Smile project: The great age of steam

Pictures from the past continue to be brought to life with the digitisation of the Reporter archive.

Many thousands of glass plates have now been digitised and are online to enjoy for the first time in decades.

You can find pictures on the Smile website at https://smiletameside.wordpress.com/ 

Volunteer researchers have been busy finding out about the stories behind some of the pictures and have been producing a number of blogs which can be found at the address above.

One of those blogs has been penned by volunteer David Holgate, who writes about his family history, inspired by the images he came across whilst describing the digitised photographs from the Reporter Newspaper...

In 1841 my then 18-year-old two times great grandfather, Isaac Watt Boulton, was apprenticed to Richard Peacock, the Superintendent of Railways, at the newly opened railway repair shop in Newton, Hyde. 

Due to family business reasons he had to withdraw from the apprenticeship, but 13 years later in 1854, Isaac again took up employment under his old mentor at the newly formed company of Beyer Peacock at Gorton. 

I was therefore intrigued to find images in The Reporter archives from 1954 showing an event to celebrate 100 years of that company.

Beyer Peacock was established in 1854 by the said Richard Peacock, Charles Beyer and Henry Robertson. 

The works were built alongside the Sheffield, Ashton and Manchester Railway tracks.

They were purpose-built and included an iron foundry, various workshops, a smithy and everything else required to build locomotives.

When my two times great grandfather set up his own steam engine business in Ashton he remained on good terms with Peacock and often used this connection to obtain parts that were difficult to get. 

At its peak Beyer Peacock employed more than 2,000 people and continued in business until British Rail began switching to diesel engines and eventually closed in 1966.

One of the company’s successes was an articulated locomotive which made the engine more fuel efficient and enabled it to cope better pulling large loads, even up gradients. 

Many of these engines were sold abroad and the loco featured in the images appears to have been built for the East African Railway. 

The company archives are now held by the Manchester Science and Industry Museum and a locomotive similar to the one shown and built for South African Railways can be seen in the Exhibition Hall.

ANNIVERSARY: Locomotive ‘DOT’ on display to celebrate 100 years of Beyer, Peacock and Company, 1954.  

A loco on display at Gorton Foundry marking the anniversary.

A train and crowd at the celebration of 100 years of Beyer, Peacock and Company, 1954

The then Mayor checking out the controls in the loco top

Read more from the Tameside Reporter

Click here for more of the latest news

Click here to read the latest edition of the paper online

Click here to find out where you can pick up a copy of the paper