Joseph Hamilton Beattie

Joseph Hamilton Beattie (1808-1871) was a locomotive engineer with the London and South Western Railway.

Beattie was a highly innovative engineer, introducing the country's first successful 2-4-0 locomotive, pioneering coal-burning fireboxes, feedwater heating and balanced slide valves. His locomotives were amongst the most efficient of the time. Three of his most famous locomotive design, the 0298 Class 2-4-0 well tanks,^[1] were in service for 88 years, until 1962. 2 have been preserved - see the Swanage Railway,^[2] Bodmin & Wenford Railway^[3] and the National Railway Museum, York.

Joseph Beattie was born in Ireland on 12 May 1808.^[4] He was educated in Belfast and initially apprenticed to his father, a Derry architect. He moved to England in 1835 to serve as an assistant to Joseph Locke on the Grand Junction Railway and from 1837 on the London and Southampton Railway. After the line opened he became the carriage and wagon superintendent at Nine Elms and succeeded John Viret Gooch as locomotive engineer on 1 July 1850.

Initially he designed a series of singles, but the weight of the Southampton and Salisbury expresses led to the development of 2-4-0s. He continued to develop the design over the next 20 years. In addition he developed a series of 85 2-4-0 well tanks and 0-6-0s.

Since the Rainhill Trials in 1829, it had been accepted that the smoke emitted by burning coal was a nuisance.^[5] Railway companies accepted the need to burn coke (a smokeless fuel) in their locomotives, but this was much more expensive than coal, and several locomotive engineers sought a method by which coal could be burned smokelessly.^[6] One such engineer was Beattie, who designed a boiler suitable for coal in 1853.^[7]

On 18 October 1871,^[4] Beattie died of diphtheria and was succeeded as locomotive engineer by his son William George Beattie.

References

• Ahrons, E.L. (1987) [1927]. The British Steam Railway Locomotive 1825-1925. London: Bracken Books. ISBN 1 85170 103 6. 
• Bradley, D.L., (1989), LSWR Locomotives The Early Engines 1838-53 and the Beattie Classes, Wild Swan
• Marshall, John (1978). A Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0 7153 7489 3. 

External links

• South Western Circle