page_title: Humphrey pump
section_title: Installed pumps
hierarchical_section_title: Humphrey pump / Installed pumps
caption_attribution_description: English: King George V Pumping Station Originally contained five Humphrey pumps working on producer gas. Now disused with three in situ.
context_page_description: The Humphrey pump is a large internal combustion gas-fuelled liquid-piston pump. They were used for large-scale water supply projects. They were only popular for a short time, from around 1910 to the outbreak of World War I, but they continued in service for a long period afterwards, some lasting into the 1970s.
  The pump was invented by H. A. Humphrey, MIMechE. It was described in a paper presented by him to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on 19 November 1909. A pump capable of pumping 250,000 gallons per hour to a head of 35 feet was exhibited at the 1910 Brussels Exhibition, where it was awarded two Grands Prix, for both engines and pumps.
context_section_description: Few completed installations of Humphrey pumps are known and described:
  King George V Reservoir, near Chingford in East London, had four Humphrey pumps installed when the pumping station was first constructed in 1912. Each pump was capable of pumping 40,000,000 gallons of water per day. A fifth, smaller, pump was added later. These were built by Beardmore's of Glasgow.
  A single 66" diameter pump was installed at Del Rio, Texas in 1914. This was constructed by the Humphrey Gas Pump Co. of Syracuse, NY, who had licensed the Humphrey patents.
  A very large drainage and irrigation plant for Egypt was also considered in 1914. Construction of this was disrupted, owing to the outbreak of World War I. It was originally to use eighteen pumps, each delivering 100,000,000 gallons per day to a head of 20 feet. Each pump chamber was to be 8 ft 8 in in diameter and 14 ft high. Final construction used ten pumps, five by Beardmore's and five by the Italian division of Brown Boveri.
  Two pumps, each rated at 1,500,000 imperial gallons (6.8 Ml) per hour (36,000,000 imperial gallons (160 Ml) per day), were installed at Cobdogla, on the Murray River in Australia, from 1923. These were constructed by Beardmore's in Glasgow and shipped out to Australia for assembly.
caption: Pump house at King George V Reservoir, 1985
exif: {}