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Kevin Jones' Steam Index

David Joy also Edward B. Wilson

Joy was born in Leeds on 3 March 1825. His father, Edward was manager of oil seed crushing mills, but David could not evince an interest in this activity and became an apprentice at Fenton, Murray and Jackson, where he stayed until February 1843. Reputed to be the chief designer of Jenny Lind, a 2-2-2 built in 1847 which set a longlasting style for British locomotives, David Joy was also the originator of Joy's valve gear, which was very successful in railway and marine service. For much of his career he was associated with the Railway Foundry of Leeds.

Sekon records that most boys take an interest in machinery, but young David Joy was especially keen in learning all he could about such subjects, and was frequently making models of engines and boats. After leaving school in 1841, he entered his father's works ; but he had no interest in seed crushing, so he was apprenticed to the engineering firm of Fenton, Murray and  Jackson, where he stayed until February 1843, when the works were closed. In June of that year he entered the Railway Foundry at Leeds, of which Shepherd and Todd were the proprietors, as a drawing office apprentice.

His first work was to prepare plans of a "John Gray" locomotive with a steam pressure of 90 lbs. On E.B.Wilson taking over the Railway Foundry in 1844 Joy became manager of the drawing office and it was in that capacity that he became so intimately associated with the development of the celebrated Jenny Lind locomotive.

Lowe is highly interesting on the Jenny Lind question: "There has been much controversy as to who was actually responsible for the design. David Joy was chief draughtsman and if one refers to that interesting series of articles in the Railway Magazine 'Some links in the evolution of the Locomotive' the part published in June 1908 indicates that Joy claimed to have carried out all the design work and drawing. Other claims were for Wilson himself, and James Fenton, but whoever it was, the Jenny Lind type was extremely successful. Over seventy were built, and no less than twenty-four were sold to the Midland Railway."

In 1850 David Joy was appointed superintendent of the Nottingham and Grantham Railway. No engines were ready for work so that considerable ingenuity was necessary to get the engines in time, in order to work the trains. His next appointment was in 1853 as locomotive superintendent of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, where he remained until the line was sold in 1856, when he returned to the Railway Foundry, Leeds.

In 1855 he read a paper before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on a "Spiral Coil Piston Packing." In 1857 he brought out a compound marine engine, in which a deep high-pressure piston acted as the distributing valve for the low-pressure cylinder. He also invented a steam reversing gear, and about this time he took out the first of three patents for hydraulic organ-blowers. The first on a large scale was fitted to the organ at the Leeds Town Hall, and they were also in use at the Crystal Palace.

In 1859 he accepted the position of manager of Mr. De Bergue's bridge-building yard in Manchester, and in the next year brought out a special form of steam hammer, for the manufacture of which he started in business for himself at the Cleveland Engine Works, Middlesbrough. These works were closed in 1871 because the ground was required for the extension of a large shipbuilding yard.

During this and the succeeding year he organised the first serious effort to utilise slag as a residual product. A form of blast was used for pulverising the slag, and one of the results was silicate cotton. In 1874 he went to the Barrow Shipbuilding Co. as manager of the water-tube boiler department, the company having purchased the rights of the Howard boiler; and in June, 1876, he also became secretary to the same company. According to D.K. Clark The Steam engine (p. 757) Joy published a paper on the Barrow boiler in J. Iron Steel Inst., 1875, 220; 387..

During this period he worked out the details of his famous radial valve-gear, which was patented in 1870. It was taken up by the London and North Western Railway, and Mr. Webb fitted a six-coupled goods engine with it, and sent this engine to Barrow-in-Furness for the Summer Meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in August, 1880 when Joy read:the paper: On a new reversing and expansive valve-gear (PIME 31-418). See also Hambleton, F.C. The first locomotive to be fitted with Joy's valve gear. Loco. Rly Carr. Wagon Rev., 1944, 50, 22. (No. 2365 was so fitted). In 1880 he went to London to act as the London agent of the Barrow Shipbuilding Co., but only continued in this capacity for a little more than a year, the work in connection with his several inventions demanding all his attention. In 1882 he attended the meeting of the Railroad Master Mechanics'. Association at Niagara, and there read a paper on Webb's compound engine, and on his own valve-gear. His radial valve-gear was also extensively adopted by the Lancashire and Yorkshire, Midland, Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoinshire, and other British railways. Returning to London, he continued, in partnership with his sons, to develop his various inventions, and he read papers on the valve-gear and assistant cylinder before a number of societies. The success of the valve-gear was attested by the fact that it was applied to locomotive and marine engines aggregating one million horse-power, and a considerable number of his assistant cylinders are also in use. The latter device was successfully used on a large number of ships in the British and foreign navies, mercantile marine, on private steam yachts, and on stationary engines, .representing a total of over one and a half million horse-power. In 1894 he read a paper before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on a " Fluid-Pressure Reversing Gear for Locomotive Engines."

He died at his Hampstead home from congestion of the lungs, on March 14th, 1903, at the age of seventy-eight. He was a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers from 1853 to 1867, and re-joined in 1880. He was a member of the Institution of Naval Architects of England and also of America, and of other societies.
See extracts from Diaries

See: The Locomotive Carriage and Wagon Review, June 1940 and Locomotive Mag., 1903, 8, 228.

See extracts from Diaries

Other papers
Description of a spiral coil piston packing. Proc. Instn Mech. Engrs., 1855, 6, 171-6.
The introduction of expansive working by John Gray's motion. Engineer, 1890, 69, 14 February.

See: The Locomotive Carriage and Wagon Review, June 1940.

Contributions to other's papers

Sauvage, Edouard. Recent locomotive practice in France. Proc. Instn Mech. Engrs., 1900, 59, 429.
Mainly on proven advantage of compounding in marine engines.

Sources
Carpenter, George W. entry in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Le Fleming, Hugh M.
Marshall, John. Biographical dictionary of railway engineers
Nock, O.S. Railway enthusuast's encyclopedia

Wilson, Edward B.

Rutherford provided the basic information about Wilson who was associated with the Railway Foundry of Leeds. This had been established in 1838 by John Shepherd and Charles Todd, the latter moving on in 1844 when he was replaced by Edward B. Wilson, scion (KPJ: probably an over-statement) of a well-known Hull shipping family. Wilson left abruptly after only a year and the firm was taken over by James Fenton Jnr. It traded as Fenton, Craven & Co. but only briefly, for Wilson returned as owner of the company at the end of 1846 with Fenton as his works manager and David Joy as leading draughtsman, the firm now trading as E. B. Wilson & Co.

Wilson was adept at 'inter-personal communication' and was able to obtain several profitable contracts, in particular with the newly formed Great Northern Railway. The Midland Railway and the LBSCR were also good customers at this time. Several factors helped Wilson: firstly, he had built a brand-new erecting shop and installed the latest machinery and methods — the building was opened with a banquet for 200 guests in December 1847. Secondly, new designs were developed, in particular the 'Jenny Lind' type 2-2-2, which were successful in service and resulted in repeat orders from existing customers and the interest of new buyers.

It occurred to Wilson that many of the differences required by customers were idiosyncratic and both costly to undertake and pointless in practice. He thus began a policy of supplying only standard types where he could (and when these types had a proven track record) and charging a considerable premium per engine for deviations.The firm also began to undertake the operation of locomotives on some railways, under contract, supplying the locomotives involved. Naturally it was better to use its own engines with which its staff were familiar and to which the supply of replacement parts was a straightforward matter. This also led to a policy of building locomotives for stock to smooth out the peaks and troughs of the business cycles that had quite an effect in the days of laissez-faire.

Trouble with leading shareholders caused Edward Wilson to leave the Railway Foundry in 1856 and Alexander Campbell (later a founder of Manning, Wardle & Co.) was appointed manager but the bitter feuding between the leading shareholders continued and the result was high court action and the winding up of the company in 1858, even though that year's production created a clear profit of £12,000. Some of the Wilson designs continued to be built by the newcomer Manning, Wardle & Co. in the neighbouring Boyne Engine Works but many Wilson locomotives had extremely long lives which confirms the rightness of much of the work, and its quality, at the original Railway Foundry.

Rutherford, Michael. Locomotive standardisation and standard locomotives - Part one. Railway reflections No.73. Backtrack, 2001, 15, 46-52.

The Internet provided some extra information. The Wilson Line appears to have been founded in 1831 (The Wilson Line of Hull 1831-1981, A. Credland and M. Thompson, Hutton Press, 1994 not in Norfolk County Library in spite of County's links with the sea) may provide more information about E.B. Wilson. The shipping company made its fortune by conveying Jewish emigrants across the North Sea. Owned by a Hull family and run from their headquarters in Commercial Road, the Wilson Line became the largest privately-owned shipping line in the world and was the main shipping operator at Hull, Newcastle and West Hartlepool. The Wilson Line struck deals with North Eastern Railways and rail companies on the continent, thereby protecting its position as the dominant steamship passenger operator while forming a powerful partnership that could undercut direct travel operators. The Wilson family's lifestyle, however, with its grand Tranby Croft home, its country social set, and its dodgy Baccarat games with the Prince of Wales, was in alarming contrast to the revolting conditions in which its 'clients' travelled. Somewhere along the line, the Wilsons forgot to put some of their massive profits from transmigrants' need to start a new life, into improving the standards on their ships. From 1860 to 1880 the Hull Board of Health wrote frequently to the company, in one instance describing the migrants as being treated more like cattle than humans. Another letter described human excrement running down the side of a ship in which 200 migrants were to wait four days for their train to Liverpool.

Wilson Line, J. Harrower, WSS, 1998