In the bag...

Gladstone opened preservation’s door, 33 years before the Bluebell.

It was a Stroudley engine that launched private steam preservation 93 years ago – arguably the template for the Bluebell itself.

It was the consensus of a group of Stephenson Locomotive Society members that ‘B1’ class 0-4-2 No. 214 Gladstone deserved to be saved from the scrapyard as a tribute to its three and a half decades of sterling service on the London-Brighton main line, and over 1.3 million miles. This kind of story of emotional enthusiasm for engines has been repeated hundreds of times since! When No. 214 was delivered from Brighton Works in 1882 as the first of a class of 36, with its 6ft 6in driving wheels, there was scepticism that it would be fit for purpose. Engines without a leading truck or bogie were considered to be accidents waiting to happen because they could spread the track at high speed. William Stroudley had however considered all this and dismissed it. He was also keen to save money by alleviating the need to make extensive modifications to turntables if he had gone for a longer engine. And no derailment ever took place.

The production of ‘Gladstones’ was continued by Stroudley’s successor Robert Billinton, and they were only ousted by his larger 4-4-0s (and those of Maunsell), Marsh ‘Atlantics’ and eventually Southern Railway electrification.

Withdrawals started in 1910, and when the time came for Gladstone to go to the torch in 1927, a deal was struck with the SLS for the engine to go back to Brighton Works for restoration to its original ochre livery.

Then SLS president J.N. Maskelyne wrote at the time: “It is with utmost pleasure that, on behalf of the Council, I am able to announce that preliminary negotiations for the celebrated LBSCR locomotive Gladstone are now completed. This engine has been withdrawn from service and is at Brighton Works, where the work of restoring her to her original condition and painting her in the famous old yellow livery is to be put in hand immediately.

“I am sure that all our members will appreciate fully the kindness of the Southern Railway Co. in helping us to carry out such a scheme as this, certainly the most ambitious scheme ever undertaken by our Society. We are, also, deeply indebted to the London & North Eastern Railway Co. who have offered to find space for Gladstone in their Railway Museum at York until such time as accommodation can be found in London, possibly at South Kensington Museum, in the course of a few years. “There is no need for me to enlarge upon the reasons as to why this engine is being preserved; it is enough if I say here that she represents the unique achievement of a unique Locomotive Engineer whose influence upon Locomotive Engineering generally can still be noted at the present time. That Gladstone was a sound proposition in the first place, designed with the utmost care and almost uncanny foresight, is proved by the fact that her term of usefulness has amounted to forty-four years.

“From now on she will remain the property of the Society, and I am certain that every member will agree that she is a possession of which we may well be proud, and an asset of which the value will increase with the passing years.”

The cost of restoration was £140 (£9,000 today), which included fitting an original design boiler (with safety valves atop the dome) and other minor cosmetic tweaks.

Gladstone was exhibited first at London’s Waterloo station alongside the then new Maunsell 4-6-0 No. 850 Lord Nelson, and was then intended to go to South Kensington. However, that perpetually full, so its permanent destination became York for display at the original LNER museum where it remained, other than for wartime storage in Reedsmouth, Northumberland. It has returned south twice, to the Bluebell Railway in 1982 (see previous pages), and a Brighton depot open day in 1991 for the station’s 150th anniversary event. Today, it resides in the NRM’s Station Hall, as part of its royal train display.

MIKE MORANT COLLECTION

RAIL ARCHIVE STEPHENSON Gladstone lacks some of the pomp of its early years in this July 1920 scene at Redhill, displaying its brown umber livery, Marsh boiler and chimney, and duplicate number 618, but, as the first of its class, it was singled out from all the ‘B1s’ by retaining its name, when all others were anonymised.

PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN/C.F. VERALL COLLECTION A rare, if not unique, image of Gladstone under restoration at Brighton in early 1927. The boiler is an authentic replacement for its later Marsh fitting, together with an LBSCR cabside plate, while the cab and splasher still show signs of Southern olive green paint and lining. The gentleman on the left is thought to be Lawson Billinton, who succeeded Marsh in 1911 and was vice president of the SLS at the time of the ‘B1’s’ pioneering preservation.

GETTY W.J. REYNOLDS/ RAIL ARCHIVE STEPHENSON INSET LEFT: Gladstone meets future National Collection counterpart No. 850 Lord Nelson at Nine Elms in May 1927, shortly before the LBSCR 0-4-2 was transported to the LNER museum in York.