Britian: Locomotive workshop to the world
I enjoyed L. A. Summers's article (November), especially the insights into those exports that have survived abroad in contrast to their UK-based equivalents.
Mr. Summers did not mention one very important player in Britain's colonial locomotive purchases: the Crown Agents. The CA had its own consulting engineers (mechanical and civil) and generally it decided which equipment should be supplied for railways, harbours and large infrastructure projects in the smaller colonies.
The process worked like this, at least in Mauritius. The Mauritius Government Railway (MGR) locomotive superintendent would tell the departmental head, ie the MGR general manager, that he needed a more powerful class of locomotive to handle heavier trains of sugar to the harbour. Between them they would draw up a broad specification, perhaps based on a locomotive type already in use elsewhere, such as Ceylon or India. The GM would make his case to the colony's Governor. If persuaded that the expense could be justified, the Governor would transmit the request and supporting correspondence to the Colonial Office, which would pass it on to the Crown Agents.
Exactly what happened within the CA's Millbank offices is a bit of a mystery to me, but certainly anything that was not simply a reorder or otherwise very straightforward was assessed by one of its consulting engineers. A specification was drawn up and a request for tenders circulated to suitable manufacturers. Their proposals and costs were assessed and a recommendation made to the Governor, who passed it on to the MGR manager.
The process could be quite protracted and occasionally fractious – some of the memos and marginal notes in the files are quite acidic! Generally, it was the Governor who had to argue the case on behalf of the MGR GM, so success depended on the two men having a good working relationship.
The sticking point was usually money: National Archives files (CO and CAOG series) reveal the degree of penny-pinching around even modest purchases. Both the CO and CA treated Mauritius with suspicion due to the dominance of French planters, who were viewed as insufficiently loyal to Empire and prone to making unreasonable demands.
