Notes On An Old Colliery Pumping Engine (1791)
by William Thomson Anderson
Edited by Steve Grudgings
Card covers
88 pages, 340mm x 215mm
ISBN: 9780957233164
Price: £15
This is a reprint of William Anderson’s treatise, published in 1917, on the 1791 Pentrich Newcomen engine. The idea of re-publishing the manuscript sprang from ongoing archaeological research by the South Gloucestershire Mines Research Group into the slightly larger but very similar engine at Serridge, also built in 1791. Research at the Science Museum in Kensington threw up much interesting material, including most of the original prints of W.T Anderson’s photographs that featured in his 1917 paper. Further work by Steve Grudgings, in association with Cliff Williams, who derived much information from the Chatsworth House archives, revealed that some of Anderson’s initial findings were incorrect and that, in fact, the engine had started life at Pentrich, moved to Staveley Lower Ground Pit in 1819 and returned to Pentrich around 1840, rather than, as Anderson had surmised, having been installed first at Oakerthorpe Colliery and subsequently moved to Pentrich. The book includes a full reproduction of Anderson’s work, together with numerous large-format, high-resolution copies of his photographs (with updated captions) and copies of drawings of the engines sourced from the Science Museum. .
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