Arthur Parsey

Model of Parsey's compressed air locomotive at the National Railway Museum, York. This is presumably the 1846 model referred to below

Arthur Parsey (c1791-1857), Artist and inventor

1818 Married in Whitechapel to Mary Charlotte Morse

1826 Birth of son William Parsey

1845 Listed at 2 Spur Street, London as an artist.

1846 Working model of a railway powered by a compressed air system, patented in 1844, No. 10,352. He exhibited a working model at the office of Parsey's Compressed Air Engine Company, 5, Pall Mall East. It was proposed to have reservoirs of air, compressed to 1000 - 2000 psi, at suitable intervals along the line, for replenishing the two reservoirs which every locomotive was to possess. About 50 or 60 psi on the pistons was to be the working pressure. It was pointed out, however, that the loss of power in compressing air to so high a pressure and using it at such a low one was so great, and the distances that could be run without replenishment, carrying trains of paying weight, so small, that Parsey's system disappeared without being attempted on an everyday working scale.. An article in the Illustrated London News included several drawings, one showing that the overall length of the locomotive was 25 ft. There were two vertical cylinders directly above the driving axle. A third cylinder received air from the two high pressure reservoirs, via a regulating valve which maintained the pressure in the receiver at the required working pressure, say 60 psi. From there, the arrangement was like that of a conventional steam locomotive, with slide valves.. In the photograph above, the larger green cylinder is the receiver, with the spring-loaded valve above.

1851 Listed at 455 Oxford Street.

1851 Listed in 455 New Oxford Street, St. Giles, London: Arthur Parsey (age 60 born Whitechapel), an Artist Portrait Miniatures. With his wife and three children including William Parsey (age 24 born St James), a Mechanical Draughtsman.

1852 'A successful trial took place, last week, on the Eastern Counties Railway, of Mr. Parsey's locomotive engine on the compressed air principle.'

1857 Arthur Parsey died in Pancras

By 1861 his wife was recorded as a widow

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In 1960 Parsey's great-grandson, Arthur H. Parsey, wrote that Arthur Parsey had constructed a full size compressed air locomotive, and that a model resided at his great-grandfather's house in Norbury. In about 1900 the locomotive was offered to Arthur H's father, who accepted, assuming that it was the model. In fact three horse-drawn vans turned up with the actual locomotive! As he was living in an apartment, he had no room, and bribed the van men to take it away and dispose of it as they wished!

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