Hydraulic Power
Dawn Bowskill has transcribed the invoices relating to the construction of John Braithwaite's 1817 water wheel and pump on the River Witham at Belton. The prime purposes of the wheel were to pump water into an extant cistern in the Mansion's attic for fire fighting and for the fountain in Wyatville's Italian Garden c.1820. The pump was disconnected possibly around 1873. It has ended up, not on show at the Science Museum, London.
Cragside in Northumberland became the first house to be powerered by hydroelectricity c.1870s. The scullery at Belton was equipped with Direct Current lighting running off the water wheel possibly around 1900. Return to Architecture homepage.
Braithwaite's 1817 4-barrel piston pump before its removal from the Pump House in 1933. By this time it had been disconnected.
Two of the gunmetal cylinders
Water wheel in 2022. The Braithwaite pump was replaced with a simpler, 3-barrel pump, right and below with the date plate, 1878 on it. The wheel was restored in 2011 and is able to turn.
The 1817 pump house on the River Witham . The headrace feeding water to the wheel is upstream behind the fencing, beyond which, lies Braithwaite's sluice gate. The tail race drains in the centre, in front of the house. A third branch from the upstream Witham drains through Viscount Tyrconnel's c.1744 Wilderness. The main outlet for water from Belton's Lakes, Mirror Pond and fountain, and effluent from the Mansion's 19th century water closets lies to the right. The turbulent water flushed the latter away, downstream to Barkston.
In the pump house, the direction of flow was either ON FOR THE HOUSE (left), or ON FOR THE GARDEN (right).
Braithwaite was joined by John Ericsson, a Swedish engineer and together with Charles Fox they designed the Novelty that took part in the Rainhill Trials of 1829. Images, contemporary below, replica left. Braithwaite withdrew because of boiler problems.
Braithwaite's company went on to produce locomotives, named William IV and Queen Adelaide. The pair ran trials on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway of 1830.
No doubt the £75,000 in today's money that Braithwaite received from the 1st Earl Brownlow helped to finance these pivotal railway developments.
A further Braithwaite invoice for £7,000 of 1843 refers to the visit of an engineer and workers who provided,
A Middling of Stout leather for leathering Pumping Engine
This could either refer to the water wheel pump or a Braithwaite steam fire engine, left. After 1850, the flax then the rubber hose was developed.
Belton's pump languishes unseen at the Science Museum, London.
Its oval name plate states, BRAITHWAITE FECIT 1817 LONDON.
Below is a 'souvenir' bolt from Braithwaite's engine with 1933 engraved on it. The other 3 bolts seem re-used on the 1873 replacement crank shaft visible in the images above, both with the engine still in situ and today, but are missing from the dismantled pump, left.
Description of action
The Science Museum has not published details of how the pump works, but we can surmise based on contemporary pumps and the description of the pumps parts.
The waterwheel is either breastshot or undershot. This turns a cogged driving wheel that engages with two smaller cogs, each turning a crankshaft operating on a cylinder pair.
The crankshafts convert rotational energy to linear motion by vertical connecting rods that drive the pistons in their cylinders. One piston of the pair gives a suction stroke, while the other provides a delivery stroke, alternating. Water enters the cylinder or leaves it via one way clack valves.
Braithwaite's plate is mounted on the central, air vessel, left. An air vessel is fitted on the delivery side to dampen out the pressure variations during discharge. As the discharge pressure rises the air is compressed in the vessel, and as the pressure falls the air expands. The peak pressure energy is thus stored in the air and returned to the system when pressure falls avoiding surges that can damage piping.
View of a Novelty on a railway published in around 1830 taken from a painting by Charles Vignoles, engineer. Vignoles appears to have had a connection with the development of Novelty for the trials. Twenty years later the railway reached Ambergate Station, Grantham.