Articles
One of the institution’s finest models, a silver and boxwood replica of Stephenson’s Rocket, has recently been photographed and can be seen online in 3D.
The idea for the model came about in 1929. Loughnan Pendred, mess-president of the IMechE’s Council Dining Club, had the idea of commissioning a table decoration for the club’s meetings – a silver model of the Rocket, in honour of the first and second IMechE presidents, George and Robert Stephenson. Pendred wanted the model to rest on top of a clock that would give a signal at 9.30pm, the traditional time for the toast of ‘The Institution’.
After taking the advice of A W Marshall of The Model Engineer magazine, Pendred approached Dr John Bradbury Winter, a well-regarded model engineer. Winter wrote that he “should love to do it, and should throw myself into it heart and soul, for the love of the work”.
Pendred had intended the model of the locomotive to be without its tender. However, Winter was concerned that it would lack detail. He therefore proposed using a scale of three-quarters of an inch to the foot, with the tender. These alterations were agreed to.
Winter lived with his wife in Switzerland and he was assisted in his workshop by Miss Christobel Mackworth. Mackworth put in as many hours as Winter on the Rocket – between them 100 a week. The IMechE’s archive has a collection of letters that detail the model’s construction. Mackworth did all the turning for the model, using a treadle-powered five-inch lathe.
The letters also give a glimpse into Winter’s character. In May 1931 he writes that “at times the call of the garden makes it a little hard to go into the workshop when the sun and champagne air and the green of the larches with the delicate new leaves of the silver birches are all waving to us outside”.
The model was made to an extraordinary degree of accuracy. A contemporaneous replica of the Rocket had been made for Henry Ford by Robert Stephenson and Company, so this firm was able to assist with technical drawings.
Specimens of Winter’s work were regularly sent to London for Pendred to examine, and they were also inspected by the Stephenson works. Customs officers invariably opened the packages and items got damaged. Pendred speculated that the officers were perhaps searching for cocaine!
Although the original purpose of the model had been as a table centrepiece for the dining club, the changes that had been made to the design over the course of its construction meant that it was no longer suitable for this. So it was decided that the model would be on permanent display in the IMechE library. Around the same time Winter decided that he did not want to claim his out-of-pocket expenses, instead intending to make a gift of the model to the institution.
When the time came for the Rocket to be transported to London, Winter was so worried about the potential for damage that he asked Pendred to call on officials to try to arrange for him to pass through customs without the Rocket case being opened. A note shows that Pendred was successful in this.
In the end the Rocket almost didn’t find a home at the institution. When Winter visited in 1932 the librarian said the library was not an appropriate place for the display of models.
Winter’s feelings were hurt and he decided to loan the model to the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne. It remained there until 1938, when, after much diplomacy, Winter eventually agreed to offer the Rocket on loan to the institution. It was gifted to the IMechE in 1944.
You can view the model at http://bit.ly/2Ac0vwT