Ixii Annnal Report of the Council. 



and to the opportunities wisely afforded him by his father, who 

 owned a steam-driven cotton mill, and not to a systematic early 

 education. He had constructed many machines in his father's 

 workshop, and had invented the weft fork or weft stopper, which 

 is still essential for the high speed of looms, before, in 1829, he 

 came to Manchester and entered the service of Messrs. Sharp, 

 Roberts and Co. His industry and ability attracted the notice 

 of Mr. C. F. Beyer, who, in 1842, recommended his appointment as 

 locomotive superintendent of the then Manchester and Birming- 

 ham Railway. In 1 85 7, he followed Mr. Trevithick as locomotive 

 superintendent at the Crewe Works, and, in 1862, he obtained 

 the control of all the locomotive works of the Company which 

 were then concentrated at Crewe. His inventions in the con- 

 struction and working of locomotives are too numerous to 

 mention here ; the best known are his device for enabling loco- 

 motives to pick up water from a trough on the permanent way, 

 and the well-known type of express engine in use on the London 

 and North- Western line. Thirteen papers in the Proceedings of 

 the Institute of Mechanical Engineers contain the details of his 

 inventions. He retired from the service of the London and 

 North- Western Railway Company, owing to ill health, in 187 1, 

 but, his health being again established, he became consulting 

 engineer at the Horwich Works of the Lancashire and Yorkshire 

 Railway Company in 1883, and was elected a director of that 

 company in 1885. Mr, Ramsbottom was also a director of the 

 firm of Messrs. Beyer, Peacock and Co., and his name is asso- 

 ciated with that of Mr. Beyer in connection with the Engineering 

 Department of the Owens College. He was a Governor of the 

 Owens College and a generous contributor to the funds of that 

 institution, apart from his connection with the Department of 

 Engineering. 



Mr. Ramsbottom was elected a member of the Society on 

 February 7th, 1854. He died on May 20th, 1897, being in his 

 eighty-third year. 



