Yesterday along with forum member Gary Ayres I paid a visit to the Museum of Science and Industry, unfortunately on the day their boiler
had run out of meths was undergoing repair so the steamers couldn't be seen running, despite this it was a very enjoyable day and armed with a new roll of film in my Box Brownie camera I thought it I'd share what we saw.
Manchester was a major player in the industrial revolution and particularly in the cotton industry so the museum does have this as it's focus but there are areas devoted to aviation, computing etc.
As both Gary and myself are mainly interested in engines it made sense to head for the 'Power Hall' first, so let the tour begin :-
Firstly on the list was this Robinson hot air engine, it's quite a hefty looking beast for its modest 0.25 hp
Next was a replica of an Otto engine built in 1982
A Crossley gas engine,.
A National gas engine built 1900
A Bisschop gas engine of 1882
In amongst the gas engines were a few machine tools partly rigged up to a half built overhead line shaft. It looks like the intention is to have to tools running in the near future.
I can't remember what this chunky little fella was but I wouldn't want that flywheel dropped on my foot.
A Crossley oil engine.
Can't quite remember what this one is and forgot to photograph the info board
Centre stage in the engine hall is this monster tandem Corliss engine rated at 500hp.
Next we move onto this rather nice V twin steamer, I think (but not sure) that this is the engine recently serialised in Model Engineer magazine.
Another National engine.
This rather mundane looking exhibit had what I thought could be an interesting history. There wasn't any staff available to ask but reading the notice boards it appears it was one of a number of water pumps dotted around Manchester City centre. The idea was they supplied water at high pressure to a network of 35 miles of pipes under the streets, small businesses could be connected to this water supply and use its pressure to power their own machines. Next to the pump was a huge bank of cast iron weights that could be raised by water pressure during periods of low demand then later released to supplement the pumps during high demand.
I intend to try an find out a it more about this system I'm curious to know well it worked and how long it ran etc. I can see that it's a kind of forerunner to the National Grid before electricity came along but it does seem like a problematic system to me
Moving on to more modern things are a couple of 20th century alternators
This workshop engine is nothing unusual but I thought rather attractive nontheless
A fairly routine 'A; frame engine.
A couple of photos a Grasshopper haulage engine - This engine was the inspiration for Stew Harts Potty Grasshopper.
The last engine was this Crossley gas engine, I'll rotate the video once I have figured out how to do it but for now you will have to watch it in bed. Developing a modest 1.5 hp it originally ran on coal gas but the museum curator said that when they first acquired it and tried to run it on domestic gas it proved to be unsuccesful. They now buy a 'special mix' gas from a local bottle gas supplier who has now perfected the recipe.
Since Manchester owes a lot of its history to the cotton industry it made sense to have a look in the textile area of the museum. I'm no expert textile machinery so I can't really comment much on the following photographs but hopefully they will give an insight into what the industry used.
This general view of the textile floor shows a lot of the machinery needed to turn raw cotton in to useable cloth, broadly speaking the machines are arranged so that the raw cotton would start at the top left in the photo then work through various carding machines along the left side toward the camera, the machine nearest the camera then starts to spin the yarn, working up the rightside away from the camera the next machine twist the yarn more tightly to the point it has the strength for weaving. Finally the last machine just about visible in the top right corner weaves the yarn into cloth.
A few other views show how things were built to last.
The last few images show part of a rather impressive looking machine that performs the secondary spinning prior to weaving. The machine shown is
1/
4 of the width of the full installation that would have been used and operated by 3 adults and one child. Put simply the small bobbins at the front spin while the frame at the front moves forward on rails, doing this pulls the thread off the rear bobbins then on the return travel the frame winds the newly spun yarn onto the front bobbins.
The machine was largely automatic so the workers had to operate at the pace of the machine (and believe me it is fast). Essentially the adult workers were there to keep the machine fed with thread, change bobbins, deal with snapped threads etc.
Each machine had 1 child worker usually not older than about 7yrs and often as young as 5yrs who were required to crawl under the machine from the back while the frame was moving forwards then pick up loose debris / mess etc from the floor before the frame started it's return.
Seeing the machine demonstrated, I reckon a child would have about 10 secs to climb under, pick up the mess etc before the frame came back. As for the noise I found it intolerable after 30 secs, how on earth people put up with it during 12 or 14 hour shifts is beyond me
Well, that concludes my photographic walk through and a bit of history.
I really enjoyed the day, met a fellow forum member, learnt a bit of history then washed it all down with a couple of pints of the dark stuff
Peter