Grave of Mallard’s record-breaking driver Joe Duddington is restored
JOE Duddington, who drove A4 Pacific No. 4468 Mallard on its record-breaking run in 1938, has finally been honoured 68 years after he was buried in an unmarked grave.
The Friends of Hyde Park Cemetery in Doncaster had raised more than £5000 to place a headstone on the plot where the LNER driver was buried after he died in 1953, alongside his wife Mary, who died in 1921.
Fireman remembered
The appeal had originally aimed to raise £2000, and the extra money has paid for a bench in his memory, depicting the famous Gresley 4-6-2.
It also covered kerbing, decorative stones, and a plaque on the grave (also including an image of Mallard) commemorating Tommy Bray,
Joe's fireman on the record run. Fifty people attended a service to mark the unveiling of the headstone on October 2, including Joe Duddington's great-grandson, Matthew Delaney, who was said to be “overwhelmed” and described his ancestor as “the astronaut of his day”.
Born in 1876, Joe Duddington was personally selected by Sir Nigel Gresley to take charge of Mallard for the speed record attempt on July 3, 1938, when the locomotive achieved 126mph on the descent of Stoke Bank. Joe retired from the footplate in 1944.