A man engine is a mechanism of reciprocating ladders and stationary platforms installed in mines to assist the miners' journeys to and from the working levels. It was invented in Germany in the 19th century and was a prominent feature of tin and copper mines in Cornwall until the beginning of the twentieth century.
In the Cornish examples the motive power was provided by waterwheels, or one of the mine's steam engines. [1] The steam engine or water wheel would be linked to a series of beams – known as "rods" – fastened together and reaching to the bottom of the mineshaft. These were arranged to offer a reciprocating motion of, typically, twelve to fifteen feet (three to five metres). Small foot platforms were attached to the rods at the same distance apart as the engine stroke and fixed platforms ("sollars" [2] ) were built onto the shaft walls, spaced to coincide with the top and bottom positions of each of the moving platforms. The moving platforms were often small, typically 12 inches (30 centimetres) square, to make the miner stand close to the centre-line of the rod and thus keep a safe distance from the sides of the shaft. For the same reason the grab handles were always fitted directly above the foot platforms. [3]
To go up or down, the miner would step onto the travelling platform and allow himself to be carried to the next fixed platform, where he would step off and wait. At the end of the next stroke the next moving platform would line up and he could step onto it and repeat the process. Miners could ascend and descend at the same time: the pause at the changeover point was made long enough (typically between two and eight seconds) [4] for two men to change places. To facilitate this some installations (such as at the Devon Great Consols mine, Tavistock) had a fixed platform at both sides of the shaft, one side for miners descending and one for those on the ascent. [5] Counterweights – large boxes filled with stones attached through "see-sawing" horizontal beams – were installed to avoid the full weight of the shaft and men bearing on the top linkage. In the deepest mines, which could sink to more than 350 fathoms (640 metres), extra counterweights were provided at regular intervals, in horizontal side galleries. [6]
In a common variation a pair of rods was used, with one on its upstroke as the other descended. The miner stepped from one to the other, rather than waiting at a fixed rest, as they changed direction. [1] [6]
Rotary steam engines were found to be more suitable than beam engines because the steady speed of the heavy flywheel gave a predictable pause between reversals of direction, whereas pistons acting directly on the rods, even when controlled by a cataract governor, could surprise the passenger by irregular waits, longer or shorter. [4] In Cornwall only the Wheal Reeth man engine, Godolphin, (where a pumping engine was converted to this new use) was powered by a piston acting directly on the rods. [3] When not in use for the man engine, it was an advantage that a rotary engine could also be used to power a whim.
The earliest known examples of this device were from the first half of the nineteenth century in the silver mining area of the Harz mountains, Germany, where they were driven by cranks connected to water wheels, although bucket hoists ("Hakenkunst") using the same method of operation had been used in Swedish iron mines since the 17th century. [1] [7] They appear to have evolved from an informal modification to the beam pumps, where the miners used spikes stuck into the wooden pump rods to get themselves carried up the shaft. [1] As beam pumps were universal in deep mines, it was a then simple development to make proper platforms to carry the miners. The first formal engine was installed in 1833 at a mine at Clausthal, Lower Saxony, where inspector Wilhelm Albert and manager Georg Dörell fastened foot platforms and hand-holds to adjacent, reciprocating pump rods, using a waterwheel-driven pump put out of use when a new drainage adit was made at a lower level. [6] [8] The 1837 man engine at the Samson Pit in Sankt Andreasberg in the same region is still in use, although converted from water to electric power in 1922. [9]
The device was introduced to Cornwall in January 1842, following the award of a premium for the best design, by the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. The winner, Michael Loam, built one for the proprietors of the Tresavean Mine, in Lanner near Redruth. [10] [11] He used a double-rod design, driven by a waterwheel. [1] In October of that year Loam proposed that the water wheel be replaced by a steam engine. A 36-inch bore, 6-foot stroke, double-action steam engine was employed, through reduction spur gearing of 5:1. At the same time the stroke of the man-engine beams was increased from 6 feet to 12. [6] Coal consumption was 24 hundredweight (1,200 kg) per day; the engine was in use for only six hours a day, but the boiler was kept at operating temperature continuously. [12] The miners' journey time (in either direction) was reduced from about an hour to twenty-four minutes and output per shift increased by one fifth. [13]
More than a dozen examples were installed in Cornish mines by the end of the century, but these were usually of the single-rod type, which was perceived as safer in use. [1] When cable operated winding gear became available the man engines continued in use, particularly in cases where the mineshaft was not truly vertical and winding engines drawing suspended cages could not be used; with the provision of a few well-placed rollers, and “fend offs” mounted on trunnions, the rods could reach the bottom of a shaft even at a substantial deviation from the vertical. Economics also played a part: the rods needed for pumping could be used for this extra function at little increased cost. Even when skips or kibbles were used in such shafts, [14] (running on "skipways") the tipping motion would make them impractical for carrying men.
The miners took to these devices without hesitation as their pay was not calculated until they had reached their underground workplace. Contemporary safety studies concluded that, although intrinsically dangerous, the use of a man engine was in practice safer than climbing long ladders: it was less risky to be carried up at the end of a hard shift than to climb a ladder and risk falling because of exhaustion. [15] [16] In some mines, particularly in Germany, wedges or collars placed just above close-fitting rollers, or chains, were installed to limit any drop should a breakage occur. [6]
In the afternoon of 20 October 1919 an accident occurred on the man engine at the Levant Mine, St Just, Cornwall. More than 100 miners were on the engine being drawn to the surface when a metal bracket at the top of the rod broke. The heavy timbers crashed down the shaft, carrying the side platforms with them, and 31 men died. The topmost safety cross-piece attached to the rod, which should have caught on a fixed ledge (the "sill") in case of its dropping too far, fell out of alignment because of the breakage and failed to engage. [17] The man engine was not replaced and the lowest levels of the mine were abandoned. [18]
The atmospheric engine was invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, and is often referred to as the Newcomen fire engine or simply as a Newcomen engine. The engine was operated by condensing steam drawn into the cylinder, thereby creating a partial vacuum which allowed the atmospheric pressure to push the piston into the cylinder. It was historically significant as the first practical device to harness steam to produce mechanical work. Newcomen engines were used throughout Britain and Europe, principally to pump water out of mines. Hundreds were constructed throughout the 18th century.
A beam engine is a type of steam engine where a pivoted overhead beam is used to apply the force from a vertical piston to a vertical connecting rod. This configuration, with the engine directly driving a pump, was first used by Thomas Newcomen around 1705 to remove water from mines in Cornwall. The efficiency of the engines was improved by engineers including James Watt, who added a separate condenser; Jonathan Hornblower and Arthur Woolf, who compounded the cylinders; and William McNaught, who devised a method of compounding an existing engine. Beam engines were first used to pump water out of mines or into canals but could be used to pump water to supplement the flow for a waterwheel powering a mill.
Levant Mine and Beam Engine is a National Trust property at Trewellard, Pendeen, near St Just, Cornwall, England, UK. Its main attraction is that it has the world's only Cornish beam engine still operated by steam on its original site. There is also a visitor centre, a short underground tour, and the South West Coast Path leads to Botallack Mine, via a cliff-top footpath.
Gwennap is a village and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is about five miles (8 km) southeast of Redruth. Hamlets of Burncoose, Comford, Coombe, Crofthandy, Cusgarne, Fernsplatt, Frogpool, Hick's Mill, Tresamble and United Downs lie in the parish, as does Little Beside country house.
Michael Loam was an English engineer who introduced the first man engine into the UK.
A Cornish engine is a type of steam engine developed in Cornwall, England, mainly for pumping water from a mine. It is a form of beam engine that uses steam at a higher pressure than the earlier engines designed by James Watt. The engines were also used for powering man engines to assist the underground miners' journeys to and from their working levels, for winching materials into and out of the mine, and for powering on-site ore stamping machinery.
The Copper Mine on Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands, is a national park containing the ruins of an abandoned 19th-century copper mine.
The first recorded rudimentary steam engine was the aeolipile mentioned by Vitruvius between 30 and 15 BC and, described by Heron of Alexandria in 1st-century Roman Egypt. Several steam-powered devices were later experimented with or proposed, such as Taqi al-Din's steam jack, a steam turbine in 16th-century Ottoman Egypt, and Thomas Savery's steam pump in 17th-century England. In 1712, Thomas Newcomen's atmospheric engine became the first commercially successful engine using the principle of the piston and cylinder, which was the fundamental type of steam engine used until the early 20th century. The steam engine was used to pump water out of coal mines.
Prestongrange Museum is an industrial heritage museum at Prestongrange between Musselburgh and Prestonpans on the B1348 on the East Lothian coast, Scotland. Founded as the original site of the National Mining Museum, its operation reverted to East Lothian Council Museum Service in 1992.
A blowing engine is a large stationary steam engine or internal combustion engine directly coupled to air pumping cylinders. They deliver a very large quantity of air at a pressure lower than an air compressor, but greater than a centrifugal fan.
Wheal Busy, sometimes called Great Wheal Busy and in its early years known as Chacewater Mine, was a metalliferous mine halfway between Redruth and Truro in the Gwennap mining area of Cornwall, England. During the 18th century the mine produced enormous amounts of copper ore and was very wealthy, but from the later 19th century onwards was not profitable. Today the site of the mine is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site.
East Pool mine, was a metalliferous mine in the Camborne and Redruth mining area, just east of the village of Pool in Cornwall, England. Worked from the early 18th century until 1945, first for copper and later tin, it was very profitable for much of its life. Today the site has two preserved beam engines and is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site. It is owned by the National Trust.
The flatrod system was an invention of the mining industry that enabled the mechanical movement generated by a water wheel to be transferred over short distances. It was invented in the 16th century and by the 18th century was being used to transmit power up to four kilometres. Flatrod systems were widely used in the Harz and Ore Mountains of Germany as well as in Cornwall, England and Bergslagen in Sweden.
The Chapin Mine Steam Pump Engine, also known as The Cornish Pump, is a steam-driven pump located at the corner of Kent Street and Kimberly Avenue in Iron Mountain, Michigan, USA. It is the largest reciprocating steam-driven engine ever built in the United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, and designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1958.
Wheal Metal is a tin-mining sett in west Cornwall, England, UK. Whilst not as famous as neighbouring Wheal Vor, it was thus described by the Mining Journal in July 1885: " Truly this is a wonderful mine—probably the richest tin mine in the world." It also hosts a very remarkable engine house of the mid-19th century that once stood over Trelawney's shaft on Wheal Vor, and since the Wheal Vor area itself has no visible remains, this is the only large surviving engine house of this group of mines which accounted for over a quarter of Cornish tin production in the mid-19th century.
A cataract was a speed governing device used for early single-acting beam engines, particularly atmospheric engines and Cornish engines. It was a kind of water clock.
The Trevithick Society is a registered charity named for Richard Trevithick, a Cornish engineer who contributed to the use of high pressure steam engines for transportation and mining applications.
Resolution was an early beam engine, installed between 1781 and 1782 at Coalbrookdale as a water-returning engine to power the blast furnaces and ironworks there. It was one of the last water-returning engines to be constructed, before the rotative beam engine made this type of engine obsolete.
Basset Mines was a mining company formed in Cornwall, England, by the amalgamation of six copper and tin mining setts. It operated from 1896 until 1918, when it was closed due to a fall in the price of tin.
The Wanlockhead beam engine is located close to the Wanlock Water below Church Street on the B797 in the village of Wanlockhead, Parish of Sanquhar, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The site is in the Lowther Hills above the Mennock Pass, a mile south of Leadhills in the Southern Uplands. This is the only remaining original water powered beam engine in the United Kingdom and still stands at its original location. It ceased working circa 1910 after installation circa 1870.
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