EARLY INVENTIONS

The story of the engineering genius on which Baker Perkins was built makes such fascinating reading that it is covered here in more than the usual level of detail. Even so, this does little more than hint at the enormous breadth of original thought applied to a wide range of engineering problems. The pity is that this application was not matched in all cases by a proportionate level of commercial acumen.

THE PERKINS FAMILY

Jacob Perkins was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts on July 9, 1766. In the words of an 1895 biography, he was "an ingenious mechanicke ………. Whose track to glory was bloodless, and whose elevation never gave the human heart a pang, nor drew from mortal eye a tear". (See also Trade Exhibitions).

Banknotes and Postage Stamps

Much has been said about Jacob Perkins' ability as an inventor – he is credited with filing no fewer than 21 American Patents between 1795 and 1838 and 19 British Patents between 1819 and 1836 in engineering - his famous steam gun, arguably years ahead of its time, that so appalled the Duke of Wellington with its noise and destructive power, is shown in How it Started. Not all of his inventions, nor those of his sons, were directly connected with the mechanisation of the food industry and we will look at some of these here.

His first major success was a viable security printing system for banknotes and postage stamps and the best way to understand this development in detail is to see the following text of an address to the Redhill Philatelic Society in October 1964 by Major E.W. Taylerson.

NOTE: a William Taylerson was the brother-in-law of Loftus Perkins, the grandson of Jacob Perkins.

Such was Jacob Perkins' expertise in engraving that he was commissioned to produce the dies for the funeral medals issued at the death of George Washington in 1799.

From Nails to Naval Cannons

Among Jacob's other early inventions were a nail machine – nails were at a premium for building work as the pioneers pushed westwards in the 1790's – a pump and other apparatus for fire engines, machines for stamping and embossing coins and milling and lettering the edges, marine propulsion and instruments for navigation, ships' ventilation and the reconditioning of naval cannon.

A Steam Locomotive

In 1836 Jacob Perkins designed a steam railway locomotive based on his sealed steam tube patent. Although it is said that Robert and George Stephenson (Of "Rocket" fame) travelled down from Newcastle to look at it, they did not consider it a threat to their own development.

The Steam Gun

On Tuesday, 6th December 1825 Jacob Perkins demonstrated his Steam Gun to the Duke of Wellington at a wharf beside the Regent's Canal Basin. (Details of this Steam Gun can be found in How it Started). The Duke congratulated the inventor whilst the Duke of Sussex, who accompanied Wellington, went off crying "Damn'd wonderful – damn'd wonderful". Word of the new weapon flashed around Europe but then the members of the establishment at Whitehall made their presence felt. They argued that - it would take too long to get up steam in a sudden attack; the Perkins gun was not easily portable and the generator and other parts would soon fail under the tremendous steam pressure.

Jacob responded with – "One pound of coals burned for raising steam will throw as many balls as four pounds of gunpowder. I will make a steam-cannon big enough to fire a one-ton ball from Dover to Calais". However the " Nothing to beat gunpowder" argument carried the day and the British government turned down the invention. Jacob, however, continued to make improvements to his device.

His son, Angier March Perkins, continued the attempts to persuade the Army of the Steam Gun's merits. Over 30 years later, in October 1856, Angier was writing to Colonel Pickering of the Ordnance Select Committee, Royal Arsenal, Woolwich and still pleading the case for steam gunnery:

"Sir, I had the honour to forward you a letter on the 8th inst. in reply to which you state that the subject of it would be brought before the Committee at their next meeting.

I beg in addition to that letter, to make a statement with a view to some practical results in the matter of the steam gun. The experiments which I have made in generating high pressure steam it must be acknowledged, are of great importance, inasmuch as they show how safely steam of great density may be managed and controlled.

The question of its applicability to warfare is yet to be solved. I have endeavoured by my humble means to settle the main principle – that of generating the steam and I now with some confidence appeal to your Scientific

Committee to continue your powerful assistance and to recommend the construction of such a generator as will put beyond question the practicability of steam gunnery.

I would propose that a generator of sufficient dimensions be constructed to discharge a ball of three hundredweights and so fixed in such a position as to admit of a series of experiments upon barrels of different diameters and of different lengths.

I would undertake to build such a generator for the sum of five thousand pounds (£5,000) which would suffice for the purpose.

Should the Committee think proper to recommend such an experiment I will give the subject my best attention to ensure success and I feel persuaded that the money will not be thrown away upon a useless experiment.

I have the honour to be

Sir,

Your Obedient Servant,

A.M. Perkins"

It is not clear when these attempts ceased but soon, Angier's efforts, and those of his son Loftus, were increasingly being put towards perfecting the Perkins Heating System and the Perkins Steam Engine. However, we understand that Loftus was still working with his father on the steam gun in 1862.

Steam Engines

One obsession on which he spent the greater part of his working life was the use of high-pressure steam and the Perkins Steam Engine was considered something of a phenomenon. For the engineers among you, Augustus Muir tells us:

"The generator, as he called the boiler, was the crucial part of his engine. A cylinder of 3-inch thick gunmetal, closed at both ends, was fixed in the furnace so that the fire played all around it. Operated by the engine itself, bellows boosted up the heat of the fire until the generator reached a temperature of 450 degrees F., and the superheated water was forced into a pipe, where it flashed into high-pressure steam and exploded at 500 pounds to the square inch into the working cylinder. At 200 strokes a minute, the engine was reckoned to develop 10-horse power. To keep the pipe joints steam tight, Perkins invented the double-cone pipe joint, an engineering device of some importance. In the course of his work on high-pressure steam, he evolved what he called the Uniflow engine, with exhausts through a number of ports after the engine had completed its stroke, thus dispersing it in a one-way flow".

NOTE: One of the most successful later Baker Perkins designs of bread ovens also bore the name "Uniflow").

Like other prolific inventors before and since, Jacob Perkins was unable to match engineering genius with commercial success. His interest in printing lost out to his interest in high-pressure steam and he paid little attention to the bank note printing firm he established in Fleet Street, drawing considerable sums of money from the business to finance his experiments, to the detriment of both to the business and his partners' finances.

Clearly, the invention bug was well-cemented into the family genes as the next two generations – Jacob's son, Angier March, and his grandson, Loftus, carried on the work, making, in some cases, significant improvements to Jacob's designs.

Central Heating Systems

In around 1832, Angier March Perkins adapted the high-pressure system into an early version of the 'indirect' heating system to be found in many houses today. Unlike his father, Angier was able to make something of a commercial success of this development and it turned into a very successful venture with Perkins heating systems being installed in country houses, hotels, large shops and public buildings and laid the foundations of a long-lasting "Heating and Ventilating" business. (For more details see The Heating and Ventilating Department).

Many of these systems were installed in churches in the South of England and in South Wales. It is a tribute to the innovative design of their inventor that these systems, installed in the 19th century, are still in operation in the 21st century. Although originally designed to operate at high temperatures, with today's lower acceptable temperature limit requirements for exposed pipe work, and the introduction of pumped circulation and temperature controls, their flexibility of use has allowed them to remain in operation for over 160 years.

Railway Carriage Heating

In 1843 Jacob Perkins was involved in probably the first application of steam heating to railway carriages. An article from the London Illustrated News of December 1843 described a carriage provided by the London & Birmingham Railway for the journey by Queen Victoria from Watford to Tamworth undertaken in 1843:

"The inconvenience arising from cold in the most carefully constructed railway carriage, where a long journey has to be performed in the winter season, suggested to the directors the necessity of fixing a warming apparatus in the bed of the carriage and Mr. Perkins, the inventor of the steam gun, has accordingly fitted a very ingenious apparatus for the purpose of heating the carriage, which may be thus briefly described: a coil of pipe placed near the hinder axle tree, and supplied with water from a small cistern in the bed of the carriage, is kept heated by means of a lamp with four burners. This pipe is continued round the carriage between the flooring; and the water becoming hot, the heat is communicated through a small brass grating in the floor, the temperature of the carriage being regulated by the ventilator above."

There appears to have been no attempt on Jacob Perkins' part to commercially exploit this development.

His entry into the baking industry came about as a result of a new bakery being opened next door to his premises in Regent Square. Angier was asked to use his engineering expertise to install the necessary equipment and, in the autumn of 1851, he began to study the problems of oven building. He soon took out a patent for a wrought-iron tubular system for circulating hot water in ovens. After some difficulty finding new customers, the business grew but more than seventy per cent of the sales were to the military authorities, thus beginning a connection with feeding soldiers which carried on through both World Wars. (See Westwood Works in WW1 and Westwood Works in WW2).

Marine Propulsion

Loftus Perkins had a 79 foot yacht – "Emily" – into which he installed a Perkins engine which gave many years of good service. Construction details are given below:

• Built by Forrest & Son, Limehouse in 1878. Engines by Greenwood & Batley, Leeds on the "Perkins" System.
• Overall length - 79 feet, Beam - 10'-3". Draft loaded – 4'-9". Weight – 35 tons.
• Hull -bent timber, carvel built, schooner rigged.
• Triple expansion engines on two cranks.
• H.P. Cylinder diameter - 4 ½" - single acting.
• M.P. Cylinder diameter – 10 1/8" – single acting.
• L.P. Cylinder diameter – 14 3/8" – double acting
• Stroke 9"
• Perkins Watertube Boiler – 400 lbs/sq" pressure.
• Speed 10 knots. R.P.M. – 220.
• Consumption at this speed – 1 cwt of coke per hour

In 1880, Loftus Perkins installed a triple expansion steam engine of his own design in to the 70-ton motor yacht "Anthracite" – the smallest vessel to have crossed the Atlantic under steam alone. "Anthracite" was built by Schlesinger Davis & Co. of Wallsend in 1880 with engines to the "Perkins" System by Hawks, Crawshay & Sons of Gateshead. Gross Tonnage was 70.26 Tons and its length was 84ft 6 inches.

The voyage of "SY Anthracite" attracted much attention and detailed trials were carried out before it undertook its Atlantic crossing, by the US Navy in Brooklyn Navy Yard, and again on its return to England. Part of the record of these trials (including Boiler and Engine details) appears below.

He also fitted a Perkins engine into the 160-foot yacht "Express" in 1883. This carried up to 677 passengers on daily cruises from Blackwall down river to Sheerness. The 800 horsepower, quadruple compound engine gave the "Express" a speed of 14 knots. It is said that more engineers turned up to see the boiler and engine than genuine day-trippers. The yacht was finally sold to a Norwegian cruise company, thus ending Perkins' attempt to demonstrate that high-pressure steam was economical.

Two Perkins steam engines were returned to Westwood in 1961 from the Dorking Lime Company and in 1978 and were overhauled in the Apprentice School. Another photograph can be seen in Trainees in Action. One of these engines can be seen at Cadbury, Bournville, the other is privately preserved near Northampton.

Perkins Engines under renovation in the Westwood Apprentice School

Chris Hodrien of the International Stationary Steam Engine Society says of the larger engine illustrated above:

"....the engine used steam at 500 psi, ran at 100 rpm and developed about 40 hp. This was a truly phenomenal pressure for the 1870s and would have been far ahead of the field. That it ran for 60 years would seem to be testament to the designer's ability but it begs the question why such pressures were not more widely adapted in steam engine design. Indeed, few stationary engines ever went beyond 250 psi and even steam turbine driven ships tended to keep to relatively low pressures for many years. It was only in power stations that steam turbines were to comfortably exceed these pressures, but even in 1921 the North Tees power station was noted to be the first to use "really high pressure steam" at a mere 450 psi".

It gives pause for thought to consider the confusion that might have been caused locally had Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins still been manufacturing engines when they moved to Peterborough!

It is hoped to include a complete section on the development of the Perkins Steam Engine in the near future.

Metallurgy

Jacob Perkins' interest in metallurgy, honed in the creation of a new approach to the manufacture of printing plates, was followed in later years by the development of new metals for use in steam engines which much reduced wear and did not require lubricating in the presence of steam. Such innovations were at the heart of his grandson's success with marine propulsion. A "Perkins's Patent Metal was introduced in the 1860's to much acclaim from engineers from many countries, testimonials from whom can be seen below.

Road vehicles

In a harbinger of the ill-fated venture into car production in the early days of Westwood Works (See How it Started), Loftus Perkins designed a Steam Road Carriage following which he exhibited his "Noiseless Road Engine" at the London International Exhibition of 1873. But, like his grandfather, his main interest was in marine propulsion.

Traction engines

Between 1871 and 1873, Loftus Perkins devoted much attention to traction engines, in which he was associated with R. Fairlie (of the double-ended Festiniog Railway locomotive fame) and L. Stern. One of these engines was supported on a single broad central driving wheel. The boiler, steam engine and driving gear were mounted within a ring frame balanced around this wheel. An engine to this design was exhibited in South Kensington before undertaking a very successful trip to St. Albans. Nothing else is known of the fate of this venture.

Tramway locomotives

We have found mention of yet another area of endeavour for Loftus Perkins – that of the design of locomotives for the early tramways. He had at least two built, the first by the Yorkshire Engine Co. in 1874, the second by Greenwood & Bailey of Leeds in 1878. The second locomotive was tried, without success, on the Leeds tramways. It had a 500 psi vertical boiler, triple expansion engine and geared drive via a jackshaft.

Refrigeration

More than 50 years earlier, Jacob Perkins had worked on a process of mechanical refrigeration and, although this was not developed to commercial success, it has been described as the precursor of all modern refrigeration compressors. Loftus Perkins now embarked, with his usual in-bred determination, on the development that, it is argued, would hasten his death.

Britain's rapid population growth created a demand for food preservation and Loftus set out to design an ammonia-based device that would produce ice cheaply. Ice had been made in an Edinburgh laboratory in 1810 and several types of refrigeration machinery were in operation in London Docks and elsewhere.

After many experiments and very long hours of work, accompanied by his able assistant, C.J. Hayward, the "Arktos" system was proved a success. It was demonstrated to Sir John Thorneycroft, founder of the shipbuilding firm: Sir James Dewar, inventor of the vacuum flask; and Sir Frederick Bramwell, civil engineer and later President of the British Association.

"Arktos" was based on the separation of ammonia gas from the water in which it was dissolved, the liquefaction of the gas, and the subsequent revapourisation of the ammonia, with the reabsorption of the gas by the water. The apparatus used no moving parts and not a single valve.

NOTE: "Arktos" was also the name given to the sidings that connected Westwood Works to the main London to Edinburgh railway line. (See The Railway Connection).

An "Arktos" machine was exhibited at the 1889 Paris Exhibition. It was capable of freezing one cwt. of Mercury in the open air – Mercury does not freeze until minus 40, i.e. 72 degrees of frost. Many types and sizes of "Arktos" apparatus were installed but as C.J. Hayward ruefully commented:

"The Arktos was like high-pressure steam – the public did not really appreciate it."

By this time, Loftus Perkins was a sick man and he died in April 1891 at the age of fifty-six. This brought to an end the control of the business by a member of the Perkins family. C.J. Hayward provides a description of the man:

"Loftus Perkins was a man with a beautiful brown eye, well proportioned in build and a great chemist and engineer. He had a large moustache and Dundreary whiskers and always wore a double-breasted blue suit and, in the works, a peaked cap with silk oak leaves around. In the winter he used to wear a Canadian fur cap. He smoked 13 ozs. of tobacco a week – he always carried a pouch with 4 ozs. of tobacco in it and I shared many pipes with him. His type of tobacco was "Branksomes Light Virginia".

It was the way that Paul Pfleiderer handled Loftus Perkins' Arktos patent, following the merger between Werner & Pfleiderer (London) and A.M. Perkins & Son in 1893, that created a bitter dispute with Loftus's younger son, Ludlow, and finally ended any semblance of control at Regent Square by the Perkins family.

The Perkins Patents

Not only is the list of Patents taken out by the Perkins Family impressive for its length but the breadth of engineering developments covered is quite staggering. One wonders what sort of engineering empire might have resulted if a greater percentage of these ideas could have been brought to the market successfully.

Jacob Perkins

Angier March Perkins

Loftus Perkins

For details of another prolific inventor from the "Perkins" stream of the business see The Pointons.

THE BAKER FAMILY

The Flour Sifter

The key invention from the Baker side was the Flour Sifter (For more details see How It Started) for which Joseph Baker took out a Canadian patent in 1870 and a US patent in 1871. This remarkably simple but effective device was soon much in demand. His workshop in Trenton, Canada soon grew into a busy little factory as the product was developed, with different attachments, for use in the preparation of a wide range of foodstuffs.

In 1876, Joseph Baker made his first trip to London accompanied by his son. Joseph Allen Baker. That a market for the sifter existed in the UK soon became clear and when Joseph returned to Canada, his son remained in Scotland – where he met his future wife, Elizabeth Balmer Moscrip – and began to send a stream of orders back to Trenton. Later he was joined by his brother, William, and, after opening a small office in Liverpool, he was able to calculate that he would be able to sell "at least 100,000 sets and clear upwards of £30,000 above manufacturing costs and expenses".

Food Process Plant

A year later, Joseph Baker began to make plans to settle in England in order to help his sons and their first factory was opened in Tabernacle Walk, Finsbury (See Before Westwood). Joseph Baker began to evolve other machines and, only three years after becoming established in London, they were showing equipment at a London Exhibition. This included biscuit-making machinery – the first branch of the food industry to be mechanised (although the production of hard ship's biscuits had been mechanised for some years) - and both travelling and stationary ovens. It is worthy of note that in the eighteen-eighties, Joseph Baker & Sons were agents for the Perkins steam ovens described above.

One original and very successful innovation was a machine for producing sugar wafers, designed by George Baker – the third son. It was claimed that:

"Since it reduced labour costs by at least five-sixths, gas by two-thirds and needed only half of one horsepower to drive it, no baker without this machine could compete against rivals who had installed it".

By the turn of the century, Joseph Baker & Sons was located in Willesden and was the most important manufacturer of machinery for the food industry in the United Kingdom. On incorporation in 1902 it had a bigger workforce than the Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins and Lewis & Pointons Panification Ltd. firms put together.

The company was quick to see opportunities to improve production methods in many parts of the food industry but often entered the market by selling other company's products before developing its own designs. An increasingly wide range of equipment for the chocolate, biscuit and other food industries was developed at or merchanted from Willesden and they soon became the source of any equipment which the shopkeeper, biscuit maker or confectioner could possibly need Some idea of the breadth of product range being offered by Joseph Baker & Sons at the time can be obtained from the Index to their 1915 Sales Catalogue shown below:

The foundations of the company's later business in fully automated food process plant were well and truly laid.

A more detailed account of the development of the Baker product line may be found in Augustus Muir's "History of Baker Perkins" – Chapters 7 and 16. The range of products produced at Westwood Works in later years is shown in The Product Line.

For more information about the early days of the Company's businesses in London, see How it Started, Some Historic Correspondence and Before Westwood.