Engraving of a beam engine

This engraving of a beam engine is from a collection of engineering drawings of the Bryan Donkin Company Ltd and has a scale of 3/4 inch to 1 foot. The appearance of the engine is similar to that of Samuel Halls' patent Improvements on Steam Engines, 1834.

Notes on the drawing give the name "Baxter" and address "3 Charter House Square". The 1843 Kelly's Directory of London gives this as the address of George Baxter, "engraver, inventor and patentee of printing in oil colours". The document also bears a handwritten note "From Middleton".

Bryan Donkin (1768-1855) was an engineer and inventor, and in 1803 established engineering works, at first principally for paper-making machinery, in Bermondsey in London. Fourdrinier Bros. were the original financiers of this enterprise. Bryan Donkin continued to refine and improve techniques. In 1819 he invented a revolution counter to record numbers of items produced. To improve security in printing banknotes etc., he developed the Donkin Pantograph Machine and the Rose Engine. Elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1836, Bryan Donkin died in 1855 but his firm was then managed by one of his sons. In 1902, the firm merged with Clench & Co. Ltd of Chesterfield, and relocated from Bermondsey to Chesterfield in Derbyshire.