Fenton, Murray and Jackson was an engineering company at the

Round Foundry The Round Foundry is a former engineering works off Water Lane in Holbeck, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Founded in the late 18th century, the building was developed into the Round Foundry Media Centre in 2005. History The Round Foundry was ...

off Water Lane in Holbeck,

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

, England.

Fenton, Murray and Wood

Fenton Murray and Wood was founded in the 1790s by ironfounder

Matthew Murray Matthew Murray (1765 – 20 February 1826) was an English steam engine and machine tool manufacturer, who designed and built the first commercially viable steam locomotive, the twin cylinder ''Salamanca'' in 1812. He was an innovative design ...

and textile machine engineer David Wood to build machine tools (mainly for the

textile industry The textile industry is primarily concerned with the design, production and distribution of yarn, cloth and clothing. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry. Industry process Cotton manufacturi ...

) and

stationary steam engine Stationary steam engines are fixed steam engines used for pumping or driving mills and factories, and for power generation. They are distinct from locomotive engines used on railways, traction engines for heavy steam haulage on roads, steam cars ...

s. The company was capitalised by

colliery Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

owner

James Fenton James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

(1754–1834) as the main financier, and

millwright A millwright is a craftsperson or skilled tradesperson who installs, dismantles, maintains, repairs, reassembles, and moves machinery in factories, power plants, and construction sites. The term ''millwright'' (also known as ''industrial mecha ...

William Lister, a

sleeping partner A partnership is an arrangement where parties, known as business partners, agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments o ...

. The partnership was approached to design a locomotive that would exploit the rack-and-pinion patent granted to Blenkinsop in 1811. Their 1812 product, ''Salamanca'' was successful, and a total of six engines were built before Murray's death in 1826.

Fenton, Murray and Jackson

After Wood's death in 1820, the company became Fenton, Murray and Jackson. In 1824 the company supplied a 60 hp beam engine to the commissioners of

Deeping Fen Deeping Fen is a low-lying area in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire, England, which covers approximately . It is bounded by the River Welland and the River Glen, and is extensively drained, but the efficient drainage of the land exerc ...

as one of two erected at

Pode Hole __NOTOC__ Pode Hole is a small village to the west of the centre of Spalding, Lincolnshire, England. The village lies at the confluence of several drainage channels, where two pumping stations discharge water into Vernatt's Drain from land in ...

. The other engine was supplied by the

Butterley Company The Butterley Company was an English manufacturing firm founded as Benjamin Outram and Company in 1790. Its subsidiaries existed until 2009. Origins This area of Derbyshire had been known for its outcrops of iron ore which had been exploited ...

as were the scoop wheels for both. Although the Butterley engine was purchased outright (for £3,300), it appears that the Fenton and Murray engine was not. The accounts for 1825 showed a payment of only £127/6/- for the Fenton engine. It was not uncommon for beam engines to be leased, purchased 'on terms', or paid for in other novel ways such as a share of the earnings. The engine was named ''

Kesteven The Parts of Kesteven ( or ) are a traditional division of Lincolnshire, England. This division had long had a separate county administration (quarter sessions), along with the two other Parts of Lincolnshire, Lindsey and Holland. Etymology Th ...

'' and worked until 1925. From 1831, work began building engines to

Robert Stephenson Robert Stephenson Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS HFRSE FRSA Doctor of Civil Law, DCL (16 October 1803 – 12 October 1859) was an English civil engineer and designer of locomotives. The only son of George Stephenson, the "Father of Railway ...

's designs, both 2-2-0 "

Planets A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a young ...

" and 2-2-2 "Patentees", many of them under subcontract. Many were exported, and twenty of

Daniel Gooch Sir Daniel Gooch, 1st Baronet (24 August 1816 – 15 October 1889) was an English railway locomotive and transatlantic cable engineer. He was the first Superintendent of Locomotive Engines on the Great Western Railway from 1837 to 1864 and ...

's ''Firefly'' class for the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

. By 1840, they were turning out up to twenty engines a year. The company's name appears on cast iron bollards still in situ at Victoria Lock (built 1843) on the

River Shannon The River Shannon ( ga, Abhainn na Sionainne, ', '), at in length, is the longest river in the British Isles. It drains the Shannon River Basin, which has an area of , – approximately one fifth of the area of the island of Ireland. The Shan ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

as Fenton, Murray and Jackson Engineers of Leeds. However, by 1843, the boom was over and the company closed down.

References

* Lowe, J.W., (1989) ''British Steam Locomotive Builders,'' Guild Publishing * G. Cookson, 'Early Textile Engineers in Leeds 1780–1850' ''Publications of Thoresby Society'' n.s. 4 (1994), 40–61.

External links

Hunslet Engine Archive
''Prince Regent'' engine (Fenton Murray and Wood, 1812) {{Authority control Engineering companies of England Engineering companies of the United Kingdom Locomotive manufacturers of the United Kingdom Beam engines Industrial Revolution History of the steam engine Steam engine manufacturers Machine tool builders