Gorton Works Collection of Engineering Drawings in - National ...

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Gorton Works: Engineering Drawings in Contractors’ RollsReference Code(s): GB 0756 2000-8117Title: Gorton Works: Collection of engineering drawings in contractors’ rollsDates: c 1850-1950Level of Description: FondsExtent & Medium of the unit of the unit of description:The collection consists of 5313 surviving drawings relating to 44 rolls of engineeringdrawings. The rolls are each to a small extent incomplete, printed on wax linen andattached to polished wooden rods. There are a small number of loose drawingsboxed separately without an index.Name of creators: Gorton Works Drawing OfficeAdministrative/Biographical History:During the early 1840s several companies were in negotiations for what would later be theformation of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. One of these companieswas the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway. On 27 August 1845 theboard of the SA&M decided to construct a locomotive depot and works, chose land atGorton on the outskirts of Manchester and approved plans for construction on 4 March1846. The works were planned by the locomotive superintendent Richard Peacock, thenaged 26, who later became a partner in Beyer Peacock & Co. In the early 1850s heestablished their works directly opposite Gorton Works.The works were completed by 1848. There were separate depots for locomotive work andfor carriage and wagon work, the latter being on two floors with an elaborate lift system totake carriages to and from the first floor. In the early years work was confined to repairsand adjustments. A decision to build locomotives was made in 1857 and the first Gortonbuiltlocomotive appeared in 1858.For the whole of the life of the Works it was common to outsource construction, principallyto Kitson & Co Ltd of Leeds, Beyer Peacock next door in Gorton, and Neilson & Co ofGlasgow. Other contributors to the fleet included Stephensons, Armstrong Whitworth andSharp Stewart.Always confined as to space the Gorton Works soon earned the nickname of ‘The Tank’.Overcrowding became such that in 1910 a new site was opened at Dukinfield, to whichcarriage and wagon work was transferred in 1910.In 1897 the MS&LR was re-styled as the Great Central Railway in anticipation of thecompletion of its London extension. Its headquarters were removed to the LondonTerminus at Marylebone. Following amalgamation under the post-war grouping scheme in1922 the GCR became in turn part of the London and North Eastern Railway. Locomotiveconstruction was increasingly concentrated on the Darlington and Doncaster works, thougha small amount continued after nationalisation under the aegis of British Railways. The lastlocomotives were built during 1950.
Chief Engineers of Gorton Works:Dates Name Company1847-1854 Richard Peacock MS&LR1854-1859 William Grindley Craig MS&LR1859-1885 Charles Reboul Sacré MS&LR1886-1893 Thomas Parker MS&LR1894-1900 Harry Pollitt MS&LR/ GCR1900-1922 John George Robinson GCRFrom absorption into the LNER and later into British Railways overall managementwas vested in the appropriate regional Chief Mechanical Engineer.Immediate source of acquisition or transfer:These drawings were transferred to the National Railway Museum from the formerTransport Museum of the British Transport Commission at Clapham, London, havingpreviously been deposited by British Railways.Scope & content:The drawings held by the National Railway Museum do not represent the full range oflocomotives repaired or constructed at the Gorton Works. They are confined to a numberof rolls of contractor’s drawings. These are sets of drawings for particular types oflocomotive produced by outside contractors. Originally covering all drawings that might berequired for construction and repair, in virtually all cases the drawings showing the generalarrangement of the locomotives and tenders are missing, but the bulk of the sets remains. Inthe majority of cases there is also an index with each set, listing the individual drawingsoriginally provided.The associated list provides a description of the sets of drawings as boxed, using anydescriptive information found on the rolls. It does not list the individual drawings, which arein most cases still attached in their sets to wooden rods. To make the best use of the rollssome knowledge of the successive classification systems used by the MS&LR, the GCR,LNER and British Railways is required. In most cases the rolls already indicate the GCR andsometimes the LNER classification numbers, occasionally only a locomotive number series.In the case of some sets of drawings, as well as the original drawing numbers for the set,there is also an LNER drawing number. However, to access individual drawings from thecollection the only numbering system that works comprehensively is to use the box number,coupled with the drawing number as per the index. It is sometimes also necessary todistinguish whether the drawing relates to the locomotive or the tender where the latterare listed to a separate sequence.Included within the collection are 64 drawings from the LNER period. These mostly relateto O1, O4, O5 and Q1 locomotives, though some other classes are included. Thesedrawings have been separately listed.Related to these drawings are the registers from the Gorton Works Drawing Office and awide selection of drawing schedules, some of which will relate directly to the rolls ofdrawings in this collection. These items are listed below.
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Page 5 and 6: Existence and location of copies:No
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Page 9: Publication note:No secondary works

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