Horizontal Windmill Patents 🌍


Other coverage of horizontal windmills:


Contents

They say not to reinvent the wheel, but the horizontal windmill is something that has been continually reinvented many times. Whilst some true inventors came up with innovations on the horizontal windmill, it also looks like many of the ideas that got patented were not really original, and indeed should not have been eligible for patent protection. Whilst the inventors typically thought that their invention was going to make their fortune, many of the horizontal windmill patents were the end of the story rather than the beginning - the designs often proved unworkable, and were never commercially exploited (and indeed many were probably never built as full sized examples).

Some of these are further explored on other pages, particularly designs and locations.

UK patents

French patents

USA patents

Patents from 1790 - 1829 were destroyed in a fire in 1836, and although we have their titles via published lists, such as list for 1827, list for 1838 we do not have their specification text contents (though some diagrams survived).

Canada patents

New Zealand patents

Australian Patents



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Last updated 17/04/2026 Text and images © Mark Berry, 1997-2026 -