Isaac Dodds and Son was a locomotive manufacturer based in the Holmes district of

Rotherham Rotherham ( ) is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies at the confluence of the River Rother, South Yorkshire, River Rother, from which the town gets its name, and the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don. It is the largest settlement ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...

, England. Isaac Dodds took over part of the works of Samuel Walker and Company in Rotherham sometime while he was Superintendent of the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway. It is likely, therefore, that he used it to maintain the company's locomotives, or even build new ones. There, however, seems to be no record.

History

Isaac Dodds was born on 9 July 1801 at Felling Hall,

County Durham County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...

. His father Thomas was manager of the Felling Colliery and died when Isaac was four at the

Hebburn Hebburn is a town in the South Tyneside borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It was formerly in County Durham until 1974 with its own urban district from 1894 until 1974. It is on the south bank of the River Tyne between Gateshead and Jarrow and ...

Colliery. The local parish clerk, Willie Woolhave, contributed greatly to his schooling with Isaac showing aptitude for mathematics and drawing. About 1813 aged 12 Isaac was apprenticed as a mining engineer by his uncle Ralph Dodds and

Killingworth Killingworth is a town in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England, within the historic county of Northumberland. Killingworth was built as a new town in the 1960s, next to Killingworth Village, which existed for centuries before the new town ...

Colliery. When

George Stephenson George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was an English civil engineer and Mechanical engineering, mechanical engineer during the Industrial Revolution. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victoria ...

joined Killingworth around 1815 and joint patented a Steam engine with Ralph it appears young Isaac built a model of said engine and his use of

coupling rod A coupling rod or side rod connects the driving wheels of a locomotive. Steam locomotives in particular usually have them, but some diesel and electric locomotives, especially older ones and shunter locomotives, also have them. The coupling ro ...

s rather than

gear A gear or gearwheel is a rotating machine part typically used to transmit rotational motion and/or torque by means of a series of teeth that engage with compatible teeth of another gear or other part. The teeth can be integral saliences or ...

s was adopted by Ralph and George for their engine. In 1832 Isaac Dodds started duties with the Horsley Iron Company, with his winning design resulting in the 1833 locomotive ''Star''. He retired from the Ironworks in 1836 when an accident there caused him to lose his right eye. Isaac Dodds set up the Holmes Engine and Railway Works by buying the candle and soap factory of Messrs. Dodd and Layton.

Locomotives

The first locomotive known about is an

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

named ''Fitzwilliam'' in 1849 for the

South Yorkshire Railway The South Yorkshire Railway was a railway company with lines in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Initially promoted as the South Yorkshire Coal Railway in 1845, the railway was enabled by the South Yorkshire, Doncaster and Goole Railway Ac ...

. The firm produced around seventy locomotives in all. One, a

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. In most of North America it b ...

named ''Ysabel'' was tried out on the

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 o ...

in 1853, with some success, though none appear to have been ordered. The largest order would seem to be twelve 2-4-0 locomotives for the

Isabel II Isabella II (, María Isabel Luisa de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias; 10 October 1830 – 9 April 1904) was Queen of Spain from 1833 until her deposition in 1868. She is the only queen regnant in the history of unified Spain. Isabella wa ...

Railway, Spain, in 1856. For whatever reason, these were not paid for, which could hardly have been good for the company's finances.

Liquidation

In 1866, the company quoted for the

London, Brighton and South Coast Railway The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR (known also as the Brighton line, the Brighton Railway or the Brighton)) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1922. Its territory formed a rough triangle, with London at ...

and received an order for two. The required delivery time of three months could not be met and by 1867 the firm was in liquidation. Though the order had been cancelled, work had already started and the two engines were completed for the LB&SCR by the official receiver, and they finally ran in 1871.

Innovations

Dodds was known for his patented wedge

valve gear The valve gear of a steam engine is the mechanism that operates the inlet and exhaust valves to admit steam into the cylinder and allow exhaust steam to escape, respectively, at the correct points in the cycle. It can also serve as a reversing ...

. In 1839 Isaac Dodds was the first to fix the boiler at the smokebox end only which allowed for boiler expansion.

Notes

References

* Franks, D. L., ''The South Yorkshire Railway'' (Photograph and details of "Fitzwilliam") * * {{Refend

Dodds Dodds may refer to: *Dodds (surname), people with the surname ''Dodds'' *Dodds Range, a former name of the Xueshan Range on Taiwan Island *Dodds, Iowa, a ghost town *Dodds, Missouri, an unincorporated community *Dodds, Ohio, a US unincorporated pla ...

Companies based in Rotherham Defunct companies based in Yorkshire