Gilkes Wilson and Company was a British locomotive 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 ...

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 final ...

. 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 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 *

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.

References

Sources

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

History

Customers

References

Sources

Further reading

External links