John Penn and Sons

John Penn and Sons
Industry	Engineering
Fate	Amalgamated, 1899
Successor	Thames Iron Works Ship Building and Engineering Co.
Founded	1799?
Headquarters	London, England
Key people	John Penn
Products	Marine steam engines

Last updated September 24, 2019

John Penn and Sons was an English engineering company based in London, and mainly known for its marine steam engines.

A marine steam engine is a steam engine that is used to power a ship or boat. This article deals mainly with marine steam engines of the reciprocating type, which were in use from the inception of the steamboat in the early 19th century to their last years of large-scale manufacture during World War II. Reciprocating steam engines were progressively replaced in marine applications during the 20th century by steam turbines and marine diesel engines.

History

Establishment

In 1799 engineer and millwright John Penn (born in Taunton, Somerset, 1770; died 6 June 1843)^[1] started an agricultural engineering business on the site at the junction of Blackheath and Lewisham Roads (close to modern-day Deptford Bridge) in south-east London. It grew in two decades to be one of the major engineering works in the London area.^[2] The focus of the firm remained in agriculture until the 1830s and 1840s, when Penn's son, also John Penn, took over the company and it began to specialise in building marine steam engines.

A millwright is a high-precision craftsman or skilled tradesperson who installs, dismantles, repairs, reassembles, and moves machinery in factories, power plants, and construction sites.

Taunton Country town of Somerset, England

Taunton is a large town in Somerset, England. The town's population in 2011 was 69,570. Taunton has over 1,000 years of religious and military history, including a 10th century monastery and Taunton Castle, which has origins in the Anglo Saxon period and was later the site of a priory. The Normans then built a stone structured castle, which belonged to the Bishops of Winchester. The current heavily reconstructed buildings are the inner ward, which now houses the Museum of Somerset and the Somerset Military Museum.

Somerset is a county in South West England which borders Gloucestershire and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east and Devon to the south-west. It is bounded to the north and west by the Severn Estuary and the Bristol Channel, its coastline facing southeastern Wales. Its traditional border with Gloucestershire is the River Avon. Somerset's county town is Taunton.

Marine steam

Penn Jr was an inventor of engines. One of the earliest engines he produced was the grasshopper beam engine, a six horsepower version being the first steam engine to power the machinery at the works. He shifted the focus of the works to marine engines. His 40-horsepower beam engines were fitted in the paddle steamers 'Ipswich' and 'Suffolk', and it is likely these were the first marine engines to be designed and built by Penn. He then focussed on improving the oscillating engine from the version patented by Aaron Manby in 1821. In 1844 he replaced the engines of the Admiralty yacht, HMS Black Eagle with oscillating engines of double the power, without increasing either the weight or space occupied,^[3] an achievement which broke the naval supply dominance of Boulton & Watt and Maudslay, Son & Field.^[2] His enhanced reputation due to this notable advancement was further augmented by Penn's introduction of trunk engines for driving screw propellers in vessels of war. HMS Encounter (1846) and HMS Arrogant (1848) were the first ships to be fitted with such engines and such was their efficacy that by the time of Penn's death in 1878, the engines had been fitted in 230 ships.^[3] Initially, ships were adapted to incorporate these engines, but in 1851, the Navy ordered its first ship specifically designed as a steam-screw auxiliary, HMS Agamemnon.^[2]

Grasshopper beam engines are beam engines that are pivoted at one end, rather than in the centre.

Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions being used today are the mechanical horsepower, which is about 745.7 watts, and the metric horsepower, which is approximately 735.5 watts.

Aaron Manby (ironmaster) British ironmaster

Aaron Manby was an English civil engineer and the founder of the Horseley Ironworks, notable for the many fine iron canal bridges that it built. The eponymous Aaron Manby steamboat was the first iron-hulled steamer to go to sea, and it was driven by Manby's patent Oscillating Engine, an effective and durable marine steam engine.

These advancements were coupled with a reputation for quality and reliability and this led to Penn becoming the major engine supplier to the Royal Navy as it made the transition from sail to steam.^[2] Penn was also responsible for introducing wood bearings for screw-propeller shafts which became vital to the worldwide use of steam-powered ships.^[3]^[4] This development of the lignum vitae stern bearing which enabled screw propeller ships to make oceanic voyages without wearing out their stern glands came in collaboration with Francis Pettit Smith.^[5] Other notable associations include his work on the application of superheated steam in marine engines.^[3]

The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against the Kingdom of France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is known as the Senior Service.

Lignum vitae is a wood, also called guayacan or guaiacum, and in parts of Europe known as Pockholz, from trees of the genus Guaiacum. The trees are indigenous to the Caribbean and the northern coast of South America and have been an important export crop to Europe since the beginning of the 16th century. The wood was once very important for applications requiring a material with its extraordinary combination of strength, toughness, and density. It is also the national tree of the Bahamas and the Jamaican national flower.

A stave bearing is a simple journal bearing where a shaft rotates in a bearing housing. Rather than the usual arrangement where the fixed part of the bearing surrounds most of the circumference of the shaft in one or two pieces, a stave bearing uses a large number of axial staves to support the shaft. A large housing is made with grooves running along the shaft, these grooves being filled with strips of suitable material, originally wood.

Penn also produced the trunk engine for HMS Warrior and during construction was requested to develop an engine design for the RN gunboats being readied for the Crimean War. Penn chose his trunk engine design and subsequently produced 90 sets of what were the first mass-produced, high-pressure and high-revolution marine engines.^[6] At the Admiralty's insistence, they also used the Whitworth measurement standards throughout; Penn was a great friend of Joseph Whitworth, and employed the precision instruments and tools developed by him.^[5] The association with Whitworth was important in the development of mass-produced marine engines, as is clear from the obituary to Whitworth from The Times of 24 January 1887:

HMS Warrior is a 40-gun steam-powered armoured frigate built for the Royal Navy in 1859–1861. She was the name ship of the Warrior-class ironclads. Warrior and her sister ship HMS Black Prince were the first armour-plated, iron-hulled warships, and were built in response to France's launching in 1859 of the first ocean-going ironclad warship, the wooden-hulled Gloire. Warrior conducted a publicity tour of Great Britain in 1863 and spent her active career with the Channel Squadron. Obsolescent following the 1871 launching of the mastless and more capable HMS Devastation, she was placed in reserve in 1875, and was "paid off" – decommissioned – in 1883.

A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.

The Crimean War was a military conflict fought from October 1853 to February 1856 in which the Russian Empire lost to an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, Britain and Sardinia. The immediate cause involved the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, which was a part of the Ottoman Empire. The French promoted the rights of Roman Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The longer-term causes involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the unwillingness of Britain and France to allow Russia to gain territory and power at Ottoman expense. It has widely been noted that the causes, in one case involving an argument over a key, have never revealed a "greater confusion of purpose", yet they led to a war noted for its "notoriously incompetent international butchery".

The Crimean War began, and Sir Charles Napier demanded of the Admiralty 120 gunboats, each with engines of 60 horsepower, for the campaign of 1855 in the Baltic. There were just ninety days in which to meet this requisition, and, short as the time was, the building of the gunboats presented no difficulty. It was otherwise however with the engines, and the Admiralty were in despair. Suddenly, by a flash of the mechanical genius which was inherent in him, the late Mr John Penn solved the difficulty, and solved it quite easily.

He had a pair of engines on hand of the exact size. He took them to pieces and he distributed the parts among the best machine shops in the country, telling each to make ninety sets exactly in all respects to the sample. The orders were executed with unfailing regularity, and he actually completed ninety sets of engines of 60 horsepower in ninety days – a feat which made the great Continental Powers stare with wonder, and which was possible only because the Whitworth standards of measurement and of accuracy and finish were by that time thoroughly recognised and established throughout the country.^[7]

The engine recovered from the wreck of the SS Xantho is of the gunboat type. Built (or assembled) in 1861, it is the only known example, and in being recovered intact was found to have all its fittings and fixtures attached including Penn's nameplate. It is on display at the Western Australian Museum.

SS Xantho was a steam ship used in the colony of Western Australia as a pearling transport and mothership, as a tramp steamer, carrying passengers, including Aboriginal convicts and trade goods before she sank at Port Gregory, Western Australia in 1872. She was powered by a horizontal trunk engine.

The Western Australian Museum is the state museum for Western Australia. It has six main sites: in Perth within the Perth Cultural Centre, two in Fremantle, and one each in Albany, Geraldton, and Kalgoorlie-Boulder. The Western Australian Museum is a statutory authority within the Culture and the Arts Portfolio, established under the Museum Act 1969.

John Penn's firm was a major employer in the Greenwich area with 1800 employed at its Greenwich and Deptford works at its peak.^[2] John Penn and Sons was considered the best-equipped marine engineering works and Penn a model employer. He recognised the value of skilled employees through pensions and awarded Christmas gifts. His works also provided the education for a whole generation of marine engineers.^[5]

Amalgamation

It was amalgamated with the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company in 1899 under the name of Thames Iron Works, Shipbuilding and Engineering Company. The combined company failed in 1912.

Related Research Articles

Henry Maudslay was an English machine tool innovator, tool and die maker, and inventor. He is considered a founding father of machine tool technology. His inventions were an important foundation for the Industrial Revolution.

British Standard Whitworth (BSW) is an imperial-unit-based screw thread standard.

Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company was a British engineering company based in Wallsend, North East England, on the River Tyne. Queen Elizabeth 2 Maiden Voyage 1969 also had Parmatrada turbines.

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John Penn FRS (1805–1878) was an English marine engineer whose firm was pre-eminent in the middle of the 19th century due to his innovations in engine and propeller systems, which led his firm to be the major supplier to the Royal Navy as it made the transition from sail to steam power. He was also president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on two occasions.

J. and G. Rennie was a British engineering company based in Millwall, London, England. They were involved in manufacture of marine engines, and some complete ships, as well as other diverse onshore engineering projects. An association with railway engines is usually attributed to G. and J. Rennie, which may suggest they used a second company to keep the books separate, and there was also George Rennie & Sons, which is associated with the development and patents of the steam disc engine. All three companies appear to have been in existence at the same time.

SS Archimedes was a steamship built in Britain in 1839. She is notable for being the world's first steamship to be driven by a screw propeller.

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HMS Phoenix was a 6-gun steam paddle vessel of the Royal Navy, built in a dry dock at Chatham in 1832. She was reclassified as a second-class paddle sloop before bring rebuilt as a 10-gun screw sloop in 1844-45. She was fitted as an Arctic storeship in 1851 and sold for breaking in 1864.

HMS Basilisk was a first-class paddle sloop of the Royal Navy, built at the Woolwich Dockyard and launched on 22 August 1848.

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The Cheerful-class gunboat was a class of twenty gunboats built for the Royal Navy in 1855 for use in the Crimean War.

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The Albacore-class gunboat was a class of 98 gunboats built for the Royal Navy in 1855–56 for use in the Crimean War.

The Clown-class gunboat was a class of twelve gunboats ordered by the Royal Navy in January 1856 for use in the Crimean War, although by the time they were completed, later that year, the Crimean War was over and some of these gunboats were sent to the Far East and took part in the Second Opium War.

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William Penn was an English amateur cricketer who played for Kent County Cricket Club in the 1870s.

References

↑ "John Penn, Senior". www.gracesguide.co.uk. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
1 2 3 4 5 Richard Hartree (epilogue by Prudence Penn), John Penn and Sons of Greenwich, 2008, Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 978-1-84306-411-4
1 2 3 4 "John Penn". archive.is. 15 April 2013. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
↑ Penn presented two papers on the subject to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1856 and 1858.
1 2 3 "John Penn". www.gracesguide.co.uk. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
↑ Osbon, G. A., 1965, The Crimean War gunboats. Part. 1. The Mariner's Mirror, The Journal of the Society of Nautical Research. 51, 103–116 & Preston, A., & Major, 1965, J., Send a gunboat. Longmans, London.
↑ Richard Hartree's history of John Penn & Sons (2008), though, describes the obituary as "a more graphic, factually inaccurate and almost mythical version of John Penn's contribution to gunboat engine manufacture" (p.43).

External links

Chronology of the company.

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[1] "John Penn, Senior". www.gracesguide.co.uk. Retrieved 21 February 2019.

[Hartree-2] 1 2 3 4 5 Richard Hartree (epilogue by Prudence Penn), John Penn and Sons of Greenwich, 2008, Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 978-1-84306-411-4

[IME-3] 1 2 3 4 "John Penn". archive.is. 15 April 2013. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2019.

[4] Penn presented two papers on the subject to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1856 and 1858.

[Grace-5] 1 2 3 "John Penn". www.gracesguide.co.uk. Retrieved 21 February 2019.

[6] Osbon, G. A., 1965, The Crimean War gunboats. Part. 1. The Mariner's Mirror, The Journal of the Society of Nautical Research. 51, 103–116 & Preston, A., & Major, 1965, J., Send a gunboat. Longmans, London.

[7] Richard Hartree's history of John Penn & Sons (2008), though, describes the obituary as "a more graphic, factually inaccurate and almost mythical version of John Penn's contribution to gunboat engine manufacture" (p.43).