying such a cam, as described,
to the bucket of an ordinary lifting pump, it is evident that it would lift the

page_text: water in that pump with uniform velocity for more than half its revolution,
but for the remainder of the revolution the bucket would either be rising with
a diminished speed or be descending, and the water in the pump would cease
to rise, or in other words, the motion would be uniform as long as it continued,
but it would not be constant. A constant as well as a uniform velocity, how-
ever, is necessary, and that is obtained by combining two buckets in one pump,
each driven by a spiral cam, such as described, and so arranged that the
column of water shall pass through both in succession. The effect of this
combination is, that the water, which the lower of the two buckets is driving
with uniform speed, is passing through the upper one which is descending to
renew its stroke, and whose valves are therefore open, and before the lower
bucket ceases to drive the water, the upper one has descended, commenced its
ascent, and has overtaken the current in which it moves, so that its valves are
closed, and it is moving upward at the uniform speed designed, and dividing
the load with the lower bucket; the speed of the lower bucket is then gradually
diminished as the modified end of the spiral curve passes under the roller
which sustains it, and the entire load of the column is insensibly transferred
from the lower to the upper bucket without causing the least variation in the
speed of the column of water, or in the power required to drive it, or the least
slam or jar in the valves, whose opening and closing is made as gradual as
desired by gradually compounding the curves on the cam which connects the
spirals of ascent and descent.
The accompanying Drawings exhibit two of the forms in which the Inven-
tion is embodied, but these may be varied without changing the principle of
action, so long as two moving buckets are used, deriving a uniform and constant
motion through a rotating shaft and uniform lifting cams, and so arranged
that each one will start to lift the water passing through both in succession,
at or before the instant when the other ceases to lift it.
: Plate 1, Figure 1, represents a pump in action. A, A, are the two revolving
cams constructed to lift the buckets C, C, by means of the rollers B, B. The
lower bucket, which is descending with its valves open, is operated by a piston
rod, which passes through the hollow piston rod of the upper bucket which is
rising and driving the water. The atmospheric pressure drives the water
through the lower bucket and keeps it in contact with the lower side of the
upper one.
The cams are fixed upon the shafts with their corresponding
points opposite each other diametrically, and the shaft is rotated by a steam
engine, or water wheel, or other power.
Plate 2 exhibits the same Invention in another form. In place of working
the two buckets in the same cylinder or barrel, the one above the other, they

page_text: are worked in two cylinders set parallel with each other, which together con-
stitute one pump, and which are connected by means of the chest P, whose
only office it is to convey the water which has already passed through the first
section of the pump G to its second section H.
Figure 4 is an elevation of Figure 3, shewing its end view, and exhibiting
the manner in which the cams may be supported and driven, the drum I.
serving as a pulley for a belt at the same time that its ends contain the cams
for driving the buckets of the pump.
Figure 5 shows the cams A, A, and the rollers B, B. When the pump is
divided into two sections, as in Plate 2, and for the sake of compactness, the
bottom of one is placed lower than the top of the other, an escape cock for
air should be placed in the bonnet of the first section, so as to permit the
air to escape from between the buckets. And in order to pass the water
through the pump. with the greatest possible facility, side pipes may be.
added, having valves opening upward, through which a part of the water
might pass upward-around the descending buckets, while the main column
continued to pass through them, or the whole column might pass through.
the side pipes, making the buckets without valves, which would be in effect
the same thing as passing it through the buckets themselves, as it would be
only another arrangement of valve for transferring the water from their lower:
to their upper sides, in order that they may lift it after it is so transferred.
But it is better to make the pumps large enough, and to move them slowly
enough to need no aid from such auxiliaries; and the calculation for deter-
mining the size of the pump for any given case, ought to assume a speed of
not more than a second through the pump itself.
It will be obvious from the foregoing description, that while absolute perfection
in the constancy and uniformity of the motion of the water can only be had by
the use of buckets which shall lift with uniform velocity, yet that slight variations
may be made without materially affecting the operation, and that one cam may
be used to drive both buckets, by applying the two rollers to opposite points
on its perimeter, and that the prime rotary motion may be converted into the
described and desirable reciprocating motion of the buckets by the intervention
of elliptical gearing, producing the same uniform motion in the water as the
spiral cam does, or by helical cams or tilting discs, producing uniform motion
without changing the mode of operation; and while two buckets have the
capacity, when combined in the manner described, to produce absolute and
mathematically perfect uniformity and constancy of motion, it is manifest that
three or more might be used, dividing the work and the motion equally among
them, without changing the principle of the Invention, and without making the

page_text: machine much worse. It is also apparent, that if two separate lifting pumps
were used, delivering into a common main, a very good. result might be
obtained by combining their buckets with two cams, which should lift them
with uniform speed, and at the same time be so arranged as to lead each other,
so that one would begin to lift before the other ceased its motion, which
arrangement would. embody so much of the Invention as is contained in the
lead or lap of the cams upon each other when combined with the buckets of
pumps. And it is also apparent, that where the column of water passes through
both buckets in succession, and is therefore not required to stop in any of its
length, the lead of the cams may be taken off.
It is not intended to claim either double bucket, pumps; or the use of cams
for driving pumps, as both of these things are old. But what is claimed is,-
First, two buckets working in pump barrels, so arranged that the column
to be raised passes through both in succession, in combination with spiral
cams or their equivalents, so arranged as to move the said buckets with
uniform velocity, and to maintain practically a uniform and constant lifting
action upon the water, substantially in the manner described.
Secondly, imparting to the column. of water, by means of a reciprocating
pump, a constant and uniform flow through the ascending main, substantially
as herein described.
In witness whereof, I, the said George Tomlinson Bousfield, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Thirtieth day of December; in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-six.
GEO.. T. BOUSFIELD. (L.S.)
Witness,
W. S. HARRISON,
New Court, St. Swithin's Lane, City.