Avonside Engine Company

Avonside no. 1977 at Toddington Station

The Avonside Engine Company was a locomotive manufacturer in Avon Street, St. Philip's, Bristol, England between 1864 and 1934. However the business originated with an earlier enterprise Henry Stothert and Company.

Origins

The firm was originally started by Henry Stothert in 1837 as Henry Stothert and Company. Henry was the son of George Stothert (senior), founder of the nearby Bath engineering firm of Stothert & Pitt. Henry's brother, also named George, was manager of the same firm.

The company was given an order for two broad gauge (7 ft 0+¹⁄₄ in (2,140 mm)) 2-2-2 Firefly class express passenger engines Arrow and Dart, with 7 ft (2.1 m) driving wheels, to be delivered for the opening of the Great Western Railway (GWR) from Bristol to Bath on August 31, 1840. This was soon followed by an order for eight smaller 2-2-2 Sun class engines with 6 ft (1.8 m) driving wheels.

Stothert , Slaughter and Company

Edward Slaughter joined the company in 1841, when it became known as Stothert , Slaughter and Company. By 1844 their works were named "Avonside Ironworks". In 1846 built Avalanche the first of five six-coupled saddle tank banking engines for the GWR. Another large order came for ten broad gauge passenger 4-2-2s with 7 ft 6 in drivers and eight goods engines from the Bristol and Exeter Railway for the independent operation of that line from May 1, 1849. In 1851 the company acquired a shipbuilding yard, of which Henry Stothert took charge as a separate undertaking.

Slaughter, Grüning and Company

In 1856 a Mr. Grüning became a partner of Edward Slaughter at the locomotive works, which then became Slaughter, Grüning and Company.

Avonside Engine Company Ltd

In 1864, with Edward Slaughter still in control, the company took advantage of the Companies Acts and became the Avonside Engine Company Ltd. As if to mark the occasion, the works received a large order (the first from the GWR for some years following the development of GWRs own Swindon Works) for twenty 2-4-0 Hawthorn class engines with 6 ft drivers.

The Avonside Engine Company and its predecessors were unusual in that most of the production before 1880 consisted of main line locomotives largely for British railway companies but also for export. However, by 1881 main line locomotives were getting much bigger and exceeding the capacity of the manufacturing equipment. They made a positive decision to concentrate on the smaller Industrial railway locomotive types for within the capacity of the existing plant. This change was to a degree forced on the company as a result of financial difficulties following Edward Slaughter's death. Edwin Walker of the Bristol Engineering firm Fox, Walker & Co. joined Avonside and endeavoured to turn the company round, but without success.

Re-organisation and closure

Walker was forced to liquidate the old company and form a new company with the same name to carry on the same business at the same address. At about this time the old firm of Fox, Walker & Co. was taken over by Thomas Peckett and became Peckett and Sons. In 1905 the Avonside firm left its historic home at St. Philips for a new plant at Fishponds but still with a small engine policy.

The company closed in 1934 and the goodwill and designs of the company were bought by the Hunslet Engine Company.

Locomotive types

During the 1860s and 1870s the Avonside company built broad gauge and standard gauge engines for many British companies, large and small but they also built up a considerable export business. Unfortunately detailed company records from this period have not survived.

Fairlie

Fairlie locomotive James Spooner built for the Ffestiniog Railway in 1872.

This lack of records is particularly unfortunate in that the company was the largest British builder of the Fairlie articulated locomotive. Amongst the first to be built at Bristol was James Spooner built in 1872 for the Ffestiniog Railway. Although built to the same basic design as the remarkably successful Little Wonder built by George England in 1869, it incorporated many detailed improvements and became the prototype for subsequent Ffestiniog Railway engines built in that company's works at Boston Lodge.

In 1872 on the recommendation of Sir Charles Fox and Sons, Avonside built two large 42ton 0-6-6-0 Fairlies for shipment to Canada, one each to the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway and the Toronto and Nipissing Railway. The Avonside Works Manager at the time these locomotives were built was Alfred Sacré, the brother of Charles Sacré Locomotive Engineer of the Manchester Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway. Alfred Sacré trained under Archibald Sturrock at the Doncaster Plant of the Great Northern Railway and in 1872 moved from Avonside to the Yorkshire Engine Company, Sheffield where he built more Fairlie types.

In 1878-1879 on the recommendation of Robert Francis Fairlie Avonside built the R class of 21 0-6-4 single Fairlies for the New Zealand Government Railways. One, a single fairlie R class number 28 (of 1878) survives at Reefton.

Avonside Fairlie Works list.

Avonside issued a double works plate for each double Fairlie, however it is believed that this policy was not always adhered to.

Fell

Earlier in 1875 the company had built four powerful tank engines designed by a Swedish Engineer H.W. Widmark to operate on the Fell mountain railway system on the Rimutaka Incline in the North Island of New Zealand. These and two later engines of very similar design built by Neilson and Company handled the entire traffic for eighty years until the opening of the five mile long base tunnel in 1955. Widmark was an inventive engineer and patented a design of steam operated cylinder cocks which were of great use to Avonside on articulated locomotives since they dispensed with mechanical linkages.

4-6-0 types

Avonside was a very early British builder of the 4-6-0 type of tender locomotive. Ten narrow gauge freight-hauling 4-6-0 locomotives, of weight varying from 20 to 25 tons, were supplied to the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway and the Toronto and Nipissing Railway. These very successful and reliable wood-burning locomotives pre-dated the first significant British domestic railway 4-6-0, the 'Jones Goods', by over 20 years.

0-4-0ST No.1340 at Didcot

Saddle tanks

Between 1880 and 1930 Avonside are best remembered for the construction of 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 saddle tanks for industrial and dock shunting purposes.

Preservation

Avonside Engine Company locomotives preserved in the United Kingdom include

• Cadbury No. 1, an 0-4-0T of 1925. Coke-fired for cleanliness, it worked on the Bournville Works Railway its entire life. Donated by Cadbury plc to the Birmingham Railway Museum in Tyseley in 1976, it is presently stored awaiting restoration on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway at Toddington.
• Bristol Industrial Museum – "Portbury"
• Leighton Buzzard Light Railway
• Rutland Railway Museum
• Railway Preservation Society of Ireland
• Didcot Railway Centre

Avonside Engine Company locomotives preserved in New Zealand include

• R 28 – 1217 of 1878 (single Fairlie) Reefton
• H 199 – 1075 of 1875 (Fell type) The Fell Museum, Featherston
• L 207/507 – 1205 of 1877 Museum of Transport and Technology, Auckland
• L 208/508 – 1206 of 1877 Shantytown, Greymouth
• L 219/509 – 1207 of 1877 Silverstream Railway, Wellington

Avonside Engine Company locomotives preserved in Brazil include

• Avonside #1047 from 1873, metre gauge (3' 3 3/8"), 4-4-0T Usina Amália #3. Operated originally at EFY, then at USY, SRy and EFS, from where it was sold to Usina Amália in Santa Rosa de Viterbo, SP. Today she's operational at LP Assessoria Industrial in Votorantim, SP.
• Avonside #1244 from 1879, metre gauge (3' 3 3/8"), 4-4-0T EFS #23. Operated originally at EFY, then at USY, SRy and EFS, from where it was sold to Usina Santa Lina in Quatá, SP. Today she's operational at Paraguaçu Paulista, SP, railway museum.

References

Sources

• Industrial Locomotive Society, (1967) Steam locomotives in industry, David and Charles
• Lowe, J.W., (1989) British Steam Locomotive Builders, Guild Publishing
• L.T.C. Rolt, A Hunslet Hundred, David & Charles, 1964, (Avonside Engine Company - pages 102-116).
• The Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, Part 2: Broad Gauge. The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society. ISBN 0-90686-790-8. 
• "The Fairlie Locomotive"; Rowland A S Abbott; pub. David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1970.
• "Narrow Gauge Through the Bush - Ontario's Toronto Grey & Bruce and Toronto and Nipissing Railways"; Rod Clarke; pub. Beaumont and Clarke with the Credit Valley Railway Company, Streetsville, Ontario, 2007.

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