Primary research by Grahame Hood. Additional documentary research by Chris Jones.

Many thanks to Chris Jones, who has done so much to check documents and establish the facts about the remarkable Mr England, though a fair bit of speculation still has to be done.

Origins and early life

The Dictionary of National Biography gives the birth date of George England as 1811 in Newcastle upon Tyne. The previously accepted account was that by the age of 14 he had moved to London to begin an engineering apprenticeship with John Penn and Sons in Greenwich, noted manufacturers of marine steam engines.

Research has identified a George England, married to a Mary Whinney in 1808, whose son George was born on 8th July 1811. Records show four other children: Eliza (1809), Isabella (1813), Anne (1814) and Mary (1816). In July 1832, a George England appeared in the papers for accidentally killing his wife Mary in Swalwell, in the Whickham district of Newcastle upon Tyne, with their daughter Isabella as a witness. The juxtaposition of these names so close to Newcastle makes it almost certain that this was the family George England was born into, although it cannot be absolutely proved.

Chris Jones has speculated that England may not have served a formal apprenticeship at all. Apprenticeships were expensive, and a strong young man with a basic knowledge of blacksmith work would have found employment easily enough. He could have travelled to London by cargo or passenger ship, which regularly ran cheaply up and down the East Coast.

A relative, Henry England, owned land in Peckham Lane and in Kender Street, South London, and George certainly knew him. It is possible that Henry arranged George's early employment and may have provided accommodation.

First marriage and early career

George England first appears in London records on his marriage to Jane Dafter from Wiltshire, at St Clement Dane's church on 28th July 1834. A court case from January 1838, in which Jane had a shawl stolen, confirms he was then living in the Edgeware Road area. There are hints the marriage was not a success: she had spent Christmas 1837 with friends in Greenwich rather than with her husband.

In 1839, England appears in Pigot's Directory with an address at 27 Gloucester Terrace, Vauxhall Bridge Road, giving his profession as Smith. On 30th April 1839, he appears in the minutes of the London and Southampton Railway as being paid for the supply of tools.

The marriage did not last. He left Jane to live with Sarah Hannar, of the same age, with whom he had three children: Mary, born 1841; Eliza Anne, born 1843; and George Junior, born 1844. When his first wife died, he married Sarah. The 1861 census records her as his wife.

The Hatcham Iron Works

By 1839, England had begun renting a vacant factory building on a piece of land between Pomeroy Street and Kender Street, just off the Old Kent Road, in the then semi-rural district of Hatcham, now better known as New Cross. The premises consisted of a cottage, where the family lived, and a manufactory. They had previously been occupied by Henry Duxbury, who was involved in the leather trade.

England took out Patent No. 8058 on 7th May 1839 for a design of screw jack, and Patent No. 8860 on 2nd March 1841 for a machine for weaving woollens. These inventions made him successful enough to purchase the factory, which he renamed The Hatcham Iron Works. The 1846 edition of the Post Office Directories lists him as: England, George and Co. Engineers and patent screw jack manufacturers, Hatcham Iron Works, Old Kent Road.

He was already interested in railway engineering, having sold tools to the London and Southampton Railway in 1839, and in 1843 had tried out his manumotive railway carriage on the London and Croydon Railway. He began building locomotives, selling his first in 1849. His locomotive Little England was at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and was awarded a gold medal. His locomotives sold in the UK, Europe, India, and Australia.

The factory was extended in 1853, being largely occupied at that time in making castings for the Crystal Palace. A further, larger extension was added to the buildings in Pomeroy Street in 1861/2, this time on the north side of the original works. At the rear of the new works was a piece of land used to lay an oval of standard gauge track for testing locomotives in steam.

By 1861, the factory had expanded twice. In 1858 England built Hatcham Lodge for his family and three servants, and a row of houses in Kender Street called Georgina Terrace, to house his workmen.

Character and reputation

England was known as an autocrat. The railway historian C. Hamilton Ellis wrote of him:

“George England, who was an industrialist and no gentleman... George England was very proud of his little engine (Little England), which was taken to provide the design for his letter headings for several years.”

1. 1. Hamilton Ellis, The North British Railway, Ian Allan, 2nd Edition, 1959, p.50 et seq.

In November 1858, England was charged with unlawfully assaulting and beating his apprentice, George Effingham Pattie. England's defence was that the apprentice had stolen spanners belonging to his son. The magistrate fined him five shillings and costs, adding that the defendant had been rather too free with his correction.

England was a director of the Crystal Palace Company from 1857. A significant fraud by the registrar William Robson, who defrauded the company of £28,000, caused the other nine directors to ask England to resign. He initially refused, stating that his enemies were using his family affairs as an excuse. He eventually resigned, despite a vote of shareholders urging him to stay.

Robert Fairlie and the elopement

By 1861, a frequent visitor to Hatcham Lodge was Robert Francis Fairlie, an engineer born in Glasgow in 1831. Fairlie had returned to London and was working as a consultant engineer. Though much of the talk between England and Fairlie was of engineering matters, Robert paid considerable attention to Miss Eliza Anne England, known as Lizzie. At 17, George thought Lizzie too young to be courted seriously and asked Fairlie to wait.

In January 1862, Lizzie and her sister went to the Crystal Palace for the day. Only Mary returned. By the time George and Sarah discovered what had happened, the couple had eloped, having gained a marriage licence after Fairlie signed an affidavit claiming to have her father's permission. They were already on the Boat Train. When the couple returned from their honeymoon in Spain, George took Fairlie to court for perjury.

The resulting case at the Central Criminal Court, reported in The Times of 8th April 1862, caused much public interest. Under cross-examination, England was forced to admit that he had run away with his present wife Sarah Hannar, the mother of Eliza, while his first wife was still living. By a quirk of English law at the time, a child born out of wedlock was considered nobody's child: Eliza had no legal relationship to England and could marry whom she pleased. There was no case to answer and a verdict of not guilty was returned. The families were eventually reconciled, possibly when the first grandchild appeared, and Fairlie gradually became involved in England's work.

The 1865 strike and its aftermath

Around 26th January 1865, George England's workforce went on strike. The strike lasted five weeks and proved devastating for the company. England lost a significant order from the South Eastern Railway, losing much of his skilled workforce to other employers. His capable manager, Cleminson, also departed. For a full account of the strike, see the separate archive article The 1865 Strike.

Later years and death

England retired in 1869. The company was taken over by his son, George England Junior, and Francis Fairlie, trading as The Fairlie Engine and Steam Carriage Company. This new company was not successful and when George Junior died in 1870, Fairlie closed the works.

George England Senior died in Cannes, France, in 1878.

Hamilton Ellis: a contemporary assessment

The railway historian C. Hamilton Ellis offered the following characterisation, noting that the company's difficulties arose principally from the 1865 strike:

“The firm fell on evil days in the sixties, chiefly through an engineering strike which cost it some important contracts, and led to its winding up. Sir William Hardman recorded some pungent incidental scandals; that England was much involved with the Crystal Palace, made enemies in connection therewith, and was attacked on moral grounds because he prosecuted for perjury the interesting Mr Fairlie, who had eloped with an illegitimate daughter of his. Fairlie was acquitted and England's swan-song seems to have been building the Fairlie patent locomotive Little Wonder for the Festiniog Railway. A quaint business, truly!”

1. 1. Hamilton Ellis, The North British Railway, Ian Allan, 2nd Edition, 1959, p.50 et seq.

Primary research by Grahame Hood.

Robert Francis Fairlie was born in March 1831, of an engineering family.

Training and early career

“Crewe and Swindon gave him his training as a locomotive engineer, to such effect that he was appointed at 22 to superintend and manage the Londonderry and Coleraine Railway, though he went shortly afterwards to India to the Bombay and Baroda Railway. Later (in 1859) he became established as a consulting engineer at 56 Gracechurch Street, London EC.”

1. 1. Seymour, The Year of the Fairlie, Railway Magazine, September 1969, p.490 onwards.

The Fairlie patent

It was during this period that the idea for his patent germinated. Patent No. 1210, for improvements in locomotive engines and boilers, was granted on 12th May 1864. It covered the attainment of high tractive effort for low axle-loading, with flexibility of wheel-base. The adoption of total adhesion was to increase the grip on the rails. The boiler was to be mounted on the centres of two frames resting on the bogies.

A less well-known aspect of the patent was the provision of a second or even third layer of tubes in the boiler, reversing the gas flow to provide extra heating and drying of the steam before it passed to the cylinders.

In the same year Fairlie published a pamphlet, Locomotive Engines: What They Are and What They Ought to Be, in which he expounded, by means of a dialogue between an engineer and a writer, the current shortcomings of conventional steam engines. These included the wasteful need to carry a tender for fuel and water, the inadequacy of conventional tank engines for long runs, and the lack of standardisation. He then showed how his patent locomotive would overcome all these objections through superior steam generating, the all-adhesion principle, the ability to traverse sharp curves with reduced friction, and the abolition of turntables.

It has been said that Fairlie's idea was not original, since one of the competitors in the Semmering trials of 1851 was the Seraing, by the Belgian firm of Cockerill, which had all the features of the developed Fairlie locomotive. But the Seraing did not initiate a trend, whereas Fairlie developed his patent into engines built and sold all over the world.

A second patent, No. 3185 of 9th December 1865, proposed a modified engine with the fuel and water carried on the same chassis as the boiler and cab, but with only one boiler.

1. 1. Seymour, The Year of the Fairlie, Railway Magazine, September 1969, p.490 onwards.

At Hatcham and the elopement

By 1861, Fairlie was a frequent visitor to Hatcham Lodge. In January 1862 he eloped with George England's daughter Eliza Anne, having signed an affidavit claiming he had her father's permission to marry. England sued Fairlie for perjury. The case at the Central Criminal Court was widely reported: England was forced to admit under cross-examination that Eliza had been born out of wedlock and had no legal relationship to him. There was no case to answer and a not guilty verdict was returned. The families were eventually reconciled and Fairlie became involved in England's work. For the full account, see the archive article on George England.

Little Wonder and the Festiniog Railway

In 1868, the narrow gauge Festiniog Railway decided to trial the Fairlie design. England built the locomotive Little Wonder (Works No. not recorded), an 0-4-4-0T with outside cylinders of 8.25 by 13 inches and driving wheels of 2 feet 4 inches on 1 foot 11.5 inch gauge. This was a great success and was demonstrated to engineers from all over the world.

The Fairlie Engine and Steam Carriage Company

With George England Junior, Fairlie took over Hatcham as The Fairlie Engine and Steam Carriage Company, to build locomotives to his design and his patent steam carriage. George Junior's early death, and a lack of orders, led Fairlie to close the works. Apart from the steam carriage and Little Wonder, only four locomotives were produced under the new company name. Hatcham was sold in 1872.

Fairlie then formed The Fairlie Engine and Rolling Stock Company, to work as a consulting engineer and grant licences for locomotives to be built under his patent by other makers. More than 330 patent locomotives were built and exported to 21 countries in every continent with railways.

In 1873 Fairlie went to Venezuela to survey a new line. He contracted sunstroke, a fever, and blood poisoning there and never fully recovered, though he continued to work, travel, and carry out his business.

Robert Francis Fairlie died on 31st July 1885. He was 54 years old.

Fairlie's grave: West Norwood Cemetery

Field visit by Grahame Hood, 8th July 2014.

Robert Fairlie is buried in West Norwood Cemetery. The grave is number 20788, in square 22, a little back from the path.

The register in the cemetery office shows that the plot cost £26 5s and contains:

Robert Francis Fairlie (buried 1885)

John Simpson Fraser (1891)

Mary Fraser (1906)

Elizabeth A. Fairlie (1907)

The gravestone is nearly six feet tall and bears the following inscriptions:

“Robert Francis Fairlie. Who died July 31st 1885. Aged 54 years.”

“Also of Lily his wife. Who died April 15th 1907. Aged 63 years.”

“John Simpson Fraser. Brother-in-law to the above. Died July 18th 1891. Aged 69 years.”

“And of Mary, his wife. Who died May 11th 1906. Aged 84 years.”

John Fraser was Fairlie's partner in the takeover of Hatcham along with George England Junior. Fraser was born 1822, as was Mary his wife. Mary was presumably Fairlie's older sister.

Primary research by Grahame Hood.

By the time the 1861 census took place, both Hatcham Lodge and Georgina Terrace had been in use for three years. The page transcribed here shows the inhabitants of Hatcham Lodge and Nos. 75-78 Georgina Terrace. They are handwritten and sometimes difficult to decipher.

74 Kender Street: Hatcham Lodge

George England is head of the family, Married, 49 years old, Engineer and Proprietor of Factory, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland.

Sarah England is his wife, 49 years old, born in Lowestoft, Suffolk.

They have three unmarried children: Mary, 19; Eliza Ann, 17; and George, 16. George is listed as Scholar, though in fact he had been apprenticed to his father's firm since at least 1858. All children are recorded as born in Hatcham, Surrey.

There are three servants, all unmarried: Emma King, Cook (Domestic), 35, born in Stroud, Gloucestershire; Sarah Hubford, Housemaid, 24, born in Bermondsey, London; and John Blewsell (?), Man Servant, 24, place of birth illegible.

75 Kender Street: 1 Georgina Terrace

Occupied by George Andrews, a market gardener, his wife and five children. One child, a boy of 12, is listed as a Telegraph Messenger.

76 Kender Street: 2 Georgina Terrace

Occupied by Charles Moore, a coppersmith originally from Wakefield, Yorkshire, his wife, and two children. The son John is 17 and an apprentice coppersmith; the daughter Elizabeth Ann, also 17, is described as an apprentice dress maker (?).

77 Kender Street: 3 Georgina Terrace

The home of George Osborn, a boot maker, his wife, and son.

78 Kender Street

Occupied by Joseph Pugett and his wife Jane, aged 66 and 73 respectively. He is listed as Labourer in Engine Factory.

Commentary

Though England is supposed to have built the houses in Georgina Terrace for the benefit of his workers, they do not always seem to have been occupied by men in his employ. Of the four households recorded here, only Joseph Pugett at No. 78 is clearly employed at the works.

Primary research by Grahame Hood. Documentary research by C.H. Dickon, SLS Journal, 1961.

 

Of all the sites to choose for a locomotive works, Pomeroy Street, London SE, seems to be one of the most unlikely.

“Although there was (and still is) a railway about half a mile to the east, and another about a quarter of a mile to the west, there was no physical connection between the works and the line, and all locomotives built at Hatcham Iron Works had to be carted by road, most probably to Bricklayers Arms, although New Cross cannot be entirely ruled out. A partial explanation of this not unique state of affairs in the nineteenth century can be found in the fact that England started out in general engineering and only built locomotives later on.”

       C.H. Dickon, SLS Journal, 1961, p.138.

Establishing the site

The late E.L. Ahrons, in his article on George England published in The Engineer of 15th July 1921, stated that the works started about 1843. This has since been revised by documentary evidence. Mr Craven found, in the minutes of the London and Southampton Railway dated 30th April 1839, an entry for a payment to George England for tools. England also took out Patent No. 8058 on 7th May 1839 for a screw jack, and Patent No. 8860 on 2nd March 1841 for a woollen weaving machine.

The Post Office Directories of the period make no reference to England until the 1846 edition, which reads: England, George and Co. Engineers and patent screw jack manufacturers, Hatcham Inn (sic) Works, Old Kent Road. A search of the rate books conducted by the Town Clerk of Deptford shows that George first paid rates on the property in July 1840.

The name Geo England is scribbled in pencil against premises that had been empty for about a year. The property, listed as a House and Manufactory belonging to Henry Duxford, had been occupied by a William Morgan for at least six years.

Henry Duxbury had been in the leather trade. The Post Office Directory of 1823 shows him as a water-proof leather-dresser and leather-hat maker. By 1832, his entry reads: Duxbury, H., Patentee for Splitting Hides and Skins, Pomeroy, Old Kent Street.

Expansion and the test track

In 1853, the factory was extended, being largely occupied at that time in making castings for the Crystal Palace. In 1861/2 a further, larger extension was added on the north side of the original works in Pomeroy Street. At the rear of the new works was a piece of land nicknamed the cabbage patch, on which was laid an oval of standard gauge track, like a large toy train set. There was a rail connection into the main building and the circle was used to test locomotives in steam.

Moving locomotives to the railhead

One noteworthy aspect of the Hatcham site was that it had no direct access to the main railway system. All finished engines had to be taken by road to the nearest railhead. A. R. Rosling described the method used:

“The transport was managed by means of a heavy lorry mounted on four strong wheels, with very broad tread. Rails were laid on the lorry, and an inclined plane with rails upon it secured to the back so as to make a connection with rails upon the ground. The engine to be taken away was hauled onto the wagon by means of eight horses pulling on the fall of a block and tackle.”

A.R. Rosling, Locomotive Building in London, The Railway Magazine, November 1907.

At New Cross there once existed a siding to the west of the shed but at a lower level, which terminated without permanent buffer stops at the end of Five Bells Lane (later Hatcham Park Road). It was to this siding that some of the locomotives built by George England were brought from his Hatcham Iron Works in Pomeroy Street, to start the journey to their purchaser.

Working conditions for apprentices

“The conditions of employment for apprentices was quoted: they were articled to the firm for seven years, the first three without pay, boys receiving however, one shilling per week for good conduct.”

      The Kentish Mercury, 8th November 1858, quoted by C.H. Rickon.

After George England

Following the effects of the 1865 strike, the works were taken over by The Fairlie Engine and Steam Carriage Company. This did not thrive and the works were sold in 1872.

The 1853 building was occupied by the General Engine and Boiler Company from 1873. In the mid-1930s they became Reliance Foundry, who remained until 1981, after which the building was demolished.

The original part of the factory housed the Delta Metal Company, who were succeeded by the Pomeroy Paper Mills and then an automotive engineering shop. The 1862 portion was bought in 1877 by J.C. Eno, of Fruit Salts fame, though they left due to bombing in 1940. After the war the building was used by the pharmaceutical firm of Robert Blackie and Company until 1969, after which it was pulled down to make space for housing.