Hi everyone,
As well as Bullivant's other firms were involved. I have a copy of *The wire rope and
its applications* by W. E. Hipkins, 1896. Hipkins was MD of J & W Wright, Ltd,
Universe Works, Garrison Street, Birmingham.
Wright's were founded in 1770 and as well as the Universe works at Birmingham
that had another Universe works at Millwall. ??Does this mean they were the
ancestor of Bullivants??
They made the ropes for launching the Great Eastern, and may well have been
London based then. The firm manufactured the 2,300 nautical-miles length of cables
for the Transatlantic Electric Telegaphy Company in 1865-66, and on the basis of
this they seem to have been major players in the rope-making trade.
The book is 4to format and has about 200 pages in total There are sections on all
aspects of the wire rope, covering: an historical sketch, aerial cableways, wire rope
driving, undergound haulage, wire rope manufacture, wire ropes for cranes, lifts,
mine-shaft guide rods, and steel cable suspension bridges. The book concludes with
a number of technical tables and pages of advertisements for Wright's other
products, such as woven coal sacks.
The book is well illustrated with some black and white photographs and a good
number of high-quality coloured lithographs.
All the coloured drawings are highly detailed but are not site-specific, The B&W
photographs only show cableways used in textile mill complexes for shifting part-
finished good round the plant. There is one photograph of a wire-rope suspension
bridge at Trentham Park, Staffordshire.
2 systems were described - the "Universe" endless system with a continuously
running rope, ane the "Stationary or double cable" system, where a light cable hauls
cars along a fixed heavy-duty cable.
The section *wire ropes* in the article "ropes and rope making* in the 11ed of
Britannica (vol 23) 1910-11, claims that flexible wire ropes were the invention of
Bullivants, and the piece seems to have been based on the information in the
Bullivant catalogue. The work of the Wrights is not mentioned.
I am not aware of any modern published study of the history of above-ground wire
rope haulage. If anyone can trace enough decent photographs and is interested in
writing such a book, I shall be very happy to hear from them.
|