Automobile Biographies
W. H. Church
The pioneer inventor of carriages.
A physician of Birmingham, England, Dr. W. H. Church gave many years to the study of steam locomotion. Several patents were secured by him between 1832 and 1835, and in the latter year a common road carriage, built according to his plans, was brought out.
The Church vehicle had a framework of united iron plates or bars, bolted on each side of the woodwork to obtain strength. Well trussed and braced, this framework enclosed a space between a hind and fore body of the carriage, and of the same height as the latter, and contained the engine, boiler, and other machinery. The boiler consisted of a series of vertical tubes, placed side by side, through each of which a pipe passed, and was secured at the bottom of the boiler tube; the interior pipe constituted the flue, which first passed in through a boiler tube, and was then bent like a syphon, and passed down another until it reached as low or lower than the bottom of the fireplace, whence it passed off into a general flue in communication with an exhausting apparatus. Two fans were employed, one to blow in air, and the other to draw it out ; they were worked by straps from the crank shaft. The wheels of the carriage were constructed with the view to rendering them elastic, to a certain degree, in two different ways : First, the felloes were made of several successive layers of broad wooden hoops, covered with a thin iron tire, having lateral straps to bind the hoops together; second, these binding straps were connected by hinge joints to a kind of flat steel springs, somewhat curved, which formed the spokes of the wheels.
These spring spokes were intended to obviate the necessity, in a great measure, of the ordinary springs, and the elasticity of the periphery was designed so that the yielding of the circle should prevent the wheel from turning without propelling.
Church also proposed, in addition to spring felloes, spring spokes, and the ordinary springs, to employ air springs, and for that purpose provided two or more cylinders, made fast to the body of the carriage, in a vertical position, closed at top, and furnished with a piston, with packing similar to the cap-leather packing of the hydraulic press. This piston was kept covered with oil, to preserve it in good order, and a piston rod connected it with the supporting frame of the carriage. Motion was communicated by two oscillating steam cylinders suspended on the steam and exhaust pipes over the crank shaft. The crank shaft and driving-wheel axle were connected by means of chains passing about pitched pulleys.
To introduce the Church coach, the London and Birmingham Steam Carriage Company was organized. The first carriage built for the company was an imposing vehicle, something like a big circus van, elaborately ornamented and with a large spheroid wheel in front. It carried about forty passengers on top, in omnibus fashion, and the driver sat on a raised seat near the roof. A fair rate of speed was maintained, fifteen miles on the level, but the boiler was damaged, and horses hauled the engine back to the factory. Other carriages were subsequently brought out, but they all failed to meet the requirements of travel on the rough roads that existed at that time in England.
