James Pearson (engineer)

James Pearson (1820 – 30 August 1891) was a 19th-century English railway engineer. He is best remembered as the designer of the distinctive Bristol and Exeter Railway 4-2-4T locomotives.

This article is about the British railway engineer. For other people with the same name, see James Pearson (disambiguation).
A Pearson-designed 4-2-4T locomotive

Career

South Devon Railway

Pearson was the engineer responsible for the daily operations of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's ill-fated atmospheric equipment on the South Devon Railway. Trains only ran in service from 13 September 1847 to 9 September 1848, but he was retained while the equipment was disposed of.

Bristol and Exeter Railway

In May 1850 he became the Bristol and Exeter Railway's Locomotive Engineer. Under his control the railway set up new locomotive works at Bristol Temple Meads. These opened in 1851 and built most of the railway's new broad gauge locomotives from 1859.

Locomotives designs

The most significant locomotives designed by James Pearson were:

Personal life and death

Pearson married Jessy Agnes Mudge, eldest daughter of John Mudge, on 26 December 1850 at Brampford Speke, Devon.[1] He died on 30 August 1891, aged 71, at his home in Gordon Road, West Ealing.[2][3]

See also

References
  1. "Marriages". Woolmer's Exeter and Plymouth Gazette. Vol. 62, no. 3079. 28 December 1850. p. 5. OCLC 751669657. Retrieved 12 October 2023 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  2. "Deaths". Bristol Times and Mirror. Vol. 120, no. 8349. 5 September 1891. p. 16. OCLC 2252826. Retrieved 12 October 2023 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  3. "Notes of the Day". Bristol Times and Mirror. Vol. 120, no. 8354. 11 September 1891. p. 5. OCLC 2252826. Retrieved 12 October 2023 – via British Newspaper Archive.

Bibliography
  • Reed, P.J.T. (February 1953). White, D.E. (ed.). The Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, Part 2: Broad Gauge. Kenilworth: The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society. ISBN 0-901115-32-0. OCLC 650490992.
  • Kay, Peter (1991). Exeter - Newton Abbot: A Railway History. Sheffield: Platform 5 Publishing. ISBN 1-872524-42-7.
  • MacDermot, E T (1931). History of the Great Western Railway, Volume 2. London: Great Western Railway.
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