Wigan Album
Wigan Steel and Iron Works
7 Comments
Photo: Helen ashton
Item #: 28306
Lancashire boilers, hand fired.
Coal fired!
Bloody hell ! I wouldn't like to have tangled with them two.
Correct Garry! Hand fired with coal!
Those Lancashire boilers had double corrugated flues that absorbed the thermal expansion without putting too much strain on the riveted seams. The corrugated flues were invented by Samson Fox and made by the Leeds Forge Company Ltd in Leeds. The boilers were hard work to fire and keep going, it was hot dirty work and not for the faint hearted especially when the boilers were shut down to be cleaned from the inside. Then again they didn't make faint hearted workers back then.
I believe most pits had the same boiler system. The Maypole did. You had to be a powerful fellow to keep those furnaces fed with coal. Because of the heat,I was told that these tough men, were plagued with boils.
As an apprentice I once had to go inside a Lancashire boiler with a tradesman to tighten up some leaking rivets( Caulking) and replace some Just part of the job then But Now?Recalling the experience makes me shudder