I wrote a Forum post about some of these ‘absorbed’ engines back in 2014 but it has now been archived and has lost its illustrations, so I thought it was worth restoring these in this blog post, which is partly based on my original text.

Some time ago, I acquired a bound set of the RCTS "Locomotives of the Great Western Railway", mainly to learn more about the various pre-grouping designs by William Dean.  I had tended to skip over the volumes on 'Absorbed Engines' but later found myself browsing Volume 3 and realising what a strange and wonderful collection of engines made up the first standard-gauge locomotives to run on the GWR. These booklets are now available again on a print-to-order basis or in digital form.

Of course, the early GWR was a Broad Gauge railway and it was only in 1854, during the drive Northwards, that it came to own any standard-gauge locomotives at all.  The first batches of these were acquired from the Shrewsbury & Chester and Shrewsbury & Birmingham Railways.  What an extraordinary mix of types these were, quite unlike anything we usually associate with the later GWR.  

Shrewsbury & Chester Rly. as GWR No.14

Some were Bury-type locomotives, with bar frames, others were 'long-boiler' types, with a gothic firebox hung behind all the wheels, and there was even an 0-4-0 with an intermediate drive shaft (built by the Vulcan Foundry).  At that time, there was a brief vogue for intermediate drive shafts, since these decoupled the valve gear from both vertical movements of the springs and lateral thrusts from the flanges on the driving wheels.

Shrewsbury & Chester Rly. - GWR No.34

This 0-4-0 was one of two that became GWR Nos. 34 and 35.  They were delivered in 1853 and both were withdrawn in December 1865. 

Another former Shrewsbury & Chester engine that later gained notoriety was the long-boiler 2-4-0 GWR no.5, built by Longridge & Co., which was involved in a fatal accident at Rednal on 7th June 1865.

Shrewsbury & Chester Rly. - GWR No.5

A little later than this first group were the former West Midland Railway engines, which were added to the GWR fleet in 1863. This amalgamation brought in some of the old stock from the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway (frequently referred to as the 'Old Worse & Worse').  The only known illustrations of most of these early locomotives are drawings by E.L.Ahrons, a great chronicler of early locomotive history.  One of his drawings shows an ex-OW&W engine that would, perhaps, have seemed more at home in the Wild West than the West Midlands:

OW&W Rly – as GWR 223

There were two of these engines, one carrying the name 'Ben Jonson', and they worked branches in the Chipping Norton area until 1877, the other becoming known colloquially as "Mrs Jonson".  Note the outside steam pipes to the cylinders and the (somewhat squashed) safety valve cover.

Another West Midland engine, which is better known because its photo appears in 'Great Western Way', had the unusual feature of outside Stephenson valve gear.  It became GWR No.219, from a class of six, originally built by the Vulcan Foundry for the Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway in 1853/54. 

Shrewsbury & Hereford Rly. - as GWR 219

I found that there are extensive records of all the locomotives built by the Vulcan foundry on the web. These records includes lists of locomotives deliveries by years, in which the S&H engines appear as below:



There is also a drawing of one of these engines in ‘The Engineer’, showing both the locomotive and its tender, which gives a better sense of its proportions than the oblique photograph.

Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway – as GWR No.215

According to Ahrons, one of these engines could still be seen "lying in a heap of scrap behind Swindon Works in 1886".  

Some of these early engines survived well into the 20th century, usually after having been re-built several times.  The last engine from the OW&W. 0-6-0 No.58, seems to have been around until 1921, by which time, after several re-buildings, it had acquired a conventional GWR appearance as GWR No.47.

OW&W Rly. Re-built as GWR No.47

After my initial look at thee ‘absorbed’ engines, I came across an article entitled "Some Early Great Western Recollections" by C.M.Doncaster in the April 1942 "Railways" magazine.

The author photographed engines in the late 19th century at Reading Station, as a member of his school's photographic society, and recalls that he casually snapped No.184, never dreaming that this engine dated back to 1853, when it was supplied to the OW&W by E.B.Wilson and Co.  He wrote that, in 1895, it was not unusual to see these engines drawing trains of ten 6-wheel coaches   He even made a simple water colour of such a train, since, most unfortunately, he wrote that his photograph was not fit to reproduce.

This article led me to explore these engines in more detail.  Six were supplied to the OW&W in 1853; they were 2-4-0 engines, somewhat similar to the 'Jenny Lind' 2-2-2 design produced by the same company.  As it happens, No.184 was not camera-shy and appears in two photographs in the RCTS survey of GWR Locomotives (Part Three): one as re-built at Wolverhampton Works in 1877 and another, after a further re-build in 1893. This particular engine was finally withdrawn in late 1899 and the whole class had gone by 1904.
 

OW&W Rly. - rebuilt as GWR No.184

I have looked into some of the background to both this locomotive and the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway, in general. so share this information, in case it is of interest to other modellers.

The OW&W was initially planned as a mixed-gauge line, with Brunel as chief engineer.  Apparently, Brunel grossly under-estimated the costs and the money ran out in June 1849.  After a lot of wrangling, the line was eventually completed as standard-gauge only.

David Joy (best known as the designer of the 'Jenny Lind' and of his radial valve gear) was appointed locomotive superintendent in 1852 and his diary (see https://steamindex.com/library/joydiary.htm ) gives some idea of the precarious state of the railway at that time.  He writes that when he arrived, the line was due to open in a fortnight's time, on May 1st, and he had to scour the country to get some locomotives for working the railway.   He scraped together a miscellaneous collection for the opening day, including a four-coupled " Jenny" (known as engine 'A') from the Railway Foundry in Leeds, with the cheque (£1,250) in his pocket to pay for it!  Remarkably, this ‘second hand’ engine survived into GWR ownership as No.206 and was finally withdrawn in 1876.

David Joy’s engine ‘A’ – later GWR No.206

Fortunately, after a few months working with these second-hand machines, relief came with the arrival of the first new locomotives, built by Hawthorns in 1852, and six more by the Railway Foundry (then recently re-named E.B.Wilson & Co.) arrived in 1853, starting with No.21.  It was these latter engines that later became the GWR '182-class' and they were clearly David Joy's favourites.  He wrote "This 21 class would always answer to any little nursing, and would go"  For example he: "received an order for an engine, two first-class carriages, and a van, and a driver who dare run........ We were at Yarnton or Wolvercot Junction on the morning, and all ready to take our passengers from the Great Western Railway special. I was, of course, on the engine — No. 21."  A report was sent from one of the stations that the "special train had passed at 60 miles an hour." , This report, in due course, came before Joy, who remarks " I countersigned it, ' Yes, all right.' ".  There are plenty of other fascinating insights into the running of these early engines in the diaries, including several accidents, which Joy described as 'spills'.


OW&W Rly. No.21 (From David Joy’s diary)

In 1860, the OW&W amalgamated with the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway and the Worcester and Hereford Railway, to become the West Midland Railway, which, in turn, was amalgamated into the GWR in 1863

OW&W No.21 (later GWR 182)

All this colourful history convinced me that one of these engines would be an excellent subject for a model.  I found that No.23, re-built as GWR No. 184,  survived until October 1899, still working trains in the Oxford area.

The construction of my model is described in a series of posts, starting with   https://www.rmweb.co.uk/blogs/entry/14895-another-new-old-engine-1/


My model of GWR No.184 with motorised tender (in Wolverhampton livery)

List of OW&W Locomotives

nos. 1 - 20     12 Passenger 2-4-0 and 8 Goods 0-6-0,  built by Hawthorn in 1852/3
        became GWR 171 – 181 (Pass - with some exceptions) and 239, 241 – 243/5/7 (Goods)

nos. 21 - 26    6 Passenger 2-4-0 built by E B Wilson in 1853
        became GWR 182 – 187

nos.  27 - 30/ 34    5 Goods 0-6-0 built by E B Wilson 1854/5
        became GWR 248 – 252

no. 31        Engine 'A'  2-4-0, built by E B Wilson in 1849, bought second-hand 1852
        converted to 2-2-2 in 1855,
        became GWR 206

nos. 32, 33    'Ballast' engines 0-6-0, built by E B Wilson 1854/5
        became GWR 278 & 279

nos  35, 36    small 0-4-2ST, built E B Wilson 1853
        became GWR 221 & 222

nos  37 - 39    3 Goods 0-6-0, designed Peacock,  bought from MS&LR 1854
        one (38) sold, others became GWR 237 & 238

nos. 40, 41    2 Passenger 2-4-0,built by E B Wilson 1855
        became GWR 188 & 189

nos. 42, 51    2 Passenger 2-2-2, built by E B Wilson 1856 (large 'Jenny Lind' type)
        became GWR 207 & 208 (51 named 'Will Shakspere' sic)

nos. 43 - 46    4 Goods 0-6-0,built by E B Wilson 1856
        became GWR 264 – 267 (264 rebuilt as no.49)

nos. 47 - 50    4 Goods 0-6-0T, built by E B Wilson 1856
        became GWR 231 – 234

nos. 52, 53    2 Passenger 2-2-2T, built by R Stephenson 1859
        became GWR 223 & 224 (52 named 'Ben Jonson')

nos. 54, 55    2 Goods 0-6-0,built by Kirtley, bought from MR 1860
        became GWR 280 & 281

nos. 56 - 59    4 Goods 0-6-0, two built by Kitson and two by R Stephenson 1860
became GWR 294 – 297 (294 rebuilt as no.47)

Examples of each of these types are illustrated in RCTS 'The Locomotives of the GWR - Part Three'