Abstract
AT the annual general meeting of the Newcomen Society, held at the Institution of Civil Engineers on November 17, Engineer Captain E. C. Smith was elected president for 1937–38. In the report of the Council, it was stated that there has been an increase in membership during the year of 149, the total membership now standing at 576, more than half the members residing in the United States. The 300 signed copies of the “Collected Papers of Rhys Jenkins” have nearly all been sold, and Extra Publication No. 4, “John Smeaton's Diary of his Journey to the Low Countries 1755”, is in the Press. The financial position of the Society is very satisfactory. After the conclusion of the business a paper was read by Captain F. B. Ellison on “The History of the Hay Railway, 1810-1864”. This line, more than 25 miles long, was one of the longest of the pre-steam railways. It was built mainly for the conveyance of coal to a district north of Hereford, hitherto served by pack horses. Its terminus was on the Usk at Brecon, to which a canal had recently been made. First surveyed in 1810, the proposal for a railway, or rather tramway laid with iron rails, met with immediate support, among the contributors to the funds being the Earls of Oxford and Ashburnham, the Duke of Beaufort and Viscount Hereford, who was the chairman of the company. An Act of Parliament for the line was obtained in 1811, and tenders were soon afterwards accepted for 2,800 tons of “Cheltenham tram road plates of strong bodied pig iron to be 50 Ibs. per plate” and for 20,000 stone blocks weighing 168 Ib. each for sleepers. There were several bridges on the line and one tunnel 600 yards long, this being constructed by a miner of Newnham, Gloucestershire. The tramway continued to serve the district until the formation of the Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway, which bought up the line, sold the tram plates and used the stone sleepers in its bridges; but recently some of the material has been found in good preservation, and many old documents and plans have been brought to light. These are now being preserved in Hereford Museum.
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The Newcomen Society. Nature 140, 964 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/140964b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/140964b0