Railway Enthusiasts
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Many enthusiasts manifest themselves in their writings. Many of the fortunate ones were also railway employees: some were employed in the public relations and publicity and were natural writers: one thinks of George Dow and D.S.M. Barrie. A few were professional engineers, some were on the design side (Cox and Holcroft) and others on the operating side (Dunn and Dick Hardy). Many were more difficult to place: C.J. Allen was a materials inspector, Nock worked for a major supplier of signalling systems. Ian Carter has written a book British railway enthusiasm, reviewed by KPJ in Backtrack. Denis Dunstone's For the love of trains has been purchased by Norfolk Country Library as someone must have noticed that the frontispiece shows Weybourne station with B12/3 No. 61572 standing in front of the main bibliographical collection on railways in Norfolk (the station bookshop). Photographers, like H.C. Casserley, have their own file.
This page is mainly intended to fill in the gaps with people like Alan Pegler and Tony Marchington who have contributed greatly to the preservation of remnants from the steam age. It is hoped that earlier enthusiasts may also be brought to light: Marchington and Pegler need not be paradigms there was T.R. Perkins who travelled the length and breadth of Britain and the chance find of a librarian (Appleby Miller).
Adams, Will
Author of book about trainspotting and trainspotters, with a Foreword
by Brian Blessed. Includes many pictures of the species, including some where
swarms were observed. Also includes shed bashing, school parties and special
trains.
Aickman, Robert Fordyce
Born 27 June 1914 at Hampstead, London, the only child of William
Arthur Aickman, an architect, and his wife. Aickman's childhood, was unhappy,
although the family lived in a substantial house, Langton Lodge, at Stanmore,
Middlesex. Aickman attended Highgate School and began to be interested in
writing there, but he did not then go up to Oxford or Cambridge, as might
have been hoped. He entered a period of youthful drifting, writing some theatre
reviews for the periodical The Nineteenth Century and After, but eventually
finding himself alone at Langton Lodge after his mother left his father,
who then fell terminally ill and ended his life in a nursing home. Aickman
was eventually rescued from the severe depression this isolation caused when
he began to attend the queue for tickets at London's Covent Garden Opera,
and acquired a series of female friends and lovers. The outbreak of the Second
World War brought this lifestyle to an end, but he declared himself a
conscientious objector and won total exemption from war service. On 5 September
1941 he married (Edith) Ray Gregorson (1913/14—1983), a secretary whom
he had met through the opera queue, but more from sympathy than love. They
set up a literary agency together, and moved to 11 Gower Street in Bloomsbury,
which was to be Aickman's home for much of his life. They divorced in 1957,
and she later became an Anglican nun. In 1946 Robert and Ray Aickman, with
Tom (L.T.C.) Rolt and Rolt's wife, Angela, set up the Inland Waterways
Association, to preserve and enhance the canals of Britain, which were at
that time in such a state of neglect as seemed likely to end in their ultimate
disappearance. Aickman was chairman and Rolt secretary, and the organization
quickly gained momentum and influence, becoming in many ways a model for
the many campaigning pressure groups of post-war Britain. Aickman remained
active and superbly energetic in the waterways campaign until 1964, and although
his autocratic style of leadership provoked much dissension, it is nevertheless
agreed that the salvation of Britain's canals owes more to him than to any
other person. Rolt has written at length of how he to resign from the Association
and in part turn his energy towards the preservation of the Talyllyn Railway.
In 1951 Aickman and Elizabeth Jane Howard published We are for the Dark,
a volume of six ghost stories, where each contributed three, but did not
identify who had written which. Aickman was eventually to publish eleven
more volumes of what he called ‘strange stories’, and he
succeeded in giving new life to what had been classically an Edwardian genre.
Between 1964 and 1972 Aickman edited the first eight volumes of The Fontana
Book of Great Ghost Stories, to all but the sixth of which he contributed
learned and stimulating introductions. His other published works included
two fantasy novels and two volumes of autobiography, and many stories and
plays remained unpublished. He was an inveterate leader and joiner of
organizations relating to his interests in transport, theatre, orchestral
music, opera, and ballet. Aickman was a shy man, who blossomed in public
life: constitutionally solitary, he derived lifelong solace from relationships
with women. He died at the Homeopathic Hospital, Camden, London, on 26 February
1981. At odds with the modern world, he left a permanent mark on it through
his two disparate but oddly linked fields of endeavour. ODNB biography by
C.A.R. Hills
Ailsa. Marquiss (Archibald Kennedy)
Robert Humm's Henry Maxwell, an eminent enthusiast lists the Marquiss
of Ailsa who inherited the title on 13 September 1956 as "one of The Great
and the Good of the Railway Fraternity for stepping in to save the Isle of
Man Railway when it was about to close
J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc.,
2021. (241) 291-6
Ashford, E.C.B.
See brief obituary in
Locomotive Mag., 1941,
47, 244: authority on Somerset & Dorset Railway; resident
of Bath
Atherton, Mike
Cambridge-educated cricketer and contributor to
Railway World see CF du Vivarais
1990, 51, 492. Born in Failsworth (Manchester)
on 23 March 1968. Educated at Manchester Grammar School and Downing College.
Captained England at cricket and on retirement became cricket correspondent
for The Times and a television commentator.
Awdry, Wilbert Vere
Born on 15 June 1911 in Ampfield. Died 21 March 1997 in Rodborough.
English Anglican minister, railway enthusiast, and children's author. He
was best known for creating Thomas the Tank Engine. Thomas and several
other characters he created appeared in his Railway Series. Wikipedia.
See also son Christopher and fellow Anglican
clergyman Teddy Boston.
Bailey, Henry Trevor Selborne (Trevor)
Died 16 September 1991; educated at Radley and Caius College, Cambridge,
thus being part of the link between Cambridge University graduates and the
Festiniog Railway which included Alan Pegler, John Routly, David Lindsay,
Francis Wayne, Allan Garraway, Gerald Fox and Mike Schumann. His undergraduate
days at Cambridge are recalled in a beautiful short article in
Railway World. which captures
the magic of tghe streamline era. He knew Les Smith from the war years when
as a raw recruit they had adjoining beds and shared the Railway
Magazine. He was involved with both Alan Pegler and Les Smith in organising
two special trains on the Eastern Region of British Railways, the
Centenaries Express in 1952 and the Plant Centenarian in 1953.
The latter train was probably unique in that the two GN Atlantics were brought
out of retirement from York Museum specially for the occasion. One driver
involved was Bill Hoole and on the first trial run, from Kings Cross to
Peterborough, Trevor and Les rode with him. Bill became a friend. It was
from Les Smith that Trevor learned of the efforts to revive the FR and Trevor
in turn involved Alan.
In June 1953 he travelled with Fred Gilbert to visit the liquidator of the
Welsh Highland Railway Company in Llandudno to see if through the WHR it
might be possible to take a lease on the FR through some obscure power. That
turned out to be a dead end. It was at Trevor's suggestion that his
brother-in-law John Routly became involved, a wise move because John and
Nic Nicholson were able to unravel many of the legal problems regarding the
railway, enabling Alan to purchase the controlling interest in the Festiniog
Railway Company on 24 June 1954 with an interest free loan from Mr Pegler
senior. On an evening in May 1954 Trevor Bailey and Bill Broadbent went along
to the Hyde Park Hotel where they were handed the cheque by Mr Pegler senior
for £2,000 (presumably made out to the National Provincial Bank
which held debenture stock in the FR Co.) that made possible the transfer
of control of the FR. Trevor was a director of the FR Company from 1954 to
1966 and when the company was first taken over he was made its Commercial
Director. He was also the Company's representative on the Society board and
a Festiniog Railway Trust Trustee from the same time. He was editor of the
Festiniog Railway Magazine from its first issue in 1958 until 1961 and before
that he edited the "News Sheets" which the Magazine superseded. He organized
the special trains from London for Society annual general meetings from 1958
onwards. Motive power for these included City of Truro and Flying
Scotsman. For sixteen years he was a director of a family surgical instrument
and hospital equipment company and from 1962 he was a director of Ian Allan
Travel. Trevor's involvement with the expansion of Ian Allan's travel business
was such that he retired from the Company Board but retained his connection
with the Railway as an active Trustee. From Festipedia.
Baldwin, Peter
Born on 10 November 1922; died 9 May 2010. Educated Clare House School,
City of London School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford where education
broken for duty at Bletchley Park where he became a brilliant code breaker
of Japanese diplomatic messages especially those from German occupied Paris.
Became a senior civil servant notably as Permanent Secretary to the Ministry
of Transport where he fought for easier access for the disabled (and elderly)
to buses and trains. According to Faulkner
and Austin responsible for acquiring Chinese KF7 British-built locomotive
of 1934 for return to Britain. Also served on Heritage Railway Trust. Other
material Guardian obituary.
Barnett, Arthur Lionel
Born in Southport, educated at Hutcheson's Grammar School and, in
medicine, at Glasgow University. Author of books on Hull & Barnsley
Railway and railways in the Yorkshire Coalfield. Former President of the
RCHS. Died, aged 99 on 19 August 2007.
Obituary J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc.,
2008, 36, (201) 49.
Bartholemew, Charles William
1850-1919: son of Charles
Bartholemew. Wealthy with interests in coal mines and canals in Yorkshire.
Liberal philanthroopist. Vice-President of Railway Club. Owned Blakesley
Hall near Towcester where he had a 15-in gauge railway with US 4-4-0
Cagney and steam outline (petrol engine) 4-4-4T Blacolvesley.
See Locomotive Mag., 1914,
20, 186 for Railway Club visit to Blakesley Hall and
Rly Wld. 1961, 22.
and Whitehead. Miniature railways.
Locomotive Mag., 1946, 52,
69.
Beet, Peter
Born 1937; died 5 December 2005. Brought up in Kendal; educated in
Harrogate and Leeds University Medical School. GP in Morecambe. Whilst studying
visited Tebay engine shed and experienced footplate on Shap bankers. Participated
in creation of Steam Town in Carnforth and owner of Jubilee No. 5690
Leander (Guardian obit)
Borley, Henry Vernon
Born 1895; died 1989. He had a prodigeous detailed knowledge of railway
history who began his chiding letters "In the interests of accuracy" Robin
Leleux. Backtrack, 2023, 37, 189. H.W. Paar who wrote his obituary
in J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc.,
1989, 29, 378 called him the "high priest of accuracy particularly
in matters of accuracy, to him, an error of just one day was important".
But he was not heavily censorius of others. Borley's memory was long and
accurate: in 1983 he was able to give a short account of a Sundy journey
from Hampstead to Sandwich in 1904: 'Outside Charing Cross there were
people with placards telling us to go home as we were travelling to
Hell'. He joined the staff of the LNWR in 1910. His date of birth was entered
three years earlier than it was. and although this error would have horrified
the mature man it had its advantages for, in his own words: 'I not only received
a higher salary but occupied positions I should not have done'. After a month's
training he was apponted a booking clerk and was soon a relief clerk for
North London stations between Broad Street, Poplar and Kew Bridge. He spent
most of his working life on the North London line where he had worked
not only on the stations, but in the signal boxes and in the District
Office and had examined the company records. During WW1 he served in the
Railway Operating Division in France where he met his future wife
Olga.
He extended his definitive treatment of the chronoloogy, services, tickets
and other matters to the whole of the vast and complicated London area publishing
with A.E. Bennett a book on London Transport Railways, but this was only
a precursor of his Chronology of London Railways published in 1982.
South Eastern Railway to Sevenoaks
Sir,—It is rather late to amend a footnote on page 11 of The Journal
for January 1968 but the examination of various records has only just
been finalized. With the kind help of two Borough Librarians it now
seems to be quite definite that the South Eastern Railway to Sevenoaks
was opened for public passenger traffic from a temporary station at
Chislehurst on Monday 2 March 1868. The misundertanding arose
because a Sevenoaks newspaper erroneously took a visit by the Directors and Officers on the Tuesday as the first day of operation. The
temporary station at Chislehurst was at Old Station. Hill, to the north
of the present passenger station.
H. V. BORLEY
The History of the Great Northern Railway
Grinling Edition of 1966
Sir,—Members may like to note the amendments and additions set
out below which have come to notice since this edition was published.
Page 86 line 5. There was no regular passenger traffic between Clarborough and Sykes Junction until 7 August 1850.
Page 91 line 16. "nine days" to read "ten days". It may be added
that the booked time London to Peterborough in August 1850
for an express train was 2i hours, and for a stopping train 4
hours. The trains were accelerated from 1 September 1850.
Page 97 line 10 "and Shepreth" to read "at Shepreth."
line 11 delete "March 1850" insert "opened to Royston 21
October 1850, extended to Shepreth 1 August 1851."
Page 232 line 7 "1865" to read "1864."
Page 345 line 9 from foot. "Norway" to read "Florida."
Page 350 line 2 "about 8.25" to read "about 8.52;" bottom line "a"
to read "the".
Page 352 The official report gives four passengers and a guard
killed, fiifteen passengers and two servants injured . . . .
It was the practice on the NLR at that time when a junction was
occupied and a train could not be accepted to return seven beats
known in the North London code as "Line obstructed, Permissive
block" which meant the junction was occupied or obstructed by permission and the occupation would not be for long. Even if the Great
Northern man did consider the seven beats had the same interpretation of Permissive block as in the GN code he should have stopped
the train and cautioned the driver verbally as well as exhibiting a
green flag. The Canonbury Junction distant was at clear probably because the derailed vehicles had tightened the wire from the Junction
box. The sequel to this accident was the deletion of the words "Permissive block" from the NL signal of seven beats and the provision
of two additional signal boxes, one at each end of the tunnel, that at
the north end being named Drayton Park, and the other Highbury
Crescent. The latter remained for about 30 years; Drayton Park for
about another ten years. With improved signalling these two signal
boxes became redundant and were removed.
55
Home Collections Tickets Ticket; Train ticket, issued to Mr H V Borley, third class privilege quarterly season, between Northwick Park and Ruislip, rate 10/6, issued by London Transport, expiring 27 September 1947
Boston, Alfred John
Born 8 November 1908. As a boy he became interested in GNR and followed
this by LNER, He was especially interested in signalling and in preservatiion.
Joined SLS in 1928. On retirement on 20 March 1970 he was presented with
an illuminated address by the Science Museum. He was a member of the Transport
Trust, He died in August 1992.
Railway Wld, 1968,
29, 531 plus web search.
Boston, Edwin J. [Teddy]
Born on 20 December 1924 in Solihull; died 1 April 1986. Educated
at Gresham's School, Holt, and Jesus College, Cambridge, before training
for the ministry of the Church of England at Lincoln Theological College.
Served as curate of Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. He became Rector of Cadeby and
Vicar of Sutton Cheney, both in Leicestershire, in 1960, remaining in post
until his death in 1986. Known as Teddy Boston. Boston bought a Bagnall saddle
tank locomotive number 2090, named Pixie and built a light railway
in the grounds of the Rectory at Cadeby. Great friend of
Awdry. He left a widow, Audrey, who was still living in 2015 who shared
her husband's enthusiasm for steam. From Wikipedia. See also
Railway World, 1965,
36, 456
Brailsford, Lionel Edward
Co-founder of the Stephenson Locomotive Society with Frank Burtt.
Born in Croydon on 14 May 1875.Educated at Selhurst Park College, Joined
London City Bank, later part of Midland Bank. A devout churchman. Died 1956.
See Backtrack, 2009, 23,
564. and Stephenson Locomotive Society. A
Centenary celebration, 1909-2009. 2009.
Briggs, Isaac
Died 5 December 1927 aged 77. Born 1849 (not in agreement). Hosiery
manufacturer from Sandal (Wakefield). Collection of documents relating to
activitirs of an ancestor named Briggs who was a contractor and presented
to LNER York Museum on 31 May 1927 by his daughter. Collection now at National
Archive at Kew. See Household, Locomotive
Mag., 1928, 34, 49
Brown, Kenneth [Everard]
Born in Bedford on 19 August 1879; died 1 June 1958. Solicitor. President
of the Railway Club. Member of delegation to Nuremberg to celebrate Centenary
of German Railways on 7 December 1935
(Locomotive Mag., 1936, 42,
15). Ottley lists 7 papers..
Burgoyne, V.
Built a 9½ gauge railway on his estate at Crowthorne. Locomotives
included a powerful 0-8-0 and a Garratt articulated. Burgoyne died in 1943.
See Locomotive Mag., 1946, 52,
79
Butler, Peter
En route to Woodford and Hinton.
Backtrack, 2022, 36,
680-1. His companions were Peter, a GP; Geoffrey Webb
and possibly Robin Leleux
Cameron, Dugald
Born in Yoker, Clydebank. Industrial design artist and latterly Principal
of the Glasgow School of Art. Retired to Skelmorlie. Painter of North British
Railway Atlantics and of aircraft.
NBRSG Journal, Issue 143,
page 31
Cameron, John
Owner of A4 Pacific No. 60009 Union of South Africa, always known
as No. 9 which he ran on the Lochty Railway. He became Chairman of ScotRail.
Rly World, 1990, 51,
140
Carson, Harold
Born 1905; died 1993. diaries published as
Diary of an early trainspotter: notes from
the 1922-1941 diaries of the late Reverend Harold Carson; compiled
by John Carson published 2010.. Similar in some respects to
Webster. Notes on the three stations in Yarmouth as
een in summer 1923: one with its buff M&GNR passenger locomotives
and magnifiscent Midland carriages..
Clemens, C.N. (Jim)
"Found" in the Brodick library on the Isle of Arran which in July
2017 had a copy of his son's (Michael Clemens) book Scottish Lowlands
and Borders (Ian Allan, 2012). Clemens senior died aged 65 in October
1987. Within the preliminary text there is a colour photograph of the subject
with J.I.C. Boyd and Boyd's wife at Redditch College
in 1982. The book includes photographs by both thr father and the son and
some of them are either interesting or of high quality and somties both.
There is a website at michaelclemensrailways.co.uk.
Cobb, Michael H.
1916-2010: Michael Cobb was born in Hendon in 1916. He was educated
at Harrow, then Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he studied mechanical
sciences. He joined the Royal Engineers as a regular officer, was sent to
Europe in 1940 and rescued on the last boat to leave the town of Dunkirk
itself. Asked what he felt, he replied, "Having had nothing to eat for several
days, extreme hunger." He spent several years in the Fort William area training
commandos in Airborne Operations, principally map reading and orienteering.
The personal highlight of this period was being allowed to fire, and then
drive, engines on the Mallaig line. From Scotland he went to North Africa
and the Far East. En-route he survived the torpedoing and sinking of his
troop ferry in the Mediterranean – "an interesting experience."
After the war he began surveying for the Army. A Colonel by then, he became
Commanding Officer, 42 Survey Engineer Regiment in Egypt and Cyprus in the
1950s, and was Commandant, School of Military Survey 1956-9. Elected a Fellow
of the Royal Geographical Society in 1964, he retired from the Army in 1965
and worked in cartography until retirement in 1971. His magnum opus,
The Railways of Great Britain: a historical atlas, was first published
in 2003 following 18 years of research effort. It eatned him the 'Railway
Book of the Year' award in 2006, and enabled him, aged 91, to become the
oldest-ever recipient ofa PhD from University of Cambridge in 2008. He died
in East Devon on 23 June 2010, aged 93.
Obituarist first met Michael Cobb in the early 1980s when he came into the
Exeter Central Library, asking to be given a list of 'reputable' [?] railway
histories, and was referred on to him. From this inauspicious beginning a
friendship developed, ultimately involving our wives, and on my retirement,
continued with fortnightly visits to Exeter, where he received a regular
update on progress of the 'Atlas', latest sketches, and enquiries. When his
wife died Michael relied on his visits to keep in touch with R&CHS
developments, particularly the Chronology Group. Perhaps the proudest aspect
he felt regarding the 'Atlas' was how few errors there were [in spite of
his careful proof reading, there were spelling mistakes, which occurred in
the computer printing] as regards dating. He reckoned that after all the
letters seeking to prove him in error were dealt with, the fina1 figure was
0.4%. Can that be bettered? Funeral at Honiton on the 8 July . I shall miss
him very much. Don Steggles. Bull. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2010
(427)
Compton, Hugh John
Born at New Haw on 12 April 1928. Evacuated to King's School, Bruton
where he developd an interest in Great Western locomotives and those on the
Somerset & Dorset. After National Service in the RASC he joined the
Southern Region and was latterly employed in the Regional Headquarters Office
at Waterloo. He took early retirement in 1884 and died on 29 September 2014.
He wrote three books including The Oxford Canal and one on the Isle
of Wight ships durin WW2. He was a long time member of the RCHS.
J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2015
(222), 260
Corbett, S.P.W.
Railway official with the LMS in the 1930s. He served as a Lieutenant
Colonel in the Royal Engineers during WW2, when he was given the responsibility
for revitalising the Belgian Railways after liberation. At the end of the
war he returned to his former post with the LMS and following nationalisation
worked for British Railways until 1955. The Corbett collection consists of
an album of postcards and photographs showing locomotives of the LMS, LNER,
GWR and Southern Railway and to a much lesser extent, French and Danish railways.
It also includes images of the Great Central, Highland Railway, Caledonian
Railway and Great Eastern Railway together with nine train log books of British
locomotive performances from 1932 to 1954, with Corbett's accompanying comments.
NRM website: mentioned on p. 149 of Hamilton Ellis'
London Midland & Scottish Railway
Crouch, Derek
Died at home on 30 November 2021 aged 77. Husband of Jo, father of
Stephen, Christopher and Matthew, grandfather of Scarlet, Matilda and Lennard.
Retired after 42 years at Hawker Siddeley/British Aerospace. Donated Wissington
Light Railway 0-6-0ST to M&GNR.
Railway World, 1969.
30, 193
Cust, Sir Charles
Born on 27 February 1862; died 19 January 1931. Equerry to King George
V since 1892. Claughton locomotive named after him which frequently
hauled the Royal Train. Had also driven locomotive: see
Loco. Rly Carr. Wagon Rev.,
1931, 37, 65.
Drury, Geoffrey S.
Joint purchaser with J.B. Hollingsworth of Nos. 60532 Blue Peter
and 60019 Bittern.
Railway Wld., 1968,
29,
533..
Edwards , E.H.
Director of Surrey Border & Camberley Railway
seeWhitehead Miniature railways (II)
Locomotive Mag., 1946, 52, 58. Online surce noted he was
agent for the receiver.
Elton, Sir Arthur Hallam Rice
Born in London on 10 February 1906, the elder son of Sir Ambrose Elton,
ninth baronet (1869–1951), barrister, of Clevedon. Elton died in
Bristol on 1 January 1973. He was educated at Marlborough College. From there,
together with John Betjeman, he cycled to Swindon to haunt the Great Western
Railway yards and buy the first items in his collection of books on locomotives
and industrial machinery. At Jesus College, Cambridge, he took third classes
in the English tripos (1926) and the second part of the moral sciences tripos
(1927), and acquired his other major passion, the cinema, as a film critic
for Granta. In 1927 Elton became a scriptwriter for Gainsborough Pictures,
working in London and Germany. Four years later he was recruited by John
Grierson for the Empire Marketing Board film unit (later absorbed by the
General Post Office film unit), and joined the group of enthusiasts who created
the British documentary film movement. He will be remembered for recognizing
the importance of film as historical evidence in his address ‘The
film as source material for history’ in 1955 (Aslib Proc.,
7/4, 1955). Elton was a tireless advocate of the need to preserve film as
carefully as literary source materials and he served as a governor of the
British Film Institute, 1948–9. Elton was a lifelong collector of
industrial art, artefacts, and literature. Edgar Anstey said that ‘a
constant theme in his life was a love of order’ and he reduced to
order his unique collection of pictures, prints, books, and objects recording
British industrial development. After his death the collection, valued at
over £250,000, was passed to the Ironbridge Museum in Shropshire.
Elton had sponsored exhibitions in industrial art and archaeology before
they became fashionable in the 1970s. In 1968 he revised and reissued Art
and the Industrial Revolution, written by his friend Francis Klingender
and first published in 1947. ODNB entry by D.J. Wenden, rev. Sarah Street.
Vanns. Witness to change
England, Roye
Born in Perth, Australia in 1906. Came to Britain in 1925 and settled
at Long Wittenham where he created a diorama of the railway and the village
using cardboard for the buildings. See Martin
Belles & whistles page 169 et seq
Fellows, Reginald Bruce
1871-1948. Roman Catholic priest & Canon. London to Cambridge
by train, 1845-1938 [Ottley 1186]
(Review by JTG in Railway
Wld, 1976, 37, 221). Ottley 7940: A railway library: a
list of railway books which was a very early Oakwood Press publication
(1935). Member of the Railway Club. Letter to The Times 16 March 1932
entitled Non-stop express runs which began with Paddington to Didcot in 1845;
Euston to Rugby in 1857; Kentish Town to Leicester in 1868; King's Cross
to Grantham in 1876... King's Cross to Edinburgh in 1928. Frequent contributor
to the Locomotive Mag. both artcles and letters.
Forbes, Samuel A.
Major Samuel A. Forbes died at his home in Perth on 14 March 1940.
Major Forbes was a former leader of the Volunteer movement in Perth and became
Major of the Cyclist Battalion, and later served with that unit in WW1. Scottish
Railway activities were for many years recorded by Major Forbes, and his
wide knowledge about the locomotives of the Highland, G.N. of S., Caledonian
and North British Railways was considered most authentic. There is a reproduction
of a photograph by Major Forbes in the first number of The Locomotive
(Moore' s Monthly llagazine) published January 1896, and many other
contributions by him have appeared at intervals ever since. He had photographed
practically every type of locomotive on the old Highland Railway and had
recently been engaged in the study of the old railways around Newtyle.
Locomotive Mag., 1940,
46, 113.
Foxell, Clive
born in Harrow on 27 February 1930; educated at Harrow High School
and Acton Technical College. joined the electronics company GEC as an apprentice
at its research laboratory in Wembley. While there, he also studied for a
BSc degree at the University of London, which he received in 1954. Early
in his career, he worked on lighting effects for several films and then in
1975, he joined Post Office Telecommunications as deputy director of research
at Martlesham Heath (now Adastral Park), with special responsibility for
microelectronics, materials, and optical fibres systems. In 1977, he demonstrated
the ability of fibre optic cables to transmit telephone calls using a 13
km glass cable link to send a message between the telephone exchanges at
Martlesham and Ipswich in Suffolk. From 1982, he was director of British
Telecommunications Systems and, in 1986, joined the board of British
Telecommunications plc as managing director, engineering and procurement.
In retirement, he was vice-president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers
and president of the Institute of Physics. He was appointed Commander of
the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1990. He was a model
railway constructor in N gauge and an expert on the history of the Metropolitan
Railway. He died at Stoke Mandeville Hospital on 30 July 2016.
See one of several books.
Frank, D.V.
Director of Surrey Border & Camberley Railway
seeWhitehead Miniature railways (II)
Locomotive Mag., 1946, 52, 58
Frost, Kenneth Albert
Ken Frost, an eminent railway historian as well as a local history
expert, died on 23 March 1999 after a long illness. Writer of numerous articles
in the Railway Magazine, Railways South East, Great Eastern Railway Society
Magazine, Essex Countryside and Backtrack, he also produced two
books in the 1960s on the Romford-Upminster Branch and Southend Pier Railway,
the latter being updated and republished in 1990. Ken was a thorough researcher
and he could challenge or dispute some previously accepted facts and through
his determination, caused some of these 'facts' to be rewritten. Ken was
a member of numerous societies, including Hornchurch & District
Historical Society, Great Eastern Railway Society, The Railway Club, East
of London Family History Society, Friends of the Settle-Carlisle Line, Friends
of the National Railway Museum, National Trust, Railway Development Society,
and The Railway & Canal Historical Society. His passing leaves us
with a great void that will be hard to fill, but he left us with an immense
legacy of his researches. D.J. Carson,
Backtrack, 1999, 13, 389.
Fuller, Aidan
Died on 8 April 1973 aged 52. He used the title Flight Lieutenent
and produced The British Locomotive Shed
Directory which went through several editions and there were supplements.
He served on the committee of the Birmingham Locomotive Club and became chairman
of the Industrial Locomotive Society.
see article by Roger Smith in Backtrack, 2016, 30,
283.
Glengarnock, Lord
LNER No. 3442 The Great Marquess was an LNER Class K4 by Nigel
Gresley three-cylinder 2-6-0 designed for the steep grades of the West Highland
Line. It was renumbered 1994 in the LNER's 1946 renumbering scheme, and then
61994 by British railways after the 1948 nationalisation of Britain's railways.
Construction of the K4s began in 1937, but only 6 members of the class were
built. Named after James Graham, 3442 was mainly used on the Glasgow to Fort
William stretch of the West Highland line. It was the last member of the
class to be withdrawn in December 1961. It was bought from British Railways
by Viscount Garnock and so began its long career in preservation. 61994 has
had many mainline careers in preservation. Robert Humm's Henry Maxwell, an
eminent enthusiast lists Glengarnnock as "one of The Great and the Good of
the Railway Fraternity for his preservation of No. 3442 The Great Marquess
J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc.,
2021. (241) 291-6,
Greville, M.D.
See Vallance Railway
enthusiasts bedside book. . Greville was Assistant Secretary of the
Railway Club and makes interesting
comments on people like Charlewood.
and Potter.
Gulland, H.M.
Director of Surrey Border & Camberley Railway
seeWhitehead Miniature railways (II)
Locomotive Mag., 1946, 52, 58
Heseltine, Philip
Born in Savoy Hotel in London on 30 October 1894. Died in London on
17 December 1930. Educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. Composer
under the name Peter Warlock. Interested in occult and with Cornwall and
Wales. Wrote a substantial article on the Van Railway published in
Locomotive Mag., 1912,
18, 13 and brought to notice in
Locomotive Mag., 1931,
37, 34.
Hollick, Jack R.
Produced history of North Staffordshire
Railway under pseudonym Manifold. He lived in Ashbourne
and was possibly a GP (Dr. Hollick).
Letter on Clee Hill
railway
Hollingsworth, J.B.
Joint purchaser with G.S. Drury of Nos. 60532 Blue Peter and
60019 Bittern; also owner of Class 5 with external Stephenson
valve gear No, 44767. Railway
Wld., 1968, 29,
533..
Hollis, W.W.
Death of Stafford man in 1940 who was a locomotive enthusiast who
had worked in the LNWR Permanent Way Dept. at Crewe. He was an organist and
student of church architecture.
Locomotive Mag., 1940,
46, 246.
Hutchinson, Sir Eric Alexander Ogilvy
Born in 1897; died 1971. Scottish model railway enthusiast and builder
of O gauge locomotives. Founded with Edward Beal MERCO of Dundee which produced
lithographed sheets to represesent rolling stock sides and brick and stonework.
In 2016 the Brighton Toy Museum received a collection of his models. Pretty
wife May assiosted in this activity
Kinloch, Alexanderv D.
Owner of Farnborough Miniature Railway
see Locomotive Mag., 1937,
43, 244-5 From the Railway Magazine, January 1965: 'The Surrey
Border & Camberley Railway was, in its early days, the Farnborough
Miniature Railway, built to the 10.25" gauge for a London merchant banker,
Mr. Alexander Kinloch. The F.M.R. was begun in 1934 and by 1937 had about
one mile of track. It proved extremely popular and its control was transferred
to the S.B.C.R., a limited company. The railway was extended and finally
had about two miles of track, of which about half was double. The main line
ran from Farnborough Green, near Frimley Station, in Hampshire, on the Southern
Railway, to Camberley. It was completely signalled. Motive power included
five 4-6-2s, two Garratt 2-6-0+0-6-2s and an 0-6-0 tank engine. The S.B.C.R.
did not take all the locomotives of the F.M.R. Passenger stock consisted,
generally, of open bogie carriages seating eight people. The railway was
closed soon after the outbreak of the second world war and the company passed
into receivership, most of the track and rolling stock being sold. Director
of Surrey Border & Camberley Railway
seeWhitehead Miniature railways (II)
Locomotive Mag., 1946, 52, 58
Layland-Barratt, Captain Sir Francis Henry Godolphin
Born 11 Dec. 1896. died 16 May 1968. Educated Eton; Royal Military
College, Sandhurst. Grenadier Guards. Served WW1 when wounded, MC, invalided
1917. County Councillor, Devon, 1928. Lived at Torquay Manor. Direct of GWR.
See Gt Western Rly J., 2010 (76).
205.
Leedham, Leslie Herbert
Born 1899; died 1971. Technical education at College of Technology,
Leicester. Apprenticeship in precision engineering, was interrupted during
WW1 when served as an engine fitter in the R.A.F. He became a draughtsman,
and eventually chief draughtsman, with Wildt and Co. Ltd., Leicester, makers
of textile machinery. In 1936 he became technical manager for that firm.
In 1944 he joined Power Jets (Research and Development) Ltd., as works manager,
and on the change to Government control became Superintendent of Works and
General Services,National Gas Turbine Establishment. In 1951 he was appointed
Assistant Director of Production Development (Aircraft), Ministry of Supply.
Papers presented to Institution of Mechanical Engineers: Design, construction,
and use of some inspection gauges,
Proc. Inst. Mech, Engrs,
1945, 154, xx. Some problems in the manufacture of experimental
gas turbines, Proc. Inst. Mech,
Engrs, 1950, 163, 281; also Leicester— a celebrated
Great Central motive power depot. .
Rly World, 75, 36,
60.. Rly World, 75,
36, 102.
Leleux, Robin
Author of one of the significant Regional
histories. Letter about his boyhood in Surrey reveals much about how
his enthusiasm developed: see
Backtrack, 2014, 28, 701. Robin Leleux lived for over 30
years in Northamptonshire before moving to Addingham in Yorkshire. He was
an employment specialist, mainly in education, first with the teachers unions
and then for 15 years (before retirement) with his own consultancy business.
He has had a lifelong interest in railways (both writing and lecturing) and
is now an assessor and Chair of the Judges with the National Railway Heritage
Awards. See also Peter Butler.
Lever, Jo
Companion of Trevor Bailey and Alan Pegler: died Preston Hospital
aged 84? see Rly Wld, 1971,
32, 432).
Liddle, Laurence
From Connemara to Cock o' the North (Newtownards: Colourpoint, 2002)
is an autobiography: Connemara was a Midland & South Western
Railway 4-4-0 and Cock o' the North was the Gresley 2-8-2. The book
was written in Australia..
Lindesay-Bethune, David (Viscount
Garnock)
Born in London on 9 February 1926; died 1 October 1989; educated at
Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge. Served as a director of the Festiniog
Railway Company from 1962 until his death, at the age of 63, in 1969. He
started his career with the London and North Eastern Railway and then moved
into the carpet industry. He maintained an active interest in railways as
apart from his service to the FR Company board, where he was commercial director,
he was the owner of ex LNER K4 The Great Marquess and a director of
both the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway and The Severn Valley Railway
(Festipedia). He had always wanted his locomotive to return to the West Highland
line and this wish was fulfilled on 15 July 1989 the Earl, although ill,
saw his wish fulfilled when on 15 July 1989 he rode for the last time on
the footplate of his engine as it departed from Fort William. .
Littlejohn, Charles
Originated from Broughty Ferry from a well-known local family.
In 1910 he wrote a two-part article on the Dundee & Newtyle Railway
for the Railway Magazine. He knew both E.L. Ahrons and J.F. McEwan
and was a friend of C.G.L. Phillips, a Dundee watercolourist. He was an
accomplished organist and held the post of organist and choirmaster at St.
Paul's Knightsbridge. He fied in 1959 aged
80. NBR Study Gp. J. 2014 (123), 49.
Lomax, Eric Sutherland
Born in Joppa, Edinburgh on 30 May 1919 and died in
Berwick-upon-Tweed on 8 October 2012. He was educated at the Royal High School
in Edinburgh and joined the General Post Office on leaving school. He was
a keen cyclist, open-water swimmer and railway photographer. He was a member
of the Stephenson Locomotive Society from 1937. He is most notable for his
book, The Railway Man, about his experiences before, during, and after
World War II, which won the 1996 NCR Book Award and the PEN/Ackerley Prize;
and has since been made into a film (motion picture). This describes his
experiences as a Japanese prisoner-of-war, as an officer in the Royal Corps
of Signals, working on the Burma Railway, being tortured, and his subsequent
suffering due to inadequate post-traumatic care by the British Army and the
care given to him by his wife Patti. Excellent article, based on a memorial
lecture see Backtrack, 2016,
30, 412. and J. Rly Canal
Hist. Soc., 2013 (216) 52
McAlpine, Sir William
Born 12 January 1936. Died 4 March 2018. Educated Charterhouse. Military
career in Life Guards. Has sufficient financial resources to be able to play
at trains on the grand scale: Fawley Railway (full scale garden railway).
Associated in ownership of Flying Scotsman and Pendennis
Castle.
Marchington, Tony
Owner of the Oxford Molecular Group and Cambridge Combinatorial, and
sometime employer of one of KPJ's sons-in-law (and therefore impacted upon
KPJ's movements), and sometime owner of Flying Scotsman.
See Nicholson.
Maxwell, Henry William Austin
Robert Humm's Henry Maxwell, an eminent enthusiast
J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2021.
(241) 291-6, is far more than an excellent biography of Henry Maxwell
as he states that he was "one of The Great And The Good of the railway
fraternity. They were men, often of wealth and influence, who got things
moving in the early preservation era. They chaired committees, put their
names to appeals, and often acted privately where officialdom seemed to move
too slowly or lacked interest. They made it their business to be on good
terms with senior railwaymen. Occasionally they were themselves senior
railwaymen, such as James Ness, who put the four preserved Scottish locomotives
to regular work in the early 1960s, and George Dow, who saved the Vale of
Rheidol to the annoyance of his masters who saw it as an anachronism overdue
for closure. Their number included Alan Pegler, the saviour of Flying Scotsman;
James Sherwood, the Anglophile American who resuscitated the Orient Express;
Patrick Whitehouse, who made vital contributions to the Talyllyn, the Dart
Valley Railway and the Birmingham Railway Museum; Viscount Garnock, owner
of The Great Marquess; the Marquess of Ailsa, who stepped in when
the Isle of Man Railway was about to succumb; Sir William McAlpine, the second
saviour of Flying Scotsman and owner of the most extraordinary private
railway museum; and Ian Allan, who seemed to be everywhere all the time,
boosting the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch, running special trains, organising
the Great Cockcrow Railway, preserving the Pullman car Malaga and
publicising it all via the books and magazines of his publishing empire."
Henry William Austin Maxwell (1909–1996) is a far less well known figure,
in fact virtually forgotten. His principal public achievement was the purchase
and restoration of the Pullman car Topaz, now on display in the National
Collection (Figs 5, 6). He lived a discreet existence and there is only one
known photograph in the public domain. Although there are gaps in the story
it seems worthwhile to put his life on record while the opportunity remains.
Born in Richmond, Surrey, on 11 May 1909, Henry Maxwell was the third generation
of a wealthy literary dynasty. His grandfather was the Irish-born magazine
publisher John Maxwell. His grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Braddon
(1835–1915), a leading exponent of the Victorian sensational novel and
short story. HShe dealt with mystery, the occult, crime and romance, and
in the course of a long writing career produced over 80 full length novels
and dozens of short stories. Mary Elizabeth also produced a large number
of children, mostly illegitimate, before eventually marrying her common-law
husband in 1874.1
Henry’s father, William Babington Maxwell, was accustomed to wealth
and grew up with rather entitled attitudes. In his early years he dabbled
in publishing without any notable success, but by the turn of the 20th century
had settled down as a novelist. In 1906 William married Sydney Constance
BrabazonMoore. Their first child, Barbara, was born in 1907 and Henry followed
two years later. At the 1911 census the family was still living with Mary
Elizabeth (grandfather Maxwell had died in 1895) in a vast mansion, Lichfield
House, Sheen Road, Richmond. With 21 rooms and twelve servants there was
little pressure to move away. And to show how much these literary endeavours
earned there was also a spacious summer residence called Annesley House,
near Lyndhurst in the New Forest.
As a transport history footnote we may note that Henry, on his mother’s
side, was related to Col J C T Moore-Brabazon, the pioneer British aviator
and holder of pilot’s flying certificate no 1. In the Second World War
Brabazon became Minister of Transport in 1940 and Minister of Aircraft Production
in succession to Lord Beaverbrook in 1941. He was ennobled as Lord Brabazon
of Tara in 1942 and the ill-fated Bristol Brabazon airliner was named after
him.
Nursemaids and pushchairs played a pivotal role in the lives of so many senior
enthusiasts, and so it was with Henry. Holidays were taken at Folkestone,
then a fashionable watering place, where the family usually stayed at the
Royal Pavilion Hotel, the most prestigious hotel in the town (back cover).
It faced the inner harbour and had a front row view of the railway viaduct.
In its day the Royal Pavilion had hosted Queen Victoria and Prince Albert,
Sir Joseph Paxton, the Rothschilds and Charles Dickens. The nursemaid in
question also happened to be the daughter of a South Eastern & Chatham
Railway signalman. Thus it was no coincidence that afternoon walks often
gravitated towards Folkestone Harbour station, a picturesque place where
there were the magnificent sights of cross-Channel steamers, the latest express
locomotives, boat trains, and the old wooden lighthouse. It was in 1912,
Henry said, that his eyes first fell upon a South Eastern Pullman car. Nothing
to my mind has ever equalled the richness and elegance of those SECR cars.
They were positively regal, especially so at night when the station lights
played on their ruby flanks. One saw through their shining windows the gleam
of their beautiful inlaid veneers, the sheen of their leather upholstered
armchairs, and the opulent pile of their thick carpets. The majestic Padua
always seemed to me a veritable palace on wheels, and I used to envy the
privileged passengers who rode in it to London.
Later, after the Great War, when allowed out alone, he would frequently watch
the arrival of the evening Boulogne steamer, Victoria, Engadine or Biarritz,
and the departure of the train for London. ‘It was a spectacle I never
tired of and night after night I would station myself by my chosen vantage
point’, watching the pair of R Class 0–6–0Ts leading and a
third banking ‘the dark corridors and refulgent Pullmans’ on the
thunderous climb up towards Folkestone Junction station (Fig 1).2
It is not surprising therefore that Henry’s railway affections were
for the railways of south east England, their well maintained locomotives,
boat trains, Pullman cars and cross-Channel steamers. Yet not exclusively
so, as his later poems Main Line Express (thundering through Kentish Town,
Chalk Farm or Bethnal Green) and Mammoth Preserved (Sir Nigel Gresley at
Newcastle Central) indicate. His lifelong objective was maximum enjoyment.
Other reminiscences of that period included the Maxwells hiring an SECR family
saloon for a journey from Folkestone to the West Country, presumably to the
summer residence at Lyndhurst. His memory of travelling over the SECR–LSWR
connection across the concourse of Waterloo station must surely have been
at fault for that link seems to have fallen into disuse well before his birth.
We are all entitled to our flights of fancy!
Mary Elizabeth died in 1915 and a substantial share of the publishing business
and copyright in the novels would have passed to William and Sydney. Their
horizons broadened and Henry recalled numerous journeys by the luxurious
Blue Train to the French Riviera where they mingled with the haute monde
of the nobility and the stars of stage and screen. Facts about Henry’s
life between the wars are sparse. We know that he was educated at Harrow
and Cambridge. He studied law and was called to the Bar but did not practice.
In 1934 he was registered to vote at Harcourt Buildings, Inner Temple, possibly
during his pupillage. His home address is given as 35 Brunswick Square, Brighton.
By 1936 he was living at 11 Ashley Gardens, Westminster, still with his mother
and sister. The rural sounding Ashley Gardens was a large block of Edwardian
mansion flats adjacent to Westminster Cathedral and convenient for Victoria
Station. Equally scarce are details of Henry’s war record. There is
nothing to suggest he served in the armed forces but it is more likely he
was engaged in the legalpolitical side of the war effort, possibly at a fairly
elevated level. He recounted on one occasion dining with General de Gaulle.
Henry also knew Winston Churchill, perhaps on a personal rather than official
level. It was after all his charismatic uncle John Brabazon who had been
colonel of Churchill’s regiment in India, the Queen’s Own 4th Hussars,
and had assisted in the advancement of Churchill’s military and journalistic
career. Brabazon had been a friend of Churchill’s American mother, Jennie.3
Figure 1. Three class R1 0–6–0Ts head a boat train across the swing
bridge at Folkestone Harbour, the scene of Henry Maxwell’s youthful
train watching [Robert Humm collection]. 293 Post-war the outlines of
Henry’s life become clearer. For much of the 1950s he acted as Political
Adviser to the board of Imperial Chemical Industries, at the time Britain’s
largest industrial company. It was a post calling for judgement and discretion
but perhaps not too much in the way of tiresome deskwork. There he must surely
have encountered P C Allen, a future ICI Chairman, a notable railway aficionado
and worldwide explorer of minor railways.
Richard Hardy, a lifelong friend, recalled their first meeting in 1953. Henry
had written a letter to the Railway Gazette commending the glittering appearance
of the King Arthur 30768 Sir Balin at Victoria Station. Hardy got in touch,
inviting Henry to Stewarts Lane locomotive depot to meet the cleaners and
footplatemen. At the appointed hour the ICI Rolls-Royce drew cautiously into
the depot and came to a halt beside the canteen. Cars were in short supply
in Battersea in 1953 so the arrival of a Rolls caused a sensation in itself.
But this was nothing to what followed. A tall, bearded and distinguished
gentleman wearing a wide-brimmed Homburg and a beautifully cut overcoat turned
to greet me. Never had we been hosts to such bearded distinction at our old
place for moustaches were out for Chatham men, never mind beards. He mounted
the footplate of 30768 and Hardy introduced him to the chargeman and the
four cleaner boys whose duty it was to keep the locomotive in perfect order.
‘He spoke to them with courtesy, kindness and generosity, those fifteen-year
old Battersea boys and the elderly, hard-bitten Chargeman, who had seen it
all but had never met a Henry Maxwell.’
Henry had subscribed to The Railway Magazine since buying his first copy
at Waterloo station in 1917. He was himself an occasional contributor and
a personal friend of B W C Cooke, the editor in chief. Always enjoying the
locomotive performance and foreign travel articles of Cecil J Allen, the
RM’s star writer, Henry was aware that CJA was approaching both his
70th birthday and the 500th instalment of the ‘Locomotive Practice &
Performance’ series, and decided these landmarks should be celebrated
in style. A grand dinner was arranged by Henry for Wednesday 6 April 1955
at the St Ermins Hotel, adjacent to the RM offices in Tothill Street,
Westminster. One hundred and fifty friends and admirers of CJA’s work
assembled that evening.5 Figure 2. Henry Maxwell (right) making the presentation
to Cecil J Allen at the Tothill Press boardroom on 26 January 1956 [Robert
Humm collection, courtesy of The Railway Magazine].
It was the greatest ever gathering of prominent railway enthusiasts, writers,
photographers, painters, editors, publishers, engineers and professional
railwaymen.6
Lord Monkswell, diplomat, railway writer and traveller was in the chair.
O S Nock gave an address on behalf of the guests. In reply CJA referred to
the three outstanding elements of his life, music, the Church, and train
travel. He made one rash prophecy, that the steam locomotive in Great Britain
would outlast all those present. Alas, steam was to vanish within 13 years
while at least two of the attendees were still with us 65 years later. On
26 January 1956, on the exact month of the 500th ‘Practice &
Performance’ article, there was a private reception for Cecil J Allen
in the boardroom of the Tothill Press where Henry presented CJA with a handsome
cheque that was the balance of the guest fees from the previous year’s
dinner (Fig 2). The photograph reproduced here by courtesy of the present
editor of The Railway Magazine was taken on that occasion.
Henry wrote or edited three railway books. The first, The Railway Magazine
Miscellany, appeared in 1958 and consisted of an anthology of the first twenty
years of the RM, conveniently covering the period before he became a subscriber
(Fig 3). One wonders whether he had acquired an early run about that time.
Ten years were to pass before the publication of the next work, a slim 57-page
volume of poetry, A Railway Rubaiyyat from the Golden Head Press, a private
press in Cambridge run by the polymath Raymond Lister. Golden Head published
some 57 books between 1952 and 1970, including reissues of works by Siegfried
Sassoon and Edmund Blunden, so Henry found himself in exalted company.
Of railway verse by recognised poets there is no shortage. In 1966 the
anthologist Kenneth Hopkins gave us two hundred of the better known examples.7
They mostly engage the sensuous side of railways as observed by the traveller
or onlooker, the smoke, steam, motion, clatter, the rush of vistas past the
window, life on the platform and footplate. The poet does not need to know
much about the inner workings of railways for this purpose.
Henry is different. He is one of that select band of poets writing with inside
knowledge. He knows a semaphore from a Siphon D, and can recognise a Lord
Nelson when he sees one. It is the reason for his appeal to a rail fan audience,
a notably prosaic and technique-oriented bunch at best. The only others in
his class are the Glasgow & South Western versifiers of the 1890s (Inspector
Aitken et al) and in more modern times Dave Goulder, the footplate minstrel
(‘Pinwherry Dip’, ‘The Day We Ran Away’, ‘The Rusty
Pinxton Line’).
A Railway Rubaiyyat comprises 14 long poems upon those aspects of railways
that appealed to him most. It is written entirely in quatrains, mostly abba
but occasionally abab. ‘Fleche D’Or’, ‘Fog at
Folkestone’ and ‘The Boat Express’ are all upon his favourite
Pullman subjects. ‘Splendour In Decline’ reflects upon a first-class
dining car demoted to a permanent way bothy: ‘Kitchen and pantry gone,
the empty shell of what was once a travelling hotel.’ ‘Lineside
In Summer’ is the country branch line, soon to close. ‘In Time
of War’ turns to the exigencies of life at Newport, Mon, cheered up
by the arrival of a ‘Castle’ from Paddington.
‘The Boat Express’ is in fact Henry’s contribution to the
genre of name-check verse. He manages to list every station from Victoria
to Folkestone, ‘Past Born in Richmond Surrey on 11 May 1909; died Needham
Market in 1996.
Miller, R.N. Appleby
Rly Mag., 1943, 89 (548), 378 recorded
the death on 21 June 1943 of Mr Appleby Miller, a Librarian (FLA) on the
staff of Newcastle Central Library. He was a member of the Stephenson Locomotive
Society and contributed an article to The Engineer (18 September 1931)
Link in the history of the locomotive concerning an early George Stephenson
locomotive.
Monkswell. 3rd Baron (Robert Albert Hardcastle
Collier)
Born 13 December 1875. Educated Eton and Trinity College Cambridge,
but did not take his degree. Entered Foreign Office in 1900 and served in
Madrid, Washington and Peking: he was known as Dozey Collier. The Times
obituary notes that his real love was railways not diplomacy. On death
of his father in 1909 he left the Foreign Office to pursue his own interests,
but served in the Royal Artillery during WW1. He was a prominent member of
the Railway Club: vice president in 1911
(Locomotive
Mag., 1911, 17,
73). His first wife came from Colney Hall, near Norwich. He died on 14
January 1964. Rly Arch., 2012
(35), 27 and subsequent for extracts from his Notebooks recording locomotive
performance both from the train and on the locomotive, Author of French
railways published in London in 1911 (not in Ottley: reviewed
Locomotive Mag., 1911,
17, 94) and The railways of Great Britain published in
1913 (Ottley 493): (reviewed in
Locomotive Mag., 1926, 32, 408) both available as e-books (they
are guides to the major railways) and Railways and their future (Ottley
493 rreviewed Locomotive Mag.,
1947, 53. 14) which is possibly polemical. He was a frequent speaker
in the House of Lords.
Montagu of Beaulieu, 2nd Baron [John Walter Edward
Douglas-Scott-Montagu]
Born 10 June 1866; died 30 March 1929). He entered Parliament for
New Forest in 1895, a seat he held until 1905, when he succeeded his father
in the barony and entered the House of Lords. During the WW1 Montagu was
an acting member of the War Aircraft Committee from March to April 1916 and
an adviser on Mechanical Transport Services to the Indian government (with
the rank of Honorary Brigadier-General). He is chiefly remembered as a promoter
of motoring and was the founder and editor of The Car Illustrated
Grace's Guide.
Locomotive Mag., 1929,
35, 135 notes: "went into the Nine Elms Works of the L. &
S.W. Ry. in eariy life, and became not only a fireman but an expert engine
driver. He was. a thonough enthusiast on all matters concerning locomotives,
their history, construction and maintenance". His son established the National
Motor Museum which for a time included locomotive exhibits.
Mowat, Charles Loch
Born in Oxford on 4 October 1911; died 23 June 1970. Educated
Marlborough College and St. John's, Oxford. In 1934 he emigrated to the United
States and took on American citizenship. He taught at the universities of
Minnesota, California in Los Angeles aand Chicago until returning to Britain
in 1958. He had hated McCarthyism. Largely Wikipedia plus
Mike Fenton Backtrack, 2019,
33, 52 Author of highly rated Britain between
the Wars and The Golden Valley Railway:
railway enterprise on the Welsh border in late Victorian times. 1984.
Photographs began his photography in 1926 when aged 15 and
at Marlborough School, but in 1934 took up a post in Chicago teaching English
history and did not return to Britain until 1958 and died in 1970. His friend,
Charles Clinker, placed his photographic collection into the care of Bristol
University: see Steam Days,
1992 (34) 287 British Rly J.,
1988, 23, 153 and 1990, 30,
22
Paget-Tomlinson, Edward
Born in 1932: educated Sherborne School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
Historian especially of ships and navigations, but also interested in railways.
Artist. Died 2003. Obituary Grahame Boyes
J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2004, 34, 636..
Patmore, J. Allan
Former academic (interest in landscape) and David St. John Thomas
writer: see Journey through Britain pp. 534-5: otherwise invisble
in bibliographical desert: so arid that it doesn't recognise that its has
a landscape. Born 14 November 1931. Educated Harrogate Grammar School; Pembroke
College, Oxford. Professor of Geography, University of Hull, 1973–91,
Professor Emeritus, since 1991; Vice-Chairman, Sports Council,
1988–94. Railway enthusiast.
Payton, Robert Nigel
Born in Solihull on 27 August 1911. His mother died in childbirth
and he was brought up by Kate Griffiths, a nanny, who stimulated an interest
in railways which remained with him throughout his life. He was educated
at a prep school in Colwall and at Sherbourne where Turing was a fellow pupil.
He obtained a clerical position on the LMS early in 1930 and eventually became
involved in traffic control, but sought early retirement in 1970. He died
at Audlem in 2007. His youngest daughter, Ruth Moston, arranged for the transfer
of his photographic collection to the Stephenson Locomtive Society.
Backtrack, 2014, 28, 144
and letter from Ken Veitch on page
253.
Pegler, Alan Francis
Born 16 April 1920; died 18 March 2012. Educated Radley and Jesus
College (but had to leave to manage family firm when father died) and friend
of Trevor Bailey and Jo Lever (fellow enthusiasts whilst at Cambridge:
see Rly Wld, 1971, 32,
432). Robert Humm's Henry Maxwell, an eminent enthusiast
J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2021.
(241) 291-6, is far more than an excellent biography of Henry Maxwell
as he states that Pegler was "one of The Great And The Good of the
railway fraternity.For a long time was Chairman of the Northern Rubber Co,
whose factory is still visible from the ECML as the train races through Retford.
For many years entertained railway enthusiasts by the motive power employed
on his works outings. These included Northern Rubber.s dining special to
Blackpool in 1952, with 480 passengers and this led to him joining the Eastern
Regional Board as a part-time non-executive in 1954. Another of his specials
ran from Leeds to London hauled by preserved Atlantics. Henry Oakley
and No 251 from the old York museum driven by the famous Hoole and Hailstone.
The run was spectacular: 80 mile/h down Stoke Bank. Alan stuck up a close
friendship with Bill Hoole, Bill joining Pegler on the Festiniog, In 1959,
Bill Hoole took Sir Nigel Gresley on a SLS special from London to
York. Demand for footplate passes was high. To solve the impasse, Alan, as
a Board member, was asked to occupy the fourth position in the cab. How could
he refuse? Alan remembers the exciting run; the train exceeded 100 mph north
of Hitchin on the down, and set a post-war speed record of 112 mile/h on
the return. Pegler acquired Flying Scotsman in 1963.
See Nicholson. Pegler was also associated
with the re-opening of the Festiniog Railway . Control of the Festiniog passed
to the preservation team in June 1954, with Pegler as its first Chairman.
See also David McIntosh The Flying
Scotsman..
Pennoyer, Richard Edmands
Died 17 November 1968 (Obit. J. Instn Loco. Engrs, 1968,
58, 407). Born in California in 1885. Graduate of the University of
California, then studied at Bonn, at the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques
in Paris and at Oxford. Joined the American Diplomatic Serive in 1912. He
became Second Secretary under the American Ambassador in London in 1914.
In 1919 he became Chargé d'Affaires in Lisbon and took an active
part in preserving the Beyer Peacock locomotive Dom Luis of 1862.
He was in the United Kingdom during the 1926 General Strike when he drove
a locomotive and became a personal friend of Gresley. In 1935 he was a judge
and inspector of the Saar Plebicite and shortly afterwards resigned from
the Diplomatic Service and became a British citizen. During WW2 he served
in the Ministry of Supply and in 1951 was one of the organizers of the transport
side of the Festival of Britain. His friendship with Gresley led him to ask
for the bell used at King's Cross shed which had belonged to the Lovett
Eames, a Baldwin locomotive brought to Britain to demonstrate the Eames'
vacuum brake. It was presented at a luncheon hosted by Sir Ralph Wedgewood
and Sir Nigel Gresley during which Pennoyer advocated the 2-6-2 type and
Gresley that this was one of the things which had turned him towards the
V2 design. Pennoyer knew many locomotive engineers in many countries,
including Dr Giesl Gieslingen.
Perkins, Thomas Richard
Died 1 Dec 1952 (born 1872). Obituary
Locomotive Mag., 1953,
59, 17. By 1932 Perkins, a "chemist" (presumably pharmacist) from
Henley-in-Arden had managed to travel over all passenger carrying lines in
the British Isles. He was married, but he and his wife took separate holidays
(as she stayed behind to look after the shop)..
Tourret, R.
Mr. T.R. Perkins: track-basher extraordinary. Br. Rly
J, 2008 (74).74-9.
Locomotive
Mag., 1932, 38, 450 noted completion of his
task
Phillimore, John
Died 7 June 1940. Educated at Eton (1900-05) and at Trinity College,
Cambridge. Served in France throughout WW1 in RASC Motor Transport and became
Motoring Correspondent to The Times. Built a substatial collection
of railwayana sold at Sotherbys: see
Locomotive Mag., 1942, 48, 82. Letter in The Times (4
April 1942) from Frank E. Box regretting that collection had not been passed
to Railway Museum at York, or to public library in Liverpool.
See also Locomotive Mag.,
1946, 52, 80
Powell, Michael G.
Donors of collection of early railway prints to Victoria &
Albert Museum. See Darby
Robinson, P.W.
Died at Moseley, Birmingham on 1 September 1936, aged 46. He made
a special study of private firms' locomotives and had compiled a very complete
record of these. He was an expert photographer and had won several certificates
for views of Warwickshire, at exhibitions.See
Locomotive Mag., 1936,
42, 300.
Ruddock, John Greenfield
Born in December 1916: businessman who lived in Lincoln. Author of
the Railway history of Lincoln and Clayton Wagons Ltd. Memorial
to him on Lincoln station. See Humm J.
Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2015, 38, 252..
Salomons, David
Director of SECR who gave Invicta to City of Canterbury:
see Locomotive Mag., 1908,
14, 116 Also in Dawn Smith (but
does not mention Invicta).
Scott, Samuel S.
Death on 26 September 1932 of Mr. Samuel S. Scott, of Stockport, aged
seventy-three will be an especial loss to those who knew him through his
hobby of collecting detail, of the history of the locomotives of the former
L. & N.W. Ry. and its early tributary companies. As a guard working
on the Euston and Manchester expresses, he had good opportunities for
observation, and these he supplemented bv research in libraries and enquiries
from old railwaymen, The railway officials also afforded him facilities for
going through the old records at Euston and elsewhere. Although he took great
pride in his records he was always willing to assist in clearing up obscure
points in regard to locomotive history.
Loco. Rly Carr. Wagon Rev.,
1932, 38, 413..
Sharman, Mike
Born on 17 September 1933; died 20 December 2013. Read engineering
at St. John's College, Cambridge; worked for de Havilland Airctaft at Hatfield,
but from 1962 to 1996 was a Fellow of Wolfson College where he established
the Cambridge Advanced Course in Production Methods. Published The Crampton
locomotive (Oakwood Press: 1983) which
Miles Macnair calls a classic
(Backtrack, 2015, 29, 415).
Sherwood, James Blair
Born 8 August 1933; died 18 May 2020). He was born in Newcastle,
Pennsylvania, the son of William Sherwood, a patent attorney, and Florence.
He grew up in Lexington, Kentucky and earned a degree in economics from Yale
University. He learned about shipping first in the United States Navy, spending
three years as a cargo officer, and then working for United States Lines
and CTI for six years. He became a British-based businessman, the founder
of Bahama-based Sea Containers. In 1965, Sherwood founded Bermuda-based,
New York Stock Exchange listed, London-headquartered shipping company Sea
Containers with an initial capital of $100,000. Over forty years Sherwood
expanded Sea Containers from a supplier of leased cargo containers, into
various shipping companies, as well as expanding the company into luxury
hotels and railway trains, including the Venice-Simplon Orient Express and
Great North Eastern Railway that operated the excellent InterCity East Coast
franchise. Although valued with a net worth of £60 million in the 2004
Sea Containers hit financial troubles, he resigned as Co-Chief Executive
Officer from each of his companies in 2006. He continued as a Director of
Orient Express Hotels Ltd until retiring on 9 June 2011. He was later designated
as Founder and Chairman Emeritus. He died on May 18, 2020 of complications
after abdominal surgery. The Guardian obituary notes that he
was a rambunctious business opportunist who parlayed a fortune made in the
unglamorous world of shipping containers into life with the rich and famous
by reviving the Orient Express and building up a chain of exclusive
hotels. An American, he chose to run his business empire from London, where
he constructed a headquarters building overlooking the Thames and mixed in
Mayfair society. Although he was reckoned personally to be worth £60m
by 2004, his eclectic Sea Containers business empire, shaped by whim as much
as by strategy, was collapsing under its debts when he was forced to step
down in 2006. But his hotel interests blossomed and amounted to over 40
high-class establishments all over the world by the time he died. Robert
Humm's Henry Maxwell, an eminent enthusiast lists Sherwood as "one of The
Great and the Good of the Railway Fraternity for his quest to rebuild the
Orient Express from genuine Pullman cars,
J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc.,
2021. (241) 291-6,
Steel, William O. (Bill)
Dr. W.O. (Bill) Steel was an entomology lecturer at Imperial College
and model railway enthusiast. died in 1969 aged 51. Essery described how
they rescued the LMS Engine History Cards from burning at Derby Works during
the summer of 1966 or 1967 (both members of the LMS Society) . Portrait
with short description of this appeared in
Steam Wld, 1991 (51) p.
55:
Stephen, Ranald D.
Son of Church of Scotland minister at Inverkeithing. Went to school
in Edinbugh. See also books
Symes, Bob
Robert Alexander Baron Schutzmann von Schutzmansdorff was born on
6 May 1924 and died 19 January 2015. He was an Austrian-born British inventor
and television presenter usually known as Bob Symes. He life long interest
in railways included helping to set up private railways in Switzerland and
across the United Kingdom. He established The Border Union Railway Company
in 1969, to restore, maintain and introduce new services along the then recently
abandoned Waverley Line between Edinburgh and Carlisle. His interest in model
railways included a 300 metres long Gauge 1 railway in his garden at Honeysuckle
Bottom, near East Horsley, Surrey, followed by a 10¼-inch railway. His
family opened the railway every year to raise funds for the BBC's Children
In Need, where visitors could take tea and cake and also see his collection
of vintage tractors. Telegraph obituary 31 January 2015. Audio record
see Rly Wld, 1969,
30, 228
Thompson, William Briggs
Died 13 December 1962 aged 95 (96 according to The Times):
educated at Rugby and Oriel College, Oxford, and was called to the Bar in
1892. Until his retirement at the age of 90 he was a familiar figure at the
Law Courts where he reported law cases for The Times and he edited
“Commercial Cases,” a series of reports for the use of
business men. Although not an engineer by training his greatest interest
was, perhaps, the steam locomotive and he was known by many railway chief
officers both in this country and abroad. It is not without interest that
his grandfather bought Stephenson’s Rocket from the Liverpool
and Manchester Railway and used it for hauling his coal trains. After his
grandfather’s death his widow presented the Rocket to the
South Kensington Museum. Thompson was a regular letter writer to the Locomotive
Magazine and was prepared to challenge other letter writers of considerable
standing, such as Holcroft. Thompson, had been an Associate of the Institution
of Locomotive Engineers since 1918.
Extract from page 6 of a Midland Record presumably photocopied at
NRM, but source not recorded! William Briggs Thompson was one of the most
prolific letter writers to the engineering press on the subject of steam
locomotives, Educated at Rugby and Oriel College, Oxford, he was called to
the bar in 1892 and between 1918 and 1941 edited commercial cases for The
Times. His family had shipbuilding and railway interests, and his grandfather
bought Stephenson's Rocket from the Liverpool and Manchester Railway,
to haul coal trains on the Brampton Railway, The locomotive was presented
to the South Kensington Museum by Thornpson's grandmother following her husband's
death, A man of independent means, Thompson travelled widely from the 1880s
onwards in both Europe and America, He joined the Institution of Locomotive
Engineers in 1918 and was well known to many r ailway senior officers both
at home and abroad, In December 1939
he wrote in The Locomotive:
'Beauty is a matter of personal opiniiori, but I think most people would
agree with me in saying that Johnson \was the grcatest artist, not even exceptirg
.Joseph Beattie or Wi lliam Stroudley'that the locornotivc department of
a Bnush way has ever produced.
Obituary: J. Instn Loco. Engrs., 1962, 52, 498.
Article on American observations
Locomotive Mag., 1936, 42,
354. Letter on French compounds.
Locomotive Mag., 1945,
51, 109 Letter challenging Hamilton Ellis's article on Joseph
Beattie. Locomotive Mag., 1941,
47, 244.
Unwin, Philip
Born in 1905; educated Mill Hill School. Worked for family firm of
George Allen & Unwin. Book: Travelling by train in the 'twenties
and 'thirties. London: Allen & Unwin, 1981. Obviously a friend
of Hamilton Ellis and responsible for excellent physical
quality of his early books.
Walker, Herbert Thomas
Death at his home at South Orange, New Jersey, on 26 January 1931.
Born in London in 1857, was for a time in the office of Lloyd Wise &
Co., patent agents, of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He went to the United States
in the early 1880s and was connected with the Scientific American
as a draughtsman for forty years. His hobby was compiling the history of
railways and their locomotives, both British and American. From time to time
Locomotive Mag. published articles written and illustrated by Walker,
notably those on the Bodmer locomotives, the last of which appeared in our
February issue. A collection of 200 of his drawings will be found in the
Rosenwald Industrial Museum, to be opened in connection with the Chicago
Exposition of 1933. Obituary
Locomotive Mag., 1931, 37, 105
Walker, Mary
Railway enthusiast wife of Anglican clergman who collected railway
memorabilia. Railway Wld,
1968, 29, 550.
Waterman, Peter Allan [Pete]
Born 15 January 1947 (Who's Who) Made his tin from managing
stars in popular music. Has shown an interest in acquiring diesel locomotives
and running trains. For a time had a stake in Flying Scotsman.
Considerable amount of material relating to him on the Internet, but little
of it relates to his railway enthusiasm.
Webb, Geoffrey
Robin Leleuxx calls him an under-recognised railway historiam as he
never wrote a book, but he had a prodigeous knowledge and corrected many
sections of Leleux's Regional Railway History:
East Midlands
(Backtrack, 2023, 37,
189). He was a life long batchelor who was not adept at housekeeping.
The Bedford and Cambridge Railway: article in Bedfordshire Magazine by
Geoffrey Webb 1962. See Peter Butler.
Webster, V. R[ay]
Obituary notice by Paul Karau
(Br. Rly J. (37) p. 352) records
that Ray Webster was born in Reading in 1912, was educated Reading School,
became a textiles salesman, served during WW2 in Leicestershire Regiment,
rose through ranks to Captain, retrained as teacher, taught geography, became
headmaster, retired 1972, died 3 March 1991. His diaries are one of the joys
of British Railway Journal. His record photographs are significant,
especiallyy those taken during WW2.
The Diaries of V.R. Webster. [Part 1].
262-4.
Begins with a brief autobiographical introduction which includes the
presumption that the author was writing a book ["when writing this book"].
Includes diagram of SECR station at Reading and illus. of 2-4-0T Shanklin
at Ryde Esplanade on 29 May 1922. Part
2 page 293.
The Diaries of V.R. Webster. Part 17.
Br. Rly J., 8, 297-308.
Subtitled the Chronicles of a Welsh tour beginning on 25 July 1931
using a GWR Circular Tour Ticket.
War time on Hatton Bank, Gt. Western
Rly J., 2015, 12, 401
Including LNER J25 and US S160 on Bank
Weil, Pierre
See letter in Locomotive
Mag., 1958, 64, 20 on changes in motive power
as reflected in that journal and the thrill of seeing a powerful electric
locomotive startinng a heavy train
Whitworth, William Henry
See also as photographer;
Born 1891. Died 21 April 1957 aged 66. Educated Manchester Grammar
School. Dental surgeon in Cheetham, Manchester. Enthusiastic member of Stephenson
Locomotive Society and RCTS. Photographer of LNWR and LYR locomotives. Portrait
of him in cab of LNER No. 10000.
Rly Wld., 1957, 18,
189.
Wicks, Jesse
1863-1933: historian of London's railways:
see Rly Wld., 1988, 49,
134 (includes portrait)
2022-10-05