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Railway and Canal Historical Society Early Railway Group RAILWAY AND CANAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY EARLY RAILWAY GROUP Occasional Paper 254 A LOST MODEL OF A KILLINGWORTH LOCOMOTIVE . OR IS IT? John Liffen In his paper ‘The Stephenson Standard Locomotive (1814-1825): A Fresh Appraisal’, published in Early Railways 2, Jim Rees reproduced a photograph of a lost painting depicting Charles Sylvester, Joseph Sandars and George Stephenson together with a model of a Killingworth-type locomotive.1 He wondered whether the model still survived anywhere. In order to answer that question it is necessary first to examine the history and provenance of the painting itself and then to wonder instead if the model ever existed at all. (Fig 1) Fig 1: ‘Charles Sylvester, Joseph Sandars and George Stephenson’. Photograph of the painting by Spiridione Gambardella formerly in the permanent collection of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Image courtesy of Liverpool Record Office, Liverpool Libraries. 1 J Rees, ‘The Stephenson Standard Locomotive (1814-1825): A Fresh Appraisal’, in M J T Lewis (ed), Early Railways 2: Papers from the Second International Early Railways Conference (The Newcomen Society, London, 2003), pp. 177-201. 1 The painting depicts on the left Charles Sylvester, in the middle Joseph Sandars and, on the right, George Stephenson. Joseph Sandars (1785-1860), who holds prime position in the centre of the painting, was a Liverpool corn merchant and businessman who was, with William James, the early driving force behind the promotion of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&M). Charles Sylvester (1774-1828) was a civil engineer and contractor who was requested by the L&M committee in 1824 ‘to inspect the Locomotive Engines and the Rail- roads near Newcastle and Sunderland’ and to report back on them to the committee. His report, dated 30 November 1824, concluded that a high-pressure steam locomotive (that is, not requiring a condenser) was the most economical power for a railway where the maximum gradient did not exceed 1 in 360.2 This was a significant recommendation at a time when the choice of the most appropriate motive power for railways (whether horse, cable or locomotive) was by no means decided. (Indeed, the question was not finally settled until the Rainhill Trials in 1829.) George Stephenson (1781-1848) had in 1824 built more steam locomotives than anyone else and in June that year was appointed Engineer to the newly-formed L&M company. It was his locomotives that Sylvester had seen in operation at Killingworth and Hetton Collieries. In the painting Stephenson’s hand rests on a model of a Killingworth-type locomotive with the improvements introduced after 1825 including steel springs and outside coupling rods. Sylvester had no further direct involvement in the progress of the L&M after early 1825. It would appear, then, that the scene depicted is a meeting in the mid-1820s where the benefits of steam locomotion for the projected railway are being advocated. The viewer of the painting takes the place of the supposed audience. The question now arises whether such an occasion, as depicted, ever took place, because the painting does not date from 1825 but at least sixteen years later, and was perhaps not finished until after Stephenson’s death in 1848. The artist was Spiridione Gambardella. He was born in Naples in about 1815 and became a political refugee who escaped to America. He was in Boston and also in France between 1834 and 1840. Gambardella came to England in 1841 with an introduction from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Thomas Carlyle. From then until at least 1852 he had addresses in both Liverpool and London. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1842 and 1850 and held an exhibition in Liverpool in February 1848. Eventually he returned to Italy, where he died in 1886.3 The painting under discussion here was part of the Walker Art Gallery’s permanent collection. In the Gallery’s 1927 catalogue4 it was described thus: 2 C Sylvester, Report on Rail-Roads and Locomotive Engines, addressed to the Chairman of the Committee of the Liverpool and Manchester projected Rail-Road (Liverpool, 1825, facsimile edition by E & W Books, London, 1970) 3 Details of Gambardella’s life are taken mostly from Merseyside Painters, People & Places, Catalogue of Oil Paintings – Text (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and Merseyside County Council, 1978), p. 100. 4 Walker Art Gallery: Illustrated Catalogue of the Permanent Collection (Liverpool, 1927), p. 56. 2 The fact that Sandars owned the painting suggests that it was he himself who commissioned it from Gambardella. He could only have done so, therefore, in 1841 or later, but there is evidence in the painting that suggests a date no earlier than 1843 and quite possibly as late as about 1850. In 1851 Sandars went to live at Taplow in Buckinghamshire and that probably gives a last possible date for the painting. Although the catalogue entry says ‘presented’, it may more specifically have been a bequest as Sandars died on 4 October 1860. It presumably went initially to the William Brown Library and Museum, being transferred to the Walker Art Gallery at some time on or after 1877 when that institution opened on a site adjacent to the Library and Museum. In his paper Rees stated that Adrian Jarvis (a curator in Liverpool Museums) had found out that the painting was believed to have been destroyed during the Second World War. Fortunately a black and white photograph had been made and this remains the only surviving record of the painting’s existence. As well as in Rees’s paper, reproductions have been published in C F Dendy Marshall, One Hundred Years of Railways (LMS Rly Co, 1930) and in Frank Fernyhough, Liverpool & Manchester Railway 1830-1980 (London, 1980), so the image has had a reasonable airing over the years. It is now time to examine the content of the painting more closely. The three figures are positioned behind a table on which there are various papers as well as the locomotive model. Charles Sylvester holds a quill pen and appears to be paying attention to someone we cannot see and noting down what he is hearing. Sandars points to the model with his left hand to draw particular attention to it. Both are looking out to the right of the picture. Conversely, Stephenson is standing rather stiffly and looks towards the viewer but not quite directly. His stance and outlook are very reminiscent of the familiar John Lucas full-length portrait of Stephenson – so much so that I am persuaded that Gambardella has copied it for his own portrait. (Fig 2) It would also explain why Stephenson is shown standing, though this would be natural if he were addressing an audience. Fig 2: Mezzotint by T L Atkinson, 1849, of portrait in oils of George Stephenson by John Lucas, 1847. Image courtesy Trustees of the Science Museum, London. If this is the case, though, it places the execution of the painting as no earlier than 1847, the year Lucas’s portrait was completed. Sandars may be painted from the life, but Gambardella may have used a copy of Francis Chantry’s bust as his reference for Sylvester.5 The other furnishings of the painting are significant, too. Behind the three individuals is a large map of the whole of the British Isles, while in front is a globe. The symbolism suggests railways spreading first across Britain and then the world. On the floor in front of Sylvester are a stack of three books and a rolled-up drawing or chart, associating him with Learning and Skills. On the nearby chair is a scientific instrument of some kind. 5 A copy of the bust is in Derby Museum and Art Gallery. 3 This appears to be a velocity anemometer of the type first made by Benjamin Biram in 1843 and which was designed especially for determining the velocity of air currents in mines. (Figs 3 & 4) Sylvester was an authority on heating and ventilation so the anachronistic depiction of the instrument provides a visual clue to his particular expertise.6 Fig 3: Close-up of scientific instrument in Gambardella’s painting Fig 4: Hand anemometer of Benjamin Biram’s design, made around 1870 to 1876. Image courtesy Trustees of the Science Museum, London. The model of course needs special attention. Rees describes it as ‘a model of a late Killingworth-type engine. The engine is quite accurate and shows an absolutely up-to-date design complete with plate springs’. The most obvious starting point for comparison is the engraving of the Killingworth design in the second (1831) edition of Nicholas Wood’s Practical Treatise on Rail-Roads.7 (Figs 5 & 6) Fig 5: Close-up of Gambardella’s locomotive model Fig 6: Killingworth or Hetton type locomotive, from Wood’s Practical Treatise (1831 edition), Plate VII A similar engraving is included in the first edition of 1825 but this shows the earlier design with the locomotive supported on Stephenson’s ‘steam springs’. In the 1831 edition these are replaced by steel plate springs. There is a very great degree of correspondence between the engraving and the depicted model: the chimney is on the left; the cylinder and crosshead components match up closely; and even the connecting rods are in the same positions. The model stands on fish-belly rails, just as shown in the Treatise. The only significant differences are that Gambardella has six spokes on each wheel instead of eight, and the rim of the chimney (not shown in Wood’s engraving) is flared. It seems overwhelmingly likely that Wood’s engraving is the principal and probably the only reference that Gambardella worked from.
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