Richard Mansell

Richard Christopher Mansell (October 1813, Liverpool - 1904, Westmorland) was an English railway engineer.

Mansell was carriage superintendent for the South Eastern Railway at Ashford by 1851, and later works manager for the SER. In 1877 he succeeded Alfred Mellor Watkin as locomotive superintendent of the SER. When James Stirling was appointed in 1878, Mansell resumed the post of works manager until his retirement from the SER in January 1882. On leaving, he was given an annual consultancy fee/pension of fifty guineas.

Carriages

R. C. Mansell was the inventor of the Mansell wheel, a composite wood and metal carriage wheel, for which he obtained patents in 1848, 1862 and 1866.^[1]

Locomotives

As locomotive superintendent, Mansell was responsible for the design of a dozen locomotives: 9 x 0-4-4T [1878] and 3 x 0-6-0 [completed 1879, 7 others cancelled]. Three 0-6-0Ts that had been designed by Cudworth were also completed under Mansell's supervision in 1877. None of his engines had a distinguished service life. The tanks lasted about 12 years and the 0-6-0s about twice that.

Family

Richard Christopher Mansell was the second of seven children born to John Mansell, a Customs House Officer in Liverpool, and his wife Margaret. Richard married twice. His first wife, Elizabeth Morris, died in 1873, aged 56 - they had three children. He married again, in 1874, to Emmeline Aldgate Clark, a widow, who died in 1912. Richard and Emmeline had a daughter, born in 1877 when Richard was 64.

References

• D. L. Bradley, The Locomotives of the South Eastern Railway
• A Gray, South Eastern Railway
• UK Census Returns
• Records of the Registrar for Births, Deaths & Marriages

See also

• Locomotives of the Southern Railway