37 Facts About Joseph Locke

1.

Joseph Locke FRSA was a notable English civil engineer of the nineteenth century, particularly associated with railway projects.

2.

Joseph Locke was born in Attercliffe, Sheffield in Yorkshire, moving to nearby Barnsley when he was five.

3.

Joseph Locke was an experienced mining engineer, able to survey, sink shafts, to construct railways, tunnels and stationary engines.

4.

Joseph Locke's father had been a manager at Wallbottle colliery on Tyneside when George Stephenson was a fireman there.

5.

In 1823, when Joseph Locke was 17, Stephenson was involved with planning the Stockton and Darlington Railway.

6.

Joseph Locke was asked by the directors to carry out another survey of the proposed tunnel works and produce a report.

7.

Stephenson was furious and henceforth relations between the two men were strained, although Joseph Locke continued to be employed by Stephenson, probably because the latter recognised his worth.

8.

Joseph Locke took over responsibility for the western half of the line.

9.

Although, Stephenson usually gets the credit for this feat, it is believed that it was Joseph Locke who suggested the correct method for crossing the bog.

10.

Robert Stephenson and Joseph Locke were convinced that locomotives were vastly superior, and in March 1829 the two men wrote a report demonstrating the superiority of locomotives when used on a busy railway.

11.

In 1829 Joseph Locke was George Stephenson's assistant, given the job of surveying the route for the Grand Junction Railway.

12.

Joseph Locke is credited with choosing the location for Crewe and recommending the establishment there of shops required for the building and repairs of carriages and wagons as well as engines.

13.

The directors of the new railway decided on a compromise whereby Joseph Locke was made responsible for the northern half of the line and Stephenson was made responsible for the southern half.

14.

However Stephenson's administrative inefficiency soon became apparent, whereas Joseph Locke estimated the costs for his section of the line so meticulously and speedily, that he had all of the contracts signed for his section of the line before a single one had been signed for Stephenson's section.

15.

Up to this point, Joseph Locke had always been under George Stephenson's shadow.

16.

Joseph Locke's route avoided as far as possible major civil engineering works.

17.

Joseph Locke was more careful than Stephenson to get value for his employers' money.

18.

Joseph Locke tried to avoid tunnels because in those days tunnels often took longer and cost more than planned.

19.

Joseph Locke avoided tunnels almost completely on the Grand Junction but exceeded the slope limit for six miles south of Crewe.

20.

Joseph Locke divided the project into a few large sections rather than many small ones.

21.

Joseph Locke used the contractors who worked well with him, especially Thomas Brassey, William Buddicom and William Mackenzie, on many other projects.

22.

In 1834 Joseph Locke married Phoebe McCreery, with whom he adopted a child.

23.

Joseph Locke was elected to the Royal Society in 1838.

24.

Joseph Locke had more confidence in the ability of modern locomotives to climb these gradients.

25.

Joseph Locke's reasoned that by avoiding long routes and tunnelling, the line could be finished more quickly, with less capital costs, and could start earning revenue sooner.

26.

Joseph Locke took a similar approach in planning the Caledonian Railway, from Carlisle to Glasgow.

27.

Joseph Locke was appointed to build a railway line from Manchester to Sheffield, replacing Charles Vignoles as chief engineer, after the latter had been beset by misfortunes and financial difficulties.

28.

Joseph Locke was actively involved in planning and building many railways in Europe, including the Le Havre, Rouen, Paris rail link, the Barcelona to Mataro line and the Dutch Rhenish Railway.

29.

Joseph Locke was present in Paris when the Versailles train crash occurred in 1842, and produced a statement concerning the facts for General Charles Pasley of the Railway Inspectorate.

30.

Joseph Locke experienced a catastrophic failure of one of his viaducts built on the new Paris-Le Havre link.

31.

Joseph Locke attributed the catastrophic failure to frost action on the new lime cement, and premature off-centre loading of the viaduct with ballast.

32.

When Robert Stephenson died in October 1859, Joseph Locke was a pallbearer at his funeral.

33.

Joseph Locke is reported to have referred to Robert as 'the friend of my youth, the companion of my ripening years, and a competitor in the race of life'.

34.

Joseph Locke was on friendly terms with his other engineering rival, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

35.

Joseph Locke served as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in between December 1857 and December 1859.

36.

Joseph Locke served as Member of Parliament for Honiton in Devon from 1847 until his death.

37.

Joseph Locke died on 18 September 1860, apparently from appendicitis, whilst on a shooting holiday.