Identify my pressure gauge

Factual Questions
1

A big brass pressure gauge has come into my possession. It is clearly a bourdon-type, the dial says ‘Water level below surface’ and is calibrated in feet, going from 0 with pointer fully clockwise to 180 feet with pointer fully anticlockwise. It is currently indicating 180 feet, but the needle moves up off the end-stop if you blow hard into the inlet pipe.

It was made by Thos Matthews Ltd, of Pendleton, Manchester. (England)

At first I thought it might be a submarine depth gauge (in which case it might be worth a good bit of money) but I’m fairly sure I’m not under 180 feet of water at present. Something to do with measuring the depth of water in a mine, maybe? There used to be lots of mines near Manchester.

Any help in working out its function would be much appreciated.

2

I too would expect that to be the case.

It might be broken.

3

I assume you’re looking at this, or one similar to it. This one says 130 feet and it, too, is probably at or around surface level.

4

Yes indeed, looks very much like mine. A bit of Googlage tells me that Matthews were- artesian well engineers.

So it must be for measuring water depth in a well in some way. I was thinking of a pipe down to the bottom of the well, blow air into it and the greater the depth the greater the pressure. But that would give higher pressure for more depth, and these gauges are calibrated the other way round.

5

I saw something like that when I was looking for this. Let me see if I can find it again.

6

It might be broken.

Not broken because the needle moves (though not much) when you blow into it.

The reading of 130 feet on the other gauge is more suspect.

7

Maybe it’s not calibrated.

8

I think this is just for a regular pressure gauge, but it might work here.

9

Hello Joey

That was what I had in mind. On thinking it over the high pressure would indicate a high water level.

Douglas

10

That was what I had in mind.
On thinking it over the high pressure would indicate a high water level, and the calibration makes sense.

It is a depth gauge for a well, worked by compressed air. Many thanks for the contributions.