Sir John Fowler (1817-1898)
General
1817 July 15th. John Fowler was born in Wadsley, South Yorkshire. He was a railway engineer in Victorian Britain. He helped build the first underground railway in London, the Metropolitan Railway in the 1860's, a shallow line built by the "cut-and-cover" method.
With Sir Benjamin Baker, he designed the Forth Bridge, a cantilever bridge, and Millwall Dock in east London. He was called in after the Norwood Junction rail accident when a cast iron bridge on the London-Brighton railway line fractured as a train passed over (1891). The girder failed from a large internal hole which had not been detected at installation. Since he had designed and built most of the bridges on the line, he advised that many should be strengthened or replaced, given the heavier locomotives then in use compared with those when the bridges were first built.
He is credited with the building of the near identical Albert Edward Bridge at Coalbrookdale, Shropshire in 1864 and Victoria Bridge at Upper Arley, Worcestershire in 1861. Both remain in use today carrying out their originally designed function of carrying railway lines across the River Severn. Albert Edward Bridge carries the railway line from Lightmoor Junction to Ironbridge Power Station. Victoria Bridge carries the preserved Severn Valley Railway between Arley and Bewdley.
Following the death of Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1859, Fowler was retained by the Great Western Railway as a consulting engineer, and a ex-Great Western Railway Sir Watkin class locomotive was named Fowler in his honour.
In 1865 he was president of the Institution of Civil Engineers
1898 November 10. He died in Bournemouth, Dorset, England at the age of 81
Buried in Brompton Cemetery
Fowler's Ghost
Fowler was also the designer of an experimental fireless locomotive (nicknamed Fowler's Ghost) which was tried out on the Metropolitan Railway in the 1860s. It stored energy in heated bricks (on the same principle as a storage heater) but was unsuccessful.
Three different designs were produced but only one locomotive was actually built and this has led to some confusion. The first design was for a 2-2-2 saddle-tank and a drawing of this has been published in some books as a representation of the real machine, although it was never built.
The locomotive actually built, by Robert Stephenson and Co, was a broad-gauge 2-4-0 tender engine. It was of fairly conventional appearance but very unconventional inside. The boiler had a normal firebox and this was connected to a large combustion chamber containing a quantity of fire brick. The combustion chamber communicated with the smokebox through a set of very short firetubes. Exhaust steam was condensed by a water-jet condenser and there was a pump to maintain a vacuum in the condenser. The idea was that it would operate as an ordinary coal-fired locomotive in the open but, when approaching a tunnel, the dampers would be closed and steam would be generated using stored heat from the firebricks. It was tried out in 1861 but was a dismal failure.
Following this unsuccessful trial a third design was produced, this time for a 4-2-2 saddle tank. It would, again, have had the hot brick heat store but, above the boiler drum, would have been a second steam/water drum to allow for large variations in water level. This machine was never built and, instead, conventional steam locomotives with condensing apparatus were used.
The Metropolitan Railway advertised the 2-4-0 locomotive for sale in 1865 and some parts of it were bought by Mr. Isaac Watt Boulton.
Obituary
1898 Obituary [1]
"...at Bournemouth, at an advanced age. He was born on July 15th, 1817, at Wadsley Hall, near Sheffield. At seventeen be was apprenticed to Mr. J. T. Leather, a hydraulic engineer, who did a good deal of water supply work in Yorkshire. We do not know how long he remained with Mr. Leather, but when he left him he went for two years to Mr. Rastrick, who was getting out plans and contracts. for a London and Brighton railway. Leaving Mr. Rastrick, he returned to Mr. Leather, and became resident engineer on the Stockton and Hartlepool Railway, and he was subsequently engineer, manager, and locomotive superintendent of that line. At this time he was only twenty-six years of age. He knew so much, and knew it so well that it is evident that he possessed bodily and mental energy in no small degree. He was a tremendous worker. He soon found that the..."More.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ The Engineer 1898/11/25, p513.
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography