The Haigh Foundry was an ironworks and foundry in Haigh, Lancashire, which was notable for the manufacture of early steam locomotives.
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The Haigh Foundry was leased in 1835 by E.Evans and T.C.Ryley in Haigh, Lancashire. It had initially been established in the Douglas Valley, in Haigh, circa 1790 by Alexander Lindsay, 6th Earl of Balcarres and his brother Robert as an ironworks and foundry. The ironworks was not a success but the foundry was, particularly after Robert Daglish became chief engineer in 1804, and the works acquired a reputation for manufacturing winding engines and pumping equipment for the mining industry. Evans and Ryley leased the property for 21 years with the intention of producing of railway locomotives. They were later joined by a Mr Burrows.
Lancashire's first three steam locomotives were built here in 1812, 1815 and 1816 for John Clarke's Winstanley Colliery Railway at Orrell. In 1819, the firm built an 84" cylinder Cornish beam engine and beam engines were exported to the colonies before 1820. After 1835 it built 0-4-0 and 2-2-0 type locomotives, many subcontracted from Edward Bury and Company. In 1837, Ajax was supplied to the Leicester and Swannington Railway, followed by Hector, an 0-6-0 so powerful that orders were received from a number of other railways.
The company built two broad gauge locomotives for the Great Western Railway with upward gearing in 1838 but these were not successful and the gearing was removed around 1840. Four more 4-4-0 saddle tanks for the South Devon Railway were built to a design by Daniel Gooch in the 1850s (Damon, Falcon, Orion and Priam). The works continued to build locomotives on their own account, and under sub-contract. Among these were long boiler types for Jones and Potts and three for T.R.Crampton.
In 1855 two 0-8-0 locomotives were said to have been built for use in the Crimean War to haul guns up inclines as steep as 1 in 10; with horizontal cylindrical furnaces rather than a rectangular firebox and the boiler fed by force pumps. They were described as having outside cylinders driving the third set of wheels, while two pairs were flangeless.[1] If any such engines had been built at that time, they would have created a sensation, but the above description is from the only reference to them: a very unreliable list concocted in the 1890s. No such engines were recorded in the Crimea, nor anywhere else, and it must be concluded that they were never built.[2]
Until the lease expired in 1856, Haigh Foundry had built over 100 locomotives as well as the swing bridges for Hull Docks, ironwork for Albert Dock, Liverpool and some massive pumping engines - the one at Mostyn Colliery, Flintshire having a 100" bore cylinder and believed when built in 1848 to have the largest cylinders in the world.[3]
The new lessees, Birley & Thompson, concentrated on heavy engineering but did make at least two more locomotives and quoted unsuccessfully for the Festiniog Railway's 'Prince' class. Amongst stationary engines from this period were a 100" x 14 ft stroke beam engine for Talargoch Lead Mine (the engine house survives) and a 1000 h.p. McNaught compound beam engine for a cotton spinning mill. Other examples could be found in many Lancashire collieries.
Until 1860, everything that Haigh Foundry made had to be hauled up the steep and twisting Leyland Mill Lane. Teams of up to 48 horses were needed, many hired from local farmers. However a railway line was built from the Earl of Crawford & Balcarres' colliery network at Aspull in 1860. This line was replaced in 1869 by a link from the new Lancashire Union 'Whelley' loop.
The foundry continued to design and build large winding, pumping and mill engines, heavy engineering and architectural castings until early 1885. The firm's assets were sold in September of that year. Many of the buildings survive along with both cast iron bridges used by the works railway line. Part of the premises is still an iron foundry, though on a somewhat smaller scale.