Robinson Thwaites (1807 – 22 October 1884) was a nineteenth-century mechanical engineer and mill-owner in
Bradford
Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
, Yorkshire. His companies included at different times Robinson Thwaites and Co, Thwaites and Carbutt and Thwaites Brothers.
Companies
Robinson Thwaites' father Thomas was a master plumber. Robinson trained as a plumber to follow in his father's business, and started to practice as a plumber.
But instead, by 1848 he founded the
Vulcan Iron Works
Vulcan Iron Works was the name of several iron foundries in both England and the United States during the Industrial Revolution and, in one case, lasting until the mid-20th century. Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and smithery, was a popular na ...
at Bradford, as shown in an 1858 lithograph in the Illustrated Commerce Guide. His firm, Robinson Thwaites and Co, later (1862) in partnership with
Edward Carbutt as Thwaites and Carbutt, and (in 1880) Thwaites Brothers, acquired a high reputation for its machinery used in the production and manufacture of iron and
Bessemer process
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. The key principle is steelmaking, removal of impurities from the iron by ox ...
steel.
Robinson Thwaites and Co grew from a firm of "3 seniors, 50 men and 6 boys" in 1851 to "130 men and 13 boys" (as Thwaites and Carbutt) by 1871. Thwaites Brothers continued in production until at least 1914.
Products and patents
In 1862, Thwaites and Carbutt exhibited a selection of machine tools at the
London Exhibition. These included a seven hundredweight double-action self-acting
steam hammer
A steam hammer, also called a drop hammer, is an industrial power hammer driven by steam that is used for tasks such as shaping forgings and driving piles. Typically the hammer is attached to a piston that slides within a fixed cylinder, but i ...
; a four hundredweight double-action single standard hammer; a pillar radial
drilling machine
A drill is a tool used for making round holes or driving fasteners. It is fitted with a bit, either a drill or driverchuck. Hand-operated types are dramatically decreasing in popularity and cordless battery-powered ones proliferating due to i ...
; a six-inch centre slide and
screw cutting lathe
A screw-cutting lathe is a machine (specifically, a lathe) capable of cutting very accurate screw threads via single-point screw-cutting, which is the process of guiding the linear motion of the tool bit in a precisely known ratio to the rotat ...
; a "very powerful"
planing machine
A planer is a type of metalworking machine tool that uses linear relative motion between the workpiece and a single-point cutting tool to cut the work piece.Parker, Dana T. ''Building Victory: Aircraft Manufacturing in the Los Angeles Area in Wo ...
; and a ten-inch centre double-geared slide
lathe
A lathe () is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, and turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to c ...
.
In 1866, Thwaites and Carbutt Vulcan Works manufactured three locomotives "of 0-6-0 type" for Boulton.
In 1869, Thwaites and Carbutt supplied the engines for a reversing rolling mill at
Landore
Landore ( cy, Glandŵr) is a district and community in Swansea, Wales. The district falls in the Landore council ward. A mainly residential area, it is located about 2.5 miles north of Swansea city centre. The north-easterly part of Landore i ...
steel works.
In 1877 Thwaites and Carbutt supplied a rolling mill engine (see illustration) for the
Eston
Eston is a Village in the borough of Redcar and Cleveland, North Yorkshire, England. The ward covering the area (as well as Lackenby, Lazenby and Wilton) had a population of 7,005 at the 2011 census. It is part of Greater Eston, which include ...
Ironworks of
Bolckow Vaughan
Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Ltd was an English steelmaking, ironmaking and mining company founded in 1864, based on the partnership since 1840 of its two founders, Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan (ironmaster), John Vaughan. The firm drove the dramat ...
and Co. It had a 36-inch (91.44 cm) bore, and a 54-inch (137.16 cm) stroke.
[Grace's Guide, Thwaites and Carbutt of Vulcan Works, Thornton Road, Bradford http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/wiki/Thwaites_and_Carbutt] That same year, the firm produced a coke crusher to prepare carbon for ironmaking.
The pioneering engineering work of Thwaites and his partners is evident from the numerous patents they took out. One was for improvements to steam hammers.
Another patent, taken out by Robinson's son William Henry Thwaites in 1877 with help from
Edward Carbutt was for mine ventilation equipment, as installed at
Chilton Colliery (see illustration). The
Roots ventilator had two 25 foot diameter rotary pistons, each 13 foot wide. They were driven by a
steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
whose cylinders had a 28-inch diameter and a 48-inch stroke.
[ The firm exhibited an "air blowing machine" at the ]St Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
Exhibition of New and Improved Mechanisms, Devices and Tools in 1875, alongside a similar one by Roots
A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients.
Root or roots may also refer to:
Art, entertainment, and media
* ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusing ...
.
In 1891, Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...
published "illustrations of a Thwaites suspension pneumatic power 1/2 cwt. hammer of a new design, for planishing pipes and plates, for which we are indebted to ''Engineering'' agazine. The machine could deliver "500 blows per minute".
In 1893, the foundry at the Consett Iron Works was using a Roots blower made by Thwaites Brothers.
File:Thwaites and Carbutt 1877 Rolling Mill Engine for Bolckow Vaughan's Cleveland Steel Works, Eston.jpg, Thwaites and Carbutt Rolling Mill for Bolckow Vaughan
Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Ltd was an English steelmaking, ironmaking and mining company founded in 1864, based on the partnership since 1840 of its two founders, Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan (ironmaster), John Vaughan. The firm drove the dramat ...
's Eston Ironworks, 1877
File:Thwaites and Carbutt Mine Ventilator, The Engineer June 15, 1877.jpg, Thwaites and Carbutt Mine Ventilator, 1877
Family firm
Thwaites' work as a mechanical engineer was continued by three of his sons, Thomas Hirst Thwaites, Arthur Hirst Thwaites, and Edward Hirst Thwaites, all of whom became engineers in the firm.
A fourth son who also worked at the Vulcan Iron Works, William Henry Thwaites, married Mary Ann Stuttard of Colne, Lancashire on 23 October 1879, but died in 1882 aged 32.
From being purely a family firm, Thwaites Brothers had a professional managing director by 1895, Arthur Devonshire Ellis.
Thwaites Brothers were still in business as Engineers in 1914, continuing to make steam hammers, "Roots' blowers" (to ventilate mines) and assorted foundry equipment.Grace's Guide: Thwaites Brothers
sourced from 1914 Whitakers Red Book. Retrieved 1 April 2012.
Thwaites' eldest daughter, Mary Elizabeth Thwaites, married the Chief Clerk to
Bow Street Magistrates' Court
Bow Street Magistrates' Court became one of the most famous magistrates' court in England. Over its 266-year existence it occupied various buildings on Bow Street in Central London, immediately north-east of Covent Garden. It closed in 2006 and ...
,
John Alexander.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thwaites, Robinson
1807 births
1884 deaths
English inventors
Industrial machine manufacturers
English mechanical engineers
Mining equipment companies
British ironmasters
Businesspeople from Bradford