Publications - Newcomen books

Background
Sir John Jackson became one of the greatest civil engineering contractors of his age - an age when Britain built most of the major Infrastructure projects in the world. His most important work was at a time when Victorian and Edwardian engineers were at their most ambitious - and saw that machinery was the key to success. Jackson always had the latest equipment and as a result was one of those who led the way out of the navvy era into the modern age of bigger and better machines.

In his foreword, Sir William McAlpine points out that the biographies of the large contractors have been neglected, although the ground-breaking projects of Brunel, Stephenson and others could not have been built without the great organisational skills of the contractors and their willingness to embrace new technologies.

Jackson was born in York and at the early age of 25 was entrusted with the Stobcross (Queen's) dock contract at Glasgow, then the second largest city in the British Empire. The Tower Bridge contract made his name and he put the innovative steam navvy to good use when he took over the major Manchester Ship Canal contract. Other projects include the Keyham extension to the Devonport dockyard and major works at Dover harbour and in the north country. Overseas contracts include the Simon's Town dockyard in the Republic of South Africa, the Arica-LaPaz railway over the Andes, which most engineers said was impossible, and the barrage across the Euphrates in Mesopotamia.

Author
The author, Jackson's grand-daughter, owns a large collection of family papers. Supplemented by research at the Institution of Civil Engineers and other sources, Patricia Spencer-Silver has put together an historic document. This is Patricia's second book. Her first, Pugin's Builder, the Life and Work of George Myers, was published in 1993 at the time of the great Pugin exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. A descendant of both Myers and Jackson, Patricia joined the Construction History Society in the mid 1980s and sat on the Society's committee for several years.

The book
Tower Bridge to Babylon has a forword by Sir William McAlpine. It is edited by Jack Hall Stephens whose early career as a civil engineer led to many years as a technical press editor and stints as editorial adviser at the World Bank and the Opec Fund. He has written technically on all aspects of construction, engineering consultancy, international development and energy. He edited Kempe's Engineers Year Book and acted as editor and technical contributor to the sections on civil engineering technology and business. He is a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. This book is in hardback, lavishly illustrated with some 120 diagrams and photographs.

Tower Bridge to Babylon: The Life and Work of Sir John Jackson, Civil Engineer (1851-1919), by Patricia Spencer-Silver published by Six Martlets Publishing (2006), price £28.00 plus p&p. Order a copy now.

Background
Robert Stephenson MP, FRS (1803-1859) was the leading engineer of his day. He was renowned for his development of the main-line steam locomotive and for his innovations in bridge building. He built the railway line between London and Birmingham, which was the first trunk line in the world. He was at the centre of the 'railway mania' that gripped early victorian Britain, and by 1850 had been responsible for one-third of the railway network in Britain.

The book
This is the first biographical study of Robert Stephenson for over a century, and is fully illustrated in black and white and colour. Written by a team of experts in railway and engineering history, the first chapters of this book explore Stephenson's early training and work with his father, George Stephenson. Later chapters examine Robert Stephenson's influence and achievements in railway development, noting his advocacy of planning, rather than an unbridled free market. The book also examine his innovations in railway and bridge building, and port and water engineering. Robert Stephenson contributed to the transformation of society by opening up transport and communications; the book covers his public face and career as a respected arbitrator, MP and Commissioner for the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Authors
Michael Bailey, the editor of this book, is a museum consultant, author, lecturer and broadcaster on early railway history. In 1999 he was awarded the first Doctorate of Philosophy from the Institute of Railway Studies, York. He is a past president of the Newcomen Society and an Associate Trustee of the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. Contributors include:
· Michael Bailey MA DPhil
· Mike Chrimes BA MLS ALA
· Julia Elton BA
· Ted Ruddock MBE BA MAT MSc(Eng)
· Denis Smith PhD MSc DIC CEng
· James Sutherland BA FICE FIStructE
· Robert Thomas MA MCLIP

Robert Stephenson, the eminent engineer, edited by Michael Bailey, published by Ashgate (2004), price £44.50 including p&p (UK). Order a copy now direct from the Newcomen Society (this book only).

This book results from the discovery, in 1988, of a huge and unsuspected collection of documents relating to the activities of William Mackenzie, one of the most prolific of mid 19th century building contractors. Restoration and cataloguing by the Institute of Civil Engineers revealed a rich archive covering Mackenzie's work chiefly in Britain and France, but also in Ireland, Belgium and Spain.

Background
Forming a powerful partnership with Thomas Brassey, and applying his long experience in British railway and canal building, Mackenzie brought outstanding skill to the construction of the Paris and Rouen Railway. That was the beginning of a notable career abroad, during which he was responsible for building hundreds of miles of railway; his advice was sought by Daniel Gooch and Louis Napoleon (soon to be Napoleon III).

This book gives a unique insight into the working methods of the band of engineers and contractors' agents who, along with their navvies, spearheaded the worldwide advance of British railway construction and finance.

The author
During a career in schools and university, David Brooke has written extensively on railway history, including subjects as diverse as railway amalgamation and investment, and the first use of steel rails. His book, The Railway Navvy (1983), is recognised as the most authentic account of the life and achievements of the navvies. In recent years he has contributed to the Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers, The Oxford Companion to British Railway History and The Oxford Dictionary of National biography. David Brooke was editor of the companion to this volume, The Diary of William Mackenzie (2003).

William Mackenzie, International Railway Builder, published by the Newcomen Society (2004), price £28.50 plus p&p. Order a copy now.

This new book, edited by MJT Lewis, is based on the Second International Early Railways Conference (September 2003) in Manchester. It contains nineteen papers discussing many aspects of the railways that preceded the main lines of the Railway Age.

These authoritative studies - the fruit of wide research - embrace history and archaeology, locomotives and permanent way, financing and management. They shed new light and offer new perspectives on the formative years of railways, in Britain and overseas.

In this conference volume, papers are divided into four groups: history, infrastructure, mechanical and overseas, and include such subjects as:

• Early Shropshire railways
• Robert Stephenson
• the development of steam traction
• Artists, Chartists, railways and riots
• Liverpool & Manchester and Cromford & High Peak railways
• the Clarence
• all-iron edge rails
• rope haulage - the Lambton railway
• John Blenkinsop and the patent steam carriages
• the Hedley mysteries
• the Patent Office Museum and railway locomotive preservation
• Richard Roberts' experiments on friction
• the coupling rod
• Follonica to Montebamboli railway in Tuscany
• the Champlain & St Lawrence railway

The papers are generally richly illustrated with contemporary and modern images, maps, diagrams and tables. They are well referenced so that readers will be able to discover sources with ease. There are 288 pages and 88 illustrations in total.

The book is sponsored by the Newcomen Society; Beamish - the North of England Open Air Museum; The Institute of Railway Studies and Transport History; The Locomotion Trust; the Railway and Canal Historical Society.

Early Railways 2, published by the Newcomen Society (2003), price £31.50 plus p&p. Order a copy now.

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Water Towers of Britain
by Barry Barton

Water Towers of Britain is a timely record of an important part of Britain's engineering heritage (water towers are steadily being demolished and few are now being built). In 1994 the Panel for Historical Engineering Works decided to form a sub-group to research, locate, visit and photograph water towers of every description throughout Britain and Ireland to produce a definitive record of this subject - about which very little has been published. The author and his colleagues obtained information from more than 200 correspondents and numerous archives. This book will stand as an important reference work for civil engineers, architects, historians, local authorities and members of the public for many decades to come.

Background
The initial uncontrolled expansion of the early industrial revolution resulted in unredeemed urban squalor in which disease was rife. Conditions could only be made tolerable by the supply of clean piped water, and of course sewers. In towns, municipal water supplies with their water towers began to appear in the early Victorian era, followed by rural water facilities. The latter were often under the patronage of country estates until Rural District Councils, and subsequently Water Boards, assumed responsibility for delivering piped water throughout the countryside.

Early water towers, provided by such a range of agencies, were naturally very varied, even though they had the same basic function - storing water at a given height. Strangely, few standard solutions were adopted so the variations in size, shape and form of surviving towers seem endless. This made the author's task a fascinating one, but it also meant 8 years' hard work for him and his colleagues on the Institution of Civil Engineers' Panel for Historical Engineering Works.

The book
The result of their labours is a book of 240 pages with 83 photographs and diagrams and 25 maps. There are eleven chapters ranging in content from the functions and origins of the water tower, through Victorian municipal towers, early rural towers, early and modern concrete construction, all-metal structures, towers for other purposes, problems, re-use and the future.

The author
Barry Barton studied engineering and completed a research project on hydrology for his doctorate in 1970. This was the start of a career in the water industry spanning a diverse number of specialised fields. The 15 years he worked for Anglian Water included 5 years as Divisional Systems Engineer which involved the installation of telemetry and radio base stations in water towers. This kindled an interest in the structures themselves and proved to be the genesis for their study, and ultimately this book.

Water Towers of Britain, published by the Newcomen Society (2003), price £28.50 plus p&p. Order a copy now.

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Sir Samuel Morland
DIPLOMAT AND INVENTOR, 1625-1695
by H W Dickinson

This book was published by the Newcomen Society in 1970 to mark its Golden Jubilee, and to commemorate the centenary of the birth of the author.

Background
Sir Samuel Morland (1625-1695), baronet, was 'Master of Mechanicks' to King Charles II and has also been described as 'a double spy'. Four phases in his life stand out: his academic upbringing, his incursion into politics, his outburst of invention and his refuge in the consolations of religion in his old age.

The book
Sir Samuel Morland illuminates the life of a public servant in England and abroad during the commonwealth, and gives Morland's own account of how he foiled the plot to assassinate King Charles II just before the restoration in 1660.

The author also describes Morland's numerous inventions relating to pumping machinery, calculating machines and other scientific instruments. The book consists of 130 pages, and includes 13 black and white illustrations covering designs for calculating machines, sketches from notebooks, pumps and other inventions and contemporary portraits. Two appendices give the titles of all the published literary works of both Morland and Dickinson.

The author
Dr H W Dickinson was president of the Newcomen Society from 1932-34, and Editor of Transactions from 1920-51. The contributions this prolific writer and scholar has made to the Society are commemorated by our biennial Dickinson Memorial Lecture.

Sir Samuel Morland, published by the Newcomen Society (1970), price £14.75 plus p&p.
A limited number of copies are now being made available. Order a copy now.


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