Henry Booth

Marshall states that Booth was born in Liverpool on 4 April 1788 and died there on 28 March 1869. Booth was not a locomotive designer, but played an important part in locomotive history. As treasurer of the uncompleted Liverpool & Manchester Railway, he advised the Stephensons to work out and apply a multi-tubular boiler in the locomotive intended for the Rainhill Trials in 1829. Although the Frenchman Seguin was simultaneously working on a multi-tubular boiler, it seems that Booth thought of this idea independently, and in fact the Rocket was the first full-size locomotive to incorporate this vital innovation. R.H.G. Thomas in his history of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway states that James Neville had patented a tubular boiler in 1826, but that Booth and the Stephensons were probably unaware of this. Booth was the author of An account of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway published in 1830 (Ottley 6404): see also Snell for an appreciation.. Rowatt Trans Newcomen Soc.1927, 8, 19 noted that Booth invented a form of the counter-pressure brake in 1836. Patents (via Woodcroft)
GB 6814/1835 Composition for greasing axle-bearings of carriages, and the axle-spindles and bearing parts of machinery. ("Patent axle grease and lubricating fluid.") 14 April 1835
GB 6961/1835 Method of attaching railway-carriages together, for obtaining steadiness and smoothness of motion. 16 December 1835
See also Locomotive Mag., 1946, 52, 47
GB 6989/1836 Locomotive steam-engines and railway-carriages. 23 January 1836
GB 7244/1836 Construction and arrangement of railway tunnels, to be worked by locomotive-engines. 3 December 1836
GB 7335/1837 Construction of locomotive-engine boiler furnaces;- applicable to other furnaces. 4 April 1837

See: L.T.C. Rolt, George and Robert Stephenson (1960);
Anthony Dawson. The first railway strike. Backtrack, 2019, 33, 493-5
Marshall, C.F.D. The Rainhill Locomotive Trials of 1829. Trans Newcomen Soc. 1928/9, 9, 78-93.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry by Francis Watt revised by Ralph Harrington
Portrait in Thomas page 20

2019-10-03