Robert Ransome (1753 – 7 March 1830) was an English maker of agricultural implements . He founded the company later known as Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies .
7-526: The Ipswich Gas Company was a gas supply company formed in 1820. The Ipswich Paving Commissioners had installed 300 Smythuril's Patent Lamps in 1793. Twenty five years later Robert Ransome needed coke for his foundry, and gas suitable for gas lights was a side product. In 1818 Ransome, with his brother James and John Shewell established a small coke oven in their foundry in Old Foundry Street. Their employee, William Cubitt , made sure that
14-478: A patent for cast iron roofing plates, and published Directions for Laying Ransome's Patent Cast-iron Coverings in 1784. On 18 March 1785 he took out a patent for tempering cast iron ploughshares by wetting the mould with salt water. In 1789 Ransome moved to Ipswich and rented premises in St Margaret's Ditches and established a foundry there with a single worker, William Rush. On 21 March he announced in
21-625: A schoolmaster. His grandfather, Richard Ransome, was a miller of North Walsham , Norfolk, and an early Quaker who suffered frequent imprisonment while on preaching journeys in various parts of England, Ireland, and Holland; he died in Bristol in 1716. On leaving school Robert was apprenticed to an ironmonger; he later started his own business in Norwich with a small brass-foundry, which afterwards expanded into an iron-foundry near Whitefriars Bridge. He possessed inventive skill, and in 1783 took out
28-501: The Ipswich Journal that he had cast iron ploughshares for sale, and would buy old cast iron. In 1803 a chance observation of molten iron cooling on a stone floor led to an important invention in connection with ploughs: the chilling of the underside of ploughshares by casting them on an iron mould, the upper part of the mould being of sand. In this manner the underside of the share was chilled and made harder than steel, while
35-541: The gas produced by the coke plant was collected and distributed at first to Carr Street, Tavern Street and on the Cornhill . Dykes Alexander was the first chairman of the company. The Ipswich engineer, businessman and politician Ebenezer Goddard worked for the company for many years, as did his father Daniel Poole Goddard . Robert Ransome Robert Ransome was born in Wells, Norfolk , son of Richard Ransome,
42-419: The upper part remained soft and tough. The upper part wearing away faster than the lower, a sharp cutting edge was thus maintained, and less draught required. By the use of these shares the necessity of continually laying and sharpening of wrought iron shares was avoided. This invention was at once adopted. He took out a further patent on 30 May 1808 for improvements in the wheel and swing ploughs. Ransome
49-468: Was joined in business by his two sons James Ransome (1782–1849) and Robert (1795–1864), and the firm, known as Ransome & Sons , was one of the earliest to build cast iron bridges, the Stoke Bridge at Ipswich being constructed by them in 1819. He retired from business in 1825. In his retirement he learned copperplate engraving , and constructed a telescope for his own use, for which he ground
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