Africa, South America, Asia, Australia and South Pacific
Products
Locomotives and machine tools
Prins August, built forSweden in 1856, preserved atSwedish Railway Museum inGävle, Sweden. It is said to be the oldest operating steam engine in the world.[1]
Beyer, Peacock and Company was an English general engineering company and railwaylocomotive manufacturer with a factory inOpenshaw,Manchester.Charles Beyer,Richard Peacock andHenry Robertson founded the company in 1854. The company closed its railway operations in the early 1960s. It retained its stock market listing until 1976, when it was bought and absorbed by National Chemical Industries of Saudi Arabia.
German-bornCharles Beyer had undertaken engineering training related to cotton milling inDresden before moving to England in 1831 aged 21. He became draughtsman atSharp, Roberts and Company's Atlas works in central Manchester, which manufactured cotton mill machinery and had just started building locomotives for theLiverpool and Manchester Railway. There he was mentored by head engineer and prolific inventor of cotton mill machineryRichard Roberts. By the time he resigned 22 years later he was well established as the company's head engineer; he had been involved in producing more than 600 locomotives.
Richard Peacock had been chief engineer of theManchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway's locomotive works in Gorton when he resigned in 1854, confident in his ability to secure orders to build locomotives. Beyer's resignation presented Peacock with a partnership opportunity. However, the business at the outset (Beyer, Peacock & Co.) was a legal partnership and the partners were therefore liable for debts should the business fail; in a mid-Victorian economic climate of boom and bust, it was a risky venture. Beyer could raise £9,524 (nearly £900,000 in 2015) and Peacock £5,500, but they still required a loan fromCharles Geach (founder of theMidland Bank and first treasurer to theInstitution of Mechanical Engineers, of which Beyer and Peacock had been founding members). Soon afterwards, however, Geach died, the loan was recalled, and the whole project nearly collapsed. Thomas Brassey came to the rescue, persuading Henry Robertson to provide a £4,000 loan in return for being the third (sleeping) partner.[2] It was not until 1883 that the company was incorporated as a private limited company and renamed Beyer, Peacock & Co. Ltd. In 1902 it took on its final form as a public limited company.[3][note 1]
During theGreat Depression, faced with competition from tramways and electric railways, the company began to look for alternatives so that they were not dependent on one product. In 1932 they acquired their first company and in 1949 formed a joint company with Metropolitan-Vickers to build locomotives other than steam. By 1953 Beyer, Peacock had acquired more than five subsidiary companies; two others followed five years later. In 1958 Beyer, Peacock (Hymek) Ltd was formed.[3]
Not to be confused withGorton Locomotive Works (sometimes known as Gorton Works or Gorton Tank).
Layout of the Gorton Foundry workshops of Beyer, Peacock and Co. LtdThe Gorton Foundry in 1870
Beyer and Peacock started building their Gorton Foundry in 1854 two miles east from the centre of Manchester atOpenshaw on a 12-acre site, on the opposite (south) side of theManchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR) line from Peacock's previous works.[note 2] The site was chosen because land was cheaper than in the city, allowing ample room to expand, and there was a good water supply from an MS&LR reservoir. At the Foundry, Beyer designed and manufactured machine tools needed to build the locomotives, and oversaw locomotive design and production. Peacock dealt with the business side, often travelling to continental Europe to secure orders.[4]
During theFirst World War Beyer, Peacock manufactured artillery; in August 1915 Gorton Works was put under government control with production switching almost entirely to the war effort, especially heavy field artillery. During theSecond World War, the company was again brought under government control but continued to build locomotives throughout the war.[3]
Beyer, Peacock's innovative condensing locomotive of 1871 – the inaugural motive power for London's underground railway. The large black pipe and another on the right-hand side took steam from the cylinders to theside tanks rather than ejecting it into the atmosphere as on conventional locomotives.
A technological innovation that strengthened the company's reputation was the world's first successful condensing[note 3] locomotive design for London's first underground railway – theMetropolitan Railway A Class4-4-0tank engine. Between 1864 and 1886, 148 were built for various railways; most operated until the lines' electrification in 1905. The locomotives' main designer, Hermann Ludwig Lange (1837–92), was a native of Beyer's home town, Plauen, Saxony (now Germany) who had undertaken an apprenticeship followed by engineering training. Beyer had invited him to England in 1861 and employed him for the first year in the company workshops, then as a draughtsman under his direction. He became chief draughtsman in 1864 or 1865. After Beyer's death in 1876, he became chief engineer and co-manager of the company.[2][8]
The three separate units of a Beyer-Garratt locomotive. The tractive effort ofthis locomotive was double that of its4-8-0predecessor. (Click to enlarge.)
An articulated locomotive design that became renowned in the 20th century was another innovation, theGarratt articulated locomotive, invented byHerbert William Garratt, who was granted a patent in 1908; Beyer, Peacock had sole rights of manufacture in Britain. After the patents ran out in 1928, the company began to use the name "Beyer-Garratt" to distinguish their locomotives.[3] They became widely used throughout Africa, South America, Asia, Australia and the South Pacific, where difficult terrain and lightly laid, tightly curved track, usuallynarrow-gauge, severely limited the weight and power output of conventional locomotives. In Garratt's design, two girders holding a boiler[note 4] and a cab were slung between two "engine" units, each with cylinders, wheels and motion. The weight of the locomotive was therefore spread over a considerable distance. Both engine units were topped by water tanks. The unit adjoining the cab end also held a fuel bunker.[9][10]
Between 1909 and 1958, Beyer, Peacock built more than a thousand Garratts;[11] significant types arelisted below. Among them, three of the most significant are preserved (see the"Preserved steam locomotives" table below):
Locomotive manufacturing transformed rapidly in the late 1950s. In 1955British Railways decided to switch from steam to diesel traction and by then overseas railways had done the same. A major problem the company soon faced was that it had chosen to make diesel-hydraulic locomotives when theWestern Region had opted for lightweight locomotives with hydraulic transmission under the British RailwaysModernisation Plan of 1955; but British Railways opted for diesel-electrics.[note 5] The company all but closed down the Gorton Foundry at the end of 1958.[3]
In 1966, after 112 years of operation, all production ceased at Gorton Foundry.[3] During that time, the company had built nearly 8,000 locomotives.[11]
In 1976 Beyer Peacock was sold to Sheikh Mohammed Y. Al Bedrawi'sNational Chemical Industries of Saudi Arabia. The remaining industrial parts of the company then were Space Deck, a supplier of steel roofing units, and its main industrial company Richard Garrett Engineering, a company that manufactured machines which made cardboard boxes in factories inDereham with 90 employees and inSuffolk with 500 employees.[13]
Space Deck and Beyer Peacock International were praised in 1982 for having achieved increased profitability.[14]
National Chemical Industries itself went bust in the early to mid-1980s.[15]
As of 2012 the building that housed the former boiler shop, tender shop and boiler mounting shop – 550 feet (167 metres) in length – remained in use as part of the Hammerstone Road Depot of Manchester City Council.
Beyer, Peacock & Company Ltd last filed accounts to Companies House in 1989.[16] Since then it has been compulsorily struck off several times, but restored on the request of creditors. No activity has been registered since 2015.
Companies House also lists another company called Beyer, Peacock & Company that was founded it 1998, and is now dormant. It is not clear what connection there is between the two firms.[17]
^The public company was incorporated as Beyer, Peacock & Co. (1902) Ltd; the "(1902)" was dropped in 1903.
^The two works were adjacent, on either side of the line between the present-day stations of Ashburys and Gorton.
^By condensing steam, little of it emanated from the locomotives, and usingcoke (later,"smokeless" Welsh coal) greatly reduced smoke pollution.
^Significant in the performance of the boiler, hence power output, was that the Garratt's firebox was no longer confined to the narrow space between a locomotive's frame but was constrained only by the much greater distance between girders.
^Best, Gerald M. (1968).Mexican Narrow Gauge (1st ed.). Howell-North Books. Retrieved20 February 2025.
^"Hermann Ludwig Lange".Grace's Guide to British industrial history. Grace's Guide Project. 2019. Retrieved2 January 2020.
^Walker, Rosanne (18 August 2011)."Garratt, Herbert William (1864-1913)".Encyclopedia of Australian Science. The University of Melbourne eScholarship Research Centre. Retrieved2 January 2020.
^"Beyer-Garratt".Encyclopedia Britannica. 2019. Retrieved4 January 2020.
.jpg)
_--_side_elevation.png)
.jpg)
