Model of a Wind-Driven Pump

...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-648-1

Model of a pump driven by a wind propeller, fitted in a frame of two levels.

The lower level is a cistern in which the trunk is standing. At the upper level the trunk has an outlet. The lower pump boxes are simple metal valves, the upper pump boxes are identical but connected to a crankshaft with the pump rod. The trunk is closed with a wooden plug, which controls the vertical movement of the rod. The crank is driven with a propeller with four sails; crank and propeller are mounted on a wooden cylinder with a metal ring, permitting it to follow the direction of the wind.

Although only one model has been mentioned by Obreen in his catalogue of 1858,¹¹J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 648. two were found (see NG-MC-648-2). The workings of these models were probably originally demonstrated with water. The Dutchman Arie Staats was the first to invent such a pump for ships in 1788, but his proposition appears to have been forgotten until the reintroduction of the same pump by the American Captain Brownel with the publication of an article in the Phare du Haize of 19 September 1827 and in the Journal de Commerce d’Anvers of 28 September 1827.

By 1827 these wind-driven pumps were considered to be so old-fashioned that they could not compete with designs such as chain pumps or double acting pumps and therefore were never even tested.²²HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 27/10/1827 N16. According to J. van Beylen, however, pumps driven by windmills were used on ships.³³J. van Beylen, Zeilvaart-lexicon. Maritiem woordenboek, Weesp 1985, p. 180.

Scale unknown.

J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 648; J. van Beylen, Zeilvaart-lexicon. Maritiem woordenboek, Weesp 1985, p. 180

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Model of a Wind-Driven Pump, Netherlands, 1788', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244463