Francis Trevithick

Born in Camborne in 1812, he was the eldest surviving son of Richard Trevithick, the pioneering engineer associated with high-pressure steam power. Francis Trevithick built his own career in railway engineering rather than simply living in his father’s shadow.

After studying civil engineering, he worked for the Grand Junction Railway and became locomotive superintendent at its Edge Hill works. He later moved to Crewe, where he served as locomotive superintendent for the railway’s northern division and was involved in the early development of Crewe Works as an important center of locomotive building and maintenance.

He is remembered as one of the early locomotive engineers of the London and North Western Railway era. Trevithick died in Penzance in 1877, leaving a place in the story of Britain’s fast-changing railway age.