A Brief History of the Railway Foundry
All |
Todd Kitson & Laird |
Shepherd & Todd |
Edward Brown Wilson |
Fenton & Craven |
Edward Brown Wilson |
Hudswell Clarke
Todd, Kitson & Laird
The early engine building industry in Leeds shifted about a mile from where it had first begun, in Holbeck, to the already industrialised Hunslet area in 1837. Charles Todd, apprentice to the railway industry�s founding father, Matthew Murray, set up the Todd, Kitson & Laird partnership. A new works in Hunslet was built and orders were received, beginning with Lion for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. The seeds were sown for a successful engine building company but the partnership didn�t last long and two new firms were formed. The story of Kitson is covered separately in the Kitson article, this page is about what Todd did next.
Internal Website Links
Pictures
With much of E.B.Wilson's output being being before cameras were in wide spread use we have little in the way of photographs of their engines on our site, however we do have photos of the two and a bit surviving Wilson engines
Lists
With over 150 years since the demise of E.B.Wilson there isn't a great deal left of them, just two and a bit engines. Most of the engines they built should be in our database however this has been largely put together from the records of the early railway companies and there may still be a few engines sent to smaller customers to track down.
External Website Links
Graces Guide page about Shepherd and Todd
Wikipedia page about E.B.Wilson and Company
The Ships List page about Wilson's Line[7]
Jon Pridmore's page about E.B.Wilson and Company
Wikipedia page about the Balaklava Railway [14]
Steamindex's page about the Railway Foundry
Steamindex's reproduction of extracts of David Joy's diaries [6]
Bibliography
E.B.Wilson & Co. Locomotive Works List, Clive Hardy ISBN 0 906829 11 9[1]
Old Ordinance Survey Maps, Leeds (Pottery Field) 1840, ISBN 1-847842267[2]
The Hunslet Engine Works, D.H. Townsley, ISBN 1-871980-38-0 [13]
Old Ordinance Survey Maps, South Leeds 1906, ISBN 0-85054-250-2
The Railway Foundry 1839-1969, Ronald Nelson Redman [10]
Indian Locomotives Part 1 - Broad Gauge 1851-1940, Hugh Hughes, ISBN 0-9503469-8-5 [8]
The Locomotives Built by Manning Wardle & Co, Volume 1-3, Fred Harman [16]
Leeds Mercury 19th December 1840[3]
Hull Packet of 27th November 1840 [4]
Leeds Mercury 17th August 1850[5]
Leeds Mercury on the 12th April 1851 [9]
Hull Packet of 12th September 1856 [11]
Leeds Mercury on the 18th September 1856 [12]
Leeds Mercury of 8th September 1855 [15]
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Sheila Bye for her research in to the early days of the Leeds engine building industry.
This article was produced by Kris Ward, any feedback or contributions about the Leeds engine making industry would be greatly appreciated.