A living van is a portable caravan for temporary use of traveling work crews, especially of early steam engines. [1] Living vans developed from the earlier shepherd's wagons, used to provide portable accommodation following a flock as they were moved between pastures.
Traction engines in the Victorian period represented an expensive capital investment in the latest agricultural technology of the period. Many were owned by contractors who would move them from farm to farm for hire, as required. [2] Typical work included threshing after harvest time. A rake of engine, threshing machine, a living van and often a water wagon [lower-alpha 1] would travel from farm to farm as needed, stopping at each for a few days.
The first engines, from around 1840, were horse-drawn portable engines. [3] From the 1860s the locomotive traction engine appeared, now capable of moving under its own power. [4]
The engine's crew would include a driver, a steersman, and often a boy. Other agricultural labourers carrying out the threshing work would already be resident on the farm. [lower-alpha 2] Threshing an average-sized farm of 50 acres (20 ha) would take about two weeks, [5] so the capital cost of the investment in an engine and 'drum' [lower-alpha 3] encouraged farms to purchase such a rig as a jointly shared investment, or for others to establish themselves as itinerant contractors. [5] Threshing would continue after harvest and into the winter, with the corn stacked in ricks until then. [6]
The first locomotive threshing teams were local and did not require living vans, the driver walking or cycling from home up to ten miles (16 km). Use of vans did not become widespread for threshing until the 1880s, some years after they were popular for ploughing. [7]
Larger engines, working in pairs, were also used as ploughing engines. These too were itinerant and would pull a living van and the balance plough behind them. Ploughing teams travelled longer distances, with living vans, from their outset. [7]
In his last TV series, Fred Dibnah's Made in Britain, Fred Dibnah travelled around industrial Britain with his traction engine drawing its living van — although, owing to his advanced illness, he was no longer able to live in it. [8]
The vans were constructed of wood, usually vertically matchboard panelled, on a wooden chassis. Traditionally they were painted dark green outside, white inside for lightness. The roof was curved, of canvas over a wooden frame. This would be tarred or treated as oilcloth for weatherproofing. Shepherd's wagons were often of corrugated iron, although this does not seem to have been used for wagons that were regularly towed on roads. Some small windows were provided, for light and ventilation and often too high for a view out. They had a four-wheel chassis, the front axle having simple single-pivot platform steering. Steering followed the drawbar from the engine, rather than being steered. Distinctively from earlier horse-drawn wagons, no driver's position was needed at their front. There were no brakes fitted, although wheel chocks were always carried.
Wheels were of cast iron, sometimes wooden artillery or cart wheels for early examples. Fowler, builders of ploughing engines, built riveted steel-spoked wheels, as for the engines themselves. [9] Their large vans differed distinctively from other makers in numerous details: side doors rather than rear, horizontal panelling and also common use of a clerestory window above. Later vans, from around 1900, carried solid rubber tyres. Modern examples have sometimes been refitted with pneumatic tyres. Living vans for steam roller gangs on road construction began using pneumatic tyres in the 1930s, to avoid damage to newly-laid asphalt.
Living vans often included a coal stove for heating and cooking, depending on the seasonal nature of their work. Otherwise a paraffin stove would be used for cooking. Unlike railway locomotives, the engine's own firebox was rarely used for cooking 'on the shovel' as it was too cramped and also provided no way to make a first cup of tea in the morning, before lighting up.
Agricultural living vans were plain, even when occupied by owner drivers. In contrast, showmen became known for their opulent and beautifully decorated wagons. These were distinguished by cut glass windows, lace curtains and even more engraved glass inside fronting display cabinets for china, ideally Royal Crown Derby. [10]
Showman's wagons are sought after today and are still used by new circus families. [11] [12]
A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of farm equipment that separates grain seed from the stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out. Before such machines were developed, threshing was done by hand with flails: such hand threshing was very laborious and time-consuming, taking about one-quarter of agricultural labour by the 18th century. Mechanization of this process removed a substantial amount of drudgery from farm labour. The first threshing machine was invented circa 1786 by the Scottish engineer Andrew Meikle, and the subsequent adoption of such machines was one of the earlier examples of the mechanization of agriculture. During the 19th century, threshers and mechanical reapers and reaper-binders gradually became widespread and made grain production much less laborious.
Continuous track or tracked treads are a system of vehicle propulsion used in tracked vehicles, running on a continuous band of treads or track plates driven by two or more wheels. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the weight of the vehicle better than steel or rubber tyres on an equivalent vehicle, enabling continuous tracked vehicles to traverse soft ground with less likelihood of becoming stuck due to sinking.
A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most commonly, the term is used to describe a farm vehicle that provides the power and traction to mechanize agricultural tasks, especially tillage, and now many more. Agricultural implements may be towed behind or mounted on the tractor, and the tractor may also provide a source of power if the implement is mechanised.
A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people.
A traction engine is a steam-powered tractor used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin tractus, meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any traction engine is to draw a load behind it. They are sometimes called road locomotives to distinguish them from railway locomotives – that is, steam engines that run on rails.
A steamroller is a form of road roller – a type of heavy construction machinery used for leveling surfaces, such as roads or airfields – that is powered by a steam engine. The leveling/flattening action is achieved through a combination of the size and weight of the vehicle and the rolls: the smooth wheels and the large cylinder or drum fitted in place of treaded road wheels.
Frederick Travis Dibnah,, was an English steeplejack and television personality, with a keen interest in mechanical engineering, who described himself as a "backstreet mechanic".
Aveling and Porter was a British agricultural engine and steamroller manufacturer. Thomas Aveling and Richard Thomas Porter entered into partnership in 1862, and developed a steam engine three years later in 1865. By the early 1900s, the company had become the largest manufacturer of steamrollers in the world. The company used a rampant horse as its logo derived from the White Horse of Kent.
A steam tractor is a tractor powered by a steam engine which is used for pulling.
The Avery Company, founded by Robert Hanneman Avery, was an American farm tractor manufacturer famed for its undermounted engine which resembled a railroad engine more than a conventional farm steam engine. Avery founded the farm implement business after the Civil War. His company built a large line of products, including steam engines, beginning in 1891. The company started with a return flue design and later adapted the undermount style, including a bulldog design on the smokebox door. Their design was well received by farmers in central Illinois. They expanded their market nationwide and overseas until the 1920s, when they failed to innovate and the company faltered. They manufactured trucks for a period of time, and then automobiles. until they finally succumbed to an agricultural crisis and the Depression.
A portable engine is an engine, either a steam engine or an internal combustion engine, that sits in one place while operating, but is portable and thus can be easily moved from one work site to another. Mounted on wheels or skids, it is either towed to the work site or moves there via self-propulsion.
Richard Garrett & Sons was a manufacturer of agricultural machinery, steam engines and trolleybuses. Their factory was Leiston Works, in Leiston, Suffolk, England. The company was founded by Richard Garrett in 1778.
The Strumpshaw Hall Steam Museum in Strumpshaw, Norfolk, is home to a collection of traction engines, steam rollers, a showman's engine and a steam wagon which are run on special occasions and on the last Sunday of each month from April to October.
Charles Burrell & Sons were builders of steam traction engines, agricultural machinery, steam lorries and steam tram engines. The company were based in Thetford, Norfolk and operated from the St Nicholas works on Minstergate and St Nicholas Street, some of which survives today.
The history of steam road vehicles comprises the development of vehicles powered by a steam engine for use on land and independent of rails, whether for conventional road use, such as the steam car and steam waggon, or for agricultural or heavy haulage work, such as the traction engine.
A steam wagon is a steam-powered truck for carrying freight. It was the earliest form of lorry (truck) and came in two basic forms: overtype and undertype, the distinction being the position of the engine relative to the boiler. Manufacturers tended to concentrate on one form or the other.
James & Fred Howard of Britannia Ironworks, Bedford, later known simply as Howards, were one of the largest English makers of agricultural equipment, steam traction engines, and light railway equipment. At The Great Exhibition of 1851 they exhibited a range of horse-drawn implements. After World War I, Howards became part of AGE, Agricultural & General Engineers, along with many of the other British makers of similar machinery.
The John Fowler 7nhp Steam Road Locomotive is a heritage-listed former steam road locomotive with nominal power of 5.2 kilowatts (7 hp) and now exhibited at 9 Amaroo Drive, Wellington, in the Dubbo Regional Council local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed and built by John Fowler & Co. (Leeds) Ltd in 1912. The property is owned by the Dubbo Regional Council and it was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 18 November 2011.
Robey and Co. was an engineering company based in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England which can be traced back to around 1849.