Manning Wardle

The city of Leeds was one of the earliest centres of locomotive building; Matthew Murray built the first commercially successful steam locomotive, Salamanca, in Holbeck, Leeds, in 1812. By 1856, a number of manufacturers had sprung up in the city, including Kitson and Company, and E. B. Wilson and Company, later The Railway Foundry after 1848.

Manning Wardle's Boyne Engine Works in Leeds

Ayresome No 12 by Manning Wardle & Co. Ltd

The Railway Foundry (E.B Wilson from 1838–48) operated in Leeds until 1858. At least some of the company's designs and some materials were purchased by Manning Wardle & Company, who located their Boyne Engine Works in Jack Lane in the Hunslet district of the city. Steam locomotive construction commenced on the site in 1859. Within the next few years, two other companies, the Hunslet Engine Company and Hudswell, Clarke & Company also opened premises in Jack Lane. There was a good deal of staff movement between the three firms, leading to similar designs leaving all three works. Whilst Hudswell Clarke and Hunslet Engine Company built a wide variety of locomotive types, Manning Wardle concentrated on specialised locomotives for contractor's use, building up a range of locomotives suitable for all types of contracting work.

No 1 La Porteña, first steam loco in Buenos Aires

As far as the inside cylinder standard Manning Wardle classes were concerned, the pivotal Railway Foundry design was a 0-4-0ST with 9-inch by 14-inch cylinders, one of which might have been owned by David Joy (it is described as being for sale in Leeds in 1856 in Vol. 3 of his Diaries) and later became part of Midland Railway stock. From this design was developed a 0-4-2ST with 9.25 in. by 14 in. cylinders for the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (1853), and, by 1855 a 0-6-0ST with 11 in. by 17 in. mainly for colliery work. Two of these saw service in the Crimea as Alliance and Victory and contemporary descriptions of them in the Leeds press clearly show that the 'Railway Foundry 11-Inch' 0-6-0ST was the direct forerunner of the Manning Wardle 'Old Class I'. The origin of the Manning Wardle outside cylinder 0-4-0ST standard designs is more obscure. The Chronicles of Boulton's Siding mentions a Railway Foundry 11-inch outside cylinder 0-4-0ST, but this work is notoriously unreliable. An 1856-vintage 5 ft. 6 in. gauge outside cylinder 2-2-0ST with all equal diameter wheels, La Portena survives in Luján, Argentina (Manning Wardle later built a coupled version of this), but the most credible evidence for a Railway Foundry outside cylinder 0-4-0ST design is in the fact that the first Manning Wardle loco, a 3 ft. gauge 8-inch 0-4-0ST, is alluded to in the 1862 London Exhibition Catalogue as being similar to the maker's 'D' and 'E' classes apart from the gauge.[2]

Manning Wardle went on to play an important part in narrow gauge steam locomotive evolution. After neighbours Hunslet Engine Co. had pioneered the 'Leeds Mainstream' pattern of narrow-gauge steam locomotive (full length outside mainframes; outside cylinders; proper locomotive-pattern boiler; direct drive to coupled wheels; foundation ring below top of frame level, and firebox width not constrained by wheelset 'back-to-back' dimension) with its Dinorwic in 1870, in 1871 Manning Wardle made series production of the type a serious proposition commencing with 18-inch gauge 0-4-0ST Lord Raglan (No. 353) for the Royal Arsenal. Similar locomotives followed for both the Arsenal and Chatham Dockyard and in 1872 Manning Wardle's first long-wheelbase 0-6-0 to John Barraclough Fell's patents, an 18-inch gauge 0-6-0 tender locomotive for the Royal Engineers on the 'Leeds mainstream' Model appeared. This was followed by two 2 ft. 6 in. gauge Fell-pattern 0-6-0ST's in 1873 for the Bay of Havana Railway (see below), one (later two) 0-6-0's for the Pentewan Railway in Cornwall, and several 'Quasi-Fell' six-coupled locomotives for Sweden, India and Mexico (again see below). After the appearance of Hunslet's 0-6-4ST Beddgelert in 1877, the 'Leeds Mainstream' specification had truly come of age and the Boyne Engine Works went on to produce its own more sophisticated designs in the same vein, including the well-known 2-6-2T's for the Lynton & Barnstaple, 2 ft. 6 in. gauge 0-6-2's for India, and a pair of 2-6-4T's for South Africa.[3] Further examples, including two 0-6-2STs, were to emanate from Boyne Engine Works almost up to the Company's demise, but most of the later-built examples were for overseas customers in Chile, India and Argentina, the last-mentioned example (No. 2039 of 1924) being an 18-inch gauge development of No. 353 of 1871.

Manning Wardle became a limited company in 1905.

Many Manning Wardle locomotives – of standard gauge and various narrow gauges – were exported to Europe, Africa, the Middle East (e.g. the Palestine Railways Class M), the Indian sub-continent, Australasia (e.g. NZR WH class) and South America.

During the First World War, Manning Wardle produced a petrol engined standard gauge shunter for the War Office. This had a 180 hp Thornycroft 6-cylinder marine type reversing engine, and had coupled 0-4-0 layout, weighing 27 tons.[4] Ten of these were ordered initially, with armour-plated superstructures for heavy haulage of rail-mounted guns. The first was delivered to the Longmoor Military Railway in October 1915, the last to France in May 1916. They proved 'wholly' unsuccessful and were soon relegated to shunting work.[5]

The company employed traditional construction throughout its existence and failed to take advantage of the more efficient mass production techniques becoming available. The Wardle family connection with the company ceased in 1919 and the company was latterly owned largely by railway contractors (historically an important customer base). The loss of Russian orders following the 1917 October Revolution and the imposition of a punitive Excess Profits Tax in 1921 played their part in bringing about the company's eventual demise, as did expenditure on a new Boiler Shop in 1924 in an attempt to modernise production methods. In what had become a bleak environment for private locomotive builders generally Manning Wardle had simply become uncompetitive.

The last complete locomotive was No. 2047, a standard gauge 0-6-0ST delivered to Rugby Cement Works in August 1926. This locomotive was preserved at the Severn Valley Railway and last steamed in 1977 when the boiler was condemned. After some years on static display at Kidderminster Railway Museum, restoration began in 2010 and as of 2021 is in progress at Bewdley. The design for a new boiler has been approved.[6]

Following closure in 1926 after producing more than 2,000 steam locomotives, much of the site was taken over by Hunslet Engine Co., with some parts going to the diesel engine manufacturer, McClaren. The company's intellectual property rights, goodwill, drawings and patterns initially passed Kitson & Co., thence to Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn in 1938 and finally to Hunslet Engine Company in 1960. Kitson & Co. made twenty-three locos of Manning Wardle design until the firm's withdrawal from locomotive manufacture and Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn produced a further five in 1940-1, all T class 0-6-0ST's for Stewarts & Lloyds. The surviving drawings are now held at Statfold Barn Railway Museum, near Tamworth.

The trademark name Manning Wardle is owned by a company formed in 1999 to preserve the name for the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway, which from 1898 to 1935 operated what have become some of the company's most famous products, narrow gauge 2-6-2T engines: Exe, Taw, Yeo and later Lew.

Many locomotives of the company have been preserved, as listed below

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Manning, Wardle and Company.

• Existing steam locomotives built by Manning Wardle
• Hunslet-Barclay
• Hunslet Engine Co
• Mystery of Lew
• An 1863 locomotive for New Zealand
• Restored locomotive 1795 of 1912