The history and development of windmills:

As you read this section, you can also look at the diagrams of the world’s earliest windmills at the following website:
http://www.es.flinders.edu.au

Wind energy has been used for some 5,000 years to propel sailing ships. Originally, winds pressing against sails moved ships across oceans. Early historical records indicate that windmills may have been used in Persia (now called Iran) to grind grain into flour about 1,300 or 1,400 years ago. The use of windmills to convert wind energy into mechanical energy then spread to Asia and the Mediterranean Region.

The construction of the first, crude windmills was based on the early design of sailing ships. The windmills had blades called “sails” and, like sails, they consisted of a frame covered with cloth. Eventually, windmill blades were made from wood and then they were constructed from metal, fibreglass, and combinations of wood and modern synthetic materials.

The vertical-axis windmills were highly inefficient because the sails would blow backwards and forwards. In a bid to solve the problem, “horizontal-axis” windmills were developed.

The first horizontal-axis wind­mills appeared in the Mediterranean region. They were equipped with cloth sails, a development probably linked to the sails of watercraft. The windmills also had “wind wheels” that were fixed to stone towers and they permanently faced the prevailing winds along the coast. (Prevailing winds are those occurring most frequently.)

Windmills began to appear in Europe, mainly Holland and England, late in the tenth century. It is thought that the idea was brought to Europe from the Middle Eastern countries. Early European wind­mills were used for grinding grain.

Later, the windmills were used in the Low Countries (which represent Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in Northwestern Europe) for removing water for drainage purposes. Europe’s first windmill was the horizontal-axis type and it was known as a post-mill.


Above - Post-mills in a field in western Siberia.

Google Earth - Siberia, Russia

This type of mill had a wooden weather­board exterior. In the front, a “tail pole” rotated the sails as well as the entire body of the mill. There were generally four sails that were covered with canvas.

The next major development in this industry was the tower-mill, introduced in France and Holland in the early thirteenth century.

Above - Tower-mills in Holland.

Google Earth - Holland, Netherlands

The tower-mill consisted of a fixed body or tower and a rotating cap that contained the wind shaft and sail wheel. The cap was rotated by a system of pulleys and chains, which allowed the miller to turn the sails into the wind. Neither the post-mill nor the tower-mill were equipped with an automatic control.

In 1745, Edmund Lee of Scotland improved upon the design of windmills. He designed and patented “the fantail”, an ingenious automatic device that could be fitted to every type of windmill. The fantail could turn the entire mill around to face the direction of the wind, relieving the miller of this strenuous task. The fantail kept the sails pointed into the wind. During the nineteenth century, the fantail was modified and directly attached to the cap of the windmill, as can be seen on surviving windmills today. A wind turbine fitted with a fantail is displayed at Western Australia’s premier energy and environmental education centre, World of Energy, which is located in Fremantle.

To view a photo of the fantail, go to:
http://www.shipleywindmill.org.uk/sec.htm


Above - Fantail windmill.

When people think of windmills, they often think of Holland. Wind-driven water pumps played an important part in claiming land from the marsh and lake areas of the Rhine River Delta. This is not surprising as Holland, along with Britain, has had a long association with windmills and each country had between 9,000 and 10,000 wind­mills during the earlier days of the Industrial Revolution. Windmills were a major factor in the rapid development of both Britain and Holland and they became the world's most industrialised nations by the nineteenth century. Following the invention of the printing press, windmills were adapted to produce paper. The early European windmills were replaced with steam and combustion engines.

For more information about the early history of windmills, go to:
http://telosnet.com/wind/early.html

Following the rapid British colonisation of Australia, the first windmill was built to grind grain for the new settlement in New South Wales in 1795. However, it was not until 1876 that the first wind-driven water pumps (also known as wind pumps) were produced in Australia. This was a very significant development as wind pumps have been essential to the development of the livestock industry on isolated farms in the more arid parts of the continent. This is particularly true in Western Australia, where wind pumps are still a familiar site on many farms.

For more information about the history of Australian windmills,go to:
http://au.geocities.com/ozwindmills/company.htm

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