Dewrance, John
Born in about 1803 (Grace's Guide). Died in 1861: father of Sir John
Dewrance (below) (Ahrons British
steam railway locomotive ). On the Liverpool & Manchester Railway
John Dewrance was responsibe for erecting the Rocket (IMechE website)
and new locomotives of the Bird class: 2-2-2 with 12in x 18in cylinders
with a freight version (2-4-0) with 13in x 20in cylinders: No. 69 Swallow
(2-2-2) entered service on 8 September 1841. He experimented with coal
buring on Condor.(Sekon).
See R.H.G. Thomas.When
he left the Liverpool & Manchester he moved to Ireland to the GS&W,
then in 1846 to the MGWR as locomotive superintendent being appointed at
a salary of £300 per annum plus a company house on Cabra Road free of
rent. Patent (via Woodcroft) GB 10,594/1845. Steam-boilers; construction, composition, and
manufacture of bearings, steps, and other rubbing surfaces of steam-engines
and other machinery; lubricating the same. 7 April 1845.
Dewrance, Sir John
Son of above, head of Dewrance & Co. engineers. Born London 13
March 1858. Educated Charterhouse and King's College, London. In 1882 he
married Isabella Ann (died 1922), second daughter of Francis Trevithick,
of Penzance, and granddaughter of Richard Trevithick, the ‘father of
the locomotive’; they had a son and a daughter.. Died aged 79 on 7 October
1937. Dewrance was a prolific inventor who took out more than a hundred patents
(114 according to his Presidential Address), mainly relating to steam fittings
and boiler mountings. President IMechE in 1923:
Presidential Address. In 1899
he became chairman of Babcock & Wilcox Ltd. and of the pioneering companies
in the Kent coalfield. During WW1 he was a member of the Advisory Committee
of the Treasury, the Ministry of Munitions, the Ministry of Labour and the
Department of Overseas Trade. He was made a K.B.E. in 1920. High Sheriff
of Kent in 1925. ODNB entry by H.M. Ross, revised
Anita McConnell According to Who Was Who resided at Wretham Hall,
Thetford at time of death. Obituary
Loco, Rly Carr. Rev., 1937, 43, 325.
