Relic Roller

Posted by AG (London, United Kingdom) on 6 June 2006 in Transportation.

This relic roller arrived at a housing development in which I was involved some twenty years ago. Even then, it looked like something that should have been scrapped fifty years before and we just could not believe it. Amazingly, it worked and did the job but I recall that the contractor did not bother to take it away with him and we had to have it dismantled for scrap before the Health and Safety people saw it.

These pics are scanned from a forgotten file of b&w prints discovered in my garage.
- AG

TECHNICAL STUFF

The manufacturers were Wallis & Steevens Ltd of Basingstoke, Hampshire who were in business from around 1850 to 1981. They were building steam driven traction engines and agricultural machinery from 1856 with the first steam road roller made in 1890. By 1910 they were concentrating on road vehicles. The firm started design of first petrol engine roller in 1925 but were still selling steam rollers right until 1940. Wallis & Steevens ceased to trade in 1981.

The roller shown is an ‘Advance’ Roller Type M and I would date it from around 1950, making it nearly 40 years’ old by the time it arrived on my building site.

Looking carefully at my original prints, I can see the controls marked such that the main wheel in the cab is actually a gear control offering forward or reverse. Speed is controlled by a small horizontal slider under the dials and is marked ‘fast’ and ‘idling’. Steering was by way of the wheel upper left and it operated an exposed gear rack and pinion arrangement by way of a shaft visible in the side pics. Somewhere, there must be a brake . .

- AG

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