THIS TAPE WAS RECORDED ON THE 6th OF SEPTEMBER 1978 AT VICARAGE ROAD BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS NEWTON PICKLES AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM
Now, you’ve just been up to Stott Park and started on that engine for the Department of the Environment, started doing that engine up. Now you tell me when you went up and what happened when you went. [SG was consultant to the DOE who were in the process of refurbishing Stott Park Bobbin Mill at Lakeside on Windermere. SG had recommended Henry Brown Sons and Pickles to repair the mechanical elements in the mill and Newton had been up to inspect, report and quote for the engine.]
R-Well we went up just to strip it to do a quotation for a rebuild or whatever was necessary. Not thinking it were as bad as what it is. You didn’t think there was anything wrong with it really, when you looked at from outside. Till we get the cylinder cover off. Cylinders half full of slutch, piston and cylinder are in one piece now, rusted absolutely solid. It’s been sweating inside or else it’s been full of water out of that header condenser that comes down from the Higher Dam. and it’s deposited slutch in the cylinder, it’s made a real job of it. It’s absolutely rusted solid, no chance of getting it out, not by fair means. Took the steam chest cover off, which is the valve cover of course, main slide valve, that’s all rusted up good and proper, the valve spindle’s rusted away and also the valve’s jiggered anyway because it’s all worn with being slack between the adjusting nuts. Governors, climbed up to them governors and took plastic sheeting off and gave em a good inspection. There’s about an eighth of an inch of slack in all the governor pins on the weight arms. Got hold of the governor shaft which has half an inch of play in the neck bush, that’s almost worn through. So that wants all new pins in and a new shaft. Boiler pump, didn’t bother with that, just tried to move it and said well, we can leave that where it is once ower, that’ll be the same as the cylinder, rusted solid.
Starting valve, the stop valve [in the pipe from] the boiler to the engine, took the top off that, spindle isn’t even connected to the valve, threads all stripped and the valve’s that badly worn it nearly drops through the seat. So that wants a new spindle, a new valve and a new seat. Take th’equilibrium, it has an equilibrium valve in, worked off the governor, to control the speed of the engine. Which is a double beat valve is the equilibrium valve. Two seats, two valves and two seats working together. Lifted the top of that, that’s unstuck from the spindle, t’tops all chewed away, pulled the equilibrium valve out which isn’t that big, only about a three inch diameter valve, pulled that out and out came the seats with the valve! They’re all worn and nearly ready for going through the seats so it wants two new seats in, new valves and a new spindle.
So we look at the main bearings on’t engine. They aren’t too bad and they’ll refit definitely. So what it means, it means lifting t’cylinder off whole with the piston rod and crosshead all intact and bringing all the lot back to t’shop. Putting the cylinder on to the borer and boring the piston out so as to get rid of all the risk of damaging the cylinder casting. Then make a new piston, a new piston rod and a new steam valve and spindle. I’m going to recommend we make a stainless steel piston rod and a stainless steel spindle because an engine that’s going to stand, run a bit and then stand, they’ll rust and if they’ve stainless steel piston rods and valve spindle they’ll never have any packing trouble with it no more.
(50)
No, they won’t, that’s right.
R-No, and I’ll put stainless steel spindle into the governor and a stainless steel spindle into the stop valve because you know very well, an engine that’s running and standing, and might be stood for weeks and then have to run an odd day or two, they’ll rust and they’ll start having packing trouble.
How about the valve itself?
R-Slide valve? We’ll make a new un. It’s very badly worn where the adjusting nuts have had a lot of play in and they’ve made some temporary washers out of square iron so I’m assuming that t’nuts have nearly worn through the valve so I’ll make a new one for that. And I’d make it a bit different, I wouldn’t make it adjustable with two nuts, I’d put a bobbin through the valve and then put the nuts on the outside of the bobbin. If you ever looked at your donkey engine up in the tape room {at Bancroft] that’s how that’s done. We never put nuts against the valve we made a bobbin to do into the valve in a slot and if it ever wants replacing all you have to do is make a fresh bobbin, you don’t want a new valve. And they’re better to adjust because you just nip that bobbin up on the piston rod [valve spindle rod[ and it leaves your valve free to locate itself on the valve face.
What will you do, will you cast a valve or fabricate one?
R-No, we’ll cast it, cast iron, you can’t beat cast iron. Cast iron running to cast iron. And like we were discussing this morning, I can’t remember seeing a cylinder oil lubricator on that engine, just a siphon lubricator on top of the cylinder so they must have run it like a donkey engine, without oil.
Now you come to mention it I didn’t see an oiler anywhere.
R-No I haven’t noticed one.
So the rest of it’s just been an oil can job?
R-An oil can job. I don’t think there’s been a lubricator on it anywhere, neither on t’crank pin or anywhere. Anyway I’ve written it all out today roughly what it wants and then I can reckon it all up and quote for the job. Well, they might as well have the quotation with the report and then it’s done with!
That’s it, aye.
R-Well, I propose doing that Stanley, lifting the cylinder off as it is, taking the slide bars off whole with the valve spindle and everything in it, getting it to the shop where we can handle it. And then putting the cylinder on the borer and boring the piston out of it, cut the piston rod off, take the front cover off and bore until it falls to pieces without touching the cylinder.
When you bring it down, let me know and then I can do some pictures.
Well, that’s that and I’ve recommended that we take all t’motion off it, connection rod, crosshead and all that and the governor gear and polish it all up, make it look like an engine. But t’flywheel shaft, I’ve more or less suggested it’d be better if it were just cleaned up and painted. ‘Cause it’s no use taking the flywheel out if it’s not necessary. Just clean it up and paint it whatever colour they want it painting. In my opinion, matt black. They might want it green or something like that you know, that’s up to them is that. We’ll paint all the engine and all of course while we have it to bits.
Yes, aye, and you’ll leave the bed in there?
Leave t’bed yonder and t’flywheel and shaft, aye. (sound of clock striking)
Don’t worry about that Newton, it’s a good clock is that.
R-It is a good clock, it’s mine is that.
It’s amazing though, to look at that engine it looked right tidy.
R-We thought there’d be very little to do at it. When you get up to it it’s in a real state!
It just goes to show what a clanger anyone could drop with not [knowing what they were looking at]
R- What? They could that! We could say we can do that up in a week, like we just straighten it up and get it running for you in less than a week. What? Wouldn’t you be in a mess if you just quoted like say £300 for doing th’engine up. And you went and pulled it down and it’s in that state. I mean, we didn’t even take t’lids off the condenser because we knew what it would be like inside with what we found in the cylinder.
Yes, that condenser.
R-There’s only one valve in that, a slide valve. That were just [to control] your water flow to keep your water temperature and your vacuum in reight order.
Yes, I don’t know a reight lot about them sort of condensers.
R-It’s only a jet condenser.
Aye, but instead of being worked wi’ a pump it’s worked by pressure.
R-It does it on’t head of water, that’s all. No need you see, it doesn’t pump it, it has it already there, that’s all it is. We’ll soon have that in bits and clean it out and put a new valve in if necessary.
Aye. Right, let’s move back into Barlick.
R-On to some reight engines!
Now, one thing that’s cropped up in a tape I’ve been doing with Ernie Roberts is Bouncer [Barnsey Shed] Ernie, or it might have been Jim Pollard, said that some of the looms running there were on electric after the engine had finished. Now, when did the engine finish at Barnsey?
R-I can’t just give you the year the engine finished at Barnsey. Well first of all the engine ran all the looms electrically and it wasn’t a success.
Now, when you say that, they put the engine on an alternator?
R-They put on two. We didn’t do the job, it were a firm at Nelson did it. It were the Nelson Engineering Company and we allus said they’d dropped a clanger, they took cotton ropes off the flywheel, I think they’d twenty eight on. They took the cotton ropes off the flywheel and put two alternators in and put Dawson ropes on to the flywheel and put six on one side. And to crown everything, they put six on the high pressure side which were, when all’s said and done, on a cross compound engine running balanced there’s a lot more pressure on the high pressure neck than there is on the low as you know very well being an engineer. And they started having trouble with the flywheel shaft running hot at high pressure side every day.
Well, there’s a lot more tension on them Speedona ropes than there is with cotton isn’t there? [Speedona was the trade name for Dawson drive belts which were essentially a large ‘V’ belt. SG]
R-Every day they were stop, stop, stop. Aye, and it all fizzled out. They started burning half as much coal again as they did when they were on rope gearing and what with one thing and another it were all wrong were t’job. It were all wrong, the engine ran too slow for one thing to run alternators as I mentioned when I was talking about the engine. Me father wanted to speed that engine after the First World War. It were the biggest wastrel there were in the town and it were a lovely job. It only ran at 64rpm and it were 1100 horse and it always burned a third more coal than any of the others for the same horse power. But t’others were running at 76 and 78 at the same stroke and me father begged of ‘em to put a new second motion pulley on and speed it up.
But when you really think about it, there was no reason why that engine shouldn’t have been all right. It were a good engine. They went to the expense of putting the alternators in………
R-And they never speeded it up.
If it’d been done properly it would have been alright.
R-It wouldn’t have been a bit of trouble, it would have been no trouble at all.
Yes, now why do you think it is, we assume that they had engineers on the job telling ‘em what they wanted now why do you think it is that, I’m sure you would have been able to see what they were doing wrong, why couldn’t they see what they were doing with it?
R-I don’t know. You see the trouble were, and it stands out a mile, these people come along and they’re electricians, not engineers and they just take one look at that second motion pulley with all them ropes on and they know a firm called Dawson make ropes [‘V’ belts] that’ll [run in cotton rope grooves] and do twice or three times as much work for each rope and it’s Oh, we’ll take that lot off and replace them with Dawson ropes and use the spare grooves to drive down onto the alternators. Right, now we wouldn’t have done that. We’d have gone on there and said right, them 28 ropes have driven this mill since 1914, we’ll leave them where they are for a start. We’ll put a pulley at that side [of the second motion pulley] to run that alternator and one at this side to run the other alternator. And we’ll just leave them cotton ropes where they are now then this engine’ll be working when it’s making electric just the same as it was when it’s run 2000 looms for fifty years. And it wouldn’t be any different than what it were. But they didn’t do that, they took all the cotton ropes off, they put about six Dawson’s ropes on the HP side on to the second motion pulley and they used the other twenty odd grooves to drive the two alternators. That engine were shoving 1100 horse through six ropes down to one bearing and they started having trouble.
Yes, quite, and as I say, those Dawson ropes have a lot more tension on them than a cotton rope haven’t they?
R-They’d have to be fiddle string tight nearly. Whereas cotton ropes [just hung on the wheel and formed lovely curves] just went like that. I’m showing with me hands now and it doesn’t show on a tape recorder, a beautiful radius to them.
Aye, that’s it, just drooped into a catenary curve.
R-Just a beautiful curve like yours are. And it were never a success. Now why the coal bill went up more than ever I don’t know because I wasn’t running the place. In my opinion it shouldn’t have done. Because from what I can gather there weren’t as many looms running either. When they were all spaced out after they went electric, so I can’t see why the coal bill went up.
It makes you wonder why they wanted to go off the gearing on to electric drive for the looms.
R-I can’t understand it.
The only thing I can think of is that they got the idea …
R-They didn’t put any new looms in.
No, the only thing I can think is that they got the idea into their heads that they got a more positive drive to the looms.
R-Well they hadn’t, they hadn’t and they weren’t a bit better off, in fact they were a hell of a sight worse off. It all fizzled out and they went on to corporation [mains electricity] and the engine were scrapped. And they’d three tip-top boilers which are still in of course and 160 pound pressure. It could have been made a marvellous job that could, just like yours is.
Right, let’s move across the canal.
R-Let’s go to t’Moss.
One of the nicest mills in the town.
R-Nicest set of engines anyone could want to go and look at, they weren’t big engines, just 900 horse power and a pair of tandems. Now with tandems I mean there were two complete engines, high pressure and low pressure and air pump on each side running onto a common flywheel shaft. Now that set up, to me you couldn’t beat it, ideal, perfect turn that engine, you could hear it purr. Big flywheel with about 24 ropes on, you walked into that engine house and it had a different noise to everyone else’s. It purred, it fairly trickled away at about 76rpm, four feet six stroke but it wasn’t modern, it had never had modern low pressure cylinders put into it. It just had low pressure cylinders, Burnley Ironworks Engine, wi’ double swing valves in, and by double swing valves I mean they’re at the bottom, about 13 inches in diameter and they act as steam and exhaust. They were OK in that era but they weren’t as economical as a four valve cylinder where you could put Corliss valve gear on to alter your cut-off. But them engines at the Moss were never, very little trouble were them.
When you say ‘double swing valve’ that’s a cylindrical valve like we’ve got [at Bancroft]
R-It’s a round slide valve in plain English.
Yes, that’s it, well that’s what we’ve got isn’t it? I mean we’ve got Corliss gear on ‘em.
R-Yes, aye, Corliss gear on, it’s a round slide valve.
Has that [Moss Shed LP valves] got Corliss gear on?
R-It had no Corliss gear on, they were just ordinary circular valves. They both act, both valves, they act as inlets and exhaust and they’d be about 13 inches in diameter. There were a lot of them engines made at that time, 1900s early on up to 1910.
Yes, what were the high pressures? Corliss?
R-They were Corliss yes.
What were the valve gear?
R-Burnley Ironworks standard valve gear, finest valve gear ever made.
Yes. Now what was Burnley Ironworks gear, was it…?
R-Well, it were a mixture.
Was it a disc?
R-No, it weren’t a disc, it were just worked wi’ rockers straight off your rocker shaft, from your eccentrics straight onto a split rocker shaft and then a rod straight to your valve gear. It were very simple really, if you could take a Hick Hargreaves valve gear and tipple it wrong side up you’ve got a Burnley Ironworks gear. But they didn’t need a wrist plate, they went straight on to the valve spindles did the rods.
That’s it. That’s what I was thinking of, a wrist plate.
R-And spectacles, what we call spectacles and catches, your rods went straight on to the bottom of spectacle arms to work your spindles, you didn’t need a wrist plate. A lovely gear. Me father allus said that the chap who designed that gear were a Hick Hargreaves man and all he did when he came to Burnley Ironworks , he made that drawing of a Hick Hargreaves gear and turned it wrong side up. Cause Hick Hargreaves gear worked from underneath you know. But they were sugar tongs, now he made sugar tongs into his spectacle rods. All he did was open it out and turn it upside down.
Aye, of course that could easily happen because these fellers moved round from firm to firm didn’t they?
R-Now that Corliss gear Stanley, with all th’engines I’ve ever run and all due respect to anyone else there were nobody could touch it. I used to run Crow Nest and that engine used to run at 78 revs a minute and it were four feet six inches stroke and I could run Crow Nest after tea with a hundred loom on, no lights, in summer, with the boiler pressure up at 160psi. stop valve wide open and never touched it.
Now you said Crow Nest.
R-Crow Nest, that’s just across the road from here, that were a thousand horse.
So you’re talking about Crow Nest now are you?
R-Now, I were just giving an illustration here with valve gear. Because t’Moss never came into that. [Newton is referring to running on light load with full boiler pressure. This is a considerable test of an engine’s valve settings and valve motion because of the extremely short cut-offs involved. Any fault in the action of the gear is magnified and leads to very uneven and, at times, dangerous running conditions. See SG talking about weaving Bancroft out when these conditions prevailed.] Moss were always fully loaded, all its life practically and it were only built for 900 horse. Walt’s father, that’s Stanley Fisher were there over thirty years and he used to indicate it at Monday morning and his figures crossed. His high pressure figures used to cross in the middle. He’d have about 1100 horse, 1150 horse on and all he could do at Monday morning were open the stop valve and hope.
So, that engine were running at 33% overload?
R-Overload and he used to open the stop valve at Monday morning and just hope the governor would come up [off the stand] before breakfast. Now that’s what they call working.
Aye, loaded.
R-That engine were working but I used to go into that engine house and go up the steps you know and it’ud purr. I mean he were a tip top man he knew what he were doing. It did, it purred did that engine.
Now when you say he was a tip-top man, who are you talking about, Stanley Fisher?
R-Stanley Fisher, that’s our Walter Fisher’s father. He worked for me father for fifteen years did Stanley he came from Sowerby Bridge way.
He worked for your father and then he went to Moss.
R-And then went to the Moss. He went there to run the engines for sick and stopped.
Aye, that’s a nice way, so he’d be running that engine till it stopped in 19..?
R-He ran the engine up till when it stopped. Donald Plummer went, he weren’t there long. Stanley retired, he were about seventy and Donald Plummer went and they came out, they were going to run the place out you know, finish. Donald chucked up and Stanley went back and ran the place right up to the end.
And ran it out yes, and what year were that?
R-Oh I’d be guessing now Stanley, It would be, I’m trying to think how long Silentnight have been there, in’t sixties sometime, it isn’t so long really.
No, I’m pushing you a bit there actually because I know when it were. Ernie Roberts went weaving there straight after the war just about 1946 and he were there 11 year and he were tackler on the last loom that wove out so that’d be about 1957.
R-1957 or 1958 then.
…or eight because he’d done a little bit at Barnsey first.
R-It doesn’t seem so long since.
Aye. And that engine then would go the way of all of them.
R-Scrapped aye scrapped.
Who were the main people for scrapping engines round here.
R-Rushworths. And Dixon’s at Burnley.
Aye.
R-There were a local man round here, Sidney Widdup, he did a fair bit of scrapping. He scrapped part round here, Salterforth and one or two of the smaller ones.
Yes, and of course Moss were Widdups.
R-Moss belonged to Widdups aye, well, every tenant belonged the mill. [were partners]
Aye that’s it.
R-Holden’s and Widdups they more or less belonged the mill.
Yes, what boilers were there at t’Moss?
R-They were three nine footers. [Lancashire boilers] But pressure were only 120psi and they were the first mill to be lit electrically. It had two Royce DC dynamos in, beautiful things, in what we called the dynamo room. Oh, they were beautiful things them Royce generators. We used to go to them occasionally and skim the comms up. [Commutators] Used to do them in position, comms would be about two feet in diameter. Oh they were marvellous things were them, I used to go and look at them when I was a lad. And old Peter Heaton were there. He used to charge all the batteries for all of Barlick, for wireless sets in them days did old Peter. [Early wireless sets had two batteries, a high tension dry battery and a low tension lead acid accumulator which had to be recharged occasionally]
Aye, DC, it would be easy would that.
R-He were making a nice sideline there were Peter. It would be full, he did more battery charging than engine driving! And the engine house floor there Stanley, it were planked, short planks about three feet long all over. Instead of floor plates there were planks and when you walked on them they rattled and it were spotless. But and summat like that always sticks in your mind, something different. It never had floor plates, chequer plates put down, they were all short planks all fit into frames and if you wanted to do anything you’d only planks to pull up, no problem. And they used to rattle when you walked on ‘em, nicely dried in and plenty of oil on.
That’s it, any breakdowns there?
R-New crank pin at t’canal side, just after Donald Plummer took over, it came loose and it started to come out, started bashing the oil tray so I put that new crank pin in and I think me father put one in on the other side years and years before that, it hadn’t been running long you know. Flywheel came loose happen about thirty years since and Walter keyed, re-keyed it on. No, it never stopped it, but t’crank pin did, it were stopped three days wi’t crank pin. I bored it out and put a new pin in. Well that’s about it then, it never had any cylinders or owt bored hadn’t that engine. Not as it didn’t want it, don’t get me wrong. It wanted doing I know it did but of course it finished the time out.
Aye, well, from 1903 to 1958
R-Aye it did want doing. Well you see, what happened it was always fairly well loaded up was that engine. Now when they went off 110 volts and were going to go onto 240 volts on’t corporation, Stanley wouldn’t have an alternator in, he said the engine would never do it. And it wouldn’t I don’t think, I think he were reight there, and of course, the load went down a bit and it never got bored. No, Stanley put his foot down and says the engine’ll never do it there’s no use bothering. And they couldn’t speed that up, it were running fast enough. But they were only small cylinders you know, I think th’high pressures ud only be about 14 or 15 inches bore. They were very small and they were square, they were lagged square and they did look well when you went in. High pressures were at the back of the lows, first thing you saw were the high pressure heads you know, didn’t look so big.
I always think they look better, tandems, with the high pressures at the back.
R-Oh, lovely they were, square lagged were the cylinders aye. It were a grand engine, big stop valve hand wheel in the middle of the floor with six pilots on, big square table with all your drains and taps on and that were the only engine in the town I never ran on me own. It were never off long enough [the engineer] Walter went on in’t morning, his father were going to his work and he fell and broke his arm and Walt went and stopped wi’ him until dinner time and after that he managed. Course, he had an oiler and a fireman think on. He were all right as long as he could get someone to help him open the stop valve, he could manage.
So he ran it with a broken arm?
R-Aye, he ran it wi’ a broken arm.
Fair men!
R-Aye, he were a tough old bugger were Stan. He used to go to the pub at dinner time and again at night and went like that all his life. He allus lived at the end of the mill. Never lived away from his work, he used to go and set on and then go home for his breakfast.
Now when you say he lived at the end of the mill….
R-He lived in that row of houses that’s been demolished that were right up to the end of Moss Yard. It were a little short row and they demolished it for those showrooms.
That’s it, when Silentnight took over.
R-He lived in the bottom house. He were a nice feller were Stanley, very clever feller.
And of course, Widdups had a very good name in the town hadn’t they.
R-And Holdens as well, they were good men to work for, Holdens were toppers.
Aye, old Blackburn.
R-Old Blackburn and Young Blackburn. They had looms also at Calf Hall you know. They’d about 400 at Calf Hall as well as Moss. Grand fellers, never any of that all high and mighty, no boss attitude hadn’t Holdens, never. Like, some of the old manufacturers had you know. Holdens lived in a big house but they used to live in a street when I were a lad. We used to go down and see Blackburn Holden, the old feller, father Blackburn. He used to have a workshop in the mill yard and we used to go down there at night and you know, I laiked with the lad…..
He had a workshop?
R-Oh aye, he were always keen.
Old Blackburn eh? What lathe.
R-Aye, lathe, drilling machine, little shaper and all that carry on. I don’t know what he ever made, but he had all the tackle. Me father and me used to go down at night during summer. It were, Come on Newton, let’s have a walk to t’Moss, Blackburn will be in his workshop.
Aye, that’s strange, you don’t think…
R-Yes, then that son of his, Blackburn, he got very interested in t’motor racing job you know, motor bike racing, grass tracking and all that carry on, well he got to be top of the tree at that job did young Blackie. Then of course when his father retired he had to give that up and take over t’mill. Well, I can remember me and Blackie playing on a big wooden trolley down the mill yard, of a night, in summer. He were older than me of course, not a lot but he’s dead now, he went to live in Jersey after they sold the mill, didn’t he Olive? (Newton’s wife Olive was present. SG.)
Olive: Yes, he did.
R-He’s dead now, he died young.
Aye, and that’s his son Michael that lives at Gisburn now isn’t it. Well, Horton.
R-Yes, Michael lives at Gisburn. Well, they had a garage didn’t they, father bought them a garage.
Aye, Seventy Seven at Gisburn. [Next to Gisburn Auction.]
R-Grand fellers Stanley, they were.
Aye, and how many looms would there be in t’Moss at top then?
R-Altogether?
Yes.
R-Oh there’d be 2,200 and then they got some more in the warehouse because I put the shafting up for them.
So that’s at least 1100horse.
R-Aye, it were just over 1100 horse at Monday morning. Figures used to cross.
Great days.
R-Great days.
They wouldn’t use that indication for the canal rate? [The charge the canal made for condenser water.]
R-Oh no, they’d do that at dinnertime, take them.
It makes you wonder if there were a mill anywhere in Lancashire that used to give ‘em the reight pictures.
R-By Gum, aye!
It makes you wonder, they must have known.
R-Well it were a bit of a twist weren’t it. They could have put ‘em a definite price on. It didn’t matter about th’horsepower, we weren’t using any of their water, we were only borrowing it for a minute or two.
Aye, that’s it, aye.
R-But look at all the mills that ran on t’canal. There were Barnsey, Long Ing, two engines in Long Ing, then we come across the other side of the town, follow t’cut down, there were Coates and Bankfield. All running off the canal. Then running of our beck at Bancroft, there’s Bancroft, There were t’Clough, Calf Hall, Butts, Crow Nest and Bankfield borrowed some of it ‘cause they had two dams that coupled up to the beck as well as the canal had Bankfield at one time. We made good use of a drop of water in Barlick.
Oh, we did that!
R-We did that.
Can’t grumble about that.
R-Can’t grumble about that. Anyhow, that’s done Moss, where we going now?
Oh well, you never know, we might come back to Moss eventually, let’s trip quietly….
R-Oh, and gearing at Moss were good. It were all Burnley Ironworks engines and gearing and it had a gearing alley. For a mill of that age it were unusual were a gearing alley in 1904. [1903 actually. SG] They were, by gum they were big wheels, they were about two and a half inches pitch were the teeth and I think they were about three feet in diameter. I once chipped three sets for them, they were getting a bit worn you know, they got a bit noisy so I went and chipped ‘em down for him but I never had any wheels broken all the time it ran.
So that were a geared engine?
R-No, it were a rope drive engine but they gearing alley, centre line shaft and then looms each side.
Yes, that’s it, I see what you mean.
R-And they were big wheels, and they never had a wheel broken at Moss.
I think that’s a marvellous thing, a gearing alley.
R-Aye, it is. Crow Nest had one. It were one of the let downs at Barnsey were that, gearing were all on the inside wall like yours at Bancroft. They’d getten a bit wrong wi’ em and they were dish wheels were t’cross-shaft wheels and they had part wheels broken at Barnsey, I put a load on. They got the brackets wrong on the wall and they’d to make the cross-shaft wheels wi’ about 6” of dish in ‘em to get ‘em to line up with the shaft wheel.
Aye, to get to it. Well, that at Bancroft, it’s a fool of a thing. The only way you can grease or oil it is walk on the shaft, it’s either that or carry a ladder all the way up the shed.
R-Aye it is isn’t it. And then, in a gearing alley you know, what they used to do was put slings underneath and planked ‘em and you could walk from one end to t’other.
Aye, and while it were running.
R-But Pendle Street were a gearing alley you know at that age, 1887. It were a gearing alley. I used to be able to grease t’wheels, I’d do half at Monday dinner and t’other half at Tuesday dinner time. I could walk full length with me bucket of grease and a brush.
Makes it a lot easier.
R-And feel all me pedestal cap nuts to see if any of ‘em were loose. No problem you see, I could just walk down. You get a bit mucky like but you don’t bother with that.
Well, mine are all loose at Bancroft. [cap nuts] I think if you tightened ‘em up you’d have trouble.
R-Oh, you haven’t to tighten ‘em up, just make sure they are locked and can’t drop off.
That’s it, aye. Just stop them dropping off. The weight of the shaft’ll hold ‘em down.
R-Some waste on them threads that are sticking out, that’ll stop ‘em.
Is that reight?
R-Aye, that’s what most of th’old engine drivers did. And then of course a lot of the old engine drivers, in th’old days, such as Wellhouse and them, they found they could run without a top brass on so they took ‘em all off and sold ‘em to the scrap chap! There were only two top brasses on at Wellhouse from leaving the engine house to getting to the bottom when I went to inspect the shaft one day and that were the expansion coupling and the collar neck. [collar neck is the thrust bearing which located the shaft longitudinally. SG]
Is that reight?
R-I says to me father Where the hell’s all the top caps and brasses gone off that shaft at Wellhouse/ Oh, he says, Has ta been down that shaft? Aye, I says, They telled me I had to didn’t they, to see as all them bearings were all right. The Inspector told me as they were insuring ‘em against stopping. [Loss of production insurance. SG] Oh aye, he says, I’d forgotten about that. Well, you’d better go and ask some of them old engine drivers that’s all died off. I said, What’s happened to ‘em? He says, Are the caps missing as well? Well, I said, One or two of them have cast iron caps but no nuts and a bloody great fat pad running underneath but t’rest of ‘em just have a fat pad on top. Aye well, he says, They’ve selled ‘em to t’rag and bone chap haven’t they for a bit of ale brass. He says, How many are there left on? I says Two, there’s two on, well four. There’s one on the expansion coupling and one on the collar neck and then the same down in Widdups. There’s one or two expansion joints down there you know, it were such a long shaft, such a long mill. He says Aye, they’d more sense than to take ‘em off so tha’s to give ‘em a bit of credit for that. He reminded me of when I went to George Henry at Butts when I was a lad. He had a neck hot and when I went up I says I can’t do anything with that, and George Henry asked me what was up. I told him there was no top brass and he said there should be because he hadn’t sold that one! He went up the ladder to have a look and he says Oh no Newton, there isn’t is there, it’s gone hasn’t it, it’s underneath lifting the shaft up. It had picked up and gone round had the brass and jacked the bloody shaft up. There were two brasses at the bottom! I couldn’t see it for muck. True is that. Aye, me father reminded me of it. He said Remember going to Butts when them wheels were making a noise? I were only a lad.
Ah well, we haven’t done Butts yet.
R-No? We have, we’ve done it once.
Oh yes, so we have.
R-We’re talking about gearing now. He were a boy were George Henry!
Talking about Butts, I think there’s something at Butts we never mentioned, did I once here you say that you extended the bonnets on that engine at one time?
R-Did what?
Extended the bonnets on it, for the shaft on the valves.
R-Not at Butts.
So where were it?
R-We put new bonnets on at Clough with extension arms on and we did the same at Crow Nest. Me father put new bonnets on at Moss on the low pressures with extension arms on you know to carry them big valves you know. They made ‘em like a half moon, you know, oval with a rib on top and a rib at bottom with them big valves. ‘cause the spindles were about two and a half inch in diameter, you know, to swing them big valves about.
Aye, I think Moss…..
R-We put extension bonnets on at Crow Nest in my time, on the steam valves and we also did Westfield when that were running. We put extension bonnets on, they were allus worn out you know were them little short bonnets, the end bushes ‘cause Burnley Ironworks made ‘em very short. Yours at Bancroft are longer than Burnley Ironworks used to make them, they were very short and it just used to wear the head bushes away. And you know in a week or two they were all slack.
Pop up the road a bit and go to Coates, little mill.
R-Oh, Coates. That were a bonny little mill in the bit of time I knew it you know.
Yes, but your dad put a new engine in there didn’t he?
R-Oh aye, but I never knew the old one. I were only a little lad when me dad put the new engine in there. It were a little Hick Hargreaves, he bought it at Bolton at a mill that were stopped.
What were the old one?
R-A beam engine.
Who’s?
R-I don’t know. It ud probably be an old Yates, I don’t know. It would be an old Yates, a thousand to one, they were all old Yates were the beam engines round here you know.
When he put the new engine in did he re-boiler it or stick to the old boiler?
R-They stuck to the old boiler. I’ll begin at the beginning with this tale about me father putting this new engine in. They went to Bolton and they bought this engine, me father and the directors that belonged Coates Mill. I might think of a name in a bit because I’ve known who were the bosses there, nice people to work for I believe. They went and bought this engine and it were a gear drive, it would be about 450 horse power and it were comparatively new. [Date from Universal metallic Packings order book for new packings for horizontal engine at Coates supplied to Hy Brown and Sons is 14/08/1919. This would be the hick Hargreaves going in. SG]
So Leonard Parkinson and Jimmy Moseley went to Bolton and they pulled this engine out of this mill and shipped it to Barlick on two canal boats and they sailed up with it. When they got here Blakeys were building a new engine house. When they got it here they borrowed a jib crane off someone at Earby, one of these here with a 6” square wooden jib and they fit that up on the canal bank and used it to unload these canal boats. First boat came up with the bits and pieces on, you know, connecting rods and all that sort of thing, oh fine style. Me father says we’ll soon have that lot up in the engine house and up on to the canal bank, what wouldn’t go up the stairs. And then they came to the low pressure cylinder which were a fair lump of stuff even though it were only a little engine. It ‘ud not be quite as big as Bancroft’s we’ll say but not much less. So they started to wind the LP cylinder up out of the canal boat and they heard the jib of the crane give a bit of a creak. They looked up and the bloody jib had split and the LP cylinder were going down in jerks towards the canal boat. Johnny says to Fisher and Len that it’s going to go through the bottom of the bloody boat but it didn’t. The jib didn’t break, it just split, it ‘ud be pitch pine would the jib. And when it all came out they’d been trying to lift a five ton cylinder with a one ton crane! So what they did, they came back to the shop and made some channel plates and bolted them on to the jib to strengthen it and lifted the rest out. They got it all out eventually, no trouble.
Then me father says to Stanley, We’re a bit blooming thick aren’t we Stanley, putting this engine in here as a gear drive, can’t we make it into a rope drive? Stanley Fisher said he didn’t think they could make a new flywheel for it and me father says Can’t we! So he tackled the bosses about it, he asked them whether they’d ever seen one of those engines running as a rope drive. They said they had and they were grand, didn’t make any noise. Me Father says we can make this into one if you want you know and they said it were all right with them, they weren’t without money so make it into a rope drive.
So what me father did, he made a pattern for a set of segments to go round the top of the teeth, it had been turned on top of the teeth. He put bolts in all the way round, two inch round turned bolts made out of Low Moor Iron, under the rim to hold them segments on. Our Mr Brown were a bit narked about this I think, he didn’t think it were going to be a success and him and me father weren’t reight friendly over it. He wanted to put it in as a gear drive and me father didn’t, he wanted to put it in as a rope drive. He asked how he was going to turn it. [They didn’t have a wheel pit or a lathe big enough at the shop. SG] Me father says I’ll show thee.
Anyhow. Old Stanley and Len got the beds in and the flywheel shaft and started to build the flywheel up in the engine house and they fitted these segments on with hammer and chisel, with chipping strips, fit ‘em on all the way round the teeth and bolted it all together and Stan says Now then Johnny, how are we going to turn it?
Now wait a minute, explain chipping strips.
R-Chipping strips are strips you cast into your casting, we’ll say and inch and a half wide, full length and you put ‘em say about every six inches. Then you fit your job on and you try your feelers [gauges] in and you chip ‘em and file ‘em till it all beds and fits.
Yes, now in this case them strips would run…..
R-On top of the teeth, on top of the gear.
Yes, they wouldn’t run across, they ran along the teeth on the radius.
R-They went that way to radius on the teeth and they chipped an filed them until they fit round the teeth. The ends were machined on the planer at the shop to right angles with the segments and they worked it all out for diameter and I believe it fit perfect. They just brought the last segment back twice to take a thou or two more off the end. They finished up with the segments bolted down solid on the rim. Now then, how are we going to turn it? The flywheel had a barring rack on it on the inside of the rim like yours [Bancroft]. So they had a little steam engine that we used to use to run the boring tackle. They made a pinion to fit on the shaft of that and they fastened the engine down inside the flywheel and got running. They brought a slide rest off one of the lathes at the shop, a longish one it were and it were a good slide rest, we only recently broke it up. He put that in front and fastened it down to girders under the floor of the engine house, a good solid job and they started turning. It took 'em six weeks to turn the flywheel in position but there weren’t a flywheel in this country that ran as true as that did, there weren’t one anywhere.
Aye, and that would take your dad back to Burnley Ironworks when he was working on the pit there wouldn’t it.
R-Well me father worked on the wheelpit [At Burnley Ironworks] and that’s how they drove ‘em so he says why can’t we drive it like that in the engine house and you can’t wack the bearings of the engine to run it in. They didn’t put top brasses under the bearing caps. He got some oak and they made some wood blocks and put them under the caps, nipped the caps down to act as a lathe spindle so as it kept tension on you know, to keep it from jattering and that and it were a beautiful job. In my time, when that wheel were boarded in you couldn’t tell that wheel had ever been touched and that engine worked for forty year and never had another thing done to it hadn’t that wheel or owt. I keyed it on happen twenty years since I keyed it on, that were the only thing, it came loose eventually. But you couldn’t tell where them segments were or that it were any different than anyone else’s because they had it boarded after. You couldn’t tell and it were perfectly true. As long as the engine had no slack in the bearings you couldn’t hear that wheel going it were that true. You could have put a thou’ clock on it. It were bound to be, it were turned on its own shaft in its own pit.
It were spot on and they made a new second motion pulley of course. That engine did some work you know and then when the slump came the people that had the mill went out of business.
Now by slump, you mean 28/30?
R-Sometime between 1925/1930.
Yes.
R-That engine stopped and I think it were stopped about twelve years. [ I think Newton is wrong here. Coates stopped c1930 and Dobson’s Dairies bought it in 1935/36.] And there were an old chap, he used to work for me father, used to look after the mill, like a watchman you know and he used to keep it clean even though there hadn’t been any fires or owt put into the boiler. Then one day me father came down to me in the shop, Come on Newton, to Coates, there’s a bloke called Dobson wants to see me there. I went up with me father to Coates and it were two brothers, it were Dobson’s from Dobson’s Dairies in Stockport. They’d bought the place and they wanted it running as soon as possible and it hadn’t run for about fifteen year. So me father just turned round to me and said there’s a job for thee!
They wanted the engine running?
R-They wanted it running so they could get all their stuff in and I got the blooming job of getting it going. Well, I revelled in it, an engine that had been stopped for fifteen years. Talk about Stott Park!
I took the cylinder covers off and there were nowt inside, it were just like it had only been stopped a day or two before. I just got some cylinder oil and rubbed it round with me brush and the biggest job were the boiler, getting that all tested and filled and getting some fires in it. We’d to learn the chimney to smook! (Laughter) It had forgotten how to smook and we had to larn it again. We lit the fire and we couldn’t get it to smoke, it were all smoking back into the boiler house and Charlie Plummer, Donald Plummer’s father were there, he’d got the engine driving job, well he were there an all and he couldn’t make it smoke. Me father came up and he said what the hell are you doing? I says, We’re trying to get the booming chimney to smoke! He says You can’t larn it from here, larn it from the bottom! He says Get into the bottom of the chimney and get some old wood and skip lids and stuff into it and get a fire lit in the thing. Shoved his hard hat on the back of his head and walked out in disgust. Made us look about that high. [I had the same problem at Ellenroad. Newton and I built a big fire in the back flue and it did the trick but set fire to the flue dust in the main flue and it burned slowly for six months. It reduced the level of dust from five feet deep to about 18 inches and kept the flue warm all winter!]
What year would that be?
R-32 or 33. So it going to be stopped, it ‘ud be 35 and that engine would be stopped in the early twenties. It had been stopped 15 year Stanley I know that.
Aye, I like that one, larning t’chimney to smook.
R-Aye, he says larn the bloody thing to smoke. Anyway we soon had some steam up when we learned t’chimney to smoke and we got running. Aye, I remember opening the stop valve, tiny little stop valve it were, on a reight slender pillar with a little pilot wheel on top you know and it were off, and after that it ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week, what a blooming job it were.
Aye, that’s the dairy industry!
R-Well, we got in well with the dairy, we were having all the machinery, shafting and everything to look at you know, they were making that dried milk for the cattle job you know.
[This was drying skim milk and later, whey as well for addition to cattle feed. The process was that a large stainless steel drum with a perfectly cylindrical surface rotated slowly with its bottom immersed in the fluid to be dried. The milk stuck to the drum and as it rotated was scraped off by knives which contacted the drum across its length. This process was later superseded by spray drying in a vacuum. SG]
R-Them big rollers… and these blokes were screwing the knives down with worm wheels and breaking shafts on them and stripping worm wheels, we were allus there working all hours of the day and night. Then they’d have to run the engine on Sunday as well, Charlie would go to bed for an hour or two (and Newton would run the engine) Saturday night and Sunday night, Oh it were a sickening job running the engine through. I allus got piled up wi’ the job you know. Newton, tha’ll have to go to t’dairy, he wants to go to bed for a bit. Hadn’t been in bed all week, black as the fireback, That were old Charlie, oh he were a case! Well, eventually they found out that one boiler weren’t enough and so they got another. They put it into another place, the next place you know and they got a reight big one, it ‘ud be nine foot six by thirty foot, thirty six foot?
What, a Lancy? [Lancashire boiler.]
R- it were a big un, aye.
I’ve never heard of one that big.
R-Oh well, it were a nine foot six by thirty then. It were a big ‘un. It got stuck on the top of Coates Bridge. When they were bringing it, they towed it over Coates Bridge and the trailer catched in the middle.
Aye, bellied.
R-Aye, you see with the hump on the bridge. Well, it were there for three days, all the traffic were stopped before they got it jacked up and got the boiler off the wagon.
When were that?
R-Just after the war finished. There were t’boiler, on top of the bridge, no wagon or nowt.
So that engine were running all through the war?
R-Oh heck aye, it were all on food weren’t it. What a job, what a job, Dobson’s Dairies. Second motion shaft dropped off one Friday tea time. No, on Thursday tea time. Get to t’dairy Newton, it’s stopped is t’place. I gets to t’dairy, you could still run the compressors but the second motion shaft had broken off in the big part, where they ran all the drying machines.
Did the compressors [for the refrigeration plant] run off a separate rope drive straight off….
R-Aye, separate drive shaft, it ran off t’second motion past t’side of second motion pulley did all the compressors with Dawson’s ropes on to a counter shaft.
Off the flywheel?
R-Off the side of the second motion pulley. We put two pulleys on like they should have done at Barnsey. It ran on to a big counter shaft all on ring oiler bearings like yours at Bancroft, never had no bother with that. And t’blooming second motion shaft had broken off in the wall, in’t wall box. Straight out you know, it were driven from th’engine to a short second motion shaft and then it were driven back wi’ eight ropes back into the bottom shed and it broke in the wall box. Thursday tea time, get to t’dairy, all t’milk’s having to go into the cut again! Middle of blooming summer. Straighten that shaft up he says. Well tha wants a length about ten foot long, saw it off at the first bearing, just like that, and get some couplings and a new shaft made, I’ll go to Rushworths and I’ll get thee a piece of stuff to make it on. Get Bob and Jimmy and get on to t’job. Get up to the dairy. We get it all stripped, sawed t’bloody shaft off, four and a half inch, saw it by hand. Didn’t take long you know with three of you. Soon walked through four and a half inch. Get big flange couplings cast, we had some castings in stock you know, get ‘em turned, get shafting to t’lathe, work all night, Bob turning couplings and Dennis and me on wi’t shaft, turnings piling up to the headstock, hadn’t time to fetch the bloody wheelbarrow! Running wi’ a bloody great gas engine in the back hole there, all the neighbours playing hell, exhaust pipe rattling on the window, it did, it did!
SCG/04 November 2000
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