The LNER Encyclopedia

My grandfather, George W. Wickens, was an LNER engineer who frequently drove the Flying Scotsman. At one point, I'm told, he became the head man at King's Cross Top Shed and was later an inspector general. Along the way, he was said to have been a favourite test engineer of Sir Nigel Gresley, especially on the A4s. I've heard he was sent to Germany in the 1930s to study electrification for LNER. He also trained a lot of younger engineers. In the 1960s, an elaborate retirement party was held for him at the York museum. He died in August 1966. The family has virtually nothing in terms of pictures from his railway days. Any help locating some, as well as more details of his career, would be appreciated. You can reach me at stephen.j.wickens@gmail.com

The best suggestion I can give you is to visit the National Railway Museum and work through the LNER magazine which is available on the shelves in the Search Engine there. The archivists may be able to give you additional direction. The magazine published promotions, transfers, notable developments etc. It may give you pointers as to where to look next. I expect there's something similar for BR, if he retired in 1966.

I don't believe there's an index for the LNER magazine yet (65447 may know if there are plans for one).

If he was shedmaster at King's Cross then Top Shed by Peter Townend may have some information - indeed, if you can reach him, Peter Townend may have some information as he is still with us.

There are LNER and BR records in the PRO at Kew, but I'll leave any advice on those to those who have looked at them, of whom there are a few on here.

Much thanks. Would I find Peter Townend through the forum?
I'm operating from Canada, but plan to be back in the U.K. in 2013.
Steve

I will search the LNER magazines for the surname and see what comes up.

I have found an E Wickens, Inspector at Hull in 1943 and an N J Wickens Clerk at Stratford Market, but that is all between 1927 and 1947 I'm afraid.

The railway employee records which have now been scanned give no George Wickens up to 1948. There were quite a few Wickens on the LBSCR, but none on the LNER or its constituents.

Date of birth might help?

jwealleans wrote:I don't believe there's an index for the LNER magazine yet (65447 may know if there are plans for one).

No index as such, except the index/contents pages of the magazine itself.

However, the magazines were scanned and converted to text all at the same time, so it is possible to search the entire content (in 2 parts, corresponding to the 2 disks it occupies) for any given word using the Edit->Find facility in Adobe Reader. It's not the simplest of methods, but it does return a list of years that contain results which can then be expanded to issue, then clicked on to bring up the page image with the search term highlighted.

I have found that quite a lot of the staff entries are not included, although it's quite possible to come across more notable or sociable (e.g. orchestra members) individuals mentioned in articles or reports, rather than the straight staff lists.

So far, the only date of birth I have for George William Wickens is the year ... 1895.
My oldest brother, born in 1941, now thinks the retirement may have been in the 1950s, not the 1960s.
Apparently, on the day of his retirement, he was given a chance to drive the Flying Scotsman one last time. They stopped at York, where he was greeted with a big surprise party.
G. W. Wickens was a superintendent inspector at the time of retirement. Also in the early 1950s, while our family lived in Cambridge, he'd stay overnight because he was supervising the electrification of the Woodhead tunnel.
He started with the Great Northern Railway, and my brother believes it was 1921 or 1922.
Steve Wickens (stephen.j.wickens@gmail.com)

Wickens wrote:Much thanks. Would I find Peter Townend through the forum?
I'm operating from Canada, but plan to be back in the U.K. in 2013.
Steve

Hi! I believe that Peter Townend is Honorary President or Vice President of the A1 Trust who built Tornado. You could try e-mailing them (via the A1 Trust web-site) and they may well be happy to forward your message on to Mr Townend.

I'm told that in this picture of 4472, the man in the lighter coloured, cap crouching, down is George W. Wickens, probably in his early 30s. I never met him because he died before the family got back to visit for the summer of 1967.
http://www.lner.info/locos/A/a1a3a10.shtml

Ay up!

You lucky chap! That's a rather famous piccie for you grandfather to be in.