Richard Hills

Richard Hills was born in London in 1936 and educated at Charterhouse School after which followed National Service in the Royal Artillery. He took his first degree in History at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he also received a Certificate in Education. While in Cambridge he started research into the history of fen drainage which led into a year's research at the Imperial College, London, where he was awarded a Diploma and his thesis published as 'Machines, Mills and Uncountable, Costly Necessities'. He moved to the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology where his thesis on the History of the Textile Industry was awarded a doctorate and published as 'Power in the industrial Revolution' He has also published a biography of 'Sir Richard Arkwright, Pioneer of Cotton Spinning', and produced various films on the spinning, weaving, papermaking, etc. Out of his research into textiles he has created the North Western Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester of which he is the Director, and one of his first tasks in this capacity was to save the archives of Beyer, Peacock a Co. Ltd. when the Gorton Foundry was closed, which form the basis of the undermentioned book (from cover)

Beyer Peacock: locomotive builder to the world. Glossop: Transport Publishing Co., 1982. 302pp.
Written with late D. Patrick. Ottley 15634: copy seen at New Barnfield, Hatfield (the paradigm of what a "rural" library service should have at its core): a truly magnificent book. Book has a superb index. Appendices list capital, assets, machinery and locomotives constructed.. See also Newcomen Society Transactions paper by same author.

Power from steam: a history of the stationary locomotive. Cambridge: University Press, 1989. 338pp.
This is interesting for showing the relationship between stationary winding engines and locomotives on early railways. R. Stephenson & Co. was involved in both activities: notably on the Canterbury & Whitstable Railway, the Stockton & Darlington Railway, notably at Brusselton, and on the bolton & Leigh Railway at Daubhill. This is coverred in Chap. 8, especially pp. 142-4. Chapter 14 (pp. 258 et seq) covers the Uniflow design as invented by Leonard Jennet Todd and developed by Johann Stumpf, including its aplication to locomtives and in multi-cylinder form to electricity generation. The Skinner Engine Co. supplied uniflow engines for ships to the United States Navy during WW2 annd to train ferries for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway: the rapid response was a telling feature. On p. 132 Hills noted how locomotive boiler pressures were raised from 50-60 psi at Crewe under F. Trevithick to 75psi when the railway over Shap opened in 1845, to 100 psi in 1852, although David Joy's Jenny Lind had reached this level in 1847. Pressures in stationary boilers remained lower.