| Description | 10 horse power sun & planet engine, with 26 inch cylinder, 6 foot stroke, parallel motion.
Includes working gear, Jun. 1785, marked "for the engine at the King & Queen Forge Engine Rotherif Foundry Rotherhithe"; working gear Jul. 1785; connecting rod; parallel motion marked "Saddle plate same as Mr. Whitbread's", sheet of calculations for "Mr. Allingham's motion"; nozzles (partly coloured); condenser; saddle plate for outer end of beam; wheels, marked "The Great Wheel to be cast from Albion Mill pattern". All the engine drawings are reverse copies.
Also includes "reverse sketch of Mr. Allingham's premises etc. Mar. 1785" - this sketch clearly shows part of the King & Queen Foundry and has rough pencil sketches for a tilt hammer on the reverse; James Cooper's plans and sections of a tilt hammer; two detailed ground plans of King & Queen Foundry, undated; 4 plans and sections of rolling mill apparatus, Nov. 1787 - 3 are reverse copies, 2 are marked "Found in Gardner Manser & Co."; undated memorandum about a rolling mill engine with a 34 inch cylinder, 8 foot stroke.
Original Portfolio or 'Book' No. 65. Catalogue of Old Engines p. 4, 20.
For Folliot Scott & Co., King & Queen Foundry, Rotherhithe, London. Forge engine. This engine developed out of the second engine projected for Thomas Allingham. Allingham ordered an engine circa Feb. 1785, for his original premises. On 29 Mar. 1785 he wrote to Watt saying that he had moved to the King & Queen Foundry, and he hoped that Boulton & Watt were getting on with his engine. However this engine as originally conceived was not powerful enough for the new site, and James Watt's letter to Allingham of 30 May 1785 makes it clear that the cylinder size was increased to 26 inches. The drawings date from Mar. 1785 or after, when Allingham had moved to the King & Queen Foundry and the plans for the engine were being changed. Therefore some of the drawings may not show details of the engine as finally built, as it was still under construction in Aug. 1785.
Allingham appears to have gone into business with Folliot Scott & Co. when he moved to the King & Queen Foundry. However Allingham's financial affairs proved troublesome. On 17 May 1785 the millwright James Cooper told Watt that he had heard Allingham was not to be relied upon, but he had had a good reference from a banker about Scott. On 16 Jul. 1785 Scott & Co. told Boulton & Watt the details of their new business, but said they could not properly acknowledge Allingham until his affairs were settled. On 7 Mar. 1786 Scott & Co. described him as their "sole engineer."
King & Queen Foundry was taken over by Gardner Manser & Co. circa 1789. They stopped this engine in Apr. 1790 and it was sold to John and William Wilson of Wilsontown, Lanark, where it powered a forge. A new book, No. 128, was opened for drawings made for the Wilsons - this is now Portfolio 5/539.
See also: Portfolios 5/55, 5/243, 5/539, Incoming Correspondence. |