Richard Hall Gower - Inventor

Inventor

Gower and his family removed to Nova Scotia House at Ipswich in 1817. There he devoted himself to the invention, patenting, design and building of a remarkable series of novel vessels including three vessels named Transit, a fly boat, two yachts the Unique and the Gower, the Landguard Fort Lifeboat, and a number of other inventions. He entered, but did not win, a competition for a novel form of lock for the Regents Canal. He suggested that, to protect coastal traffic, cruisers be stationed along the coast in communication with signal stations to provide a concerted defence system. He proposed a form of vertical-vaned windmill; an eye shade; various ship’s logs and a “double-barrelled” capstan to do two jobs at once. He suggested a non-elastic substitute for imported hempen standing rigging to be made of wooden cylinders joined together by iron straps. He devised a method of keeping ships at proper distances by using the mast as a base line. He invented a mode of dropping a guess warp anchor with such accuracy that its end could be easily found and lifted. He devised a novel method of fidding a topgallant mast and several contrivances for the “better nipping and stopping a cable”. He designed a long catamaran for forming a life raft and a form of floating sea anchor, or drogue anchor (he called it a “propeller”) like an umbrella. He created a set of signals, that could be seen from all angles, using shapes instead of flags. He also suggested using a floating compass needle to find North. He experimented with various designs of paddle wheel on the River Lee Canal that anticipated the design of the wheels used by steam paddlers many years later. He invented and built the Landguard Fort Lifeboat, which carried up to 25 people and was virtually unsinkable. He proposed fitting canal barges with ‘spud wheels’ that could propel the vessel by catching on the canal bottom. He saw that a combination of paddle wheels and spud wheels could take vessels over mud flats at various conditions of the tide. Gower also constructed a twin hulled catamaran, just ten feet long, on which he mounted a barrel of water that drained to underwater by a curved pipe pointing aft. His twin floats achieved two miles per hour apparently without the need for power from sail or steam. He thus demonstrated water jet propulsion. He anticipated that a steam water pump, so contrived, could propel vessels without the need for paddles. He gives credit to Dr Franklin (probably Benjamin Franklin) and a Mr Rumsay of Philadelphia for this idea and hoped that his little experiment would encourage others to pursue the notion.