Tuesday May 22 2012
History Archive
Village History
Pioneer remembered
Posted on November 20 2009 at 9:16:28 0 comments
Bromsgrove is to honour the engineer who gave his life ensuring trains could climb the Lickey Incline, writes Neville Billington.
Sunday January 10 will be the 200th anniversary of the birth of William Creuze BA, the Locomotives Superintendent of the Birmingham & Gloucester Railway Company from 1839 to 1841.
He gained his degree in the Mathematical Tripos at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he became “9th Wrangler” in 1834. It is believed that he was the first Johnian scholar to be appointed to a senior position in the field that came to be known as mechanical engineering.
Creuze’s significant achievement was in keeping the company’s three 12-ton USA-built banking engines running on the Lickey Incline during the critical first winter of 1840-1841; a task that called for much engineering ingenuity due to the locomotives having problems with our operating conditions. Had he failed, the railway would have faced closure – almost certainly for good.
Creuze lost his life in an accident on the Lickey Incline in April 1841 and is buried in St Godwald’s Cemetery in Finstall.
The Bromsgrove Society has teamed up with the Parish of St Godwald’s and the Milestone Society Worcestershire Group to mark the special contribution Creuze made to the district in ensuring the survival of the railway.
Sunday January 10, 2010, exactly 200 years after his birth, will start with a Graveside Dedication at 10am undertaken by the Rev Margaret Woodgates, Honorary Priest of St Godwald’s. This will be followed by the unveiling of the “William Creuze Memorial Fingerpost” by his great-great-grandnephew Warwick Sheffield, who is coming from Australia to perform the task.
The fingerpost event will be held in Garrington Road, Aston Fields, at 11.45am. In the afternoon the Bromsgrove Society is to make a gift to the people of Bromsgrove in the form of a pastel painting by Lawrence Roy Wilson, NDD GRA, President of the Guild of Railway Artists.
The painting conjecturally shows Creuze dealing with a moment of crisis in the railway workshops, situated at the foot of the Incline, in the early months of 1841. It will be unveiled by the artist in Bromsgrove Council House at 1.30pm.
This is followed on Tuesday January 12 by a talk, open to the public, on The Life and Death of William Creuze BA, by Norman Hewer, St Godwald’s Organist and Choir Master. This will take place at Bromsgrove Methodist Centre in Stratford Road, Bromsgrove, at 7.45pm.
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