SR Lord Nelson class, 851 Sir Francis Drake (CJ Allen, Steel Highway, 1928)

Richard Edward Lloyd Maunsell (pronounced "Mansell") (26 May 1868 – 7 March 1944) held the post of

chief mechanical engineer Chief mechanical engineer and locomotive superintendent are titles applied by British, Australian, and New Zealand railway companies to the person ultimately responsible to the board of the company for the building and maintaining of the locomotive ...

(CME) of the

South Eastern and Chatham Railway The South Eastern and Chatham Railway Companies Joint Management Committee (SE&CRCJMC),Awdry (1990), page 199 known as the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SE&CR), was a working union of two neighbouring rival railways, the South Easter ...

from 1913 until the

1923 Grouping The Railways Act 1921 (c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an Act of Parliament enacted by the British government and intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grouping" them into four la ...

and then the post of CME of the Southern Railway in England until 1937. He had previously worked his way up through positions in other railways in Ireland, England and India.

Biography

He was born on 26 May 1868 at Raheny, County Dublin, in Ireland, the seventh son of John Maunsell, a Justice of the Peace and a prominent solicitor in Dublin. He attended The Royal School, Armagh from 1882 to 1886. He commenced studies at

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

on 23 October 1886 for a law degree; however by this stage he had shown a keen interest in engineering. He concurrently began an apprenticeship at the Inchicore works of the

Great Southern and Western Railway The Great Southern and Western Railway (GS&WR) was an Irish gauge () railway company in Ireland from 1844 until 1924. The GS&WR grew by building lines and making a series of takeovers, until in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was the ...

(GS&WR) under

H. A. Ivatt Henry Alfred Ivatt (16 September 1851, Wentworth, Cambridgeshire – 25 October 1923) was an English railway engineer, and was the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Great Northern Railway from 1896 to 1911. Career London and North Western ...

in 1888. Following completion of his degree in January 1891 he was able to complete his apprenticeship at Horwich Works on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (as

Nigel Gresley Sir Herbert Nigel Gresley (19 June 1876 – 5 April 1941) was a British railway engineer. He was one of Britain's most famous steam locomotive engineers, who rose to become Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the London and North Eastern Rai ...

had done before him). At Horwich, he worked in the drawing office, before occupying the post of locomotive foreman in charge of the

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside resort in Lancashire, England. Located on the North West England, northwest coast of England, it is the main settlement within the Borough of Blackpool, borough also called Blackpool. The town is by the Irish Sea, betw ...

and Fleetwood District. It was at a social evening organised by the L&YR's Aspinall that Maunsell was to meet his future wife, Edith Pearson. He evidently impressed Edith as she was to send him a letter in March 1893 requesting a tour of the grain elevator at Fleetwood Docks. Their correspondence became increasingly familiar and on 1 August 1893 Maunsell wrote to Edith's father requesting permission for an engagement to be married, which was refused on the basis of funding with Edith sent to Paris. Maunsell went to India in 1894, as assistant locomotive superintendent of the East India Railway, He subsequently was appointed district locomotive superintendent of the Asansol District. He returned in 1896 to become works manager at Inchicore on the GS&WR., Robert Coey having been promoted to locomotive superintendent on the departure of Henry Ivatt.

O.S. Nock Oswald Stevens Nock, B. Sc., DIC, C. Eng, M.I.C.E., M.I.Mech.E., M.I.Loco.E., (21 January 1905 – 29 September 1994), nicknamed Ossie, was a British railway signal engineer and senior manager at the Westinghouse company; he is well know ...

comments "with Robert Coey as Locomotive Superintendent and R. E. L. Maunsell as Works Manager at Inchichore the whole department was run with a smoothness to equal anything in the British Isles". The increased salary with a free house finally met the income stipulations of Edith's father and enabled Maunsell to marry Edith on 15 June 1896 in London. Maunsell moved up to become locomotive superintendent in 1911. In 1913, he was selected to succeed Harry Wainwright as CME of the

(SE&CR). When that line was merged in the

1923 grouping The Railways Act 1921 (c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an Act of Parliament enacted by the British government and intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grouping" them into four la ...

, with

Urie Urie may refer to: *River Urie, Scotland *Urie (name), including a list of people with the name *Urie, Wyoming, United States *Urie Lingey, Shetland Islands See also *Uri (disambiguation) *Ury (disambiguation) *Urey (disambiguation) Urey may ref ...

of the London and South Western Railway retiring and with Billinton of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway having less experience, he became chief mechanical engineer of the newly formed Southern Railway. He retired in 1937, Oliver Vaughan Snell Bulleid taking over from him. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the

1918 New Year Honours The 1918 New Year Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were published in ''The London Gazette'' and ''The Times'' in Ja ...

for his efforts during the First World War.

Locomotives

Maunsell's key skill was engineering management rather than locomotive design, and he made use of design teams to create easy-to-maintain locomotives that could operate the required services with effective performance. O. S. Nock in his book ''Irish Steam'' observed Maunsell was known to frequently stress the dictum "make everything get-at-able". He was responsible for several notable locomotive classes and related equipment. From his second spell at the GS&WR he is jointly credited with his predecessor Robert Coey with the one-off express passenger engine

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 ...

No. 341 ''Sir William Goulding''. He is also credited there with the design of the GS&WR Class 257 (J4) of eight locomotives which were generally thought of as quite successful. While these were an incremental development of a series of GS&WR

0-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. This was the most common wheel arrangemen ...

classes of and in particular his predecessor Coey's GS&WR Class 351 (J9) Maunsell's locomotives were the first on the GS&WR to use superheaters and piston valves. With Maunsell departing Inchicore in 1913 the final members of this class were completed under his successor Watson. While at the SE&CR in 1917 the Maunsell team created two related prototype locomotives: one was a

2-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. ...

("mogul") tender freight locomotive, that was to become SE&CR Class N; the other was a

2-6-4T Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, a locomotive has two leading wheels, six coupled driving wheels and four trailing wheels. This arrangement is commonly called Adriatic. Overview With only a few known except ...

SE&CR Class K for express passenger work. These were followed by over 200 succeeding locomotives including classes K, K1, N, N1, U, U1 and W. Further locomotives for other railways came from kits of parts produced at Woolwich Arsenal; these consisted of six kits purchased by the Metropolitan Railway Metropolitan Railway K Class and 26 kits purchased by Irish Railways classes 372 and 393 some of which were constructed at Inchicore, Maunsell's old establishment. A major achievement was the introduction of the 4-6-0 SR Lord Nelson class locomotives and also the 4-4-0

SR V class The SR V class, more commonly known as the ''Schools'' class, is a class of steam locomotive designed by Richard Maunsell for the Southern Railway. The class was a cut down version of his ''Lord Nelson'' class but also incorporated components ...

or Schools Class, which were the ultimate and very successful development of the British 4-4-0 express passenger type. He also introduced pulverised fuel equipment and new types of valve gear.

Patents

* GB191419269 (with George Victor Valen Hutchinson), published 26 November 1914, Improvements relating to steam superheaters * GB192985 (with James Clayton), published 15 February 1923, Improvements in or relating to condensers for lubricators of the condensation type * GB202523 (with James Clayton), published 23 August 1923, A double-feed lubricator

Notes, references and sources

Notes

References

Sources

* * * *

External links

Biographical notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maunsell, Richard Edward Lloyd 1868 births 1944 deaths Mansel family Locomotive builders and designers Irish people in rail transport South Eastern and Chatham Railway people Southern Railway (UK) people Irish railway mechanical engineers Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Commanders of the Order of the British Empire People educated at The Royal School, Armagh Irish expatriates in England Engineers from County Dublin People from Raheny