William Grindley Craig
William Grindley Craig was chief mechanical engineer of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway from 1854-1859.
He was present, as an expert witness, at an enquiry into "The Railway Catastrophe Near Dudley" in 1858 (see external links).
He was succeeded by Charles Sacre.
See also
William Grindley Craig b.c1818, near Glasgow [possibly Barrhead]. Died ?
Locomotive superintendent [1] Taff Vale Railway [1844-1845], [2] Monmouthshire Railway & Canal Co. [1849-1854] and [3] Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway [1854-1859], and sometime [1844-1849?] in another capacity at the Neath Abbey Ironworks.
His appointment on the TVR was brief, a fate shared by a handful of engineers about this time on that railway.
On the MR&C Craig was responsible for 2 x 0-6-0 [1850], 2 x 0-4-0WT [1850], 1 x 4-4-0 [1850], 6 x 4-4-0T [1853] and 6 x 0-6-0WT [1854], all of which were built by private manufacturers.
Craig's last senior railway appointment, succeding Richard Peacock [of Beyer, Peacock & Co fame], on the MS&LR attracted a salary of £500/annum plus bonus payments based on savings made: He became a cost-saving himself when his contract was not renewed folowing a reorganisation; he was replaced by Charles Reboul Sacre, late of the Great Northern Railway, but was retained as a consultant. The locomotives Craig added to MS&LR stock comprised 2 x 0-6-0 [1854], 1 x 2-2-2WT [1856], and 3 x 0-6-0 [1858-59]; at least one of the company's ships was also designed by him.
In 1861 Craig was living in north London, employed as a civil consulting engineer and by ten years later was still there but had added iron merchant to his occupations. By 1881 he had moved to Wiltshire, where his wife Eliza Ellen [whom he had married in 1848] died in 1882. Craig had at least four children, two girls born in Newport, Monmouthshire, and a boy and girl born during his time at Gorton, Manchester. Trace of W.G.Craig disappears after 1882.
Sources: The Locomotives of the GWR, vols. 3 & 10, RCTS Great Central, vol.1, G.Dow UK Census returns
Sources
- Ian Allan ABC of British Railways Locomotives, summer 1961 edition, page 58
External links
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