Introducing another Stephen Lewin locomotive…
The image below shows a delightful little locomotive named Samson. It was built by the Poole Foundry of Stephen Lewin in 1874 and was for a long time thought to be the first railway locomotive that they built. There is now some doubt about this fact, but regardless of this, it is certainly an early railway product for the firm.
It was supplied new to the London Lead Company’s Cornish Hush leadmine, Whitfield Brow near Frosterley. Often erroneously stated as working in Middleton-in-Teesdale (where the firm actually had its headquarters) the engine operated over a mile long tramway between the mine and the crushing plant. The mine leases were surrendered in 1883 and the 1898 OS map for the area (second edition) shows the crushing mill closed and the tramway abandoned. The London Lead Company was wound up in 1905. It seems that the locomotive itself was sold, presumably for scrap, and removed via the NER’s Middleton-in-Teesdale station in 1905, suggesting it had been removed to the headquarters for storage after the tramway closed.
The engine therefore enjoyed only a short working life. It is of particular note because of its unusual design, being an ‘overtype’ with cranshaft and flywheel drive. This is very much along traction engine or portable engine lines. Lewins built other engines to this pattern (notably ‘Hops’ and ‘Malt’ for the Guiness brewery) but it was not a common practice in railway locomotive design.
Samson was 1ft 10inch gauge and of very tiny proportions, as can be seen here. It was said to weigh 2 tons 12cwt and attracted some interest in the contemporary technical press, resulting in two engravings being produced showing it, though the detail accuracy of these must be doubted in some regards. However, unlike some of the other smaller Lewin locomotives, which were fitted with marine type fireboxes, this engine appears to have a locomotive boiler. The far side (not shown in the photograph) would appear to have external gears on the wheels (front and rear), connecting with the drive via layshafts off the crankshaft. These were enclosed for safety.
Samson would certainly make an interesting subject for replication for use on our new narrow gauge railway…
Although this Lewin is certainly a very interesting locomotive (and I speak as someone who acted as historical consultant to the project to replicate fellow Lewins ANT and BEE several years ago), I feel that there are probably more deserving specimens for replication, should a new steam locomotive be required for the Beamish nominal 2ft. gauge railway. The most deserving case in my view is Manning Wardle ‘Locke’ class 0-4-0ST 487 of 1874 constructed for a Normanton colliery line in Yorkshire. This was a member of the highly influential Manning Wardle ‘6 by 8’ class grouping (most of which were 18 inch gauge)which were foreunners of just about every sub-30 inch gauge production ‘mainstream’ (i.e. full length outside frames, outside cylinders and locomotive pattern boiler) ever built. Such a locomotive would sit neatly alongside NEWCASTLE to represent one of our most important industrial locomotive builders (which sadly Lewin never became) and would plug a major gap in the ranks of our narrow gauge survivors. If there is a need for a new steam locomotive (such as providing for when the loan agreements on the Barclay and the Avonside expire), then why not build this one?
Hi Mark – an interesting point of view and I certainly agree that someone should build a 6×8 loco such as you describe. However, I really feel we (at Beamish) need some locomotives with a distinctive north east connection (to attone for recent non-regional aquisitions maybe!) and for me there are two great subjects for such a project. One is Samson, as described above, another is the gorgeous little R. W. Hawthorn ‘Little Nut’ which operated on the line above Rookhope and whose snowplough we replicated a few years ago.
A big factor in investigating a replica/new build is the personal appeal -after all, as with the in depth rebuilds carried out on Coffee Pot No.1 and Seaham Harbour No.18, a huge personal effort must be invested in the project (way outside the scope of normal working hours) and therefore it has to be chosen as one which the project manager/curator (so me in this case!) will keep at, through the good times and bad. This equally applies to funding of such a project and convincing others that it is a worthy candidate for their money. This may seem rather un-museuoligical and not the view of an impartial curator but sometimes partiality, or reality, has to come into play in order to make things happen!!!
For me, Samson has a real ‘wow’ factor with a very large percentage of our Museum audience – the family with young children and this is an important moment in ‘hooking’ the next generation of enthusiasts and museum professionals.
The loan of the Barclay and Avonside to Beamish is temporary and whilst they will hopefully visit and maybe even holiday at Beamish once restored, they are not long term residents within our collection.
I agree with you regarding the importance of filling some historical gaps in the industrial locomotive story, but it is perhaps the place for others to do so for locomotives such as No.487. As a personal project I would love to build a typical contractors Manning Wardle 0-4-0ST – but unless I win the lottery this is fairly unlikely to happen! I have also always been drawn to the Bagnall wing tanks, complete with top-hinged smokebox doors, but again fiscal reality has prevailed – for now!
However, Lewin will give us all something of a ‘contractors’ fix once completed, especially when we eventually restore some MSC type wooden side tippers… I think the development of our Colliery railway to include such working attractions is bound to have enormous appeal to the general public and enthusiast alike as well as being a working forum for historically accurate and rigourously researched and reconstructed industrial railway subjects with an underlying north-east pedigree.
It is perhaps important here to place in writing that I do differentiate between our various railways at Beamish and that the choice of Dunrobin and Newcastle for (daily) operation at Rowley Station (and on a hopefully one day extended running line) is based on their Victorian appearance, practicality and ‘light railway’ character (i.e. not quite main line but certainly not a loco from an industiral site). It also reflects the difficulty of finding suitable NER motive power to purchase! Hiring is a short term option but is not viable in the longer term.
The Colliery railway therefore, in my view, must work harder to be of purer north east calibre and I think it is well on the way to this, with engines either built locally or used locally and with iconic stock of regional interest.
The Waggonway is what it is, with a great coverage of north east early railway history (including a wooden waggonway section) whilst the tramway must balance the needs of being a prime mover on site with the curatorial desirability to reflect north east tramway practice and development.
I hope this stream of thought is of use/interest in perhaps explaining what is behind the current transport policy at Beamish.
At the risk of ‘teaching Granny to suck eggs’, I feel that there is one early ‘mainstream’ nominal 2ft. gauge locomotive that would be eminently suitable for replication at Beamish, given the policy requirements that you have laid down. This is Black Hawthorn 0-4-2ST works number 258 of 1873 for Lintz Colliery near Burnopfield. This was the first true ‘mainstreamer’ to employ more than two axles, thereby staring the line of evolution that was to lead, via Hunslet 0-6-4ST BEDDGELERT and others, to such locomotives as the Vale of Rheidol and Lynton & Barnstaple specimens that we are well aware of today (Manning Wardle ‘Fell’ 0-6-0 412 of 1872, despite possessing outside frames, cylinders and locomotive boiler, could not have run on conventional track as it was fitted with guide wheels and cylinders reaching below rail level). Unlike SAMSON, where you would have to rely on a photograph and a rear 3/4 view engraving, the drawings of BH 258 were reproduced in “Enginering” magazine soon after the engine’s construction (do any other maker’s plans of BH outside framed locmotives survive?) and this fact, together with the fact that the engine was a Durham colliery locomotive, would make it an ideal candidate for the colliery line at Beamish.
I’m not sure about the Black Hawthorn drawings. I have seen an original of one R. W. Hawthorn loco built to a BH design. I think it was part of a quantity of material recovered following a fire at Hawthorns just after the war, including catalogues and other misc material relating to the BH goodwill that they inherited. This provided the basis for the drawings prepared by Roy Link for the article I wrote for Narrow Gauge & Industrial Railway Modelling Review (issue 67 off the top of my head). I posted on this blog some info on Little Nut on the 14th May 2009 in relation to the reconstuction of the narrow gauge snowplough we were working on at the time for anyone interested in seeing a photograph of the loco.
I find the process of building a locomotive from only limited evidence rather appealing! Perhaps it is its very uncoventionality that makes building it such a seductive idea?! Steam Elephant was done this way after all… So Samson it probably is, then maybe the little Hawthorn. I should add that there is no policy or definite intention to build either of these, it is merely the musings of ‘could we’ and if we find we can, we can then move forwards to see if funding and delivering such a project is feasible. And there is No.18, Dunrobin and the Ruston portable to finish and No.17’s restoration to start before another big project is contemplated. Never a dull moment here!
Thanks for pointing out your blog on LITTLE NUT (I know the locomotive now that the builder is stated as Hawthorn Leslie) – I will certainly try to get a copy of your article. I agree that there is a certain fascination with reconstructing replica locomotives from incomplete data, having assited on projects to reconstruct Lewin 19 inch gauge and Heywood 15 inch gauge locomotives in this way. Nonetheless, comparing SAMSON and LITTLE NUT, I think that the latter is the prettier loco. It would also have the advantages of being ‘self starting’ and possessing the classic ‘North Eastern’ look (as does the standard gauge locomotive in your collection, MALLEABLE). Its main claim to fame, should a replica be built, would be that it would be a rare example of a nominal 2ft. gauge locomotive with full length inside frames and a firebox that sat between them (the best-known domestic examples were the ‘gasworks’ well tanks, of which one unrebuilt example survives at Tywyn, although the little Barclay used by Nuttall on the L&B contract was another, as was the Bagnall ‘wing tank’). LITTLE NUT raises another important query concerning a 2ft. gauge Hawthorn Leslie 0-4-0ST BURRA of 1923 now at the Illawarra Light Railway in NSW. This latter locomotive now has a wide firebox and cast strengtheners on the rear parts of the frames, but was it once like LITTLE NUT with its narrow firebox?
Hi Mark – can you e-mail me directly via museum@beamish.org.uk (and mark the e-mail for my attention) as I can probably supply you with a copy of the Little Nut article directly if you wish. I don’t have a copy in the office but have one at home.
Superficially, it’s a wee bit like the two ‘reproductions’ at Laxey on the Isle of Man which, I think, were also Lewins. Nice little loco. Certainly, a reproduction at Beamish would be extremely worthwhile.
Yes, the two Laxey engines (Ant and Bee) were built by Lewins, though were inside cylindered rather than an overtype like Samson or the two Guinness locomotives (Hops and Malt). Lindholme was also an overtype Lewin and is rumoured to still exist at the bottom of a flooded quarry working…
Although differing in many mechanical details (such as firebox, dome location, and, probably, the suspension of the link motion) it became clear during the research stage for the construction of the Laxey replicas that the 18 inch gauge inside cylinder Ramsbottom Crewe Works locomotives were a significant influence upon their design. This was almost certainly a consequence of similar width restrictions applying, although the Laxey locomotives were also subject to more onerous height restrictions. The bare side elevation proportions of HOPS and MALT were shown in an 1888 Paper produced for the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on the subject of the Guinness Brewery system.
Wonderful! Exactly the sort of mildly absurd mid Victorian narrow gauge locomotive that doesn’t survive, but were such an important part of the industrial scene. It would be wonderful to see this locomotive replicated and working only a few yards away from the last surviving original Lewin!