1816 - 1856
Constance
Bronte was born at Thornton in 1816,the year after the end
of the Napoleonic wars.A sickly child, she nevertheless
showed great promise at school, excelling particularly at
technical drawing and mechanical engineering. At the age of
twelve, she had already designed an improved form of piston
valve, and when she was sixteen, won a scholarship to Bolton
Technical College. While studying there, she built a vacuum
brake system, which she patented and sold to the Great
Western Railway. Upon her graduation, in 1836,she took up
the post of Chief Mechanical Engineer on the London and
North Western Railway at Horwich locomotive works.
Constance Bronte's time at Horwich was a happy and
productive one. She immediately set about designing a
hydrostatic lubricator for supplying oil to the piston and
valve rings on the Horwich fleet of ageing locomotives. It
was an enormous triumph,and, flushed with success, Constance
straightaway went on to her next project which was the high
temperature superheating of steam. Whilst engaged in this
work, she was involved in a tragic incident on the footplate
of a locomotive being tested behind the carriage sheds at
Crewe. A high pressure tube in the boiler collapsed and the
resulting explosion killed three clerks and burned off all
Constance's hair. Never regaining it, she had to wear a
toupee and a hat for the rest of her life.
So highly was Constance Bronte regarded by the directors of
the LNWR, that she was given her very own siding in which to
relax during her off-duty moments, and she could often be
found there, shunting old wagons by hand and puffing on her
pipe. She used to smoke a particularly vile-smelllng brand
of tobacco, and complaints were often received at the
railway company's head office from irate housewives in the
neighbourhood, because their washing used to reek of sulphur
and burnt feathers. However, so esteemed was Constance at
headquarters, that the company would write back giving the
cause as smoke from low-grade coal used by shunting
engines.
In 1846 a need arose for a larger, more powerful, class of
engines to haul the heavy soap trains from Port Sunlight,
and Constance was empowered by the directors of the LNWR to
design them. She relished the prospect, and set to work with
a will. These engines were going to be the biggest,
strongest and most powerful ever seen in
Britain.
It was at this time she took the pseudonym 'Isabel Kingdom' Bronte due to her almost identical likeness (in a stove-pipe hat) to the now world renowned engineer and pastry chef.
The prototype
of the "Impediment" class emerged from Horwich works early
in 1847. Named "Feculent", it was massive. Measuring 94 feet
from buffer to buffer, weighing over 202 tons without
tender, this eight cylindered monster had wheels over 11
feet in diameter, of a 4-12-4 arrangement.
Unfortunately,things went badly wrong on the test run.
Gaining the main line at Blackrod, "Feculent" proceeded
north. Rapidly gaining speed, she hurtled through Adlington,
demolishing the signal box as she passed. All the over
bridges through which "Feculent" travelled were damaged
beyond repair and the steel girders of the Ribble bridge at
Penwortham were left buckled and warped. Signal posts were
snapped like matchsticks along the route and lineside
structures flattened. Just after Preston station (where the
platform edges were torn up, and the ornate glass canopy
brought crashing down) the crew realised that something
might be amiss. However, before "Feculent" could be
restrained, the portals of Woodplumpton tunnel loomed
through the cab windows. The crew leapt from the footplate.
With a sickening crash,"Feculent" wedged herself firmly in
the entrance and exploded. The thunderous roar was later
said to have been heard as far away as Macclesfield. The
"Impediment" class of locomotive was abandoned. (In the
official history of the LNWR, the reason given was "loading
gauge difficulties".)
It was a chastened Constance Bronte who,in 1847,joined the
footplate link at Chorley as a Fireman. She enjoyed the
work, however, and soon rose through the ranks to become an
engine-driver on expresses.
It was whilst Constance was sketching a new design of
connecting rod, on the footplate one day in June 1856, that
her engine ran at sixty eight miles an hour into the buffer
stops at Manchester Victoria and she was killed
outright.
She never married.
---ooo000ooo---
Drawing equipment and lubricant possibly used by Constance A.K.A. Isabel Kingdom Bronte - Engineer and confectioner.
An early Haworth pasta similar to those witnessed by Constance regularly as she wandered the tracks observing and reporting potential hazards to rail users.
An early Haworth Pastor.