Oscillating, Rotary and other 'oddball' engine types.
There was an early vogue for engines where either the cylinder oscillated, allowing the piston rod to act directly upon the crankpin, or the engine had rotating components rather than the conventional pistons, none of these really succeeded for a variety or reasons - mainly due to the materials available at the time. However these make a fascinating contrast to the more conventional engines.
Matthew Murray and James Watt experimented with the oscillating engine as shown above, which was decidedly more compact than the huge, ponderous beam engines of the time, however, keeping the partly rotating glands for the steam supply in order with the materials available at the time defeated him, also it is widely thought that Watt was extremely nervous about the use of 'strong' or high pressure steam.
Later manufacturers such as Crosskill, Tuxford and Joyce had more success and some of their engines worked into the 1900's but generally land based oscillating engines were relatively small.
Not strictly stationary steam as they moved about BUT the oscillating engine reached it's zenith in some of the huge units built for marine service, those of Brunel's Great Eastern shown above being the largest of all time. This was because they were relatively compact with a low centre of gravity. Note the detailed watercoloured engineering cross sectional drawing typical of the period.
Mumfords of Colchester used oscillating cylinders until quite late in the history of the sse - as can be seen from this ash hoist engine used to get waste ash away from the stokehold and up over the side of the ship.
The holy grail of the steam engine designer was to get rid of all reciprocating parts and numerous attempts were made at perfecting the rotary engine - unfortunately similar wear adjustment and sealing problems were encountered to those which have largely prevented the sucess of the equivalent modern internal combustion engine such as the Wankel however the Simpson and Shipden engine above enjoyed a short period of sucess
It is not known who designed this rotary engine, nor if it worked, but numerous hopeful patents were taken out for similar engines, none of which appear to have been commercially viable, until the advent of the turbine. There is more steam power used today than ever dreamed of during the Victorian era - all being used in turbines.
This McEwan and Ross rotary engine obviously got far enough to be worth engraving for an advertisment but unfortuantely nothing about it or it's makers is known.
Avoidance of rods moving through packed steam tight glands was another area on which engineers concentrated, this unusual glandless reciprocating engine by Wedlake and Dendy was apparently quite sucessful.