Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company, originally called The Bridgewater Foundry, specialised in the production of heavy machine tools and

locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the 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, railcar or power car; the ...

s. It was located in Patricroft, in

Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...

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 ...

, close to the

Liverpool and Manchester Railway The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) was the first inter-city railway in the world. It opened on 15 September 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in England. It was also the first railway to rely exclusively ...

, the

Bridgewater Canal The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was opened in 1761 from Wo ...

and the

Manchester Ship Canal The Manchester Ship Canal is a inland waterway in the North West of England linking Manchester to the Irish Sea. Starting at the Mersey Estuary at Eastham, near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, it generally follows the original routes of the ri ...

. The company was founded in 1836 and dissolved in 1940.

Nasmyth

The company was founded in 1836 by

James Nasmyth James Hall Nasmyth (sometimes spelled Naesmyth, Nasmith, or Nesmyth) (19 August 1808 – 7 May 1890) was a Scottish engineer, philosopher, artist and inventor famous for his development of the steam hammer. He was the co-founder of Nasmyth, ...

and

Holbrook Gaskell Holbrook Gaskell (5 March 1813 – 8 March 1909) was a British industrialist, and an art and plant collector. Early life Gaskell was born in Wavertree, Liverpool. He was the eldest son of Roger Gaskell, a sailcloth manufacturer, from his mar ...

. Nasmyth had previously been employed in

Henry Maudslay Henry Maudslay ( pronunciation and spelling) (22 August 1771 – 14 February 1831) was an English machine tool innovator, tool and die maker, and inventor. He is considered a founding father of machine tool technology. His inventions were ...

's workshop in

Lambeth Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth, historically in the County of Surrey. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area e ...

and his interest was mainly, but not limited to, specialist

machine tools A machine tool is a machine for handling or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, boring, grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformations. Machine tools employ some sort of tool that does the cutting or shaping. Al ...

Modern materials handling

The Bridgewater Foundry is an example of modern materials handling that was part of the evolution of the

assembly line An assembly line is a manufacturing process (often called a ''progressive assembly'') in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation where the parts are added in se ...

. The buildings were arranged in a line with a railway for carrying the work going through the buildings. Cranes were used for lifting the heavy work, which sometimes weighed in the tens of tons. The work passed sequentially through to the erection of the framework and final assembly.

Locomotives

The company produced nine locomotives in 1839, thirteen in 1840, eight in 1841 and sixteen in 1842. These were sub-contracted from other makers such as Edward Bury, and produced to their designs. Those for the Midland Counties and London and Southampton Railways were

2-2-0 Under Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-2-0 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, two powered driving wheels on one axle, and no trailing wheels. This configuration, which became ...

with driving wheels and cylinders, similar to those railway's Bury machines. (One Midland Counties locomotive was

2-2-2 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-2-2 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, two powered driving wheels on one axle, and two trailing wheels on one axle. The wheel arrangemen ...

, and had smaller drivers, with and cylinders.) In 1841 the

Birmingham and Gloucester Railway The Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (B&GR) was the first name of the railway linking the cities in its name and of the company which pioneered and developed it; the line opened in stages in 1840, using a terminus at Camp Hill in Birmingham. It ...

had found some American Norris

4-2-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, two powered driving wheels on one axle and no trailing wheels. This type of locomotive is often called ...

locomotives very successful, especially on the notorious

Lickey Incline The Lickey Incline, south of Birmingham, is the steepest sustained main-line railway incline in Great Britain. The climb is a gradient of 1 in 37.7 (2.65% or 26.5‰ or 1.52°) for a continuous distance of two miles (3.2 km). Constructed ...

, and the company built six similar ones for the line.

Expansion

In 1850 the name of the firm was changed to James Nasmyth and Company, then in 1857 to Patricroft Ironworks. In 1867 Robert Wilson and Henry Garnett became the principal partners and the company's name changed again to Nasmyth, Wilson and Company. From about 1873 the demand for locomotives from overseas increased. By 1938 over locomotives had been produced, over one thousand of which were exported. In 1883, Nasmyth Wilson and Co. produced the very first design of Prairie or

2-6-2 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels, six coupled driving wheels and two trailing wheels. This arrangement is commonly called a Prairie. Overview The ...

locomotives in the world, for the

New Zealand Railways Department The New Zealand Railways Department, NZR or NZGR (New Zealand Government Railways) and often known as the "Railways", was a government department charged with owning and maintaining New Zealand's railway infrastructure and operating the railway ...

. These locomotives entered traffic between 1885 and 1890 after a somewhat rough start. several were dumped in rivers as flood protection in the 1920s, and have since been exhumed for preservation.

Decline and closure

During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

the factory was mainly engaged in munitions work, but it built twenty

2-8-0 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, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles, and no trailing wh ...

locomotives for the

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

Chemin de fer de l'État Chemin or Le Chemin may refer to: Arts and media * ''Le chemin'' (Emmanuel Moire album), 2013 album by French singer Emmanuel Moire * ''Le chemin'' (Kyo album), 2003 album by French band Kyo ** "Le Chemin" (song), title song from same-titled Kyo ...

'' ( 140-251 to 140-270) and 32 for

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

, along with a hundred small petrol driven locomotives. Sales continued after the end of the war but by the early 1930s orders had begun to dwindle. In 1934 the works supplied four

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in E ...

N class

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 arrang ...

T shunters to

Palestine Railways {{Infobox rail , railroad_name = Palestine Railway , logo_filename = , logo_size = , system_map = , map_caption = , map_size = , marks = , image = AwmB00283.Samakh.jpg , image_size ...

. These were evidently satisfactory as Palestine Railways bought four more in 1935, two in 1936 and a final pair in 1938. The last locomotive order was for two

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 ...

metre gauge Metre-gauge railways are narrow-gauge railways with track gauge of or 1 metre. The metre gauge is used in around of tracks around the world. It was used by European colonial powers, such as the French, British and German Empires. In Europe, ...

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 loc ...

s, Works No. 1649 and 1650, dispatched in 1938 to the South Indian Railways. Only two other locomotives were produced in 1938; these were the last pair of N class 0-6-0Ts for Palestine Railways, Works No. 1651 and 1652. As part of a planned reorganisation of the industry, the company ceased manufacture of locomotives and handed over all its

drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayo ...

s and

pattern A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated li ...

s to the British Locomotive Manufacturers Association. The company continued to make steam hammers and machine tools. On 1 June 1940 the

Ministry of Supply The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. A separate ministry, however, was responsible for airc ...

took over the factory and it became an engineering

Royal Ordnance Factory Royal Ordnance Factories (ROFs) was the collective name of the UK government's munitions factories during and after the Second World War. Until privatisation, in 1987, they were the responsibility of the Ministry of Supply, and later the Mini ...

ROF Patricroft The Royal Ordnance Factory, ROF Patricroft, was an engineering factory was classified as a Medium Machine Shop. It was located in Patricroft, near the town of Eccles, in the City of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, adjacent to both the Liver ...

. The company, however, was formally wound up on 7 November 1940, having reported a loss of £2,663 for 1939.Cantrell (2005) pp.107 In 1987, the Royal Ordnance Factories were bought by

British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marconi ...

and in 1989 the Patricroft engineering works was closed down. The site, including some of the original buildings, is now used as a business and technology centre. By 2009, a large section (the central building) had been demolished.

Locomotive production list

References

Bibliography

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