{"id":13,"date":"2014-05-25T18:20:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-25T17:20:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-11-13T04:57:52","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T04:57:52","slug":"john-wesley-hackworth-and-the-delivery-and-launch-of-the-first-locomotive-for-russia-1836","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/johnwesleyhackworth\/2014\/05\/25\/john-wesley-hackworth-and-the-delivery-and-launch-of-the-first-locomotive-for-russia-1836\/","title":{"rendered":"John Wesley Hackworth and the Delivery and Launch of the First Locomotive for Russia – 1836."},"content":{"rendered":"
\nJohn Wesley Hackworth and the Delivery and Launch of the First Successful Locomotive for Russia – 1836.<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
\n
<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n


<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\nNearly 200 years ago, <\/span>John Wesley Hackworth<\/b>, delivered and launched the first successful railway locomotive for Russia. It was built by his father – locomotive pioneer <\/span>Timothy Hackworth<\/b>. You may not find it in Russian history books, but the Hackworth engine was the first to arrive (on October 1st 1836) and to be launched in Tsarskoye-Selo. <\/span><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
The First
\nRussian Locomotive<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
In a paper from
\n1956, <\/span>David Burke<\/b> wrote that in 1836 \u201c<\/span>A 16-year old English boy (John Wesley
\nHackworth) gave Russia her first railway locomotive. He (and his team) faced
\nblizzards, wolves, and misfortune, and at the end of his journey, crowds
\ncheered him, priests blessed him, and he received the Tsar\u2019s congratulations<\/i>\u201d <\/span><\/div>\n
(John Hackworth\u2019s Russian Train – David Burke ((South Kensington Museum of Science and Innovation) Autumn paper from 1956. – Published on this site further down)<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span>Ulick Loring<\/b>
\n(the great-great grandson of Timothy Hackworth) comments that \u201c<\/span>for a young
\nman reared in the austerity of nonconformist north-east England, to be exposed
\nto Imperial Russian life must have been a heady experience. It is difficult
\nnowadays to imagine the contrast between English and Slavic religion and
\nculture and how it could affect visitors from Western Europe. His locomotive
\nwas the first among several ordered from Western Europe, to arrive at St.
\nPetersburg. This was on 3rd October 1836 (Russian Calendar).<\/i>\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>(<\/i>Ulick Loring – A Railway Family – 2015)<\/i><\/p>\n

The duty of
\nintroducing the locomotive to Russia devolved upon Timothy Hackworth\u2019s eldest
\nson, John. Such a journey at that time was a perilous proposition and Timothy\u2019s
\ndecision to send his son couldn\u2019t have been taken lightly! It may have been
\nbecause both Timothy and Thomas were under considerable pressure and Thomas had just got married to a French
\nwoman, Adele Celestine Hennon, <\/b>but
\nas Robert Young<\/b> says John Wesley Hackworth was \u2018a well set up youth, nearly
\nas tall as his father, and a keen and clever engineer, absorbed in his
\nprofession and in appearance, much older than his years<\/i>.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>(<\/i>Robert Young – Timothy Hackworth and the Locomotive. 1923 Chapter X1X)<\/i><\/div>\n


<\/i><\/div>\n
\n
<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Hackworth’s Locomotive for Russia<\/div>\n

<\/span>
<\/i><\/p>\n

Two engines
\nwere outsourced to the Hackworth\u2019s Soho works, New Shildon but only one <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

was built,
\nbut was the first to be delivered to Tsar Nicholas 1. George Turner Smith says,
\n\u201cIn effect, the engine was a typical Stephenson 2-2-2 \u2018Patentee\u2026The engine
\nwas crated up and transported on a modified flatbed wagon, along the S&D
\nrails to Port Darlington in Middlesbrough\u2026The locomotive was loaded on to the
\nbrig \u2013 Barbara<\/i>\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/span>(George Turner Smith – Thomas Hackworth (Locomotive Engineer) 2015 p10)<\/p>\n

On the 17th
\nSeptember 1836, The Durham Advertiser<\/b> reported –<\/span><\/p>\n

“On
\nThursday, 15th September, a large and powerful locomotive engine, built by
\nTimothy Hackworth of New Shildon for the Emperor of Russia was shipped on board
\nthe ‘Barbara’ at Middlesbro’. This engine is constructed on an improved
\nprinciple and finished in the best manner. She
\nhas been tried on the premises and propelled at the rate of 72 miles per hour.
\nIt is said that this machine and the similar one built at Newcastle, will on
\ntheir arrival at St. Petersburg, have cost the Emperor upwards of \u00a32,000 each.
\nWho, a few years ago, would have dreamed of the exportation of machinery from
\nthe River Tees? This engine is for travelling on the railroad from St.
\nPetersburg to Pavlovsky where stands one of the country palaces of his Imperial
\nMajesty<\/i>.” <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>(<\/i>Railcentre website <\/i>http:\/\/www.railcentre.co.uk\/RailHistory\/Hackworth\/Pages\/HackworthPage5.html#ImageLeft03_ID<\/a> )<\/b><\/div>\n


<\/b><\/div>\n
\n
<\/a><\/div>\n


<\/b><\/p>\n

The locomotive
\narrived at Port Darlington, Middlesbrough along with Hackworth\u2019s team of
\nengineers. It is assumed the Barbara would be a brig but nothing much is known
\nabout it. For any Middlesbrough historians wanting to do some research on the
\nship, the records from Customs House, Middlesbrough are now in Teesside
\narchives. <\/span><\/p>\n

Six years
\nearlier, Timothy Hackworth designed <\/b>the coal staithes in Middlesbrough, in 1830, and there is a
\nplaque at Middlesbrough docks placed there by Jane Hackworth-Young , <\/b>great great
\ngrand-daughter of Timothy Hackworth,
\n<\/b>in 1981.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Local
\nhistorian, George Markham Tweddell<\/b> gave a description of the coal staithes in
\n1890.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe railway
\nto Middlesbrough was opened December 20th, 1830, with a train of <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/i><\/div>\n


passengers and
\ncoal, one immense block of “black diamonds” from the Old Boy Colliery
\nfiguring conspicuously, which, when broken, was calculated to make two London
\nchaldrons. Staithes had already been erected to load six ships at one time, and
\nthe visitors witnessed the loading of the Sunnyside, under the management of
\nMr. William Fallows, then in his thirty-third year, who the year previous had
\nbeen appointed agent to the Stockton and Darlington Railway at Stockton.  The mode of loading the vessels laying along
\nthe low-banked river was very ingenious. Each waggon of coal was run on to a
\ncradle, then raised by steam power to the staithes, and lowered by
\n“drops” to the decks, a labourer descending with each waggon, undoing
\nthe fastening of the bottom, and thus allowing the coals to fall at once into
\nthe ship’s hold, when he ascended with the empty waggon, which was returned to
\nthe railway with the same machinery, in the principal gallery of the staithes,
\ncovered in and adorned for the festive occasion, and lighted by portable gas –
\nthe first ever burnt in Middlesbrough – a table, 134 yards long, loaded with
\nprovisions, supplied the needed bodily refreshment to nearly six hundred hungry
\nspectators, all of whom entertained glowing hopes of the prosperity of the new
\nventure<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span>(George Markham Tweddell in his History of Middlesbrough in Bulmer\u2019s North Yorkshire Directory 1890 – <\/i>http:\/\/georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/tweddells-history-of-middlesbrough-1890.html<\/a><\/b><\/div>\n


<\/b><\/div>\n
\n
<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

It was
\npreviously surmised that <\/b>John Wesley Hackworth travelled with
\nthe team from Shildon to Middlesbrough but in searching the Hackworth archive we discover that <\/b>John <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Wesley Hackworth was traveling to
\nLondon with his father, on business and intended to board a ship in London to
\ncatch up with the team in Hamburg. He missed the initial connection, but managed
\nto board a later ship and reunite with the team.<\/p>\n

A description
\nof the Letter from Timothy Hackworth<\/b> (Guild Hall Coffee House) to Jane Hackworth<\/b>
\n22nd September 1836  reads \u201cwe were
\nto (sic) late in reaching London the vessel had been gone 15 minutes.  One Mr Kitching from Lancashire has to go to
\nSt Petersburg to fix two weighing machines, he together with his niece and son
\nJohn all go on board on Friday night and sail for Hamburg on Saturday morning
\nand I think of coming home by Majestic\u2026\u2026.<\/i>\u2019 <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>(Hackworth Family Archives NRM York letter dated 22nd September 1836 (TH9385) <\/i>https:\/\/www.railwaymuseum.org.uk\/sites\/default\/files\/2018-04\/Hackworth%20Family%20Introduction%20%26%20Archive%20List.pdf<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

At that time,
\nthe Baltic was frozen over so the team had to travel from Hamburg through 500
\nmiles of frozen desolate country with wooden sledges, before the spires of St.
\nPetersburg came into view. David Burke<\/b>, who had sight of the lost John
\nWesley Hackworth diary of the trip, says \u201cBlizzards nearly blinded them,
\nwolves attacked them and only by whipping the horse teams into a frenzy did
\nyoung Hackworth and his team escape the snapping jaws<\/i>.\u201d And Robert Young<\/b>
\nadds that \u201cthe weather was so severe that the spirit bottles broke with the
\nfrost<\/i>\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Clearly in
\n1836, delivering a locomotive was no easy task but it was by no means the end
\nof their troubles. While assembling the locomotive in St. Petersburg, a
\ncylinder cracked and with no workshops in the city capable of fixing it,
\nHackworth\u2019s foreman George Thompson heroically took the cylinder from St.
\nPetersburg to Moscow, a distance of some 600 miles, to the <\/span>armoury<\/span> where they made a pattern for
\nthe cylinder, got it cast, bored out and fitted, returned to St. Petersburg,
\nand fixed it in the engine.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

The Launch
\nof the Russian Locomotive<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

David Burke<\/b> tells us \u201cIn November 1836 bells pealed in St. Petersburg, guns boomed, <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/i><\/div>\n


and
\nthe line was opened with great crowds cheering, gaping Russians who had never
\nseen an \u2018Iron horse\u2019 before\u2019. John Wesley Hackworth drove his puffing, hissing
\ncharge into Tsarskoye-selo<\/i> where the Tsar Nicholas 1 and his family and
\ngenerals waited to see him arrive. Not that the opening of the first railway in
\nonce Holy Russia was as simple as that \u2013 a score of <\/b>orthodox priests descended on the engine with crosses, candles,
\ncensers, and holy water to perform the blessing ceremony<\/i>\u201d. \u201cThey
\nsplashed me in the process<\/i>\u201d Hackworth wrote in his diary.<\/p>\n

Robert Young<\/b> elaborates \u201cThis was the baptismal ceremony of consecration according to the
\nrites of the Greek Church done in the presence of an assembled crowd. Water was
\nobtained from a neighbouring bog or \u201cstele\u201d in a golden censer and sanctified
\nby immersions of a golden cross amid chanting of choristers and intonations of
\npriests, while a hundred lighted tapers were held round it. This was followed
\nby the invocation of special blessings upon the Tsar and Imperial Family, and
\nfervent supplications that on all occasions of travel by the new mode, just
\nbeing inaugurated, they might be well and safely conveyed. Then came the due
\nAdministration of the Ordinance by one priest bearing the holy censer; while a
\nsecond, operating with a huge brush and dipping in the censer, dashed each wheel
\nwith the sign of the cross, with final copious showers all over the engine, of
\nwhich John Hackworth was an involuntary partaker<\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Hackworth
\nrelated in his diary how he was introduced to the Tsar who told him of a visit
\nto England in 1816, when he had witnessed the running of Blenkinsop\u2019s engine on
\nthe colliery line from Middleton to Leeds. The Tsar added some complimentary
\nremarks regarding the new locomotive, saying he \u2018could not have conceived it
\npossible so radical a change could have been effected within the last 20 years.
\nThe Tsar also told him that \u201c<\/span>It was an occasion of great progress and other
\n\u2018Iron horses\u2019 would surely spread across the nation.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Hackworth
\nteam, despite the delays and difficulties in getting there and in travelling to Moscow for the repair, were the first to launch. The launch,original scheduled for September was delayed until November 1836 to
\nenable the other teams to set up.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Wesley Hackworth and the Delivery and Launch of the First Successful Locomotive for Russia – 1836. Nearly 200 years ago, John Wesley Hackworth, delivered and launched the first successful railway locomotive for Russia. It was built by his father – locomotive pioneer Timothy Hackworth. You may not find it in Russian history books, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":71,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/johnwesleyhackworth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/johnwesleyhackworth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/johnwesleyhackworth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/johnwesleyhackworth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/johnwesleyhackworth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/johnwesleyhackworth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/johnwesleyhackworth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/johnwesleyhackworth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/johnwesleyhackworth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/johnwesleyhackworth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/johnwesleyhackworth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}