John Penn and Sons

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John Penn and Sons was an English mechanical engineering company from London , best known for its ship steam engines .

history

founding

The engineer and mill builder John Penn (* 1770 in Taunton , Somerset ; † June 6, 1843) opened a shop for agricultural machinery in 1799 in southeast London in what is now Greenwich at the junction of the roads leading to Blackheath and Lewisham . Within two decades it grew into one of the most important mechanical engineering companies in the London area. The focus of production remained on agriculture until the 1830s and 1840s, when John Penn 's son of the same name took over the company and specialized it as a manufacturer of steam engines for steam ships .

Ship steam engines

1841 at John Penn and built as a technical monument classified steam engine Diesbar is the world's oldest ship steam engine in use.

The engineer and designer John Penn (1805–1878) was an inventor in the steam engine segment. One of his first developments was a 6 hp balancing machine to drive the other machines in his factory. During this time, the company's focus shifted to ship propulsion. His 40 hp balancing machines were installed in the paddle steamers Ipswitch and Suffolk . These were probably also the first ship steam engines developed and built by Penn himself. He then focused on improving the oscillation steam machines patented by Aaron Manby in 1821 , which until then had hardly been used in shipbuilding . In 1843 he replaced the single-acting steam engines of the yacht, which had been taken over by the Admiralty and renamed HMS Black Eagle , with oscillation engines . It doubled the performance without requiring more space or weight. This success broke the dominance of the shipbuilding suppliers Boulton & Watt and Maudslay, Sons and Field . His reputation, which was increased as a result, was further enhanced by the use of horizontal steam engines as propeller drives in warships. HMS Encounter (1846) and HMS Arrogant (1848) were the first ships to be equipped with such steam engines; until Penn's death in 1878 there were about 230 ships. At first the ships were adapted to the installation of such machines; commissioned by the Royal Navy in 1851 , the HMS Agamemnon was the first propeller-driven ship.

These advances were coupled with a reputation for quality and reliability, which resulted in Penn becoming the Royal Navy's primary engine supplier in the transition from sailing to steamship. Penn was also responsible for introducing wooden bearings for propeller shafts, which became critical to the worldwide use of steamers. This development of lignum vitae - shaft bearing , the propeller-driven ships oceanic travel without wear their glands enabled, carried out in collaboration with Francis Pettit Smith . Noteworthy is his work on the use of superheated steam in ship propulsion.

The Royal Navy commissioned Penn to develop a machine drive for the Crimean War to be used gunboats . Penn chose his lying machine design. The 90 units subsequently produced were the first mass-produced high-pressure and high-speed steam engines for ships. At the instigation of the Admiralty, they also used the Whitworth measurement standards; Penn was a great friend of Joseph Whitworth and used the precision instruments and tools he developed.

The John Penn mechanical engineering company was a major employer in Greenwich, with a peak of 1,800 workers at its Greenwich and Deptford plants . Penn was regarded as a model employer and John Penn and Sons as the best-equipped mechanical engineering company in the marine sector. Penn recognized the value of skilled employees with annuities and Christmas gifts. His works also provided the training for a generation of marine engineers.

Union

In the third generation, the company was merged with the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company in 1899 under the name Thames Iron Works, Shipbuilding and Engineering Company . Due to a lack of orders, the shipyard had to file for bankruptcy and close in 1912 .

To John Penn , the son of the founder of the same name, among other things, reminding John Penn Street at the former company site.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ John Penn, Senior , Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. (English)
  2. ^ Richard Hartree: John Penn and Sons of Greenwich. Landmark Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-1-84306-411-4 .
  3. ↑ “Diesbar”. Saxon Steamship , accessed on June 12, 2019 (English).
  4. ↑ Udo Mannek (ed.): Oscillating steam engines - history, original machines, finished models, kits, construction proposals (=  steam . Volume 16 ). 2nd, revised edition. Neckar-Verlag, 1989, ISBN 3-7883-1605-5 , p. 9 ( online [PDF]).
  5. ↑ Biography (English) of John Penn ( Memento from April 15, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), Engineering Heritage, Institution of Mechanical Engineers
  6. ↑ Penn presented the Institution of Mechanical Engineers with two publications on the subject in 1856 and 1858.
  7. ↑ John Penn in Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. (English)
  8. ↑ GA Osbon: The crimean gunboats. In: The Mariner's Mirror. Volume 51, No. 2, 1965, pp. 103-115 and No. 3, 1965, pp. 211-220.

Web links

Coordinates: 51 ° 28 '21.1 "  N , 0 ° 0' 57.1"  W.