Walter Hancock
| Walter Hancock | |
|---|---|
| Born | 16 June 1799 Marlborough, England |
| Died | 14 May 1852 (aged 52) |
| Nationality | English |
| Engineering career | |
| Projects | Steam-powered road vehicles |
Walter Hancock (16 June 1799 – 14 May 1852) was an English inventor of the Victorian period. He is chiefly remembered for his steam-powered road vehicles, but also received a patent for preparing and cutting natural rubber into sheets. He was the younger brother of Thomas Hancock, the inventor of rubber mastication who is also claimed by some to be the inventor of rubber vulcanization.
Between 1824 and 1836 in Stratford, near London, Hancock constructed a number of steam-powered road vehicles. In 1827 he patented a steam boiler constructed with separate chambers of thin metal which could split rather than explode, a safety measure for operators and passengers. His were not the first road locomotives: experiments by Richard Trevithick occurred a generation earlier with his Puffing Devil and London Steam Carriage; but they were the most successful. It will also be noted that railways were being introduced in England at about the same time as Hancock's enterprises.
In 1829 he built a small ten-seater bus called the Infant, with which in 1831 he began a regular service between Stratford and central London. On 31 October 1832, the Infant took an experimental trip to Brighton. This vehicle was later made famous by its revenue-earning journeys between London and Brighton, which were a British first, and also demonstrated its usability by successfully ascending a frozen slope of 5 degrees where horse-drawn coaches were struggling.
On 22 April 1833 Hancock’s steam omnibus The Enterprise (built for the London and Paddington Steam Carriage Company) began a regular service between London Wall and Paddington via Islington. It was the first regular steam carriage service, and was the first mechanically propelled vehicle specially designed for omnibus work to be operated. During this vehicle's construction in 1832, a negligent engineer died of fright when a boiler component tore, expelling high-pressure steam in his direction. Neither he nor anyone else present was physically injured in any way, and the machinery itself suffered no significant damage.
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