Hello, Andy,
So pleased that you are actually living in Leicester, where the Elgood family seem to have been well known as being leaders in Architectural Metalworking, and collecting Antique items, before this became an accepted practice. I am sure that the local or county library will have material on the family, with all four brothers cooperating.
Yes, the English Counterbalanced Sash Window was the supreme example of the Carpenters Craft,and it pains me that people in their ignorance are replacing them with tawdry UPVC, which were banned in Germany because of the high thermal expansion of the material leading to constant need to remastic the frames. Even with a Sash Version in UPVC, the counterbalancing often is with terrible American Spiral Spring balances, which are short lived, and work stiffly. The Dutch also used Sash Windows, but even in Elizabeth 1 ’s time, were most impressed with our counterbalanced sashes, whereas they seem to have used unbalanced windows, held by pegs, even until well into the 20th C! I recommend you to visit the Brooking Museum of Architectural Detail at Cranleigh, near Dorking, where he has rescued windows from skips, especially around London , as wealthy ignoramuses from outside the UK are stripping out all the internal fittings of building at an increasing rate, so as to let them at astronomical rents to similarly vapid individuals! There is a massive variety of Patents by Carpenters on very ingenious systems for safely cleaning the windows from inside, and Glasgow, Edinburgh and possibly Derby and other towns mandated such systems.
There were seven patents applied for by the family, but they only paid for the patent to be completed (Sealed) in the four mentioned previously.
The first patent by the family( R H Elgood & T. S. Shouler) was for an Improved Castor-GB188616538, and this was not completed, so there is nothing to show what the castor was like.
The next incomplete patent was GB188919480, for an improved Sash Pulley and Sash, by J K Elgood alone. The final unsealed patent was for a Lock, GB188900265, taken out in the three names of R.H,J.E, & T.S Elgood. Patents in those days were not examined in depth, so only if one was infringed would there be an investigation as to novelty. I am afraid that many of their patents are not of much validity, particularly the last, for clearing taps, when it is not even an object, but a method, that is being patented! However, the patents do give their Home and Business Addresses!
Let me know how your researches progress-I better discontinue now, before the Boss,a.k.a.s Brian Morland, fulminates! No charge, as I am glad that they will be of use!
Happy hunting,
Martin Cummins.
