Gilkes Wilson and Company was a British
locomotive
A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...
manufacturer at Teesside Engine Works in
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area.
Until the early 1800s, the a ...
which opened in 1843. Initially repairing locomotives, the company built its first engines in 1847.
History
Gilkes and Wilson was formed as a partnership between Quakers Isaac Wilson and Edgar Gilkes.
In 1865 the company merged with Hopkins and Company (establishers of the Tees Side Iron Works, 1857) to become Hopkins Gilkes and Company.
The firm undertook design, construction and manufacture of the ironwork for the
Deepdale viaduct (b.1857-1860) on the
Stainmore Railway Company
Stainmore Railway Company is a volunteer-run, non-profit preservation company formed in 2000 with the aim of restoring Kirkby Stephen East railway station in Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria, England. In 1997 a company called Stainmore Properties Ltd ...
to a design of
Thomas Bouch
Sir Thomas Bouch (; 25 February 1822 – 30 October 1880) was a British railway engineer. He was born in Thursby, near Carlisle, Cumberland, and lived in Edinburgh. As manager of the Edinburgh and Northern Railway he introduced the first roll-o ...
and
Robert Henry Bow
Robert Henry Bow FRSE (1827–1909) was a Scottish civil engineer and photographer.
Life
He was born in Alnwick on 27 January 1827.
Bow worked with Edward Sang and Thomas Bouch, and his textbooks ''Economics of Construction in Relation to Fram ...
.
In 1875, the name changed again to the Tees-side Iron and Engine Works Company Limited, having built 351 locomotives in total.
Subsequently the firm worked with Bouch on the
Tay Bridge
The Tay Bridge ( gd, Drochaid-rèile na Tatha) carries the railway across the Firth of Tay in Scotland between Dundee and the suburb of Wormit in Fife. Its span is . It is the second bridge to occupy the site.
Plans for a bridge over the Tay ...
, and had their reputation very badly damaged as a result of the
Tay Bridge Disaster
The Tay Bridge disaster occurred during a violent storm on Sunday 28 December 1879, when the first Tay Rail Bridge collapsed as a North British Railway (NBR) passenger train on the Edinburgh to Aberdeen Line from Burntisland bound for its fina ...
. The 1870s
Long Depression
The Long Depression was a worldwide price and economic recession, beginning in 1873 and running either through March 1879, or 1896, depending on the metrics used. It was most severe in Europe and the United States, which had been experiencing st ...
forced several Cleveland iron firms out of business including Hopkin Gilkes.
The company closed in 1880.
Customers
Edgar Gilkes had worked for the
Stockton and Darlington Railway
The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Darl ...
and large numbers were built for the line and the
North Eastern Railway. Other customers were:
*
York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway
The York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway (YN&BR) was an English railway company formed in 1847 by the amalgamation of the York and Newcastle Railway and the Newcastle and Berwick Railway. Both companies were part of the group of business interest ...
*
Leeds and Thirsk Railway
The Leeds Northern Railway (LNR), originally the Leeds and Thirsk Railway, was an English railway company that built and opened a line from Leeds to Stockton via Harrogate and Thirsk. In 1845 the Leeds and Thirsk Railway received permission for ...
*
Newmarket and Great Chesterford Railway
The Newmarket and Chesterford Railway Company was an early railway company that built the first rail connection to Newmarket. Although only around long the line ran through three counties, the termini being in Essex (Great Chesterford) and Suf ...
*
Llanelly Railway
The Llanelly Railway and Dock Company was an early Welsh railway system. It opened its first short line and a wet dock at Llanelly in 1834, and soon went on to build a longer line from Llanelly to serve pits in the Amman Valley, and then on to Lla ...
*
Liskeard and Caradon Railway
The Liskeard and Caradon Railway was a mineral railway in Cornwall, in the United Kingdom, which opened in 1844. It was built to carry the ores of copper and tin, and also granite, from their sources on Caradon Hill down to Moorswater for onwar ...
.
References
Sources
*
Further reading
*{{citation, title = The History and Locomotives of the Tees Engine Works. The Gilkes, Wilson & Hopkins Partnerships, first = Fred W., last = Harman, year = 1999, isbn = 0953531341
External links
Tay Bridge, Dundee
Locomotive manufacturers of the United Kingdom
Companies based in Middlesbrough
Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1843
Defunct companies based in Yorkshire
1843 establishments in England
British companies established in 1843