Sir Goldsworthy Gurney (14 February 1793 – 28 February 1875) was a British surgeon, chemist, architect, builder, lecturer and consultant. He was a prototypical British gentleman scientist and inventor of the Victorian era.
Amongst many accomplishments, he developed the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, and later applied its principles to a novel form of illumination, the Bude-Light; developed a series of early steam-powered road vehicles; and laid claim—still discussed and disputed today—to the blastpipe, a key component in the success of steam locomotives, engines, and other coal-fired systems.
Events surrounding the failure of his steam vehicle enterprise gave rise to controversy in his time, with considerable polarisation of opinion. His daughter Anna Jane Gurney (1816–1895) was devoted to him. During her lifetime, she engaged in a campaign to ensure the blastpipe was seen as his invention.
Biography
Gurney was born in St Merryn, Cornwall, England on 14 February 1793. His unusual Christian name was his grandmother's surname but taken from his godmotherprobably Martha Caroline Goldsworthy who was a Maid of Honour to Queen Charlotte. Gurney's grandfather married into money, allowing his father, and to an extent himself, to live as gentlemen.
He was schooled at the Grammar School at Truro, where he showed an interest in contemporary sciences; and had the opportunity through friends to meet Richard Trevithick and see his 'Puffing Devil', a full-size steam road carriage, at Camborne.
After school he took a medical education with a Dr. Avery at Wadebridge, succeeding to the whole practice in 1813, and providing him with sufficient income to marry Elizabeth Symons, a farmer's daughter from Launcells, in 1814. The couple settled in Wadebridge where their daughter Anna Jane was born in January 1815. He practised as a surgeon, but he also became interested in chemistry and mechanical science; he was also an accomplished pianist, and constructed his own piano, described as a 'large instrument'.
He moved with his family to London in 1820, apparently discontented with rural life and wishing to seek his fortune. The family settled at 7 Argyle Street, near Hanover Square, where Gurney continued his practice as a surgeon. There he expanded his scientific knowledge and started giving a series of lectures on the elements of chemical science to the Surrey Institution, where he was appointed lecturer in 1822. A son, Goldsworthy John, was also born to the couple in that year, at Launcells (later to die relatively young in 1847).
A skill attributed to Gurney was an ability to express scientific thought on paper and through lectures. His lectures in the 1822-3 period included one on the application of steam power to road vehicles. He was also of a practical bent, and in 1823 was awarded an Isis gold medal of the Royal Society of Arts for devising an oxy-hydrogen blowpipe.
By 1825, he had started practical work on a steam carriage, taking space for a small workshop in Oxford Street and filing a first patent for "An apparatus for propelling carriages on common roads or railways – without the aid of horses, with sufficient speed for the carriage of passengers and goods". His work encompassed the development of the blastpipe, which used steam to increase the flow of air through a steam engine's chimney, so increasing the draw of air over the fire and, in short, much increasing the power-to-weight ratio of the steam engine.
In 1826 he purchased from Jacob Perkins a manufacturing works at, and moved his family to living space in, 154 Albany Street, near Regent's Park, and proceeded to improve the designs of his carriages, described below. Whilst the carriages certainly had technical merit and much promise, he was unsuccessful in commercialising them; by the spring of 1832 he had run out of funding and was forced to auction his remaining business assets, eventually losing a great deal of his own and investors' money. The circumstances of the failure engendered controversy expressed in contemporary scientific publications, as well as in committees of the House of Commons.
In 1830, Gurney leased a plot of land overlooking Summerleaze Beach in Bude, from his friend Sir Thomas Acland, and set about the construction of a new house to be built amongst the sand hills. The construction rested on an innovative concrete raft foundation, representing an early worked example of this technique. The original house called "The Castle" still stands but has been extended over the past century. It is currently owned and managed by Bude-Stratton Town Council and houses a heritage centre with a number of exhibits relating to Gurney. In this period he became godfather to William Carew Hazlitt, who notes that Gurney was involved in property development in Fulham.
At The Castle, Gurney regrouped from his carriage failure, applying his mind to the principle of illumination by the forcing of oxygen into a flame to increase the brilliance of the flame, giving rise to the Bude-Light. He also applied the principles of the blastpipe or steam jet to the ventilation of mines, as well as to the extinguishing of underground fires.
His wife Elizabeth died in 1837, and is buried in St. Martin in the Fields. With his daughter – described as his constant companion – he moved to 'Reeds', a small house on the outskirts of Poughill, near Bude. In 1844 he bought a lease on Hornacott Manor, Boyton, from Bude, where he built Wodleigh Cottage for himself, and engaged his interest in farming. In 1850 he gave up the lease on The Castle. In this period, he became a consultant, applying his innovative techniques to a range of problems, notably, after 1852, to the ventilation of the new Houses of Parliament where in 1854 he was appointed 'Inspector of Ventilation'. He had previously successfully lit parliament and Trafalgar Square.
Perhaps arising out of the Boyton farming connection he took a second wife, being married at St. Giles in the Field to Jane Betty, the 24-year-old daughter of a farmer from Sheepwash, Devon; Gurney was 61. The marriage appears to have been unsuccessful; there was perhaps some contention between Anna Jane (39) and her much younger stepmother. Jane Betty was removed from Gurney's will, although they were never divorced.
Gurney continued to divide his time between London and Cornwall, variously engaged in work with clients; experimenting and innovating in diverse fields such as heating (the Gurney Stove) or electrical conduction; and in improving his Hornacott estate. He was appointed president of the Launceston Agricultural Society.
In 1863, Gurney was knighted by Queen Victoria, but later that year suffered a paralytic stroke; he sold Hornacott and retired back to Reeds in Cornwall, where he lived with his devoted Anna Jane, ultimately dying on 28 February 1875. He is buried at Launcells parish church.
Gurney's steam coach
In the period 1824–31, Gurney designed and built a number of steam-powered road vehicles. He established a business, the Gurney Steam Carriage Company, to develop and promote steam-powered road transport. He obtained patents for various claimed technical improvements, sold franchises to investors to run services using his vehicles and built at least one steam coach and ten steam drags, steam-powered towing vehicles. The army took an interest in his activities and for them he undertook in July 1829 the first long-distance steam-powered journey by rail or road.
In 1824, Gurney began work on applying steam power to road vehicles. Throughout his period in London he resided at 7, Argyle Street, near Oxford Circus. Initially he had a workshop close by, which was drawn by G.J.Scharf. It was a room, suitable for making a boiler, parts of a vehicle or a working model, not a full-size vehicle.
In early 1825, he was approached by Walter Hancock, who had just completed his own first prototype steam carriage; they agreed to meet in Regent's Park where Gurney would demonstrate the prototype which he had had built based on his own working model. During a journey of two miles along a well-made road, the vehicle, which was a steam drag (tow-vehicle) stopped involuntarily five times. The two parted.
On 14 May 1825, Gurney obtained patent No. 5170 for his implementation of propellers, mechanical legs whose action imitated that of horses. These were shaped like a long "s", ʃ, and can be seen in front of the rear wheels on the promotional 1827 image. On 21 October 1825 he obtained patent No. 5270 for his design of a lightweight tubular boiler.
In 1826, Gurney bought the manufactory works at 154, Albany Street, in the Regent's Park district of London. Just to the north was Regent's Park Barracks, the home of the Life Guards and the Royal Artillery. Gurney subsequently used the barracks yard as the main testing ground for his vehicles. In February 1827 the partnership Gurney and Co was dissolved: it was between Gurney and Colonel James Viney of the Royal Artillery.
Gurney was by no means the only pioneer in the history of steam road vehicles – Trevithick was first and Hancock a contemporary – but Gurney had a flair for publicity and drew wealthy – and well-connected – investors, such as Colonel Viney. After the dissolution of his partnership with Gurney, Viney paid him £5,000 for a share in the patents and the licence for the Gloucester - Cheltenham road. Such investments enabled Gurney to get ahead with building, testing and improving his vehicles. Gurney solved some problems which faced those developing steam carriages, but not others. He placed the two double-acting cylinders horizontally in the chassis, enabling him to have the heavy rear part of the carriage, which contained the boiler, sprung. He adopted a cranked transmission to the rear wheels, although this did lead to broken rods, axles and spokes. He developed a lightweight high-pressure water-tube boiler which he claimed was less likely to explode (although this did happen to one of his steam drags after the safety valve was removed).
Along with his contemporaries, he used crude clutches on each driven wheel which were engaged manually when the axle was stationary. In the absence of a differential, the drive was usually taken to a single rear wheel; the second wheel was engaged only when extra traction was required (going uphill or on a loose surface) or when using engine braking (going downhill).
Gurney later said that his first prototype weighed four tons and that he worked to reduce this to 2 tons for his steam coach, the vehicle for which he is best known. This took the form of a large stage coach with 6 passengers inside and 12 (he later claimed 15) outside, plus the guide, who doubled as the engine-man/stoker. The body of the vehicle was 15' long, or 20' including the front pole and a pair of steered pilot wheels.
The print "The New Steam Carriage" at the top of this section is an 1828 reprint of an earlier print by George Morton. It shows the coach in front of a pub with propellers in front of the rear wheels. The caption states "It has been constructed..." and "The rate of travelling is intended to be from 8 to 10 miles per hour". This dates it to mid-1827. The "London and Bath" livery was perhaps an inducement to get Major Dobbyn to invest: in September 1827 he paid Gurney £6,000 for the franchise for the London, Bath and Bristol road, for which Gurney would build him eight coaches.
In tests, Gurney found that the propellers didn't work well and added a cranked drive to the rear axle with clutches to each wheel. At the end of the driven axle were "crotches" (i.e. two metal fingers) which acted on metal blocks fixed to the nave of the wheel. A handle fixed to the hub of the wheel could be wound in to engage the metal blocks with the crotches, thereby driving the wheel. The propellers were retained for use on hills, when the wheels were expected to slip.