Yorkshire Almanac William Evers, engineer-inventor at Swillington (Leeds), advertises his new machine: a windmill for threshing and grinding grain

8 March 1768: William Evers, engineer-inventor at Swillington (Leeds), advertises his new machine: a windmill for threshing and grinding grain

A front view of Evers’ mill (Society for the Encouragement of Arts 1782).

William Evers. 1768/03/08. William Evers, Wire-worker at Swillington, Near Leeds. Leeds Intelligencer. Leeds. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

William Evers, wire-worker at Swillington, near Leeds, Yorkshire, begs leave to acquaint his friends and the public in general, that he continues to make in the most complete manner, his new-invented machine for dressing of corn, rape seed, line seed, etc., which winnows, riddles, and screens all at one operation, and will finish after the thrasher between 20 and 30 bushels in an hour, but will dress in the granary not less than ten quarters by the hour.

Likewise, his new-invented machine for dressing of flour for private families, which is so expeditious, that a woman will dress a bushel into three different sorts in twelve minutes; and having been so fortunate as to have his last new-invented machine [author’s note: This machine is wrought in wind, in the manner of a common windmill; and in the thrashing part, will do as much business as twelve men.] for thrashing and grinding of corn, either together or separately, so highly approved of by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts in London, that they have lately ordered him a premium of fifty guineas for his invention; which being a sufficient proof of its utility, he takes the freedom to recommend it also to the favour of the public.

Order the book:

Subscribe to the free daily email:

To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Via Howard Benson, whose following item has the remarkable Mr. Evers in 1777 producing some high-yield “Tartarian oats” (Benson N.d.). The Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (now the Royal Society of Arts) received from Evers a scale model:

This mill was invented by Mr. William Evers, of Swillington, near Leeds; in Yorkshire, who erected one of his new-constructed mills in its full magnitude, for Mr. John Turton, farmer, at Wragby, in the said county, where it worked in presence of many respectable gentlemen, farmers, and others, who signed a certificate of their approbation of the utility of the machine. A model of it, made to a scale of an inch and an half to a foot, was produced to the Society by Mr. Evers; for which he had a bounty of fifty pounds, and the further sum of ten guineas for his model, which was deposited in the Society’s Repository of Agriculture, February 3, 1768 (Society for the Encouragement of Arts 1782).

WP doesn’t seem sure whether this was before or after the first (Scottish) threshing machine:

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… Michael Stirling is said to have invented a rotary threshing machine in 1758 which for forty years was used to process all the corn on his farm at Gateside. No published works have yet been found, but his son William made a sworn statement to his minister to this fact. He also gave him the details of his father’s death in 1796.

Something to say? Get in touch

Comment

This mill was invented by Mr. William Evers, of Swillington, near Leeds; in Yorkshire, who erected one of his new-constructed mills in its full magnitude, for Mr. John Turton, farmer, at Wragby, in the said county, where it worked in presence of many respectable gentlemen, farmers, and others, who signed a certificate of their approbation of the utility of the machine. A model of it, made to a scale of an inch and an half to a foot, was produced to the Society by Mr. Evers; for which he had a bounty of fifty pounds, and the further sum of ten guineas for his model, which was deposited in the Society’s Repository of Agriculture, February 3, 1768 (Society for the Encouragement of Arts 1782).

WP doesn’t seem sure whether this was before or after the first (Scottish) threshing machine:

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… Michael Stirling is said to have invented a rotary threshing machine in 1758 which for forty years was used to process all the corn on his farm at Gateside. No published works have yet been found, but his son William made a sworn statement to his minister to this fact. He also gave him the details of his father’s death in 1796.

Something to say? Get in touch

Similar

31 July 1846: Pudsey celebrates repeal of the Corn Laws with a 1.725 tonne free-trade plum pudding

11 June 1681: A recent grainstorm near Leeds

17 May 1823: “Doncaster fertiliser manufacturers imported more than a million bushels of skeletons from Waterloo and other Napoleonic battlefields in 1822”

6 November 1628: Henry Best agrees rates with threshers at Elmswell (Driffield)

11 November 1918: George Ellison of Richmond Hill, Leeds, is the last British soldier to be killed in action in the First World War

29 February 1824: Prophet John Wroe is baptised on the Leap Day in the Aire near Apperley Bridge before an audience of 30,000

2 May 1844: The Bradford Observer reports a 10% increase in the borough’s population in two years

18 July 1784: Wesley finds children “restrained from open sin” at one of the first Sunday schools, at Bingley

20 January 1536: Thomas Cromwell’s dissolvers of monasteries, Richard Layton and Thomas Legh, report allegations of whoring and theft by William Thirsk, Abbot of Fountains

4 September 1947: Conflicting hopes for the future of the nationalised coal industry, as a wildcat strike against increased hours at Grimethorpe spreads through the South Yorkshire coalfield

Order the book:

Subscribe to the free daily email:

Comment

Re this wave of unofficial strikes:

Major-General Sir Noel Holmes, chairman of the north-eastern division of the National Coal Board, in a statement yesterday on the strike at Grimethorpe Colliery, said that 140 coal-face workers, out of 2,682 employed at the pit, were not doing a fair day’s work. A committee representing management and workmen had decided that the stint for the 140 workers should be increased by 2ft., but they refused to accept its findings and came out on strike. The other coal-face workers came out in sympathy. “As much as I dislike mentioning this fact,” said Sir Noel Holmes, “it is only right to recall that at Grimethorpe since January 1, 1947, and before the present strike, there have been 26 sectional unofficial stoppages, which have lost 33,000 tons of coal to the nation. The present stoppage up to date represents a further loss of more than 40,000 tons.” (Times 1947/08/27)

Holmes’s Wikipedia article curiously doesn’t mention this phase of his career.

I’m guessing that the Welsh ex-Puritan authoritarian Communist Arthur Horner is the voice of the NUM in the above – see e.g. the Times for 9 September.

Interesting comments on the wartime coal boards by T.S. Charlton, colliery manager at Cortonwood:

The management of the collieries is in the hands of men trained primarily in management of mines and miners. They have a working knowledge of all the machinery available and how best it can be used, but the details of this side are left to the mechanical and electrical engineer. Labour costs are two-thirds of production costs, and therefore the handling and the best use of men are of the greatest importance to managers. Why it should have been decided that labour leaders should be good labour directors is, apart from the political issue, difficult to understand, unless it is on the old adage of “poacher turned gamekeeper.” Unless and until the production director has control of his labour side, I can see little hope of his schemes proving effective.

The miners have put forward suggestions to improve output, but they appear to do no more than improve the position of the miner. Can it be said that any suggestion already put forward by the men has put up the output figure? Why should it be assumed the men’s side of the pit production committees should be able to improve output in any way? Their training, inclinations, and very job depend upon their obtaining the best for their electors rather than for production.
(Charlton 1943/12/01)

Charlton was clearly a clever and capable man – it would be good to know more about him.

Something to say? Get in touch