Hick Hargreaves Engines

[billmac]

Thank you Asquith for a great bit of research. Is 'The Engineer' searchable?

Designing a diesel engine like this from scratch must have been a big investment for the company. They must have thought that they could do well in this market sector and perhaps their reputation (which I think was fairly high at the time) would have helped them. Unfortunately it didn't work out well and the clue to this might be in the 'not in all respects completely up-to-date'. I have some old books on diesel engines of this era and I will see if there is any reference in them to Hick Hargreaves, but I don't recall anything.

I was a little surprised by GE taking a licence to produce Mirlees engines in the US, but perhaps I shouldn't have been. The first Mirlees diesel engine was made in 1897, only the third diesel engine in the world. Mirlees seemed to have developed their line of engines very quickly after that.

The flywheel hub design sounds like a giant shrink fit collet. Quite an interesting design, but possibly a bit difficult to remove the flywheel from the shaft without cutting the ring.

Incidentally we used a ring assembly like this to secure the flywheel hub on our 'Wasp' tandem compound engine. No collets on that engine though, just keys.

 

[Asquith]

Bill,

Thanks.

Most volumes of The Engineer from 1856 to 1940 have been scanned are available online (for a modest* charge per weekly issue), thanks to Grace's Guide. Same with some volumes of Engineering. See here for links to indexes and to issues:-

The Engineer - Graces Guide

Engineering - Graces Guide

In many cases the indexes have been trawled and links provided to individual companies. See 'See Also' here:-

Hick, Hargreaves and Co - Graces Guide

* Grace's Guide is an altruistic, non-profit project founded and funded by Andrew Tweedie. Acquiring these large-format journals and the camera and staff to photograph them, is expensive, and he had to start charging for downloads to recover some of the costs.

 

[billmac]

Yes of course - I had not thought of getting it from Graces Guide. Thanks.

 

[Peter S]

I would guess Hick-Hargreaves were using the designs of one of the European manufacturers.

I didn't say anything about paying licences... just using the designs...

I thought the Hick, Hargreaves engines looked much like the Diesels of the patent era, specially in the cylinder head area. But the difficult bits probably can't be seen in a photo.

I read (maybe a link from Grace's Guide) that Hick, Hargreaves made Vickers/Admiralty sub engines during WW1, but no details. Vickers were way ahead of other manufacturers in using common rail, direct injection on their WW1 sub engines, but not without problems.

Speaking of Mirrlees: Mirrlees, Watson & Yaryan built their first engine to supplied drawings in 1898 but along with most of the early license holders, ran into trouble, made large losses and stopped. By 1902 the worst reliability problems had been overcome in Europe. In the same year Charles Day joined the company, he was an 'engine man' and was enthusiastic about diesel engines, visiting M.A.N. in 1902. An engine was built to the M.A.N. 'DM' design and was running by late 1903. Mirrlees was one of the first to introduce a crankshaft driven air compressor. Production of engines for sale began in mid-1904.

Anyone interested in the early years of the diesel engine should read Diesel's Engine, From Conception to 1918 by C. Lyle Cummins. It is a massive book (746 pages), very readable, very interesting, well illustrated and the best book of its kind written in my opinion.

 

[Asquith]

A bit more information on Hick’s and other diesel engines:

A 1919 review in The Engineer noted that British Westinghouse had abandoned diesels, but some steam engine makers had started, namely Cole, Marchent & Morley, Belliss & Morcom, and Willans & Robinson. Only the latter, as English Electric then GEC, continued, until taken over and closed by MAN in the 1990s.

The article mentioned that on the Hick, Hargreaves engines, 'the exhaust and inlet valve rockers are split diagonally a la Sulzer, and hinged at the joint so as to allow the removal of the valve without dismantling the rocker shaft'.

An article in The Engineer, 27 Aug 1920 describes two 400 BHP engines for South America. From the photo they look eternally much like the earlier ones, except that the ‘collet’ flywheel fitted for testing has a full complement of 6 spokes instead of 3. At full load the air blast pressure was 920 psi.

In Stationary Steam Engines of Great Britain, Vol 8, there’s a photo of a very smart Hick, Hargreaves diesel at Hampton pumping station near London. It was taken in 1971, when the engine and its sister were maintained on standby. It is still of the old-fashioned type, but now has a Reavell air compressor instead of Hick’s own.

Surprisingly, in 1921 they were making 35 HP petrol engines for vehicles. This probably reflects desperate times, and is surprising given that there must still have been loads of war surplus vehicles on the market. A 'Powered by Hick Hargreaves' badge on your car would no doubt have conferred a certain amount of prestige, although perhaps not with the likes of the Bentley Boys.

Back to diesels, by 1924 they were still making air blast engines of the reassuringly monumental ‘open’ and 'closed' type, but they'd added airless fuel injection engines. They were cheaper and smaller and of more modern appearance, with a higher speed and a lower HP rating per cylinder.

 

[billmac]

I have a book somewhere about the last days of Cole, Marchent & Morley. I will try to find it. (no small task).

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Didn’t “ British Westinghouse “ have a factory on Trafford Park ? One place I worked at used what had been the old Rochdale Electric Works as a sort of elephants graveyard for old machines awaiting refurbishment. The main overhead travelling crane ( about a 20 tonner ) was made by British Westinghouse in the years before the 1914-19 War.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[Asquith]

Tyrone: Trafford Park: Westinghouse > British Westinghouse > Metropolitan-Vickers > AEI > English-Electric-AEI > GEC > GEC-Alsthom > Alstom > demolition.

Billmac – The Last Years of Mill Engine Building by Arnold Throp, ISSES, 1993.

Going back to post #1, 3rd photo, I agree that checks are peobably being done on runout and straightness.

Some years ago (15!) I started a thread with a link to a Hick, Hargreaves photo showing a similarly puzzling setup. Remarkably, the photo is still there:-

History World - Old Photo - Hick Hargreaves & Co. Ltd.

I suspect that after shrinking on the cranks, they used the setup to check the runout outboard of the cranks. Finding it wanting, they set about correcting it, slowly turning the crankshaft with the wormgear, and using a lathe toolpost, whose hand crank is just visible on the other side of the shaft near the tailstock. How they finally got the required finish is another question, and probably not a process they’d want to have photographed.

In Billmac’s photo the crankshaft is supported in plain bearings, whereas in the other one it’s on rollers, although I can’t make the number of rollers to add up to the expected four!

What puzzles me is what the crankshafts were for. Both evidently had something big in the middle – an alternator armature, flywheel, winding drum – so what would they be driving from the outboard end(s)?

The old thread:-

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/antique-machinery-and-history/nice-crankshaft-shame-about-lathe-112325/?highlight=nice+crankshaft

 

[billmac]

Some more photos from the collection. I have saved these until now because I am not really sure what the engines are or what is happening. Please comment and hopefully clarify.

The first photo is yet another crankshaft set up between centres. This time it has three throws so less likely to be a mill engine, but it is clearly from a sizeable engine. We have two men in hats so this must be a significant event.

Hick Hargreaves did start to make marine engines, so I wonder if this is from one of them. They developed a good reputation for their marine engines, but they made far more mill engines.

Here is another engine which I do not think is a mill engine.

I suggest that you zoom into the photo so you get a better idea of scale from the figure in the middle.

My guess is that this is a winding engine under construction, but I could well be wrong.

 

[Asquith]

Bill,

Thanks for the latest intriguing photos.

I can't shed any light.

I'm thinking 1920s for the crankshaft photo, based on the clothes.

I found one photo of a Hick, Hargreaves triple expansion vertical mill engine (1891). This had '8' shaped cranks rather than the slabs seen in your photo.

I was surprised to think of Hick's making marine engines, but an article in The Engineer described several. However, they were built in the early 1850s. A couple of 1850 paddle steam engines for naval frigates; an 1852 oscillating engine driving a screw through reduction gearing; engines for the 1850/1 screw steamers 'Nile' and 'Orontes', which had an interesting crosshead and piston road arrangement (see drawing) and a more interesting thrust bearing. It had steel taper rollers acting on a pair of tapered discs. It would be interesting to known how this fared in service.



Drawing from The Engineer, 25 June 1920 via Grace's Guide.

If I was a seagoing person, I'd like to think that marine engines were designed and made in factories occasionally lashed by stormy seas, to remind the designers and makers of the need for engines to be reliable, so it seems odd to think of marine engines being made in Bolton. I shouldn't find it so, as I served my time at AEI Trafford Park where marine steam turbines were among the many products. And then there's land-locked Switzerland, where some of the best marine engines were designed and made!

 

[billmac]

Here are some photos that (to me) have a bit of a marine engine look.

The clues to me are the crankshaft couplings, the barring gear and the condenser? The general size and scale is appropriate for marine use and I am sure the engines are much later than 1850.

This one just fits under the overhead crane in what was a fairly high bay in the Hick Hargreaves works.

Here is another engine of the same type but possibly a bit later in the same year, showing details from the other side

And another rather larger. Is this the desination of the triple throw crank?:

I have no great knowledge of marine engines so could easily be mistaken about these photos. There were marine 'style' steam engines used as mill engines of course. Mill owners often needed to get a more powerful engine because they had expanded their mills beyound the limits of the original engine. The problem was that they sometimes built around their original engine house so they couldn't fit in an engine with a bigger floor area. A marine style engine was a good solution - compact floor area at the expense of greater height. Taking the roof off the engine house and rebuilding it was not a major problem and they got a powerful compact engine to drive the mill. One of our engines in the museum is of this type -The Diamond Ropeworks engine by Scott and Hodgson of Guide Bridge. This engine has Corliss valve gear on the HP and piston valve on the LP.

 

[Asquith]

Definitely marine!

Nearer 1950 than 1850.

I was wondering if they were made for RN or Merchant Navy ships during WW2. However, the lack of blackout cover on the skylights probably rules that out.

 

[billmac]

Yes - the lack of blackout is well spotted. Maybe WW1 - 1920s is more likely? The company made recoil gear for guns in WW1 as well as engines. They were bombed in WW1 by Zeppelins but the bombs missed the works. I don't think that industrial blackout was common in that period, but then again air raids that far into the North West were not that common either.

I could do a deep dive in the Phd disseration by Pilling that covers the history of Hick Hargreaves but I lack the motivation at the moment.

 

[Asquith]

Looking closer, there's a couple of things that, to my mind, put a later date on those photos:-

1. The brightness of the electric lights.

2. The fabricated condenser shell and lobster-back exhaust pipe on the first engine.

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Here are some photos that (to me) have a bit of a marine engine look.

The clues to me are the crankshaft couplings, the barring gear and the condenser? The general size and scale is appropriate for marine use and I am sure the engines are much later than 1850.

This one just fits under the overhead crane in what was a fairly high bay in the Hick Hargreaves works.

Here is another engine of the same type but possibly a bit later in the same year, showing details from the other side

And another rather larger. Is this the desination of the triple throw crank?:

I have no great knowledge of marine engines so could easily be mistaken about these photos. There were marine 'style' steam engines used as mill engines of course. Mill owners often needed to get a more powerful engine because they had expanded their mills beyound the limits of the original engine. The problem was that they sometimes built around their original engine house so they couldn't fit in an engine with a bigger floor area. A marine style engine was a good solution - compact floor area at the expense of greater height. Taking the roof off the engine house and rebuilding it was not a major problem and they got a powerful compact engine to drive the mill. One of our engines in the museum is of this type -The Diamond Ropeworks engine by Scott and Hodgson of Guide Bridge. This engine has Corliss valve gear on the HP and piston valve on the LP.

4 more “ T&K “ multi lubricators in that last photo. They must have been good customers.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[billmac]

I think this is the last of the marine engines in the photo collection.

I can't quite make out what is going on on the tops of the cylinders. It could be just shadows from the rather dramatic lighting used by the photographer. I don't know why it was photographed in this way - perhaps in the hope of confusing viewers 90 years on?

 

[billmac]

For Tyrone - I think the lubricators are on the other side!

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

For Tyrone - I think the lubricators are on the other side!

They’ll be there somewhere.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[Asquith]

I remembered that I have a book called 'River-class Frigates and the Battle of the Atlantic', by Brian Lavery. The ships were designed in haste during the winter of 1940/1. They were simple and uncomfortable. There's a photo of one of the four-cylinder triple-expansion engines, and I was amazed to see that it is almost identical to the one in the last photo in post #31!

I won't copy the photo from the book, but the only noticable difference is that it doesn't have the crankcase splash guards seen on Billmac's photo. However, here they are in this 1943 photo! :-

INTERIOR STUDIES ON BOARD A FRIGATE. 5 JULY 1943, ON BOARD THE RIVER CLASS FRIGATE, HMS MOURNE, AT LIVERPOOL. | Imperial War Museums

I rest my case!

Those things on the side are lubricators, by the way.

Billmac's photo is clearly taken in a dark shop, so it is consistent with wartime blackout.

I wasn't satisfied about the dates of the other photos, though, which weren't in a blacked-out shop. By another stroke of luck, I've found that Hick's had made a three-cylinder triple-expansion engine for the Ministry of War Transport, for a "C Type" wartime standard cargo ship, built by the Shipbuilding Corporation in Newcastle in 1947 and launched as the 'Empire Birdsay'. Later renamed SS Lokoja Palm, then various other names, and scrapped in 1971.

Zarian 1947

On edit: In 1944 they supplied a three-cylinder triple-expansion engine for the Ministry of War Transport's 'Empire Grey' (Readhead & Sons Ltd, South Shields).

Empire Grey 1944

 

[billmac]

Scrapped in 1971? - that is quite a good life for a designed in haste wartime built cargo ship. Great research to find the ship and photos!