The LNER Encyclopedia

In the late fifties I lived in Park Street, Hull with my garden backing onto the approaches to Paragon station.
I was a spotter and every day saw 61215 William Henton Carver. I have tried googleing the name to discover who WHC was, and why he had a B1 named after him, but with little success.

Can anybody help, please?

William Henton Carver (27 May 1868 – 28 January 1961) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Howdenshire from 1926 to 1947.

He was first elected at a by-election in 1926, following the resignation of the Conservative MP Stanley Jackson to take up the post of Governor of Bengal. Carver held the seat until he stood down at the 1945 general election. (Got that from the LNER encyclopedia) I would think he was also a director of the LNER

Many of the B1 names were Directors of the LNER , eg 61237 Geoffrey H Kitson also of Kitsons locomotive builders of Leeds or 61250 A Harold Bibby from the famous Liverpool shipping line. There is a Colonel William Henton -Carver 1868-1961 who appears to have been at one time Chairman of the LNER Property Committee, as well as a well known business figure and politician (M P ) in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

I lived in Selby in the 1950s when William Henton Carver along with 61010 Wildebeeste and 61304/5/6 made daily appearances on the Hull to Liverpool stoppers and return workings as far as Leeds where double headed LMS 6Ps took over for the climb over the Pennines.These workings were shared with Leeds Neville Hill(50B) B1s


50C

Yes, as you can imagine as a spotter I soon got tired of seeing 61215 and 61010. Only so many different ways you could tick/underline them in your Ian Allen ABC.
After living in Hull my family moved to Peterborough on the ECML and I met fellow spotters who had already got a full bag of Streaks and were going for a second time around (or so they claimed, LOL)

A little bit more about WHC.

He was a director of the LNER from 1927-1947 and lived in North Cave ( where his ancestors still reside & farm, I believe). Hence, the reason for 61215 being a Hull loco.

He died in 1961.

I googled it too, the second result gave me this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carver

Thanks everbody for your information.
You have solved a 50 year old puzzle for me. (Actually I think it is 52 years old, but we needn't be pedantic

The narcissism, egocentricity and toadying (to the Royal Family and 'the nobility' in general) in the naming of locomotives never fails to amuse me.

I am now out of touch with railway matters in the UK but I assume it still goes on.

I recall reading that a group of earls objected to their names being use on GWR 'Dukedog' 4-4-0s and successfully got the GWR to transfer them to 'Castles', because (and I actually agree with this) they thought it undignified to have the names of nobility attached to what was by then (mid 1930s) a class of grossly obsolescent locos.

Any minor director, etc of a railway company thought it quite OK to be immortalised by having a loco named after them, but wasn't there a great hue and cry when an A1 was named W P Allen - the railway union official who was widely acknowledged as greatly influential in the smooth transition to nationalisation! (I think he was an LNER man as well, wasn't he?)

I was still a passed cleaner when 1215 came to Botanic and I was one of the entire day shift engaged in tarting up this loco before it was driven up the old H&B line to Cave for the naming ceremony.
I remember been given sheets of emery cloth and told to polish up the connecting rods and motions with strict instructions to leave the piston rods alone.