Description:Reverse general view of 40 horse engine for John Christian Curwen, Workington, Cumbria, January 1794.
During the 1790s Boulton & Watt engines used a variety of arrangements to work pumps to extract water from mines. This engine, for the Cumbrian colliery owner John Christian Curwen, worked the pumps via a separate pump beam which was connected to the engine’s working beam. The engine may also have been used for winding. It was erected at the Lady Pit at Chapel Bank. It was the fourth engine that John Christian Curwen, formerly and simply called John Christian, bought from Boulton & Watt, and the second for the Lady Pit.
This drawing is part of the Archives of Soho, held at Birmingham City Archives [Ref. MS3147/Portfolio/5/247]