In this pair of [diagrams], which are copied from the catalogue of Ormerod, Grierson & Co., the low steam pressure, 29 pounds above the atmosphere, will be observed. This was about the pressure commonly carried. The pressure in the exhibition boilers, 75 pounds, was exhibited by Mr. John Hick, of Bolton, as a marked advance on the existing practice.
In preparing for the governor manufacture I had my first revelation of the utter emptiness of the Whitworth Works. Iron gear patterns were required, duplicates of those which had been cut for me at home by Mr. Pratt. The blanks for these gears were turned as soon as possible after I reached Manchester, and sent to the Whitworth Works to be cut. It seemed as though we should never get them. Finally, after repeated urging, the patterns came. I was sent for to come into the shop and see them. They were in the hands of the best fitter we had, who, by the way, was a Swedenborgian preacher and preached every Sunday. The foreman told me he had given them to this man to see if it was possible to do anything with them, and he thought I ought to see them before he set about it. I could hardly believe my eyes. There was no truth about them. The spaces and the teeth differed so much that the same tooth would be too small for some spaces and could not be wedged into others; some would be too thick or too thin at one end. They were all alike bad, and presented all kinds of badness. It was finally concluded to make the best of them, and this careful man worked on them more than two days to make them passable.
The first governor order that was booked was the only case that ever beat me. I went to see the engine. It was a condensing beam-engine of good size, made by Ormerod, Grierson & Co. to maintain the vacuum in a tube connecting two telegraph offices in Manchester, and had been built to the plans and specifications of the telegraph company’s engineer. The engine had literally nothing to do. A little steam air-pump that two men could have lifted and set on a bench would have been just suitable for the work. They could not carry low enough pressure nor run slowly enough. On inspection I reported that we should have nothing to do with it.
The custom of making whatever customers order and taking no responsibility was first illustrated to me in this curious way. I saw a queer-looking boiler being finished in the boiler-shop. In reply to my question the foreman told me they were making it for a cotton-spinner, according to a plan of his own. It consisted of two boilers, one within the other. The owner’s purpose was to carry the ordinary steam pressure in the outer boiler, and a pressure twice as great in the inner one, when the inner boiler would have to suffer the stress of only one half the pressure it was carrying.
I asked the superintendent afterwards why they did not tell that man that he could not maintain steam at two different temperatures on the opposite sides of the same sheets. He replied: “Because we do not find it profitable to quarrel with our customers. That is his idea. If we had told him there was nothing in it, he would not have believed us, but would have got his boiler made somewhere else.”
Perhaps the most curious experience I ever had was that of getting the governor into cotton-mills. There was a vast field all around us, and we looked for plenty of orders. This was the reception I met with every time. After listening to the winning story I had to tell, the cotton lord would wind up with this question: “Well, sir, have you got a governor in a large cotton-mill?” After my answer in the negative I was bowed out. I early got an order from Titus Salt & Son, of Saltaire, for two large governors but these did not weigh at all with a cotton-spinner; they made alpaca goods.
The way the governor was finally got into cotton-mills, where afterwards its use became general, was the most curious part. A mill in the city of Manchester was troubled by having its governor fly in pieces once in a while. After one of these experiences the owners thought that they might cure the difficulty by getting one of my governors. That flew in pieces in a week. I went to see the engine. The cause of all the trouble appeared at a glance. The fly-wheel was on the second-motion shaft which ran at twice the speed of the main shaft, and the gearing between them was roaring away enough to deafen one. The governor was driven by gearing. The vibrations transmitted to the governor soon tired the arms out. I saw the son of the principal owner, and explained the cause of the failure of every governor they had tried, and told him the only remedy, which would be a complete one, would be to drive the governor by a belt. That, he replied, was not to be thought of for an instant. I told him he knew himself that a governor could not endure if driven in any other way, and that I had hundreds of governors driven by belts, which were entirely reliable in all cases. “But,” said he, “supposing the belt runs off the pulley.” “The consequence,” I replied, “cannot be worse than when the governor flies in pieces.” After wasting considerable time in talk, he said, “Well, leave it till my father comes home; he is absent for a few days.” “No,” said I, “if I can’t convince a young man, I shall not try to convince an old man.” Finally, with every possible stipulation to make it impossible for the belt to come off, he yielded his assent, and I had the governor on in short order, lacing the belt myself, to make sure that it was butt-jointed and laced in the American fashion.
More than three years afterwards, two days before I was to sail for home, I met this man on High Street, in Manchester. It was during the Whitsuntide holidays, and the street was almost deserted. He came up to me, holding out both hands and grasping mine most cordially. “Do you know,” said he, “that we have increased our product 10 per cent., and don’t have half as many broken threads as we had before, and it’s all that belt.”
Condenser and Air-pump designed by Mr. Porter. (Cross-section)