Richard Maunsell


Richard Edward Lloyd Maunsell held the post of chief mechanical engineer of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway from 1913 until the 1923 Grouping and then the post of CME of the Southern Railway in England until 1937. He had previously worked his way up through positions in other railways in Ireland, England and India.

Biography

He was born on 26 May 1868 at Raheny, County Dublin, in Ireland, the seventh son of John Maunsell, a Justice of the Peace and a prominent solicitor in Dublin. He attended The Royal School, Armagh from 1882 to 1886. He commenced studies at Trinity College, Dublin on 23 October 1886 for a law degree, however by this stage he had shown a keen interest in engineering. He concurrently began an apprenticeship at the Inchicore works of the Great Southern and Western Railway under H. A. Ivatt in 1888. Following completion of his degree in January 1891 he was able to complete his apprenticeship at Horwich Works on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. At Horwich, he worked in the drawing office, before occupying the post of locomotive foreman in charge of the Blackpool and Fleetwood District. From there, he went to India in 1894, as assistant locomotive superintendent of the East India Railway, being subsequently district locomotive superintendent of the Asansol District.
He returned in 1896 to become works manager at Inchicore on the GS&WR, moving up to become locomotive superintendent in 1911.
In 1913, he was selected to succeed Harry Wainwright as CME of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway. When that line was merged in the 1923 grouping, with Urie of the London and South Western Railway retiring and with Billinton of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway having less experience he became chief mechanical engineer of the newly formed Southern Railway. He retired in 1937, Oliver Vaughan Snell Bulleid taking over from him.
He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1918 New Year Honours for his efforts during the First World War.

Locomotives

Maunsell's key skill was engineering management rather than locomotive design, and he made use of design teams to create easy-to-maintain locomotives that could operate the required services with effective performance. O.S. Nock in his book Irish Steam observed Maunsell was known to frequently stress the dictum "make everything get-at-able". He was responsible for several notable locomotive classes and related equipment.
From his second spell at the GS&WR he is jointly credited with his predecessor Robert Coey with the one-off express passenger engine 4-4-0 No. 341 Sir William Goulding. He is also credited there with the design of the GS&WR Class 257 of eight locomotives which were generally thought of as quite successful. While these were an incremental development of a series of GS&WR 0-6-0 classes of and in particular his predecessor Coey's GS&WR Class 351 Maunsell's locomotives where the first on the GS&WR to use superheaters and piston valves. With Maunsell departing Inchicore in 1913 the final members of this class were completed under his successor Watson.
While at the SE&CR in 1917 the Maunsell team created two related prototype locomotives: one was a 2-6-0 tender freight locomotive, that was to become SE&CR Class N; the other was a 2-6-4T SE&CR Class K for express passenger work. These were followed by over 200 succeeding locomotives including classes K, K1, N, N1, U, U1 and W. Further locomotives for other railways came from came from kits of parts produced at Woolwich Arsenal; these consisted of six kits purchased by the Metropolitan Railway Metropolitan Railway K Class and 26 kits purchased by Irish Railways classes 372 and 393 some of which were constructed at Inchicore, Maunsell's old establishment.
A major achievement was the introduction of the 4-6-0 SR Lord Nelson Class locomotives and also the 4-4-0 SR Class V or Schools Class, which were the ultimate and very successful development of the British 4-4-0 express passenger type. He also introduced pulverised fuel equipment and new types of valve gear.

Patents