A NEW METHOD OF CASTING AND BORING IRON GUNS OR CANNON
Year: 1774

page_text: то ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME,
JOHN WILKINSON. of Brosely, in the County of Salop, Iron Master,
sends greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of. Great Britain, bearing
date at Westminster, the Twenty-seventh day of January, in the
fourteenth year of His said Majesty's reign, reciting that he, the said
John Wilkinson, had, by great study and application, and by trying
various and repeated experiments, invented, contrived, found out, and
discovered "A NEW METHOD OF CASTING AND BORING IRON GUNS OR CANNON,"
which he had proved upon repeated tryals to be a great improvement,
and will be of publick utility and safety, His said Majesty did there-
fore give and grant unto the said John Wilkinson, his executors,
administrators, and assigns, His especial license, full power, sole privi-
ledge and authority, that he, the said John Wilkinson, his executors,
administrators, and assigns, during the term of fourteen years therein
expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend

page_text: bis said Invention within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick
upon Tweed; in which said in part recited Letters Patent there is
contained a proviso, obliging the said John Wilkinson, by writing
under his hand and seal, to describe and ascertain the nature of his
said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within four
calendar months next after the date of the said Letters Patent, as in
and by the said in part recited Letters of Patent, relation being
thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in obedience to and compliance with the
said proviso, the said John Wilkinson doth hereby describe and
ascertain the nature of his said Invention, and the manner in which the
work is to be thereby performed, as follows (that is to say):
The said iron guns or cannon are cast in a mould without any
nowell or core whatever, whereby they are made perfectly solid and
intirely free from any cavity. In the boring of them they are placed
upon a carriage or fraine, on which the gun or cannon is turned round,
either vertically or horizontally, by a whecl moved by water or by the
application of a fire engine. In either of those positions, the gun or
cannon turning round, it is pierced by drills of various sizes, according
to the nature and dimensions of the gun or cannon, until the bore or
calibre thus formed out of the said solid metal is wide enough to
admit a boring barr with cutters or knives, in the usual manner, by
which the gun or cannon is finished.
. In witness whereof, the said John Wilkinson; hath hereunto set
his hand and seal, this Twenty-third day of March, in the year
of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and seventy-four.
JOHN (L.s.) WILKINSON.
Sealed and delivered, being first duly.
stampt, in the presence of
THO" LACEY.:
Si

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-third day of
March, in the year of Lord 1774, the aforesaid John Wilkinson
came before our said Lord the King, in His Chancery, and acknow-
ledged the Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein
5 contained and specified, in form above written. And also the Specifi-
cation aforesaid was stampt according to the tenor of the Statute
made in the sixth year of the reign of the late King and Queen
William and Mary of England, and so forth.
Inrolled the Twenty-third day of March, in the year of our Lord