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Scottish Railways and the Development of Scottish Locomotive Building in the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Wray Vamplew
Wray Vamplew
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Economic History, University of Edinburgh
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Abstract

Professor Vamplew describes the expansion of a leading Scottish industry of the nineteenth century, illustrating that the nature and level of demand were the most important factors shaping the industry's growth throughout several distinct stages of development.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1972 , pp. 320 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1972

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References

1 The North British Locomotive Company (privately printed, 1953), 44.

2 These are now housed in the Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh (hereafter S.R.O.). They are denoted by the prefix RAC (S). Care has to be taken in the use of these accounts. Those of the Caledonian Railway were described as being in “just such a tangle as one might dream of after supping on lobster salad and champagne” (London Times, September 30, 1850). Generally, however, the companies were concerned with confusing their shareholders as to the capital and revenue position, not the numbers of locomotives in operation.

3 Report of the Committee of Investigation to the Shareholders of the North British Railway Company, November 14, 1866, 9, S.R.O.

4 Railway Times, April 26, 1851.

5 Buchanan, G., Account of the Glasgow and Garnkirk Railway (Edinburgh, 1832), 9Google Scholar.

6 Report of the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway, February 1, 1832, Mitchell Library, Glasgow.

7 An outline of Scottish railway development can be found in section one of Vamplew, Wray, “Sources of Scottish Railway Share Capital Before 1860,” Scottish Journal of Political Economy, XVII (1970)Google Scholar.

8 Dundee Courier, October 9, 1838.

9 Lythe, S. E. G., “Shipbuilding at Dundee down to 1914,” Scottish Journal of Political Economy, IX (1962), 221–22Google Scholar; Journal of Stephenson Locomotive Society, April, 1957, 105–106.

10 Scottish Railway Gazette, June 28, 1845; Dundee Courier, October 9, 1838; Herapath's Railway Journal, January 19, 1850.

11 Scottish Railway Gazette, October 7, 1846; Lythe, , “Shipbuilding at Dundee,” and “The Gourlays of Dundee,” Aberly Historical Society, X (1964)Google Scholar. These works were a boon to the Scottish railways both for the engines they produced and the men who learned their skills there. Both Patrick and James Stirling, later to achieve fame as locomotive engineers, served their apprenticeships in this, their uncle's works. Others to work in the foundry included Archibald Sturrock, another renowned locomotive superintendent, and James Gow, who became resident engineer on the local Arbroath & Forfar Railway.

12 Oakley, C. A., “The Mechanical Engineering Industry of Clydeside: Its Origin and Development,” Transactions of the Engineers and Shipbuilders of Scotland (hereafter T.E.S.S.), 1945–1946Google Scholar; Mayer, J., “Engineering and Shipbuilding Industries of Glasgow and the Clyde,” in British Association Handbook (Glasgow, 1876), 105Google Scholar.

13 The Locomotive, Railway Carriage and Wagon Review, April and May, 1927, passim.

14 T.E.S.S. 1870–1871, 126; Engineering, May 25, 1866.

15 From list of M. Smith in Journal of the Stephenson Locomotive Society, 1939, hereafter cited as M. Smith list.

16 Ibid; Oakley, “Mechanical Engineering Industry.”

17 Thomas, J., The Springburn Story (Newton Abbot, 1964), 32Google Scholar.

18 Oakley, “Mechanical Engineering Industry;” and information supplied by Mr. J. L. Housby, Greenock Public Library.

19 Thomas, Springburn Story, 81–82; HHP(S) 51, S.R.O.

20 Railway company production is dealt with below.

21 Mayer, “Engineering and Shipbuilding.”

22 Lythe, “Shipbuilding at Dundee,” 221–22.

23 M. Smith list; Thomas, Springburn Story, 32; Engineering, May 25, 1866; T.E.S.S. 1870–1871, 126.

24 Mayer, “Engineering and Shipbuilding.”

25 Thomas, Springburn Story, 81–82; M. Smith list; Scottish Railway Gazette, October 7, 1846.

26 Herapath's Railway Journal, January 19, 1850.

27 Locomotive and Historical Society Bulletin, LVI (1941), 40Google Scholar.

28 Scottish News, May 10, 1886; Edinburgh Evening News, July 31, 1957.

29 The Engineer, December 1, 1922; and May 17, 1901; Railway Times, October 23, 1841.

30 Calculated from lists supplied by the Stephenson Locomotive Society. The percentage of Hawthorns' production is open to doubt because of the difficulty of distinguishing the Scottish from the Newcastle supplies.

31 Mayer, “Engineering and Shipbuilding,” 105; T.E.S.S. 1870–1871, 126.

32 The early 1860's were an exception to this rule, and 40 per cent of Scottish railway locomotives came from England. Perhaps the higher level of demand was too great for existing Scottish capacity.

33 Engineering, August 15, 1893; Mayer, “Engineering and Shipbuilding.”

34 Those traced were: the Airdrie Iron Co., Airdrie; Andrews, Barr & Co., Kilmarnock; Andrew Barclay & Co., Kilmarnock; Barclays & Co., Kilmarnock; Barr, Morrison & Co., Kilmarnock; Alexander Chaplin & Co., Govan; Dick, Kerr & Co., Kilmarnock, Dick & Stevenson, Airdrie; William Dixon, Clader & Goven Iron Works; D. Drummond & Son, Govan; Forrest & Barr, Glasgow; Gibb & Hogg, Airdrie; Glengarnock Iron Works; Grant, Ritchie & Co., Kilmarnock; Murray & Paterson, Coatbank; J. & R. Taylor, Ayr; T. M. Tennant & Co., Edinburgh; and J. & T. Young, Ayr.

35 The descriptions of the two great Glasgow factories given in Engineering, October 18, November 22, December 6, 1867, show the impossibility of all but highly capitalized entrants into the trade successfully challenging their position.

36 Minute Book of Edinburgh, Perth & Dundee Railway; EPD 1/1, 9 September, 1850, 4, S.R.O.

37 Lardner, D., Railway Economy (London, 1850), 108Google Scholar; RAC(S) 1/35, January 22, 1850; RAC(S) 1/1A, March 22, 1854, S.R.O.

38 Report of the Monkland & Kirkintilloch Railway, February 1, 1838, Mitchell Library, Glasgow; Journal of Stephenson Locomotive Society, 1937, 205.

39 Simmons, J., The Railways of Britain (London, 1961), 225Google Scholar. Saul, S. B., “The Engineering Industry,” in Aldcroft, D. M., ed., The Development of British Industry and Foreign Competition, 1875–1914 (London, 1968), p. 196Google Scholar states that the North British Railway was producing locomotives at Cowlairs in 1844, but this works did not come into their possession until the 1860's. In fact, as is shown below, the North British Railway was slow to take up locomotive manufacture.

40 Stephenson Locomotive Society, The Caledonian Railway Centenary (London, 1947), 18Google Scholar.

41 Nock, O. S., The Caledonian Railway (London, 1962), 87Google Scholar; Herapath's Railway Journal, September 27, 1884; Locomotive Engineering, VIII (1895), No. 10.Google Scholar

42 By the latter part of the century, mergers and amalgamations had produced a situation in which there were only five railway companies of any size in Scotland. Their respective mileages in 1900 were: North British, 1,242; Caledonian, 939; Highland, 485; Glasgow & South Western, 399; and Great North of Scotland, 331.

43 RAC(S) 1/1A, September 10, 1852, S.R.O.

44 Ellis, C. G., The North British Railway (London, 1959), 58Google Scholar; Dow, G., The First Railway Across the Border (London, 1946), 26Google Scholar.

45 Mayer, “Engineering and Shipbuilding,” 108.

46 Weekly News, November 5, 1898; Stephenson Locomotive Society, The Glasgow and South Western Railway (London, 1950), 45Google Scholar.

47 Weekly News, November 5, 1898; London and North Eastern Railway, Inverness Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Works (privately printed, 1946), 4.

48 Stephenson Locomotive Society, The Highland Railway (London, 1955), 60Google Scholar.

49 Railway News, October 19, 1867.

50 Ibid.

51 Scottish News, May 18, 1886.

52 History of the North British Locomotive Company, 19; Engineering, December 14, 1894.

53 The Highland Railway purchased six engines in 1886, and the relatively minor Girvan & Portpatrick Railway two the following year. Otherwise no orders were forthcoming from Scottish companies, Scottish News, May 18, 1886; Thomas, Springburn Story, 143.

54 Scottish News, May 10, 1886; Edinburgh Evening News, July 31, 1957.

55 Engineering, August 15, 1879. Calculated from lists of Stephenson Locomotive Society.

56 Calculated from lists of Stephenson Locomotive Society.

57 The Engineer, December 1, 1922, May 17, 1901.

58 Glasgow Herald Trade Review for 1895 (Glasgow, 1896), 40Google Scholar.

59 History of the North British Locomotive Company, 44.

60 Saul, “The Engineering Industry,” 195.

61 T.E.S.S. 1882–1883, 21–23.

62 On this point, see T.E.S.S. 1885–1886, 121; Engineering, August 15, 1879; The Album of Arts and Industries of Great Britain (London, 1887), 321Google Scholar.

63 RAC(S) 1/1A, February 22, 1853, S.R.O.

64 Calculated from lists supplied by the Stephenson Locomotive Society and data obtained from the railway companies' reports and accounts.

65 T.E.S.S. 1869–1870, 160.

66 T.E.S.S. 1882–1883, 22.

67 T.E.S.S. 1857–1858, 130.

68 T.E.S.S. 1861–1862, 166.

69 Saul, S. B., “The Market and the Development of the Mechanical Engineering Industries in Britain, 1860–1914,” Economic History Review, XX (1967), 116Google Scholar.

70 Ellis, North British Railway, 153.

71 Engineering, March 1, 1867.

72 Their attitude was probably responsible for the slow acceptance of the compound locomotive engine in Scotland. T.E.S.S. 1905–1906, 264.

73 T.E.S.S. 1882–1883, 22.

74 T.E.S.S. 1860–1861, 9; 1869–1870, 188.

75 Payne, P. L., Rubber and Railways in the Nineteenth Century (Liverpool, 1961), 139Google Scholar; Scottish News, May 18, 1866; Engineering, July 1, 1870.

76 Ahrons, E. L., The British Steam Locomotive (London, 1927), 195Google Scholar; Economist, February 22, 1895; MacLeod, A. B., The McIntosh Locomotives of the Caledonian Railway (London, 1948), 5Google Scholar; Simmons, Railways of Britain, 115–17.

77 Calculations made from specifications in the company histories published by the Stephenson Locomotive Society.

78 MacLeod, Mclntosh Locomotives.

79 An injunction against this practice was obtained by the private builders in the late 1870's on the grounds that it was not allowed for in the Parliamentary Acts that had sanctioned the building of the railways. Economist, January 19, 1878.

80 See for example, Journal of Stephenson Locomotive Society, June, 1936, 158–59; June, 1937, 153; June, 1939, 181; and Herapath's Railway Journal, 1868.