Greenwood & Batley
Encyclopedia
Greenwood & Batley were a large engineering manufacturer with a wide range of products, including armaments, electrical engineering, and printing and milling machinery. They also produced a range of battery-electric railway locomotives under the brand name Greenbat. The works was in Armley
, Leeds
, UK.
. Their first premises, the Albion Foundry, was taken over from Thomas W. Lord. The foundry was located on East Street by the River Aire (Aire & Calder Navigation), however this quickly became too small for their needs and in 1859 they constructed the Albion Works in Armley Road, Leeds. In 1885 the company branched out into Flour and Oil Milling Machinery as a result of the acquisition of the business of Joseph Whitham, Perseverance Iron Works, Kirkstall Road, Leeds. By 1888 the works covered 11 acres (44,515.5 m²) and employed around 1600 men. A rail connection with the Great Northern Railway was installed in 1890 to bring in raw materials and to deliver finished products. Greenwood & Batley rapidly became a giant of a company, manufacturing an incredible range of products. Their primary business was military equipment both in terms of machinery to make armaments and the production of components such as bullets and shell cases. They also produced some of the first tanks in the First World War.
An early innovation was the installation of their own electricity generating station, completed in 1894. This allowed machine tools to be electrically driven rather than the traditional common shafts driven by steam. This development was to prove profitable in other ways, as the company was able to provide similar generator stations for both public supplies and industrial applications e.g. tramways, as one of its range of products.
A further acquisition in 1896 saw Greenwood & Batley take over Smith, Beacock & Tannett, Victoria Foundry, Water Lane, Leeds. This company were the successors to the Murray Round Foundry and were principally involved in the manufacture of Machine Tools.
The company became part of the Fairbairn-Lawson Group in the late 1960s; however, trading conditions were not favourable, and in April 1980 the receivers were called in and 480 employees made redundant. The company was bought by Hunslet Holdings for £1.65M who continued to use the Greenbat name for their battery locomotives. By 1984 the work had been transferred to Jack Lane and the Albion Works were mothballed. In 1987 the site was sold and the works demolished.
. Self-propelling Torpedoes (Whitehead's) for the Navy, and Horse Shoes for the British Government.
s, particularly battery-powered types for use in mines and other hazardous environments.
In 1876 the company built an experimental compressed air
tramcar. The vehicle was supplied by a 100 cubic feet (2,831.7 l) reservoir filled at 1000psi. Similarly, in 1878 a Loftus Perkins tramway locomotive was built, fed by a water-tube boiler
nominally rated at 500psi.
Leeds Corporation placed an order for 25 electric tramcars in 1896, and the vehicles entered service in 1897, but there were no repeat orders.
Greenwood & Batley's first successful venture into locomotive building occurred in July 1927, when five 4 hp battery-electric narrow gauge locomotives were completed for Edmund Nuttall
’s Mersey Tunnel contract. These locomotives proved very reliable and a total of 31 G&B locomotives were used on the Mersey Tunnel construction. Other work developed rapidly. In 1928, flameproof
locomotive were built for the Royal Navy and in 1929 the first export order was for seven, pantograph fitted locomotives for the Chinese Engineering and Mining Co Ltd.
In 1930 the first standard gauge locomotive was built for Luton Power Station. This was a 15 hp design and was capable of hauling one hundred tons at 4 mi/h on the level. This locomotive is preserved at the Armley Mills Industrial Museum
, Leeds. A standard gauge passenger-carrying vehicle was constructed in 1933 for use by the Royal Navy
at Gosport. This locomotive used two 10 hp motors and could run at 20 mi/h up a 1 in 137 gradient. Other products for which they were well known was coke car locomotive for Gas Works and Coking Plants.
Greenwood & Batley also made a number of Coke
oven locomotives. These strange looking machines were made to go very slowly for long periods, and had to be bulletproof. One is at the Middleton Railway in Leeds.
In their short period of production, Greenwood & Batley built 1367 electric locomotives which were exported around the world. This company deserves much better recognition for its achievements.
) and controller, with foot pedal operating brake and on/off switch. A 3/4 ton example can be found on the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Railway.
Armley
Armley is a district in the west of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It starts less than a mile from Leeds city centre. Like much of Leeds, Armley grew in the industrial revolution and had several mills, one of which is now the Armley Mills museum...
, Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
, UK.
Introduction
Thomas Greenwood and John Batley first set up their business in 1856, both having previously worked at Fairburn’s Wellington Foundry in LeedsLeeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
. Their first premises, the Albion Foundry, was taken over from Thomas W. Lord. The foundry was located on East Street by the River Aire (Aire & Calder Navigation), however this quickly became too small for their needs and in 1859 they constructed the Albion Works in Armley Road, Leeds. In 1885 the company branched out into Flour and Oil Milling Machinery as a result of the acquisition of the business of Joseph Whitham, Perseverance Iron Works, Kirkstall Road, Leeds. By 1888 the works covered 11 acres (44,515.5 m²) and employed around 1600 men. A rail connection with the Great Northern Railway was installed in 1890 to bring in raw materials and to deliver finished products. Greenwood & Batley rapidly became a giant of a company, manufacturing an incredible range of products. Their primary business was military equipment both in terms of machinery to make armaments and the production of components such as bullets and shell cases. They also produced some of the first tanks in the First World War.
An early innovation was the installation of their own electricity generating station, completed in 1894. This allowed machine tools to be electrically driven rather than the traditional common shafts driven by steam. This development was to prove profitable in other ways, as the company was able to provide similar generator stations for both public supplies and industrial applications e.g. tramways, as one of its range of products.
A further acquisition in 1896 saw Greenwood & Batley take over Smith, Beacock & Tannett, Victoria Foundry, Water Lane, Leeds. This company were the successors to the Murray Round Foundry and were principally involved in the manufacture of Machine Tools.
The company became part of the Fairbairn-Lawson Group in the late 1960s; however, trading conditions were not favourable, and in April 1980 the receivers were called in and 480 employees made redundant. The company was bought by Hunslet Holdings for £1.65M who continued to use the Greenbat name for their battery locomotives. By 1984 the work had been transferred to Jack Lane and the Albion Works were mothballed. In 1987 the site was sold and the works demolished.
Products
At the start of the twentieth century Greenwood & Batley offered the following products:-Machine tool department
Every description of General and Special machine [tools] for Railway, Marine and General Engineers, including Hydraulic and other Forging and Stamping Machinery, Lathes, Punching, Shearing, Planing, Milling, Shaping, Drilling and Boring Machines. Bolt, Nut and Screw Machinery. Testing Machines for strength of Material. Wood Working Machinery.Special plants and machinery
For making Armour Plates, Ordnance, Gun Mountings and Ammunition: also for Small Arms Cartridges, Gunpowder, &c., and every description of War Material. Rolling Mills for Metal Coining, Presses and Minting Machinery.Oil mill machinery department
The “Albion,” “Leeds, “ and Anglo-American systems for Extraction of every kind of Vegetable Oil including Machinery for Preparing and Decorticating Seeds, Nuts &c. Presses for making Cattle Feeding Cakes, Seed and Grain Elevators and Warehousing machinery. Oil Refineries. Cotton and other Baling Presses.Textile machinery department
Improved Patented Machines for Preparing and Spinning Waste Silk, China Grass, Rhea, Ramie, and other fibres. Whyte’s patent Cop Winding Machine.Engineering department
Frickart's Improved Corliss Steam Engines, single compound and triple expansion of the largest powers, for driving Factories, Mills, Electrical Installations, &c. Sole Manufacturers of The Brayton Patent Oil Engine.Electrical department
all kinds of Dynamos and Motors for Lighting or Transmission of Power. Speciality: Motors for electrically driven Machine Tools &c. De Laval's Patent Steam Turbine Motors, Turbine Dynamos, Turbine Pumps and Fans (for Great Britain and Colonies, China and Japan).Ordnance department
Manufacturers of all kinds of Military Small Arms Ammunition e.g. .303 British.303 British
.303 British, or 7.7x56mmR, is a .311 inch calibre rifle and machine gun cartridge first developed in Britain as a blackpowder round put into service in December 1888 for the Lee-Metford rifle, later adapted to use smokeless powders...
. Self-propelling Torpedoes (Whitehead's) for the Navy, and Horse Shoes for the British Government.
Printing and sewing machine department
Patent Platen Printing Machines. Patent Boot Sewing Machines. Cloth Cutting Machines. Patent Boot Sewing Machines. Cloth Cutting Machines for Wholesale Clothiers, &c.Locomotive and tram building
Greenbat was the trade name for the railway locomotives built by Greenwood & Batley. The company specialised in electric locomotiveElectric locomotive
An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or an on-board energy storage device...
s, particularly battery-powered types for use in mines and other hazardous environments.
In 1876 the company built an experimental compressed air
Compressed air
Compressed air is air which is kept under a certain pressure, usually greater than that of the atmosphere. In Europe, 10 percent of all electricity used by industry is used to produce compressed air, amounting to 80 terawatt hours consumption per year....
tramcar. The vehicle was supplied by a 100 cubic feet (2,831.7 l) reservoir filled at 1000psi. Similarly, in 1878 a Loftus Perkins tramway locomotive was built, fed by a water-tube boiler
Water-tube boiler
A water tube boiler is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by the fire. Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which heats water in the steam-generating tubes...
nominally rated at 500psi.
Leeds Corporation placed an order for 25 electric tramcars in 1896, and the vehicles entered service in 1897, but there were no repeat orders.
Greenwood & Batley's first successful venture into locomotive building occurred in July 1927, when five 4 hp battery-electric narrow gauge locomotives were completed for Edmund Nuttall
Edmund Nuttall
BAM Nuttall Limited is a construction and civil engineering company headquartered in Camberley, United Kingdom. It has been involved in a portfolio of road, rail, nuclear, and other major projects worldwide...
’s Mersey Tunnel contract. These locomotives proved very reliable and a total of 31 G&B locomotives were used on the Mersey Tunnel construction. Other work developed rapidly. In 1928, flameproof
Electrical Equipment in Hazardous Areas
In electrical engineering, a hazardous location is defined as a place where concentrations of flammable gases, vapors, or dusts occur. Electrical equipment that must be installed in such locations is especially designed and tested to ensure it does not initiate an explosion, due to arcing contacts...
locomotive were built for the Royal Navy and in 1929 the first export order was for seven, pantograph fitted locomotives for the Chinese Engineering and Mining Co Ltd.
In 1930 the first standard gauge locomotive was built for Luton Power Station. This was a 15 hp design and was capable of hauling one hundred tons at 4 mi/h on the level. This locomotive is preserved at the Armley Mills Industrial Museum
Armley Mills Industrial Museum
The Armley Mills Leeds Industrial Museum is a museum of industrial heritage located in Armley, west Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It includes collections of textile machinery, railway equipment and heavy engineering amongst others....
, Leeds. A standard gauge passenger-carrying vehicle was constructed in 1933 for use by the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
at Gosport. This locomotive used two 10 hp motors and could run at 20 mi/h up a 1 in 137 gradient. Other products for which they were well known was coke car locomotive for Gas Works and Coking Plants.
Greenwood & Batley also made a number of Coke
Coke (fuel)
Coke is the solid carbonaceous material derived from destructive distillation of low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal. Cokes from coal are grey, hard, and porous. While coke can be formed naturally, the commonly used form is man-made.- History :...
oven locomotives. These strange looking machines were made to go very slowly for long periods, and had to be bulletproof. One is at the Middleton Railway in Leeds.
In their short period of production, Greenwood & Batley built 1367 electric locomotives which were exported around the world. This company deserves much better recognition for its achievements.
Battery electric flat trucks
Another successful product line were the battery-electric factory flat trucks, small vehicles designed for transporting goods inside factories, where the exhaust fumes of an internal combustion engine could not be tolerated. The truck consisted of a flat load bed, with a battery box and wheels underneath. One set of wheels was driven, and the other steered, with the motor positioned between them. The prop-shaft went down the middle of the two battery boxes to the driven wheels. At the steered end was a driver's platform, with a steering tiller (like a narrowboatNarrowboat
A narrowboat or narrow boat is a boat of a distinctive design, made to fit the narrow canals of Great Britain.In the context of British Inland Waterways, "narrow boat" refers to the original working boats built in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries for carrying goods on the narrow canals...
) and controller, with foot pedal operating brake and on/off switch. A 3/4 ton example can be found on the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Railway.
Today
Today there is no tangible evidence of this once-great establishment except occasional surviving artifacts such as machinery made at the Albion Works that can be found on the secondhand market—an indication of the quality of the products. The only local reminder of the Albion Works is the name of the public house "The Albion" which must have served many a pint to thirsty workers.Notable surviving examples
- The Steeple Grange Light RailwaySteeple Grange Light RailwayThe Steeple Grange Light Railway is a heritage railway at Wirksworth in Derbyshire, UK. It uses industrial locomotives and rolling stock from disused mines, quarries, and steelworks around the country.-The line:...
's main locomotive is GB No 6061, which worked at a number of steel millSteel millA steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel.Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. It is produced in a two-stage process. First, iron ore is reduced or smelted with coke and limestone in a blast furnace, producing molten iron which is either cast into pig iron or...
s. This loco was built from an adapted design, which had a cab that ran in on rollers. However, this was requested to be left off. She has one 5HP motor, a three notch controller and a 24 cell, 48 volt battery, and was saved and first restored by Adrian Booth. Mr Booth who has written a book on Greenwood & Batley, which is very interesting but sadly out of print. The SGLR also owns Ladywash mine No.6, GB No 2493. This loco was built in 1953, and is a standard 3 ton, 10HP design, albeit much modified by Ladywash throughout her career. Spending all her life at Ladywash, she was the first locomotive to be bought by the SGLR. However, due to a lifetime of heavy abuse, the controller being removed and the cost of new batteries nothing was done to her. She was bought by a member, who eventually sold her to another member, who is currently restoring her. She is now off site, with the frame being shotblasted to remove about 20 years rust. - The Armley mills industrial museum in LeedsLeedsLeeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
has two Greenbats, both of which also worked at Ladywash. GB Nos 1925 and 1926, Ladywash Nos 4 and 5, were bought by the museum when the mine shut. According to Adrian Booth's book, No 4 was in bits, and a picture of No 5 shows this loco was modified in a similar way to No 6 (frame and cab extensions, new controller). These locos were 4.5 HP, probably a forerunner of 6061 (see above). A picture showing what appears to be the back of No 5 (in front of the sheeted up traction engine) can be found here. All these locomotives are 18" gauge. - Another (presumably) 4.5HP Greenbat can be found at the Peak District Mining Museum in Matlock BathMatlock BathMatlock Bath is a village south of Matlock in Derbyshire, England. Built along the River Derwent, it developed, in the 19th century, as a spa town and still thrives on tourism.-History:In 1698 warm springs were discovered and a Bath House was built...
. This one appears to be complete, and in very good condition but unrestored. She is underground in their Temple Mine display, and looks like she won't go for a long time, if at all, having a big ramp preventing any easy extraction. This one is unusually 17" gauge, and may have worked at Mill Close mine. - Another Greenbat can be found at the West Lancashire Light RailwayWest Lancashire Light RailwayThe West Lancashire Light Railway operates at Hesketh Bank, situated between Preston and Southport in North West England. The Railway is narrow gauge and has a running length of . The full line is longer than this however it follows a ledge above the old clay pit which is narrow enough to prohibit...
. Built in 1942, this one worked at RAF FauldRAF Fauld ExplosionThe RAF Fauld explosion was a military accident which occurred at 11:11am on Monday, 27 November 1944 at the RAF Fauld underground munitions storage depot...
in Staffordshire. The WLLR stock list is here, and clicking on the loco shows it as it is now, fully restored and looking lovely. - The Almond Valley Light RailwayAlmond Valley Light RailwayThe Almond Valley Light Railway is a narrow gauge heritage railway running at the Almond Valley Heritage Trust site at Livingston, Scotland. The railway operates at weekends between Easter and the end of September, and daily during some school holiday periods. There are two stations, both with...
has No 1698. - The Ravenglass and Eskdale RailwayRavenglass and Eskdale RailwayThe Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway is a minimum gauge heritage railway in Cumbria, England. The line runs from Ravenglass to Dalegarth Station near Boot in the valley of Eskdale, in the Lake District...
in Cumbria has the once 16" gauge No. 2872, built in 1957 for Thomas Marshall & Co. of Storrs Bridge Fireclay Mine in Yorkshire. Formerly used as a carriage shunter, it now awaits refurbishment and a new battery. - Greenwood & Batley also made some standard gaugeStandard gaugeThe standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...
battery and overhead shunters, a similar looking industrial shunter survives at the Ribble Steam RailwayRibble Steam RailwayThe Ribble Steam Railway is a standard gauge preserved railway in Lancashire, in the United Kingdom. It was opened to the public on 17 September 2005, running along Preston Docks,...
, who are cosmetically restoring her.
External links
- http://www.embsayboltonabbeyrailway.org.uk/gandbtr.html
- http://www.westlancs.org/ West Lancs. Light Railway
- http://www.ribblesteam.org.uk/stocklist/greenbat.htm
- http://www.middletonrailway.org.uk/news/news3717.htm
- http://www.steamscenes.btinternet.co.uk/pictures/2001/armley/003.htm