Richard Roberts: Multifarious Punching Machine
Also known as Roberts's Jacquard Punching Machine.
Richard L. Hills provides a good overview of the machine[1], with two illustrations from the 1847 Patent (No. 11,607). However, for a detailed explanation of a later version of the machine, we should turn to an 1866 account in Engineering[2]; and then turn away, unless the reader has endless reserves of patience to seek out the discretely-placed small letters in the various diagrams, placed on several pages. Suffice to say that the machines illustrated had a row of ten punches arrayed transversely across the bed of the machine. The Jacquard card determined which of the ten punches was selected to do its work, forced down by a crank system worked by a pair of eccentrics. After the row of holes was punched, the plate was indexed forward a specified amount by a system of racks and pins.
An extract from the Engineering article, omitting the challenging description:-
'Amongst the many machines for which we are indebted to the inventive genius of the late Mr. Richard Roberts is the multifarious punching machine of which we now give illustrations.
When the tubular bridge over the Conway was in course of construction, it was found by the contractor, Mr. Evans, that it would be impossible to complete the work within the appointed
time unless he could obtan machinery by which the bridge
plates could be perforated both more rapidly and more accurately
than by the punching machines then in use, and under these circumstances he appealed to Mr. Roberts to design and construct a machine which would help him out of his dilemma. On the evening of the day on which he was thus applied to, the idea of
adapting the "jacquard" motion to a punching machine suggested itself to Mr. Roberts, and the result was the construction of the machine which we are about to describe.
'The machine in
question was constructed by Messrs. Roberts, Fothergill, and
Robinson, at the Globe Works, Manchester, and it was found to
answer its purpose admirably, the plates for the Conway bridge
being punched by it with a rapidity quite unattainable by
ordinary machines, and, what was even more important, with
perfect accuracy. This machine is now at the Canada Works,
Birkenhead, and all the plates for the Victoria bridge, at
Montreal, were punched by it, as well as those for the Penrith
bridge, which we described on page 76 of the first volume of
ENGINEERING, and other important works. Recently another
of these machines has been constructed, and set to work at the
works of the London Engineering and Shipbuilding Company
(Limited), at Millwall, and it is this last mentioned machine, in
the construction of which several impovements have been
effected, which has led to the present notice . .......
' ...... In the machine at the works of the London Engineering and Iron Shipbuilding Company, a contrivance is added by means of which the plate which is being punched is raised clear of the dies whilst it is being shifted forward. The new machine was constructed under the superintendence of Mr. Keetley, who was With Mr. Roberts when the first machine was made. It is worked at the rate of 10 strokes per minute, and turns out excellent work, all the plates punched with one set of "jacquards" being exactly alike, and all the holes coming perfectly fair with each other when a pair of plates are laid together.'
Samuel Smiles repeated the story of the background to the invention, and added the claim that it was partly motivated by the need to counter 'combinations' by workmen constructing the Conway bridge. However, Richard L. Hills points out that while tea consumption might have been involved, Roberts had applied for the patent several months before preparation of the bridge's ironwork had started.