R and W Hawthorn Ltd was a

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 in

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, from 1817 until 1885.

Locomotive building

Robert Hawthorn first began business at Forth Bank Works in 1817, building marine and stationary steam engines. In 1820, his brother William joined him and the firm became R and W Hawthorn. Possibly after having attended the Rainhill Trials in 1829, they became interested in locomotives, and sold their first engine in 1831. Printed and online sources claim this to be ''Mödling'' for the Vienna Gloggnitz railway. That is wrong, that locomotive was delivered in 1841. The 1831 order was placed by 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 ...

. There followed a number of orders for the

. They were great innovators - not always successfully - and their locos had many original features. In 1838 two were built for the

broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union (CIS ...

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 ...

to the patent of T. E. Harrison, who later became the chief engineer for the North Eastern Railway. These could be viewed as the forerunners of the

Garratt A Garratt (often referred to as a Beyer Garratt) is a type of steam locomotive invented by British engineer Herbert William Garratt that is articulated into three parts. Its boiler, firebox, and cab are mounted on a centre frame or "bridge ...

, with the boiler carried on a separate carriage to the cylinders and valvegear. This allowed the boiler to be large and low down, being carried on smaller wheels, while the driving wheels could be up to in diameter. With little weight on the drivers, adhesion was poor, but they ran very smoothly up to . However, the flexible steam coupling gave a great deal of trouble and they were withdrawn. They continued to build more conventional engines, possibly under sub-contract, among them, three for the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway. In 1850 the company built their first

tank locomotive A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of a more traditional tender. Most tank engines also have bunkers (or fuel tanks) to hold fuel; in a tender-tank locom ...

which was supplied to the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway In the 1850s, they also built six

4-4-0 4-4-0 is a locomotive type with a classification that uses the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement and represents the arrangement: four leading wheels on two axles (usually in a leading bogie), four po ...

ST,

Crampton locomotive A Crampton locomotive is a type of steam locomotive designed by Thomas Russell Crampton and built by various firms from 1846. The main British builders were Tulk and Ley and Robert Stephenson and Company. Notable features were a low boiler and l ...

s of the Sondes class for the East Kent Railway. Also, in the quest for a low centre of gravity, four

0-4-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents one of the simplest possible types, that with two axles and four coupled wheels, all of which are driven. The wheels on the earliest four-coupled locomotives were ...

s with the drivers spaced at apart connected to the cylinders by a dummy crankshaft. These were soon withdrawn, and the Cramptons rebuilt into traditional

2-4-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles and no trailing wheels. The notation 2-4-0T indi ...

tanks.

In 1860 eight tender locomotives with a 0-4-2 wheel arrangement, the first tender locomotives to work in South Africa, were built for the

Cape Town Railway and Dock Company The Cape Town Railway & Dock 0-4-2 of 1860 was a South African steam locomotive from the pre-Union era in the Cape of Good Hope. In 1860, the Cape Town Railway and Dock Company took delivery of eight broad gauge tender locomotives with a 0-4 ...

.Espitalier, T.J.; Day, W.A.J. (1943). ''The Locomotive in South Africa - A Brief History of Railway Development. Chapter I - The Period of the 4 ft. 8½ in. Gauge''. South African Railways and Harbours Magazine, June 1943. pp. 437-440. In 1870 they built St. Peter's Works adjoining that of

Robert Stephenson and Company Robert Stephenson and Company was a locomotive manufacturing company founded in 1823 in Forth Street, Newcastle upon Tyne in England. It was the first company in the world created specifically to build railway engines. Famous early locomotiv ...

and in 1880 amalgamated with the shipbuilder

A. Leslie and Company Andrew Leslie & Co, Hebburn was a shipbuilding company that was started in 1853 on an 8-acre site at Hebburn Quay, Newcastle upon Tyne. The company later merged with the locomotive manufacturer R and W Hawthorn to create Hawthorn Leslie and Com ...

, to become Hawthorn Leslie and Company.

Hawthorns and Company, Leith

In 1846 they bought the Leith Engine Works, in

Leith Leith (; gd, Lìte) is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by '' Time Out'' as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world. The earliest ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, for the assembly of locomotives prepared in Newcastle. These works were sold to another company also called ''Hawthorns and Company'', which produced some four hundred locomotives on its own account until 1872. 0-4-2 Hawthorne Leslie Blackie

In 1859 Hawthorns, Leith, built an 0-4-0T locomotive for Messrs E. & J. Pickering, contractors for the construction of the Cape Town-Wellington Railway in the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when i ...

. This locomotive was the first steam locomotive to run in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. In 1861 the Cape Town-Wellington Railway Company took over all construction, and the locomotive, from Pickerings and the locomotive became the Cape Town-Wellington Railway's no 9, later to become known as "Blackie". It was subsequently rebuilt to a configuration. In 1936 it was proclaimed a national monument and has since been plinthed in the concourse at

Cape Town station Cape Town railway station is the main railway station of the city of Cape Town, South Africa. It is located along Adderley and Strand Streets in the city's central business district. Lines Metrorail lines Cape Town station is the hub of the ...

. In 1861 Hawthorns supplied an 0-4-0WT locomotive, works number 244, to the Howe Bridge Colliery in Lancashire. Named ''Ellesmere'', it continued in use at the colliery until 1957, when it was the oldest working steam engine in Britain. It is now preserved in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Notes and references

{{Reflist, 30em *Bradley, D.L. (1979) ''The locomotive history of the London Chatham and Dover Railway,'' Railway Correspondence and Travel Society. * Lowe, J.W., (1989) ''British Steam Locomotive Builders,'' Guild Publishing. * Clarke, J.F., (1977) ''Power on Land & Sea - a history of R & W Hawthorn Leslie,'' Hawthorn Leslie (Engineers) Ltd.

Hawthorn Hawthorn or Hawthorns may refer to: Plants * '' Crataegus'' (hawthorn), a large genus of shrubs and trees in the family Rosaceae * ''Rhaphiolepis'' (hawthorn), a genus of about 15 species of evergreen shrubs and small trees in the family Rosace ...

Manufacturing companies based in Newcastle upon Tyne Engineering companies of Scotland