County Councils, which had become responsible for the maintenance of roads, soon saw the advantages of using steam rollers and many acquired large fleets based throughout the areas they administered. Many more were owned by private contractors, some of which became very large, as well as owner drivers.
Many steam rollers had long working lives, frequently over fifty years, and worked into the 1960s (including parts of the M1 Motorway) despite the arrival of machines powered by the internal combustion engine after World War II. Although steam-powered rollers have not been used commercially for over thirty years, their modern diesel-driven counterparts are frequntly referred to as "steam rollers".
Steam rollers were never very mobile, attaining speeds of up to twelve mile per hour, and were kept at or near the working site. They frequently towed wagons in which the driver and his family would live and large water tanks.
Aveling and Porter
Thomas Aveling and Richard Thomas Porter entered into partnership in 1862, developed a steam engine 1865 three years later, and produced more of the machines than all the other British manufacturers combined.
Thomas Aveling was born at Elm, Cambridgeshire, in 1824 and was apprenticed to farmer where he had the opportunity to familiarise himself with the new steam-powered farm machinery of the time. Aveling's interest engineering led him to set up a business with his father-in-law producing and repairing agricultural plant. In
1856 they produced the first steam plough.
In partnership with Porter, the roller they produced in 1865 was tested in London's Hyde Park, Military Road, Chatham and at Star Hill in Rochester, Kent. The machine proved a huge success with Aveling and Porter steam rollers were exported to Europe and as far afield as India and the USA.
In 1934, Aveling and Porter combined with Barford & Perkins to form Aveling-Barford which continued to make steam and motor rollers. After World War II the company continued to make motor and steam rollers as well as expanding into other construction equipment. Now American owned and known as Wordsworth Holdings, the company continues to make dump trucks at the original Grantham site.
Examples of Aveling & Porter engines may be seen in the Science Museum at South Kensington and at the London Transport Musuem at Covent Garden, both in London.
Armstrong Whitworth
Burrell
Clayton & Shuttleworth
Fowler
Fowlers were the second largest British producers of steamrollers after Aveling, making about 10% of all Steam Rollers.
