Patrick Bruce Whitehouse OBE (25 February 1922 – 17 July 1993) was one of the pioneers of railway preservation, when he helped save the Talyllyn Railway in 1951. He also led the restoration to working order of several of Britain's steam locomotives after they were replaced by diesel locomotion in the 1960s.
Patrick Bruce Whitehouse was born in Warwick, the son of Cecil Whitehouse who was the co-owner of the family construction firm B. Whitehouse and Sons based in Birmingham, West Midlands and his wife Phyllis (née Bucknell), who was a descendant of the founding family of the shipping line that became the Ellerman & Bucknell Steamship Company.[1]
Career
RAF: 1939–1945
Educated at Warwick School, on graduation he was due to join the family firm, but the outbreak of World War II meant that he tried to follow his ambition of becoming a pilot. With less than perfect eyesight, the Royal Air Force approved his training as a navigator, which he completed in Canada under the Empire Air Training Scheme. Returning to the UK he was posted to No. 15 Squadron RAF, completing three tours each of 30 flights over Nazi Germany and occupied western-Europe.[1]
Assigned to RAF Transport Command, he was then posted by them to what was considered the less stressful Middle East. Shot down over the Mediterranean, he was the sole survivor of a crew of four, picked up four days later from his RAF issue rubber dinghy by a Greek freighter. By the time of his demobilisation in 1946, he had reached the rank of Squadron Leader.[1]
Whitehouse was a member of what later became chronicled as the "Birmingham Railway Mafia", a group centred around a core of steam railway enthusiasts who were members of both the Birmingham Locomotive Club and West Midlands branch of the Stephenson Locomotive Society.[1]
Newly married, Whitehouse bought a Rolleiflex camera, and began chronicling the demise of steam and the railways in some of his favourite railway locations in the West Midlands. These were supplemented by photographs from SLS tours organised by the Birmingham Mafia, including one Whitehouse co-arranged on the Ashover Light Railway, Derbyshire. Inspired by H Fayle's book Narrow Gauge Railways of Ireland, Whitehouse and his wife toured Ireland in the summers of the early 1950s, in 1952 accompanied by fellow publisher Ian Allan, with the group especially enjoying chasing trains along the Tralee and Dingle Railway. These tours are also where Whitehouse met fellow enthusiasts who would later play a key role in preservation of the UK's steam railway heritage, including Ivo Peters, Henry S Orbach and Peter Allen, later knighted for his chairmanship of Imperial Chemical Industries.[1] With a good volume and sufficient personal confidence in his own photographic ability, in the mid-1950s Whitehouse submitted a selected portfolio to the Royal Photographic Society,[1] and in 1958 co-authored with John Powell published a book on the Tralee & Dingle.[1]
Talyllyn Railway
In 1950, the Talyllyn Railway, a narrow gauge slate railway in mid-Wales, was on the brink of closure following the death of its owner Sir Henry Haydn Jones. A number of railway enthusiasts from Birmingham (known as the "Birmingham Railway Mafia"), formed a group in an attempt to save the railway. On 11 October 1950, Whitehouse's friend Tom Rolt called a meeting at the Imperial Hotel, Birmingham which led to the formation of the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society (TRPS), the world's first railway preservation society. Whitehouse attended the founding meeting and accepted the position of Secretary of the preservation society. He later became vice-president of the society, using his knowledge of civil engineering to help preserve and develop the permanent way, and became a skilled steam locomotive fireman on the line.[1]
In the mid-1950s, a number of Whitehouse's Talyllyn friends formed a group to attempt a revival of the Ffestiniog Railway in North Wales, and Whitehouse contributed to this preservation effort as well.[1] In 1968, a group of business people, including Whitehouse, made an offer to BR to purchase the Vale of Rheidol Railway, which was turned down by the Labour Party government.[4]
In 1962/3, B Whitehouse & Sons Ltd had been commissioned to rebuild a bridge and walls at Walsall railway station. With the oncoming introduction of diesel and electric services to the area, and subsequent rationalisation and simplification of the required infrastructure, the BR specification changed on numerous occasions resulting in large cost rises. At a subsequent meeting between Whitehouse and the regional manager Stanley Raymond (who as Sir Stanley Raymond, succeeded Dr Richard Beeching as chairman of the Board of British Railways), the cost issues were resolved, and Raymond asked if he could help Whitehouse with anything else. Whitehouse responded that he wanted to buy a steam locomotive, which after within the room discussions with his staff, Raymond agreed to.[1]
Whitehouse and fellow Talyllyn member Pat Garland secured Great Western Railway4500 Class Small Prairie Tank No.4555 for £750, which included a light overhaul at Swindon Works, a spare boiler, a wagon load of spares and free delivery to Tyseley TMD. Subsequently utilised lightly by BR around the Birmingham area, Whitehouse and his friends wanted to run the locomotive on a GWR branch line. Having originally focused on the already closed GWR Kingswear branch in Devon, with track already being removed they then focused on the Dart Valley Railway from Buckfastleigh to Ashburton. Operated from the outset – as had the Talyllyn and the Ffestiniog – as a commercial railway, in the first year the Dart Valley carried 60,000 passengers at a profit.[1]
Clun Castle and Tyseley
In 1965, an agreement was made to purchase Castle ClassNo.7029 Clun Castle from BR for its scrap price of £2,400. In January 1966, Whitehouse and John Evans donated the remaining amount the fund to allow the transaction to be completed.[1]
Clun Castle was purchased by the Standard Gauge Steam Trust. Whitehouse helped secure a lease from BR on part of GWR Tyseley roundhouse which was due to be demolished. The site leased included the coaling stage, ash shelter and watering tower. Dr. Beeching refused permission for the Trust to run their locomotives on the BR mainline so they were limited to the leased motive power depot. The site of the demolished roundhouse, including the surviving turntable - later became part of the Birmingham Railway Museum (BRM),[5] a 16-acre (6.47ha) site equipped to preserve and maintain main line steam locomotives. Whitehouse led the team which restored the LMS Jubilee ClassNo.5593 Kolhapur at the BRM. By the 1970s,[when?] the BRM housed up to 15 locomotives, and from that time on leased engines to preservation lines throughout Britain. It is now home to the Shakespeare Express which runs on the main line from Birmingham to Stratford-upon-Avon.[6]
Photographer, writer and publisher
In 1952, with Tom Rolt undertaking the writing and Whitehouse contributing the photographs and research, Whitehouse co-authored his first book "Lines of Character". Five years later he wrote his first solo book "Narrow Gauge Album", published by Ian Allan Publishing.[1] Whitehouse became the author or co-author of 53 books on railways,[7] and built up a collection of more than a quarter of a million photographs of British and foreign railways. In the 1980s, his travels in China led to a long-standing friendship with the China Railway Publishing House in Beijing, and a treaty of friendship between Birmingham and the north-eastern city of Changchun, Manchuria.
Published under the title Millbrook House, the publishers collection of over 250,000 photographs – from both those taken by Whitehouse, and the collections he purchased – became known as the Millbrook House collection. After his death, the majority of the photographs that he took himself known as the Whitehouse Collection was donated to the nation, acquired by the National Railway Museum.[8]
Whitehouse had inherited a Kodak film camera, on which he chronicled his excursions across the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe. In 1956, he produced his first commercial film with John Adams, about the railways of the Isle of Man. Showing the production at a local film club in Birmingham, they met BBC Children's producer Peggy Bacon, who commissioned the two men to present and produce some full-length railway programmes for children.[citation needed] Whitehouse and John Adams subsequently filmed, produced and co-presented the BBC1 Children's programme Railway Roundabout.[9][failed verification] Although the films still exist, the programme commentaries and links were live to air and unrecorded. Film archivist John Huntley estimated the Whitehouse and Adams were responsible for 137 films, of which around 100 were shown on Railway Roundabout.[1]
Family
His book, China By Rail was co-authored by his daughter Maggy Whitehouse. His son Michael Whitehouse is a lawyer specialising in rail transport,[10] and non-executive director of the Rail Freight Group.[11]
Related Research Articles
The Corris Railway is a narrow gauge railway based in Corris on the border between Merionethshire and Montgomeryshire in Mid-Wales.
The Talyllyn Railway is a narrow-gauge railway in Wales running for 7+1⁄4 miles (12 km) from Tywyn on the Mid-Wales coast to Nant Gwernol near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1865 to carry slate from the quarries at Bryn Eglwys to Tywyn, and was the first narrow gauge railway in Britain authorised by Act of Parliament to carry passengers using steam haulage. Despite severe underinvestment, the line remained open, and in 1951 it became the first railway in the world to be preserved as a heritage railway by volunteers.
The South Devon Railway (SDR) is a 6.64-mile (10.69 km) heritage railway from Totnes to Buckfastleigh in Devon. Mostly running alongside the River Dart, it was initially known as the Dart Valley Railway. The railway is now operated by the South Devon Railway Trust, a registered charity.
Peak Rail is a preserved railway in Derbyshire, England, which operates a steam and heritage diesel service for tourists and visitors to both the Peak District and the Derbyshire Dales.
Tyseley Locomotive Works, formerly the Birmingham Railway Museum, is the engineering arm of steam railtour promoter Vintage Trains based in Birmingham, England. It occupies part of the former Great Western Railway's Tyseley depot, built in 1908 to accommodate expanding operations in the West Midlands, particularly the opening of the North Warwickshire Line as a new main line from Birmingham to Bristol.
The first Locomotives of the Great Western Railway (GWR) were specified by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, but Daniel Gooch was soon appointed as the railway's Locomotive Superintendent. He designed several different 7 ft 1⁄4 in broad gauge types for the growing railway, such as the Firefly and later Iron Duke Class. In 1864 Gooch was succeeded by Joseph Armstrong who brought his standard gauge experience to the workshops at Swindon. To replace some of the earlier locomotives, he put broad gauge wheels on his standard gauge locomotives and from this time on all locomotives were given numbers, including the broad gauge ones that had previously carried just names.
The GWR 5700 Class is a class of 0-6-0PT steam locomotive built by the Great Western Railway (GWR) and British Railways (BR) between 1929 and 1950. With 863 built, they were the most prolific class of the GWR, and one of the most numerous classes of British steam locomotive.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) 4500 Class or Small Prairie is a class of 2-6-2T steam locomotives.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) steam locomotive No. 4936 Kinlet Hall is a preserved 4-6-0 Hall class locomotive
The GWR 4073 Class 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe is a steam locomotive of the GWR 'Castle' Class, built in March 1936. It was originally named Barbury Castle, and was renamed Earl of Mount Edgcumbe in September 1937. It had a double chimney and 4 row superheater fitted in October 1958.
GWR 4073 Class 5080 Defiant is a GWR 4073 Class steam locomotive built for the Great Western Railway at Swindon Works in May 1939. It was originally named Ogmore Castle.
GWR 4073 Class No. 7029 Clun Castle is a 4-6-0 steam locomotive built at Swindon Works in May 1950 to a design by Charles Collett for operation on the Western Region of British Railways. It was named after Clun Castle in Shropshire.
Tyseley TMD is a railway traction maintenance depot situated in Tyseley, Birmingham, England.
The Great Western Railway steam locomotive no. 4965 Rood Ashton Hall is a 4-6-0 Hall class locomotive. It is preserved at Tyseley Locomotive Works. The engine operates in its Great Western Railway green livery, and performs regularly on the Shakespeare Express, operated by Vintage Trains, between Birmingham and Stratford-upon-Avon, as well as various excursions.
Dolgoch is a narrow gauge 0-4-0 well tank steam locomotive. It was built by Fletcher, Jennings & Co. and is one of the oldest locomotives still in active service. It was delivered to the Talyllyn Railway in 1866 and continues to run on this railway to this day.
Lyd is a narrow gauge steam locomotive built by the Ffestiniog Railway in their own Boston Lodge shops over a period of 15 years.
Edward Thomas is a narrow gauge steam locomotive. Built by Kerr Stuart & Co. Ltd. at the California Works, Stoke-on-Trent in 1921, it was delivered new to the Corris Railway where it ran until 1948. After that railway closed, the locomotive was brought to the Talyllyn Railway in 1951, then restored, and remains in working order at the heritage railway. It has carried the operating number 4 under four successive owners.
Tom Rolt is a narrow gauge steam locomotive constructed by the Talyllyn Railway, using parts from an Andrew Barclay locomotive built in 1949 for Bord na Móna.
David C. Curwen was an English miniature railway steam locomotive mechanical engineer.
References
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Humm, Robert (1 November 2017). "PB Whitehouse". Railway Magazine. United Kingdom: Mortons Media Group Ltd. pp.28–33.
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