AN IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR WORKING OF PUMPS
Year: 1803

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, EDWARD
SHORTER, of New Crane, Wapping, in the County of Middlesex, Mechanic,
send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
Ilis Letters Patent under the Great Seal of His United Kingdom, bearing
date at Westminster, the Twenty-first day of March, in the forty-third year of
His reign, give and grant unto me, the said Edward Shorter, His especial
licence, that I, the said Edward Shorter, during the term of years therein
mentioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within
England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "AN
IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR WORKING OF PUMPS;" in which said Letters Patent
there is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said Edward Shorter, by an
instrument in writing under my land and seal, to cause a particular description
of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within two
calendar months after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, 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, T, the said
Edward Shorter, do hereby declare that my said Invention is described in
manner following (that is to say) :-
I fix at the stern or after part of any ship or vessel an arbor or axis nearly.
parallel to the horizon, and in a fore and aft direction, so that one of its

page_text: extremities may be within board, and the other, viz., the aftermost extremity,
shall either be without board, or so placed as to admit of the fixing of the
external apparatus herein-after to be described, and intended to produce a rota-
tory motion in the said arbor or axis, by means of which the pump or pumps of
any description whatever may be worked; a connection being made between
the said arbor or axis and the pump or pumps by any of the well-known
methods. The rotatory motion is produced by a piece of mechanism which I call
the fly, and which is drawn through the water by the motion of the ship, and is
made to move round by the reaction of that fluid; or otherwise, in case the ship
be at anchor in a current or stream, the direction of the water produces the
same effect. The said fly is made of wood or any other suitable material, and
may be constructed after the manner of the sails of a windmill or smoke jack,
or of any other form that small present oblique surfaces to the relative action of
the fluid so as to cause it to revolve upon the principle of those machines.
The said fly is connected with the aftermost end of the horizontal axis last
described by means of a spar, or chain of metallic rods, or a rope, and flexibility
is given to those parts of the last-described gear wherever it may be necessary,
by the interposition of shackles, chain links, universal joints, or any other well-
known contrivance which shall not prevent the due communication of the rota-
tory motion. And farther, I do observe and declare that my said apparatus
may also be used to work the pumps of ships and other vessels as aforesaid, by
exposing a fly of proper dimensions to the action of the wind, instead of water
as herein-before described, and with such variations in the structure as the case
may naturally require. The nature and construction of the pumps, and their
size and number, together with various other circumstances, will necessary
require suitable changes in the subordinate parts by which the whole effect is
to be produced. I have made Drawings, as above, of some of the forms and
methods by which my said Invention may be carried into effect, and after the
consideration of which, it will be easy for any competent workman to apply
the same to use under any other circumstances.
Fig. 1 is a single pump, shewing how the crank and pump gear may be
fixed. Fig. 2, a drawing of two pumps, work'd by one crank. Fig. 3 shows
in what manner the said apparatus may be applied to the spindle or axis of
the main pumps. Fig. 4, a multiplying power, which may be used occasionally
to regulate the motion of the pumps. Fig. 5, the fly, connected with a spar,
which may be used instead of a rope. Fig. 6 showeth the said fly dissected.
Fig. 7, a crank, so constructed that by shifting the leverage a long or short
stroke may be had in the pumps. Fig. 8 is the stern of a vessel, with a spindle

page_text: fixed to shew how the spar is connected with the universal joint. Fig. 9 and
10 is a chain and connecting rod.
In witness whereof, I, the said Edward Shorter, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and three.
EP SHORTER. (L.S.)
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-first day of May, in
the forty-third year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Third, the
said Edward Shorter came before our said Lord the King in His Chancery,
and acknowledged the instrument aforesaid, and all and every thing therein
contained and specified, in form above written. And also the instrument
aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the several Statutes made in
the sixth year of the reign of the late King and Queen William and Mary of
England, and so forth, and in the seventeenth, twenty-third, and thirty-seventh
years of the reign of His Majesty King George the Third.
Inrolled the Twenty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and three