Richard Christopher Mansell (October 1813 in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...
– 25 May 1904 in
Long Marton
Long Marton is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Eden, Cumbria, Eden District of the English county of Cumbria. In 2011 the population was 827.
The village previously had a railway station called Long Marton railway s ...
, Westmorland) was an English railway engineer.
Mansell was carriage superintendent for the
South Eastern Railway at
Ashford Ashford may refer to:
Places
Australia
*Ashford, New South Wales
*Ashford, South Australia
*Electoral district of Ashford, South Australia
Ireland
*Ashford, County Wicklow
*Ashford Castle, County Galway
United Kingdom
*Ashford, Kent, a town
**B ...
by 1851, and later works manager for the SER. In 1877 he succeeded
Alfred Mellor Watkin as locomotive superintendent of the SER. When
James Stirling was appointed in 1878, Mansell resumed the post of works manager until his retirement from the SER in January 1882. On leaving, he was given an annual consultancy fee/pension of fifty guineas.
Carriages
R. C. Mansell was the inventor of the
Mansell wheel
The Mansell Wheel is a railway wheel patented by Richard Mansell, the Carriage and Wagon superintendent of the South Eastern Railway in the UK. The design was created in the 1840s and was eventually widely used on passenger railway stock in the ...
, a composite wood and metal carriage wheel, for which he obtained patents in 1848, 1862 and 1866.
Use of this design in preference to other methods of affixing tyres to wheels was often indicated following tyre and/or wheel incidents resulting in accidents by investigating officers of the Board of Trade, most notably following the accidents at Hatfield on the Great Northern Railway on Boxing Day (26 Dec) 1870 and Skipton-on-Cherwell on the Great Western Railway on Christmas Eve 1874.
By 1874 there were over 20000 sets of Mansell wheels in use.
Locomotives
As locomotive superintendent, Mansell was responsible for the design of a dozen locomotives: 9 x
0-4-4T 878and 3 x 0-6-0
ompleted 1879, 7 others cancelled Three
0-6-0Ts that had been designed by
Cudworth were also completed under Mansell's supervision in 1877. None of his engines had a distinguished service life. The tanks lasted about 12 years and the 0-6-0s about twice that.
Family
Richard Christopher Mansell was the second of five children born to John Mansell, a Customs House Officer in Liverpool, and his wife Margaret Rothwell. Richard married twice.
He married his first wife, Elizabeth Birchall Norris, 1816 Liverpool - March 1873
Ashford, Kent
Ashford is a town in the county of Kent, England. It lies on the River Great Stour at the southern or scarp edge of the North Downs, about southeast of central London and northwest of Folkestone by road. In the 2011 census, it had a populati ...
(died aged 56) at
Edge Hill, Liverpool
Edge Hill is a district of Liverpool, England, south east of the city centre, bordered by Kensington, Wavertree and Toxteth.
Edge Hill University was founded here, but moved to Ormskirk in the 1930s.
History
The area was first developed in t ...
St Mary in 1836. They had three children: Margaret, James Thomas and James Rothwell.
He married his second wife, Emmeline Aldgate Clark, 29 August 1833,
St. Pancras, London - 29 August 1912, Long Marton, Westmorland at Camden Haverstock Hill Holy Trinity on 14 April 1874. They had two children: Albert and Emmeline.
See also
*
Locomotives of the Southern Railway
References
*
*
* UK Census Returns
* Records of the Registrar for Births, Deaths & Marriages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mansell, Richard
1814 births
1904 deaths
Locomotive builders and designers
English railway mechanical engineers
Engineers from Liverpool
South Eastern and Chatham Railway people