July 1856: A riveting time in Manchester

Chapter VI of The Engineer’s ‘Tour of the Provinces’ - our first forays into site visits - took our Victorian reporter to Manchester and a day with Messrs. W&J Galloway at Knott Mill in the city centre.

The firm was best known for boiler making, manufacturing screw jacks,  and rivets by patent machinery. Steam engines and mill gearing were also undertaken by them ‘to a considerable extent’.

“The general appearance and management of the place is that of a steady-going, substantial, unpretending manufactory,” our reporter observed. “The first workshop I entered was full of the shafting and other details of a series of six gunpowder mills, which the Messrs. Galloway are engaged in constructing for the Turkish government.”

The mills were to be driven by a 60-horsepower condensing engine and each of the mills had two edge rollers weighing 13 tons.

“To prevent the explosion of one mill communicating with another, they are each placed 70 feet apart, and, as they are all driven by the same engine, there is a continuous line of heavy wrought iron shafting extending underground to the distance of 420 feet,” said The Engineer.  “As a further security against explosions, a system of water is placed over each mill and so arranged that in the event of an explosion taking place, all are upset simultaneously.”