GB Patent: GB-179,101,822
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| Reciprocating Fire or Steam Engine
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Patentee:
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| Thomas Mead (exact or similar names) - Sculcoates, York County, England |
| Manufacturer: |
| Not known to have been produced |
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Patent Dates:
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| Granted: |
Aug. 12, 1791 |
Espacenet patent
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Joel Havens
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Description: |
| Note: Early English patents were not originally numbered but they were later assigned consecutive numbers that run from GB-#1 of 1617 to #14359 of September 1852. From Oct 1852 until 1916, patents were numbered by the year and started at patent #1 at the start of each year in January. The patent number used in DATAMP represents the year of issue and the patent number. This patent is #1,822 issued in the year 1790.
From a Scientific American edition on "Inventions and Discoveries": "Watt apparently derived his (engine governor) from a practice common in windmill design of the period. In 1787 a British miller, Thomas Mead, had used a similar design of a centrifugal pendulum to regulate the speed of the windmill so that the millstones would not ride up with too high a speed. Originally, similar spinning ball-and-chain systems had been used simply as flywheels in the Renaissance period in some large machines to provide momentum in crank-driven devices to ensure a smooth rotary motion. Mead had adapted the ball-and-chain device not to provide a flywheel function, but to create a means of controlling the speed of the turning millstones. Mead's method had been copied in 1788 at a steam-powered mill built by John Renne in London. In correspondence with his financial backer, Matthew Boulton (1728-1829), Watt learned of the use of the millstone governor at Renne's steam-powered mill in 1788, before Watt adapted it to the steam engine. Watt did not attempt to patent the governor, but for some years he kept its design secret by concealing it." |
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