41 Facts About Everard Calthrop

Everard Richard Calthrop was a British railway engineer and inventor.

Everard Calthrop had six brothers, one of whom was Sir Guy Calthrop, general manager of the London and North Western Railway.

The family lived at Deeping Fen, Lincolnshire, where Everard Calthrop was born, and later at Sutton in the Isle of Ely.

Once in India, Everard Calthrop came to see narrow-gauge railways as a way to help develop the country.

Everard Calthrop then published a pamphlet entitled A System of Standard Details as applied to the Construction of Rolling Stock in India.

Everard Calthrop requested leave in 1886 to investigate proposals for independent branch lines.

Everard Calthrop identified two schemes of particular interest, a 5-mile tramway connecting the Hindu religious centre of Nasik with the railway, and a 21-mile branch line to the town of Barsi.

The Great Indian Peninsula Railway approved both schemes, and Everard Calthrop surveyed both lines.

Everard Calthrop's health was failing, and so in 1889 Calthrop resigned from the Great Indian Peninsula Railway.

Soon Everard Calthrop had entered into a partnership with them and spent much of the next two years designing equipment for feed production.

Everard Calthrop took out a number of patents relating to the equipment and to refrigerated transport.

Everard Calthrop proposed a system of narrow-gauge railways linking the two cities, running along streets directly serving factories.

Everard Calthrop's proposal was highly commended, but the proposed street running precluded its adoption.

Everard Calthrop was a member of the Self-Propelled Traffic Association and in May 1898 was a judge at their trials for "motor vehicles for heavy traffic", held in Liverpool.

Everard Calthrop surmised that the axle load on the axles of all rolling stock, including locomotives, could be equal, allowing a maximum loading of goods wagons.

Everard Calthrop settled on a loading of 5 long tons per axle, which was light enough to allow railway lines to be built with 30 pounds per yard rail.

Everard Calthrop estimated a gauge railway could be built to four times the length of a standard-gauge railway for the same capital cost.

Everard Calthrop had been engaged in negotiations with the Indian government for concessions to build a railway from Barsi Road to Barsi since 1887.

In 1895, negotiations reached a satisfactory conclusion, and Everard Calthrop formed a new company to build the Barsi Light Railway, and employed himself as consulting engineer.

Everard Calthrop recognised the importance of railways in warfare, and designed the rolling stock to facilitate the movement of troops and equipment.

Everard Calthrop remained consulting engineer until he retired due to poor health two years before his death.

Everard Calthrop claimed it only took three minutes to transfer wagons, based on his experience on the Barsi Light Railway.

In 1898 Everard Calthrop corresponded with the government of the colony of Victoria, Australia, regarding proposals for the construction of narrow-gauge lines in that colony.

Everard Calthrop used pictures of rolling stock from the railway to illustrate a chapter he wrote for the book Pioneer Irrigation and Light Railways.

Everard Calthrop was one of several foreign concessionaires involved with the initial development of gauge railways in Serbia after 1898.

Everard Calthrop was appointed Consulting Engineer in 1900, responsible for surveying the route and preparing the construction plans.

Everard Calthrop proposed specifications for the line which would result in substantial savings in construction costs, and so he was offered the position of engineer, which he promptly accepted.

Everard Calthrop introduced four transporter wagons, designed to transport standard-gauge wagons.

Everard Calthrop's firm supplied the wagon stock and the points and crossings for the railway.

In 1910 Everard Calthrop was engaged as consulting engineer by the promoters of a new railway between Buthidaung and Maungdaw in Burma, later known as the Arakan Light Railway.

Everard Calthrop had the proposed gauge changed from narrow gauge to narrow gauge.

Everard Calthrop was an early adopter of the Garratt type, this being the ninth order for Garratts taken by Beyer-Peacock, and the smallest Garratt design ever built by them.

Everard Calthrop was a close personal friend of Charles Rolls, of Rolls-Royce fame.

On 12 July 1910 Everard Calthrop accompanied him to the Bournemouth International Aviation Meeting, and was present when Rolls died after he lost control of his biplane and crashed.

That and a similar, non-fatal, accident involving his son Tev, led Everard Calthrop to believe that a parachute could be used to save pilots in similar circumstances.

Everard Calthrop was encouraged to remain quiet about his invention, but faced with increasing losses of pilots he publicised the parachute in 1917.

In 1916 Everard Calthrop patented an ejector seat for aircraft using compressed air.

Everard Calthrop rejected the cruel methods of breaking horses common in that era, and practiced gentle methods.

Everard Calthrop was a prominent member of the Arab Horse Society, and received commendations for his stallion, Fitz, at its first show in 1919.

Everard Calthrop died at his Paddington, London, home on 30 March 1927, in the company of his son, Tev.

Everard Calthrop is commemorated by a blue plaque on Goldings, unveiled in June 2008.