Joseph Bramah, an inventor and locksmith living in London, registered a patent at the
London Patent Office on 29 April 1812, which was principally about a provision of a public water supply network, but included a secondary concept for the provision of a high-pressure water main, which would enable workshops to operate machinery. The high-pressure water would be applied "to a variety of other useful purposes, to which the same has never before been so applied". Major components of the system were a ring main, into which a number of pumping stations would pump the water, with pressure being regulated by several air vessels or loaded pistons. Pressure relief valves would protect the system, which he believed could deliver water at a pressure of "a great plurality of atmospheres", and in concept, this was how later hydraulic power systems worked. In
Newcastle upon Tyne, a solicitor called
William Armstrong, who had been experimenting with water-powered machines, was working for a firm of solicitors who were appointed to act on behalf of the
Whittle Dene Water Company. The water company had been set up to supply Newcastle with drinking water, and Armstrong was appointed secretary at the first meeting of shareholders. Soon afterwards, he wrote to Newcastle Town Council, suggesting that the cranes on the quay should be converted to hydraulic power. He was required to carry out the work at his own expense, but would be rewarded if the conversion was a success. It was, and he set up the Newcastle Cranage Company, which received an order for the conversion of the other four cranes. Further work followed, with the engineer from
Liverpool Docks visiting Newcastle and being impressed by a demonstration of the crane's versatility, given by the crane driver John Thorburn, known locally as "Hydraulic Jack". While the Newcastle system ran on water from the public water supply, the crane installed by Armstrong at
Burntisland was not located where such an option was possible, and so he built a tower, with a water tank at the top, which was filled by a steam engine. At Elswick in Glasgow, charges by the Corporation Water Department for the water used persuaded the owners that the use of a steam-powered crane would be cheaper. and the company was wound up in 1947, when Mr F J Haswell, who had been the manager and engineer since 1904, retired. The man responsible for the Hull system was
Edward B. Ellington, who had risen to become the managing director of the Hydraulic Engineering Company, based in Chester, since first joining it in 1869. At the time of its installation, such a scheme seemed like "a leap in the dark", according to R. H. Tweddell writing in 1895, but despite a lack of enthusiasm for the scheme, Ellington pushed ahead and used it as a test bed for both the mechanical and the commercial aspects of the idea. He was eventually involved on some level in most of the hydraulic power networks of Britain. The success of such systems led to them being installed in places as far away as Antwerp in Belgium, Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, and Buenos Aires in Argentina. Independent hydraulic power networks were also installed at Hull's docks - both the
Albert Dock (1869), and
Alexandra Dock (1885) installed hydraulic generating stations and accumulators.
London The best-known public hydraulic network was the citywide network of the
London Hydraulic Power Company. This was formed in 1882, as the General Hydraulic Power Company, with Ellington as the consulting engineer. By the following year another enterprise, the Wharves and Warehouses Steam Power and Hydraulic Pressure Company, had begun to operate, with of pressure mains on both sides of the
River Thames. These supplied cranes, dock gates, and other heavy machinery. Under the terms of the
London Hydraulic Power Act 1884 (
47 & 48 Vict. c. lxxii), the two companies amalgamated to become the London Hydraulic Power Company. Initially supplying 17.75
million gallons (80.7 megalitres) of high-pressure water each day, this had risen to 1,650 million gallons (7,500 megalitres) by 1927, when the company was powering around 8,000 machines from the supply. They maintained of mains at , which covered an area reaching Pentonville in the north, Limehouse in the east, Nine Elms and Bermondsey in the south and Earls Court and Notting Hill in the west. Five pumping stations kept the mains pressurised, assisted by accumulators. The original station was at Falcon Wharf, Bankside, but this was replaced by four stations at Wapping, Rotherhithe, Grosvenor Road in Pimlico and City Road in Clerkenwell. A fifth station at East India Docks was originally operated by the
Port of London Authority, but was taken over and connected to the system. The stations used steam engines until 1953, when Grosvenor Road station was converted to use electric motors, and following the success of this project, the other four were also converted. The electric motors allowed much smaller accumulators to be used, since they were then only controlling the pressure and flow, rather than storing power. While the network supplied lifts, cranes and dockgates, it also powered the cabaret platform at the Savoy Hotel, and from 1937, the 720-tonne three-section central floor at the
Earls Court Exhibition Centre, which could be raised or lowered relative to the main floor to convert between a swimming pool and an exhibition hall. The London system contracted during the Second World War, due to the destruction of customers' machinery and premises. Following the hostilities, large areas of London were reconstructed, and the re-routing of pressure mains was much more difficult than the provision of an electric supply, so that by 1954 the number of machines had fallen to 4,286. By 1890, some of mains had been installed, supplied by a pumping station at Athol Street, on the bank of the
Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Although water was originally taken from the canal, cleaner water supplied by Liverpool Corporation was in use by 1890, removing the need for a filtration plant. At this time two pumpsets were in use, and a third was being installed. Pressure was maintained by two accumulators, each with an diameter piston with a stroke of .
The Practical Engineer quoted the pressure as , but this is unlikely to be correct by comparison with other systems. A second pumping station at Grafton Street was operational by 1909. The system ceased operation in 1971.
Birmingham Birmingham obtained its system in 1891, when the Dalton Street hydraulic station opened. In an unusual move, J. W. Gray, the Water Department engineer for the city, had been laying pressure mains beneath the streets for some years, anticipating the need for such a system. The hydraulic station used Otto 'Silent' type gas engines, and had two accumulators, with an diameter piston, a stroke of and each loaded with a 93-tonne weight. The gas engines were started by a small hydraulic engine, which used the hydraulic energy stored in the accumulators, and all equipment was supplied by Ellington's company. Very few documents describing the details of the system are known to exist.
Manchester and Glasgow The final two public systems in Britain were in
Manchester, commissioned in 1894, and
Glasgow, commissioned the following year. Both were equipped by Ellington's company, and used the higher pressure of . This was maintained by six sets of triple-expansion steam engines, rated at each. Two accumulators with pistons of diameter, a stroke of , and loaded with 127 tonnes were installed. In Manchester, the hydraulic station was built on the east side of Gloucester Street, by
Manchester Oxford Road railway station. It was later supplemented by stations at Water Street and Pott Street, the latter now under the car parks of the Central Retail Park. The system was shut down in 1972.
Systems outside the United Kingdom Antwerp All of the British systems were designed to provide power for intermittent processes, such as the operation of dock gates or cranes. The system installed at
Antwerp was somewhat different, in that its primary purpose was the production of electricity for lighting. It was commissioned in 1894, and used pumping engines producing a total of to supply water at . Ellington, writing in 1895, stated that he found it difficult to see that this was an economical use of hydraulic power, although tests conducted at his works at Chester in October 1894 showed that efficiencies of 59 per cent could be achieved using a
Pelton wheel directly coupled to a dynamo.
Australia Two major systems were built in Australia. The first was in
Melbourne, where the Melbourne Hydraulic Power Company began operating in July 1889. The company was authorised by an Act of the Victorian Parliament passed in December 1887, and construction of the system began, with Coates & Co. acting as consulting engineers, and
George Swinburne working as engineering manager. The steam pumping plant was supplied by Abbot & Co. from England. Expansion was rapid, with around 70 machines, mainly hydraulic lifts, connected to the system by the end of 1889, and a third steam engine had to be installed in mid-1890, which more than doubled the capacity of the system. A fourth pumping engine was added in 1891, by which time there were 100 customers connected to the mains. The mains were a mixture of and pipes. The water was extracted from the
Yarra River until 1893, after which it was drawn from the Public Works Department's supply. There were some of mains by 1897. A second pumping station was added in 1901, and in 1902, 102 million gallons (454 megalitres) of pressurised water were used by customers. The system was operated as a commercial enterprise until 1925, after which the business and its assets reverted to the City of Melbourne, as specified by the original act. One of the early improvements made by the City Council was to consolidate the system. The steam pumps were replaced by new electric pumps, located in the
Spencer Street power station, which thus supplied both electric power and hydraulic power to the city. The hydraulic system continued to operate under municipal ownership until December 1967. The operating company was the Sydney and Suburbs Hydraulic Power Company, later shortened to the Sydney Hydraulic Power Company. Pressure mains were either of or diameter, and at its peak, there were around of mains, covering an area between
Pyrmont,
Woolloomooloo, and
Broadway. In 1919, most of the 2369 lifts in the metropolitan area were hydraulically operated. The scheme remained in private ownership until its demise in 1975, and the pumping station has since been re-used as a tavern. The hydraulic power network was not in competition with the electric power supply, but was seen as a supplement to it, and continued to supply power to many customer until the economic crisis of the 1930s, when the demand for pressurized water as an energy source declined. The last water engine was decommissioned in 1958. In order to avoid excessive pressure build-up in the hydraulic power network, a release valve was fitted beside the main hall of the powerhouse. A tall water fountain, the
Jet d'Eau, was ejected by the device whenever it was activated. This typically happened at the end of the day when the factories switched off their machines, making it hard to control the pressure in the system, and to adjust the supply of pressurized water to match the actual demand. The tall fountain was visible from a great distance and became a landmark in the city. When an engineering solution was found which made the fountain redundant, there was an outcry, and in 1891 it was moved to its current location in the lake, where it operated solely as a tourist attraction, although the water to create it still came from the hydraulic network.
New Zealand Two systems were built in
New Zealand. The Thames Water Race was built in 1876 to supply water to the Thames goldfields powering stamper batteries, pumps and mine-head lifting equipment. Later, electricity was supplied to the residents of Thames in 1914, and when goldmining ceased the following year, a Francis Turbine and generator made use of the surplus water to generate more electricity for the residents of the town. It was eventually decommissioned in 1946. The
Oamaru Borough Water Race was designed by Donald McLeod (b.1835). It opened in 1880 after 3 years of construction. With water sourced from the
Waitaki River, the race stretched nearly 50 km and comprised an intake structure, a stilling pond, 19 aqueducts and six tunnels. The spare horsepower generated water motors, water engines and turbines in the town of Oamaru for decades and operated for 103 years. Much of the race and its components can still be seen today. ==Summary==