Aveling and Porter was a British agricultural engine and steamroller (road roller) manufacturer. Thomas Aveling and Richard Thomas Porter entered into partnership in 1862, and developed a steam engine three years later in 1865. By the early 1900s, the company had become the largest manufacturer of steamrollers (road rollers) in the world. The company used a rearing horse as its logo (based on the traditional white horse symbol of Kent), along with the motto Invicta (meaning "unconquered"; the traditional motto of Kent).
Partners
Thomas Aveling
Thomas Aveling was born 11 September 1824 at Elm, Cambridgeshire. In 1851 he was recorded as a farmer and grazier employing 16 men and 6 boys. The business also included a drainage tile works. In 1859, Aveling invented the traction engine when he modified a Clayton & Shuttleworth portable engine, which had to be hauled from job to job by horses, into a self-propelled one. The alteration was made by fitting a long driving chain between the crankshaft and the rear axle. Aveling later invented the steamroller in 1867. Thomas Aveling is regarded as "the father of the traction engine".
Aveling had a reputation as something of a martinet in business, only keeping on the best men. However, he did provide his staff with recreational facilities with a lecture room and mess room. Lectures were delivered on educational, social and political topics with Aveling himself in the chair and participation from the floor encouraged.
Thomas Lake Aveling Aveling was the son of Thomas Aveling and his wife, Sarah. He was born on 25 August 1856 in Ruckinge, Kent. When he left school he worked for his father, taking control of Aveling & Porter in 1881. After conversion to a limited liability company in 1895 he became its chairman and managing director until he retired. In 1890 he married Richard Porter's niece, Rosita Marian Porter (1865—1904) daughter of Arthur Porter, manufacturing stationer, and his wife born Anna Maria Atkin. They had two sons, Thomas (1892-1982) and Arthur Francis (1893-1954).ancestry.com
As a prominent local businessman Aveling served on a number of public bodies. He was chairman of the Medway Conservancy, on the board of the Rochester Bridge wardens, and a Justice of the Peace. Like his father he was a member of the ICE and IME and RASE. He was president both of the Smithfield Club and the Agricultural Engineers Association. He was on the board of the Maidstone manufacturers of steam wagons Jesse Ellis Ltd. In 1899 he had a steam yacht built by Ramage & Ferguson.
Aveling retired from Aveling and Porter in 1928 and died of a heart attack on 5 June 1931 at home in Pettings Court, Ash near Wrotham, Kent.
Major Thomas Aveling MC
Major Aveling was the son of T.L.Aveling and therefore the grandson of the founder. He was born on 20 January 1892 and during the First World War rose to the rank of Major. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1917.
Major Aveling became a director of A and GE, taking control of Aveling & Porter on his father's retirement in 1928.
Richard Thomas Porter Richard Porter's grandfather John (1736–1812) established a grocery business in Sheffield, Yorkshire. His son Thomas married Ann Girdler and they had Richard in around 1835. By 1861 Richard had moved to Enfield, London where he married Marianne Atkin (b. 1840) who had also been born in Sheffield.
In 1862 he went into partnership with Thomas Aveling and subsequently moved to Rochester where in around 1863 he had his first child, Edith. 1871 he is recorded as living at Boley Hill House with his wife, four children and four servants. His occupation is recorded in the census as "Manufacturing Engineer".
Ten year later in 1881 the census locates him at Raleigh, Fox Grove Road, Beckenham with the family and servants as before plus his widowed sister-in-law Mary Studer. He remained in Beckenham, the house being recorded as 26, Foxgrove Road after 1901. He died in 1913. His will was proven the following year when he was shown as "Engineer and Chairman of Aveling and Porter".
Business
Thomas Aveling, "Ironfounder and Agricultural Engineer"
With help from his father-in-law he was able in either 1850 or 1851 to buy a small millwrighting business at Edward's Yard, Rochester. The business produced and repaired agricultural machinery. Aveling had been concerned by the slow pace of agricultural labour arising from the "ancient and defective construction" of the machines. Starting from 1852 he concentrated on experiments in steam cultivation, culminating in the first steam plough in 1856. The plough was so successful that some Kent farmers presented him with an award of 300 guineas in 1858.
In 1858 Aveling had three premises: 24, High Street, Rochester; 27, Edwards Yard, Rochester; and a small foundry on the site of the future Invicta Works in Strood.
To Aveling, the idea of portable engines being dragged around by teams of horses when they were powerful to move themselves seemed nonsensical. He compared using six horses to pull such an engine as "six sailing vessels towing a steamer" which was "an insult to mechanical science". In 1858 he adapted Clayton, Shuttleworth & Co portables by attaching a chain from the flywheel to a cog on a rear wheel. In the following year he obtained a patent for this which included the specification for devices for varying the tension in the chain and for disengaging it "so that a traction engine can be used as a stationary portable engine at will".Patent No. 1995 of 1859, quoted by and illus. on p.4 His foundry and other premises were too small for the construction of a complete traction engine, so the 1859 locomotive was built for him by Claytons.
His 1860 catalogue describes him as an "Iron Founder and Agricultural Engineer". He was the sole agent in Kent for Fowler's Steam Plough, for Burgess & Key's Patent Reaping Machines. He was an agent (though not apparently sole agent) for Claytons. The front page offers "Every description of Agricultural Machinery supplied at Manufacturer's Prices" and ends with "Castings to order", "Machinery and Steam Engines repaired". Inside was "Aveling's Patent Locomotive Steam Thrashing Train" with engine, threshing machine and straw carrier. Not withstanding his claims as an iron founder, this was made for him by Claytons.
Having solved the propulsion issue, Aveling next turned to steering. His first engines had required a horse in shafts attached to the front wheels for steerage. In 1860 he replaced the horse with a steerable wheel in between the horse shafts.Patent 891 of 1860 The steersman sat on the back of the shafts and operated a tiller to turn the wheel. and illus. on pp.4–5
In 1860, the business moved to Strood, on a site adjacent to Rochester Bridge. Preston reports the business as being established by 1861 at which time Aveling was able to build -ton engines.
Aveling and Porter up to 1881
With all this expansion Aveling needed extra capital, and so in 1862 he went into partnership with Richard Porter to create the firm of Aveling & Porter. As well as the capital, Aveling was freed of some of the commercial work.
The firm exhibited their Patent Agricultural Locomotive Engine for Threshing, Ploughing and General Traction Purposes at Battersea in 1862. Aveling moved the cylinder forward from over the firebox to the front of the boiler. The steam jacket that surrounds the cylinders did away with the need for a separate dome (the patent stated that the cylinders were placed within the dome).Patent 1295 of 1861 The jacket reduced condensation, and hence priming, in the cylinders, valve gear and now non-existent supply piping. Ports between the jacket and boiler communicated live steam. The crankshaft was now close to the wheels and the long chain could be first shortened, then disposed of in favour of gears. In 1863 Aveling patented two-speed gearing.Patent 61 of 1863 Exports at this period were to Prussia and Australia.
Testing traction engines was a public affair, one was tested by driving it through Rochester to the station and back, another by driving it up Frindsbury hill. The local public turned out to see such trials and according to the Chatham News of August 1862 they were "well pleased and altogether favourably impressed".Quoted in Whilst the local public might have been impressed, more generally opposition to road locomotives was building. The Locomotive Act 1865 (the "red flag" act) was introduced which reduced speeds from the previous limit of to in town and outside. To enforce the speeds a man had to walk in front carrying a red flag to warn bystanders.
Aveling pursued his interest in steamrollers, producing the first practical example in 1865. It was tested in Military Road, Chatham, Star Hill in Rochester and in Hyde Park, London. The machine proved a huge success. Aveling and Porter steam rollers were exported to Europe and as far afield as India and North America.
Starting in 1868 Aveling & Porter started to supply the government with road locomotives, traction engines and rollers. Up until 1894 they were known as Steam Sappers, since they were built to requirements issues by the Royal Engineers (the Sappers). In 1875, the French government conducted trials of steam sappers and were satisfied enough to order some; subsequently the Russian government conducted extensive trials in 1876 involving soft ground, steep inclines and tests of the ability of a train to be safely brought down hill. The test engine was fitted with a wire cable by which guns could be pulled up hill. Several engines were subsequently purchased and gave satisfactory service in the Russo-Turkish war. Sappers were also sold to Italy.
Technical innovation continued. Unlike railway locomotives where equipment is mounted on a frame, traction engines use the boiler as the frame. This cuts down on weight but introduces stresses and holes for the rivets which could be a source of leaks or failures. In 1870 Aveling introduced horn plates which were extensions of the outer firebox and which carried all the motion, cranks and gearing.Patent 1037 of 1870 Preston regards this as one of Aveling's most important inventions. Also in 1870 he took out a patent on a simplified reversing gear.Patent 1646 of 1870 Eight years later he managed to move the gears between the bearings, not overhanging. The resultant motion was stronger and narrower allowing a more compact engine.
At the Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE) meeting at Leicester in 1868 Aveling showed "Little Tom", a small engine fitted with a crane. By 1874 the catalogue listed a 2-ton crane engine with a rear differential to permit tight cornering without disconnecting either wheel. text and reproduction of the patent drawing.
On the 1873 Vienna World's Fair Aveling & Porter were awarded prize medals for their steam-rollers. Also a crane version was to be seen and used for the erection of buildings of Vienna Exposition. In 1874 the Scientific American reported about successful "Improved Road and Farm Locomotive".
Aveling and Porter after 1881
In 1881 Thomas' son, Thomas Lake Aveling, took over control of the business. Writing in 1899 Henry Smetham commented that the business had "doubled in size about every six years".Quoted in Employee headcount rose from 400 in 1872 to 1,000 in the mid-1890s and peaked at 1,500.