New papers show high and lows of railway engineer

York’s National Railway Museum is celebrating its most recent addition to one of it’s archives with the gift of further Hackworth family papers from engineer Timothy Hackworth’s great great grandson.

Timothy Hackworth, was an early railway pioneer who worked for the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company and had his own engineering works in Shildon, County Durham. He manufactured and designed locomotives and other engines and worked with other significant railway figures of the time, including George and Robert Stephenson.

The museum already has a significant Hackworth archive but these latest papers include fascinating early letters such as 1820s correspondence with George Stephenson, letters which describe the personal lives of the family, including family arrangements to put one of Timothy Hackworth’s daughters in an asylum.

There is also a letter from a fiancé jilting his son, John Wesley Hackworth, which some believe may have adversely affected him for life.

Alison Kay, assistant archivist at the museum, said: “Piecing the letters together plays out like a modern period drama - it demonstrates the highs and lows, triumphs and disappointments of the Hackworth family through the ages.

“Cataloguing this has been a labour of love but we are delighted that people will now be able to access these letters. This is a key collection for anyone interested in the early history of the locomotive and 19th century family life and we’re thrilled that it’s together at the National Railway Museum in York.”

The Hackworth archive is one of the most comprehensive railway family archives in the country and it is made up of over 1,000 letters and documents including a treasure trove of letters between the children of Timothy Hackworth.

The main body of the collection was acquired between 2002 and 2010 but it is unique because, unlike so many others, it is almost totally complete.

It includes a letter that can be interpreted as evidence that Hackworth invented the blast pipe, the innovation that helped to make Stephenson’s locomotives so successful.