“PROPELLING CARRIAGES, VESSELS, &c.
“BRAMLEY AND PARKER’S SPECIFICATION.
(One drawing of this patent is used as a [frontispiece].)
“To all to whom these presents shall come, we, Thomas Bramley, Gentleman, and Robert Parker, Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, both of Mousley Priory, in the County of Surrey, send greeting.
“Whereas His present most Excellent Majesty King William the Fourth, by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at Westminster, the Fourth day of November, One thousand eight hundred and thirty, in the first year of His reign, did, for Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto us, the said Thomas Bramley and Robert Parker, ... a patent for ... Certain Improvements on Locomotive and other Carriages or Machines applicable to Rail and other Roads, which Improvements, or Part or Parts thereof, are also applicable to Moving Bodies on Water and Working other Machinery.”
Side-view locomotion carriage, applicable to common roads. Bramley & Parker. English patent.
The cut on opposite page is a part of the Bramley & Parker English patent of 1830. These early inventors were apparently the original tandem makers, and they possibly originated the expression “lay down to the work.” If the cuts fairly represent the inventors, truly no one can deny that they were handsome fellows, and that they deserve a greater reward than can be said to have accrued to them after the shades of fifty years have fallen upon this, probably the greatest effort of their lives. Below find another part of their specification, which illustrates the verbosity of legal language found in those, and to some extent in the present English patents.
“... In which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that we, the said Thomas Bramley or Robert Parker, or one of us, shall 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 said Majesty’s High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.”
