Hornsby-Akroyd at the Anson Engine Museum

by Barry Job

There has been a significant acquisition at the Anson Engine Museum. The museum is situated at Poynton in Cheshire and is known for its excellent steam section, based on the 1903 S. Stott cross compound mill engine, and the fascinating craft section which features wood turning and metal working.

However, the heart of the museum is the collection of well over 250 stationary engines, the largest in Europe. There are a number of rare engines, including the recent acquisition of the 1892 Hornsby-Akroyd engine serial number 101. This is a major coup for the museum as it is the first production compression ignition engine in the world. For years, it was kept in the entrance to the Ruston-Paxman Research and Development Department in Lincoln, and latterly at the MAN Diesel offices at Hazel Grove, Stockport. Indeed, at one time it was thought to have gone to Germany to join the MAN engine collection. Now, after many years of negotiation by the museum curator Geoff Challinor MBE it is now, for the first time, on public display. By comparison, the museum also displays the 1897 Mirrlees diesel engine, the third production diesel engine in the world.

Hornsby-Akroyd engine 101 played an important role in the compression ignition controversy; indeed, at one time it was urged that we should all stop calling these engines ‘Diesels’ but call them ‘Akroyds’. Thus, there are two protagonists in the debate as to who 'invented' the first compression ignition engine; Herbert Akroyd Stuart and Rudolph Diesel. Diesel's parents came from Bavaria. Hard times and revolution resulted in them moving to Paris in 1850. Rudolph Diesel was born there in 1858 and he remained in Paris for 12 years, but he always thought of himself as a German rather than a Frenchman. He became a German citizen at the age of 19.

Whilst at the Augsberg Polytechnic, Diesel became interested in the concept of compressing air in a cylinder to raise its temperature above the ignition point of injected fuel. However, the high compression necessary, well beyond 1000 psi, was beyond the technology of the day. Initially, the fuel he used was coal dust which, if sufficiently powdered, acted like a liquid. With the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania in 1856, volatile hydrocarbon fuel became available. The more volatile fractions, such as petrol, were frowned on by many, but particularly the insurance companies. Therefore, experimentors turned to heavy oil. Thus, with lower compression pressures, developments in metallurgy and cheap oil, Diesel could eventually produce a working 'Economical Heat Motor'. The first example though, produced barely enough power to turn the flywheel.

Diesel took out his first patent in 1892 and, on his wife's suggestion, gave his engine his own name and found worldwide fame and reaped huge financial rewards. But things did not go well for him, with failing health and his empire in dire trouble, in September 1913 he was sailing from Antwerp to Harwich aboard the Great Western steamer 'Dresden' when he disappeared. His body was found in the Scheldt River the next month.

Herbert Akroyd Stuart was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, in 1864. His father took over the Bletchley Iron Works in Buckinghamshire. He, therefore, had an engineering background, and was involved in experimental work whilst at Finsbury Technical College. He filed his first oil engine patent in 1890, but he had difficulty in obtaining a fine spray into the cylinder at the precise moment for ignition. Later in that year, he filed another patent with a combustion chamber separated from the cylinder by a narrow neck; this largely solved the problem.

The first engines built at the Bletchley Foundry were of poor quality, so he turned to the firm of Richard Hornsby of Grantham. Their first successful compression ignition engine produced was given the serial number 101, and was installed at the Fenny Stratford Waterworks in July 1892. This was followed soon after by a second engine.

These engines were reasonably successful with 32,417 being produced, they powered the first oil engined tractors and locomotives in 1896. A Hornsby-Akroyd engine powered the first chain (caterpillar) tractor in 1905, supplied the power to illuminate the Statue of Liberty and for Marconi's landmark radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean. www.enginemuseum.org

The unassuming Akroyd Stuart's work preceeded Diesel's by some years. Yet, it was the flamboyant extrovert Diesel who achieved worldwide fame, and is erroneously thought by many to have invented the compression ignition engine.

The Anson Museum is now closed for the winter, but will open again next May. See their website for the dates.