Another paylist  example, for May 1837, can be seen here > >     CLEVELAND FHS

• The rails on which these engines operated pass through Goosepool.  Coincidentally, during 1959-60 the webmaster served there in the Royal Air Force when it was known as R.A.F. Middleton-St-George.  In those Cold War days 'Javelin' night fighters of 33 Squadron on final approach would cross the old S&DR line, and the beams of their landing lights would at times stream through the carriage windows of a passenger train. (As seen from the MSG Control Tower)

 

A side elevation of Raby Castle from Kitching's original drawing

Although new in 1839 the webmaster believes that Raby Castle was
in outline at least very similar to those engines delivered to the Tsar in
September of 1836, and said to have cost at least £2000 each.

The copper medal shown below was struck in Russia to commemorate the opening
of the Tsarskoye Selo Railway on 30 Oct 1836



Note the 'family' resemblance of the engine depicted here with Kitching's drawing of Raby Castle.

The above image shows the remains of Bradyll ( ? ), an engine of the same era as 'Coronation'
though the identity is in some doubt. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradyll_(locomotive)
She can be seen at the Locomotion Museum at Shildon, County Durham.  From the image it seems
that the missing cylinders were attached to the sides of the smoke-box,
(here painted black) and inclined toward the wheels at the far 'stoking' end of the boiler,
i.e not as Coronation's which were vertical and linked to the wheels
& connecting-rod via a crankshaft.
But - - - - :
I have sneaking suspicion that in an earlier life this relic was Coronation-13, the tired old engine
bought at auction in 1841 by her creator Timothy Hackworth.  
It is common practice in engineering to use existing hardware as the basis of a new development.
The positions of the blast-pipe; chimney; and fire-box are a match, and my guess is that the boiler,
could be 4ft. diameter x 13ft. long, with 105 smoke tubes.

 

Coronation L-N-E-R  poster of 1937

Read on for transcript of the footnote
Locomotive built by Mr Timothy Hackworth in honour of the coronation of King William IV-1831.
"Coronation" engine from needlework picture in the John Phillimore collection of early railway relics.
Forerunner of the "Coronation" 1937 L-N-E-R streamline train King's Cross and Edinburgh.
LONDON & NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY

Web-master's note :- The artwork/needlework in the poster is by Scottish artist Doris Zinkeisen 1898 - 1991

     

1873

In my opinion the scene was photographed in 1873 at Soho, Shildon
during the formal handover of a new engine to it's Danish buyers. 
The date might have been William Brown's 70th birthday :
Wednesday the 1st of October 1873.


.....

On the left, a Danish carte-de-visite by FR VISBY of my g.grandfather Robert Brown 37.
HFM Visby's pen and ink autograph is on the back of the card.
 
Robert can also be seen in the image of the large contact-print.
(I guess that the actual print, if it still exists is 8.5" wide.)


When the penny dropped, I realised that the four men standing on
the engine's running board are all Mrs Brown's boys ( see Mary Orton )
i.e. her son Robert 37; her husband William 70; her son George 39, and her son William 23;
and 'locomotive superintendent' William Bouch is in the foreground, fourth from the right.
All told : I think I see four Danes; four  Browns; three N.E.R. principals; and two painters.

Considering the outlines of the engine and shed it seems that the heavy camera and 
tripod were standing very close to Mr.Bouch's kitchen door, and that the freshly painted
engine was facing the main entrance of Timothy Hackworth's loco assembly/paint shop.

• A sketch to prove the location can be seen here > > > (go there)
  

Regarding the identification of photographer 'Fr Visby'.
In previous issues of this page I assumed that Robert Brown's portrait photo,
annotated 'FR VISBY' & 'AARHUS' was taken in Denmark. However, I now think
that photographer Visby was actually present in Shildon as a co-opted member of
the Danish delegation and so it follows that he might have taken both photographs
perhaps using a dark-room technique to lift individual portraits from the large group.

For reference only : At the end of same  month Visby's wife presented him with
a baby girl who later became famous as a writer, namely Thora Visby Petersen.

A search of the internet has found a likely candidate in Hans Frederik Meyer Visby  
also known as 'Fred' Visby (1839 - 1926). The son of a clergyman of Aarhus he
was a well-heeled tourist who as a young man travelled widely in Central America.
After his return to Aarhus in 1869 he appears to have taken up photography as 
an enterprise, and between 1874 & 1876 he had a studio/atelier at the corner of :
the Great Square and St.Clemens Torv in Aarhus
However as he lived until 1926 he is better remembered as a notable artist in oils
and watercolours. Images of his paintings can be found now in internet auctions etc.

Click on the portrait
V
Visby 1864

"An interior with a young woman reading an Easter letter"

 

Other factors regarding the loco-photo :

• The location was Soho, New Shildon. This village-within-a-village was from 1840 the home of a series of principal engineers (and their families) such as Hackworth; Bouch; MacNay; and maybe Bouch's successor Edward Fletcher. Their accommodation, two large terraced cottages are still there and remain now as a feature of the 'Locomotion' site of the National Railway Museum. The 1873 '70th birthday' photo was taken very close to the back of the cottages where, about 30 years earlier Timothy Hackworth had built his assembly shop. (For reference only: In the 1871 census a notable guest of the Bouchs was a lady listed as a ship-owner.)

• I believe Mr.Bouch 60 is in the group photograph, fourth from the right, and that the man third from the right is Mr.William MacNay 47, "Managing Engineer, Shildon Works". He was Bouch's next door neighbour.

• By 1873 locomotive assembly at Shildon had dwindled, so it was fortuitous for the local economy that engines made elsewhere such as Newcastle; Darlington; Bristol, and Glasgow could be brought in for painting and general finishing such as the application of company livery.

• Fortunately, I was helped by a pen friend (James Armstrong) to identify the locomotive:-  No.61 was " - - the first of four 0-6-0s built by R & W Hawthorn Ltd of Newcastle for Denmark in 1873 - - ". The engine-driver seated on the sand-box and the gentlemen on the left in inky-black suits and shiny-shoes seem 'foreign' to me. Were they Viking officials of the Danish Government Railways ?

• Focussing on the engine, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the extant NER 1275 which can be looked up here.  NER 1275 was designed by William Bouch and built in 1874, i.e. about a year after the Danish no.61 was exported. Generically I believe both engines are known as 'Stephenson Long Boilers'. An obvious difference between the two is that no.61 had outside cylinders.

•  If I am right about Danish artist Fred Visby photographing the men-and-loco scene, we should applaud him for his thoughtful composition and choreography. He seems to have marshalled the group into five distinct parties. I think I see four Vikings; four  Browns; three N.E.R. principals; two painters; and of course the inanimate star of the show, engine no.61 - - -  (At this point, I must admit to unashamed kite-flying as it can stimulate positive feedback ! )

• William's son Robert was trained at Shildon under Mr Bouch; then around 1861 he took his family and skills to Doncaster; then to the Beyer-Peacock works at Gorton, Manchester; then in the early 1870s he returned to his homeland of Co.Durham with his wife Ann (Adamson) and seven daughters to reside in Westgate, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. His eighth daughter my grandmother was born there in 1876.

• On the day of the Shildon assembly the agenda would have included several photographs. Aside from the business photos ours is what I would call a foreigner, i.e. not on the books but I guess arranged ad-hoc at the discretion of Mr Bouch as a part of William's birthday treat. Mr Bouch would easily have covered the cost as after his death in 1876 his Will shows a probate valuation of about £160,000

• Mr Bouch; William Brown and his sons were Shildon villagers, and were among the last of the true S&DR men. As with any village there was the social network.  For example in the 1840s Bouch's general manager was Daniel Adamson  / W.Brown's son Robert married Adamson's niece / and there would have been times when W.Brown and W.Bouch chewed the fat over their individual experiences of working in Russia, i.e. W.Brown went to St.Petersburg in 1836 along with the 16 year old John Hackworth, and pre-1840 Mr.Bouch was, for a number of years, chief-engineer on a vessel in the Russian Navy. As for socialising in general there was of course 'the pub', such as the Grey Horse Inn which had served as the Adamson-nest for many years.

• We should not be surprised at the lack of evidence to substantiate my story.  In the 1800s education was poor and illiteracy rife. For example in 1831 when William Brown and Mary Orton were married at St.Thomas' Church, Stockton neither of them managed their 'mark' in the register with a legible 'X'.  However I know that Timothy Hackworth pushed his men into further-education, and that the facsimiles of the Engine-men's-Wages show us William's signatures written 'in a good fist'.

• Summarising the occasion from William's point of view. He would be pleased that his three sons had been rounded up to share his prominence on the engine. And, meeting up with the Danish engineers would have reminded him of his own excursion to St.Petersburg with the 16 year old John Hackworth.

 
Hackworth House in August 2007
(My wife Dorothy at the front door)
Previously known as Soho House, it was home (1831 - 1850) of Timothy Hackworth.
I wonder if the engine-men of old queued on that path for wages ?
The locomotive finishing shop (demolished in 1946) would have towered over
the bungalows on the left.

1875 was the year of the S&DR Jubilee.  J.S.Jeans, author of the official record included a brief tribute to William Bouch :-
"The Shildon (Miner  class) no.1033 was constructed thirty years ago - - - by Mr William Bouch.  It has been running
continually since that time on the Stockton and Darlington line, and is yet, to all appearance, fit for a good deal of service."
(In 1969, Apollo 11 covered about the same distance on its way to the Moon.  Ed.)

No.1033 Shildon (Miner  class) 1845 - 1877
 

1876 January 19  William Bouch died age 63 at Melcombe Regis, Dorset.
The executor of his Will was his brother Thomas whose image
here I believe shows us a familial likeness.

Thomas Bouch, civil engineer
 1822 - 1880

An image believed to have come to light from an early postcard
   


George Stephenson's viaduct which was built in 1824  (link) over the River Gaunless at
West Auckland, Co. Durham. Throughout its early development the railway
was supposed to carry only horse-drawn traffic, so it is surprising to see it
bearing an engine of the Director class, the first  of which was delivered in 1832.




Painting by Terence Cuneo

27th of September 1825. The opening day of the Stockton and Darlington Railway had arrived.
Locomotion No.1 with fire in her belly is racing toward Stockton-on-Tees.

Recommended reading from which much of the above was gleaned :

• The Locomotives of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (ISBN 0 902835 14 9) by T.R.Pearce (1996)

• History of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (ISBN 0 85983 050 0) by J.S.Jeans (1875)

• Timothy Hackworth and the Locomotive by Robert Young (1925)

• Once a Year, Tales and Legends of Westmoreland, issue 1, by poet John Close

and see the following appendix to this page :

• Extract from Mr Close's book which describes a particular Inspector of Locomotive Engines, Robert Richardson, Esq.

The following YouTube link plays folk music appropriate to the life and times of our Enginedriver :

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV3ilf2xJ5I&list=FLNvrghsUTlbnHH7z8qeq_9g&index=37

Many thanks to 'Helen' of Helen Osborne Research Ltd. SW20 9LB for her professional work on my behalf at the National Archives.
  

 S.& D.R. coat button


Below, a different aspect of the setting used in 1873 for William's 70th birthday party.  (go there)



Closing remarks on this romancing

For more than ten years my research-and-declare method has served me well. 
I liken it to the relatively new science of geology as invented by
Dr James Hutton 1726 - 1797, hence Huttonian.

There's also intuition, exactly defined in Chambers Dictionary as :-
" The power of the mind by which it immediately perceives the
truth of things without reasoning or analysis. "
Through this experience I feel that acute intuition is in my genes  
although not included in the results of my Ancestry-DNA test :)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Everthing inspires me, sometimes I think I see things others don't."
Norman Foster /architect, born Reddish, Stockport in 1935.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
William Shakespeare / Hamlet (1.5.167-8)





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