Entrance to Locomotive Engine House, Camden Town

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

This print, after a wash drawing by John Cooke Bourne in the National Railway Museum, is part of a series devoted to the London and Birmingham Railway and published in 1839. It shows the Bury 2-2-2 locomotive no 32 at the entrance to the engine house. This locomotive engine house, used to repair and maintain locomotives. Tanks in the roof of the building, filled from a deep well by means of a steam pumping engine, were used to supply the locomotives with water on their departure. In 1833, Robert Stephenson (1803-1859) was appointed chief engineer of the London British Railway, the first railway into London. Beginning at Curzon Street Station, Birmingham, and finishing at Euston Station, London, the 112 mile long line took 20,000 men nearly five years to build, at a cost of £5.5 million.

John Cooke Bourne is best known for producing two series of lithographs on railway construction. The first was published as ‘Drawings of the London and Birmingham Railway’ in 1839 and the second, ‘The History and Description of the Great Western Railway’, was published in 1846. The success of these works caused Bourne to be known as the ‘Piranesi of the Railway Age’. He also illustrated ‘Views in Kairo’ (1840) and ‘The History of Steam Navigation’ (1846) and made drawings of the road bridge spanning the Dnieper River in Kiev, Ukraine, for the engineer Charles Vignoles. From 1866 to 1877 he was unsuccessful three times in standing for election to the New Watercolour Society. He died in Brentford at the age of 81.

Places

England, London, Camden (borough), Camden Town

Subjects

steam train, engine house, points, railway, topography, townscape/cityscape, Victorian Genre, man, basket

Materials & Techniques

lithograph, colour lithograph

Artist

John Cooke Bourne (1814 - 1896)

Title

Entrance to Locomotive Engine House, Camden Town

Date

published 1839

Medium

Colour lithograph

Acquisition

Purchased from Sotheby's, 13 June 1957

Provenance

Sold through Sotheby's, London, ‘Old Master and Modern Engravings and Etchings’ sale, on 13 June 1957 (Lot 353; with GAC 3858-3860); from which sale purchased by the Ministry of Works

GAC number

3857