MEMBERS TALK… The Joseph Evans Deep Well Pump

As some of you will know I have in my collection a large Joseph Evans Three Throw deep well pump. It is complete including all the nuts and bolts thanks to the care taken by the gentleman who removed it from its place of rest. This would have been difficult as I believe he had to take the whole thing apart and carry or drag each piece to his transport, no easy task when you consider the weight of the “A” frames!

When I first saw the pump it was loosely assembled, all the bits were freed off apart from a Fast & loose pulley on the drive side which with a little lubricant, heat and gentle persuasion turned.

A notable point here is how he managed to get all the nuts and bolts free! His only tools were two small hammers and correct size spanners, the threads would have been cleaned up and lubricated prior to removal and

Then the hammers would be worked in opposite sides of the nuts so as to loosen their grip, I have used this method before myself with mixed results on different threads and have noticed that Whitworth nuts

and bolts work free a lot better than Metric, some of the finer threads which I have tried can be almost impossible with this method. A discussion on this very topic was had on a popular internet forum. One opinion was Whitworth has a full thread form whereas others are truncated, others also came forward with their experiences of Whitworth against other thread types and it was agreed that Whitworth was the better. This is a topic worthy of further discussion!

Once we got the pump home we then set about the task of evaluating what needed doing, the list wasn’t too long but included rebuilding the three foot valves on the base of the pump (not a particularly big job) freeing off the loose side of the fast and loose pulleys and sourcing three new leather cup washers for the pump itself, these have now been found and await the day when I can find the time to get on with this project.

Another notable point is the shims on the crank bearings are made of leather, something I had not seen before and will require careful adjustment when putting back together properly. This must surely make this a very early pump, and to back this theory up there is a picture from an article in an agricultural review dated 1896 (kindly lent to me by Ian Sampson), which shows a two throw pump nearly identical to the one I have. The Graces Guide also has an advert showing the same illustration and that is dated 1904 so when this type of pump was actually made I assume must have been sometime before 1896. The start of the Joseph Evans business appears to have been in 1810 and in 1888 issued a catalogue listing their many products including Pumps!

Paul Cook