Man travels to Yorkshire from Australia to see 174-year-old model locomotive his great-grandfather made

The model of the Jenny Lind, crafted in Leeds in around 1849 by train driver Charles Wilson, has been part of the collection of model locomotives at the museum since at least the 1970s.

Once a fully working miniature steam train, the model is a replica of the full sized Jenny Lind, the first of a class of more than 70 steam locomotives built from 1847 by E B Wilson and Company of Leeds.

Both the original and its miniature counterpart are named after Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, known as The Swedish Nightingale.

Mr Wilson’s long trip from Caboolture, near Brisbane followed a chance discovery online during some family history research, when he spotted a photo of the model in a blog written by Leeds’s industrial history curator John McGoldrick.

Mr Wilson realised the Leeds loco closely matched a similar model in a photo handed down through generations of his family, which showed a smartly dressed Charles and his two sons riding it along a set of miniature tracks at the Bendigo Easter Fair in Australia in 1895.

After getting in touch with the museum, Mr Wilson and his wife Rayda were finally able to make the mammoth trip to Leeds and view his great grandfather’s original model in all its well-preserved glory.

He said: “It’s actually very emotional seeing it for the first time- this is a part of my family’s history. My aunt originally told me about Charles and showed me the photo of him and his sons, and it was only when I started researching his life that I realised what a fascinating person he was.

“There’s still a lot about Charles that we don’t know, but from the detail in the model and the craftsmanship that’s gone into it, it’s clear he was a very skilled and talented engineer.

“The fact he was able to pretty much step off the boat and make a new, successful life for himself and his family in Australia also says a lot about him too. It’s just amazing to see the model in person and to connect with him in this way after all these years.”

Records show that in 1849, Charles had been living in a small terraced house in Holbeck.

As well as driving trains for the Leeds and Thirsk Railway, he completed an engineering apprenticeship and was an enthusiastic model maker.

His model was of such a high standard it was selected to appear at the prestigious 1851 Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace.

Emigrating to Australia in 1852, Charles put his engineering skills to good use and took charge of the Melbourne’s steam-powered waterworks.His success also allowed him to resume making models, with one exhibited in the Melbourne Exhibition of 1855.

After retiring he moved to Ballarat, the centre of gold mining in Victoria where he died in 1899.