History

The early years 1864–190

 

Louisa, works number 195 of 1877, one of the earliest examples of the Quarry Hunslet type

The Hunslet Engine Company was founded in 1864 at Jack Lane, Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England by John Towlerton Leather, a civil engineering contractor, who appointed James Campbell (son of Alexander Campbell, a Leeds engineer) as his Works Manager.

The first engine built in 1865 was Linden, a standard gauge 0-6-0ST delivered to Brassey and Ballard, a railway civil engineering contractor as were several of the firm's early customers. Other customers included collieries. This basic standard gauge shunting and short haul 'industrial' engine was to be the main-stay of Hunslet production for many years.

In 1871, James Campbell bought the company for £25,000 (payable in five instalments over two years) and the firm remained in the Campbell family ownership for many years. Between 1865 and 1870, production had averaged less than ten engines per year, but in 1871 this had risen to seventeen and was set to rise over the next thirty years to a modest maximum of thirty-four.

 

Dolbadarn built for the Dinorwic Slate Quarries in 1922 and now on the Llanberis Lake Railway

In 1870, Hunslet constructed their first narrow gauge engine Dinorwic, a diminutive 1 ft 10 ³⁄₄ in (578 mm) gauge 0-4-0ST for the Dinorwic Slate Quarry at Llanberis. This engine later renamed Charlie was the first of twenty similar engines built for this quarry and did much to establish Hunslet as a major builder of quarry engines. This quarry was linked to Port Dinorwic by a 4 ft (1,219 mm) gauge line for which Hunslet built three 0-6-0T engines Dinorwic, Padarn and Velinheli. Much larger than the normal quarry type, 1 ft 10 ³⁄₄ in gauge 0-4-0ST engines Charles, Blanche and Linda were built in 1882/3 for use on the Penrhyn Quarry Railway 'main line' between Bethesda and Port Penrhyn in North Wales.