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of Birkenhead
Proprietor Richard Elihu Dickinson
1871 Established
1879 Closed
1880 Description of a 'Novel Steam Crane' made by R E Dickinson & Co of Cleveland Engine Works, Birkenhead. It had just been erected in Mr John Fleming’s Camperdown Sawmills, Dundee. Erected on wood gantry 240 ft long, 25 ft above ground, span 50 ft. Side carriages made from best boiler plate instead of cast iron (less risk of cracking in cold weather). Pitch pine cross beams with wrought iron tie rods. Well braced to avoid twisting in the event that wheels on one side slipped in frosty weather. 'Power supplied from line shafting of the sawmill by means of a small hemp rope no thicker than a man’s finger.'[1]
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