Grace's Guide To British Industrial History

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Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 167,099 pages of information and 246,739 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 147,919 pages of information and 233,587 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Beauchamp Tower

From Graces Guide

Beauchamp Tower (1845-1904)

Beauchamp Tower can be credited with a great leap forward in machinery lubrication. His experiments with journal bearing lubrication, and the subsequent interpretation of his finding by Professor Osborne Reynolds, form the basis of all hydrodynamic lubrication theory.

1896 'Mr. Beauchamp Towers’ ingenious apparatus for providing a steady platform at sea has been fitted by Sir W. G. Armstrong and Co. to the torpedo-boat destroyers Swordfish and Spitfire, and is also to be supplied to a Chilian cruiser now building at Elswick. The apparatus, it will be remembered, depends on the fact that a gyroscope tends to maintain an invariable plane of rotation. In practice, a gyroscope is arranged to rotate about a vertical axis. As the vessel rolls, the gyroscope, maintaining its original plane of rotation, tilts relatively to the vessel, and this relative motion is used to control the supply of water to a set of four hydraulic cylinders connected to the steady platform in a suitable manner. In practice it is found that with it a search light on a small vessel can be kept quite steady on a mark even in a heavy sea'[1]

1897 'Some years ago Mr. Beauchamp Tower made a series of experiments on the friction of bearings in connection with one of the early research committees of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and he arrived at very much the same conclusions as those which Mr. Dewrance has reached. His experimental bearing differed from one with which Mr. Dewrance experimented in the fact that there was only a single top brass. It was uniformly loaded in each experiment, and the lubrication was found to be well provided for when the journal was simply revolving in a bath of oil suspended below, there being at first no oil-hole in the brass. This, we need hardly say, is well known to be a very efficient method of lubrication when it can be applied. Subsequently a hole was drilled in the top of the bearing and an endeavour was made to introduce oil through it, the bath being removed, but the effort was a failure, as the oil would not flow in. Mr. Tower, therefore, cut two curved grooves in the bearing after the manner of railway axleboxes ; and as locomotives and railway carriages run with top brasses only bearing, it might have been supposed Mr. Tower's experimental apparatus would be equally successful. Such, however, was not the case, and the journal heated almost immediately pressure was put on.

'The incident to which reference has been just made shows how the most careful thinker may be led astray by trusting only to his reasoning powers. There was evidently some unexpected difference between the actual locomotive bearing and the experimental apparatus, and, no doubt, if there had been no locomotive practice to prove to the contrary it would have been thought impossible to run axle bearings in the way they are run every day for many thousands of miles. We do not remember whether any explanation was given why actual railway carriage axles work perfectly, whilst the experimental bearings would not take oil but no doubt, the fact was due to the jar and vibration which is present in running a locomotive or railway carriage, and perhaps to end wise motion, features which were absent in Mr. Tower's apparatus. It is the same cause, vibration, which makes the boiler on a locomotive efficient, whilst its absence leads to so much trouble when this type of steam generator is used afloat; another instance of an unconsidered trifle the overlooking of which caused much trouble to marine engineers in times past.

'As we have said, Mr. Tower used a single top brass whilst Mr. Dewrance, in his experimental apparatus, adopted the usual marine top and bottom brasses and in this way the latter's experiments are a useful extension of those made formerly by Mr. Tower; in addition to which they open up the new and important subject of reciprocation of pressure in a vertical plane. Mr Tower, however, arrived, by a method of inductive reasoning, at much the same conclusions as Mr. Dewrance, and employed a similar means - namely the use of pressure gauges - for proving his case.

'After vainly trying to introduce oil through the top hole, Mr. Tower replaced the oil bath to the lower part of the journal, and then found that the oil rose in the top hole, which was, therefore plugged to keep the lubricant in the bearing. The plugs, however, were driven out, and on the application of a gauge it was found that the oil was forced upwards with considerable pressure -about 200lb. to the square inch or more. As the load on the brass but 100 lb. to the square inch on a horizontal plane through the centre of the journal, it was concluded that the pressure on the single bearing must be greater at the crown than at its bottom ends ; in fact, at its lower extremities there would be no pressure at all. Mr. Tower, therefore, did just what Mr. Dewrance has since done. He cut oil ways down through the brass and introduced the lubricant at the bottom edges of the bearing, that is to say, vertically about half-way down the shaft. When this was done, the lubrication was efficiently carried out.

'We have thought it worth while to repeat these results of experiments made some years ago, as they appear to have been forgotten by marine engineers. Perhaps, as very similar results have since been prominently brought before the profession, something may be done to test this point. Even thoughtful engineers are apt, in the hurry and stress of modern life, to take accepted canons for granted, and adopt them without inquiry; Morin's coefficients - even when admissible - Thurston's experiments, and other established sources of information contained in text-books are not the only guides required in determining the surface needful for a bearing. The consideration of these matters has been thrust on designers of other classes of machinery, such, for instance, as wood-working machines, dynamos, centrifugals, turbines, &c. Oil pumps working at considerable pressure have been used, when the lubricant would not distribute itself in the ordinary way, to secure one of the needful points for a perfect running bearing, namely, a film of oil between the rubbing surfaces so as to afford the condition of fluid friction. Ball bearings are being used for higher powers than those for which they were formerly considered suitable, the improvements in the manufacture of hard steel balls of strictly uniform size making this possible. Balls up to 3 in. in diameter are now being produced specially for the purpose. The ingenious bearing designed by Mr. Parsons for his steam turbine, and by which he has made the use of that motor possible, will also be remembered'[2]


1905 Obituary [3]

BEAUCHAMP TOWER was born on 13th January 1845 at Morton Rectory, in Essex, of which place his father was rector, and was educated at Uppingham School.

He commenced his engineering career as a pupil at the Elswick Works, Newcastle-on-Tyne, in 1861, and, after the completion of his four years' pupilage, remained at the works as draughtsman for a few months, leaving in 1866 to take charge of the construction of a number of iron steamers at the Tyne Iron Works, where he remained until 1868.

In 1869 he became assistant to the late Mr. William Froude, F.R.S., helping him in the preparation of the plant for the Admiralty Experimental Works at Torquay, and designed some of the apparatus.

During this period he invented a speed indicator, which was fitted to several ships of the Royal Navy; he worked with Mr. Froude until 1872, when his health gave way, necessitating a year's trip in a sailing vessel to the South Sea Islands.

On his return he carried out, in the years 1874-1875, an extensive series of experiments on torpedoes, the work being undertaken on behalf of Sir William Armstrong and Co.

In 1875 his reputation as a careful and ingenious experimentalist led to his employment by Lord Rayleigh in some experiments in connection with his work on the "Theory of Sound."

In 1877 he rejoined Mr. Froude's staff, and assisted in the development of the marine-engine dynamometer. Mr. Froude's health broke down, and he asked Mr. Tower to accompany him in his voyage to the Cape, where he died.

On Mr. Tower's return to England, in 1878, he commenced practice on his own account, and it was then that he developed his ingenious spherical engine, which was largely employed for some years when high rotary speeds were needed.

Early in the "eighties" he began the great work of his life, namely the construction of the gyroscopic "steady platform" for searchlights and guns at sea. The device was tested by the Admiralty, who encouraged the inventor to devote his time to these experiments; but who, finally, in spite of the success of the trials, decided that the apparatus was unsuitable for the service.

The principal reason given for this decision was that the weight needed for the "steady platform" could be more usefully employed in carrying an extra gun or ammunition. Though naturally disheartened, he proceeded to adapt his invention for use on cross-channel steamers, and was engaged on this work at the time of his death.

Mr. Tower was best known to engineers in general by his experiments on journal friction, and during the period from 1882 to 1891 he was busily engaged in making experiments for the Committee on Friction Experiments, appointed by this Institution. The First Report, in which the machine and method of experimenting were described, was presented to the Institution in 1883. The Second Report, on the Oil Pressure in a Bearing, was read in 1885; the Third Report, on the Friction of a Collar Bearing, in 1888; and the Fourth Report, on the Friction of a Pivot Bearing, was read in 1891.

His death took place suddenly from haemorrhage on the brain at his residence near Brentwood, Essex, on 31st December 1904, in his sixtieth year.

He became a Member of this Institution in 1883; and was also a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and of the Institution of Naval Architects.


1905 Obituary [4]



1905 Obituary [5]



1905 Obituary [6]



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