Title
Aquatinted illustration - Taking in water at Parkside
Reference
YA1983.9/4/13
Production date
1831 - 1831
Creator
- Pyall, HenryBiographyBiography
Henry Pyall was an engraver and aquatinter who sometimes worked in partnership with Charles and George Hunt. He produced a series of views on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway with S. G. Hughes.
- Ackermann, RudolphBiographyBiography
Rudolph Ackermann was born on 20 April 1764 at Stollberg, near Leipzig, in Saxony. When he was fifteen, Ackermann was apprenticed to his elder brother Friedrich, a saddler. During his apprenticeship, he also learned to draw and engrave. In 1782 started training as a carriage designer, first in Dresden and then at Hueningen, in Switzerland. In 1784 he was employed for six months by Antoine Carassi in Paris. He worked for the carriage maker Simons in Brussels in 1785–6. He moved to England in 1787, where his model of a state coach for the carriage maker Goodall led to his first important commission in 1790, to design a state coach for the lord lieutenant of Ireland. Between 1791 and 1820 he published thirteen books of designs for carriages.
Ackermann formed close connections with other émigrés from Saxony, most significantly with the Facius brothers and with J. C. Stadler, who worked as engravers for the leading print publisher John Boydell. From 1795-1805, he ran a drawing school in Strand, and in 1796 he published the first of many drawing books. In 1797, he began publishing decorative hand-coloured prints.
During the first decade of the 19th century, Ackermann continued to design state and other carriages.
He became a United Kingdom citizen on 24 March 1809.
In 1808 and 1809, Ackermann issued two publications which secured his reputation as a publisher of the finest colour plate books: The Microcosm of London, and the monthly magazine Repository of Arts. Ackermann employed the architectural draughtsman Augustus Pugin, and the figure drawer Thomas Rowlandson to provide illustrations and architectural drawings for his engravings.
Ackermann formally handed over his business, Ackermann & Co, to his younger sons in October 1832. He suffered a stroke in November 1833 and died on 30 March 1834 at his home at Cold Harbour, Finchley.
Scope and Content
Plate 13 of a series of aquatints of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, titled 'Taking in water at Parkside'. It was engraved by Henry Pyall, after an image by Thomas Talbot Bury, and was published by R. Ackermann, London, 1831.
Trains could not travel from Liverpool to Manchester without stopping halfway to take on more water. Without water in the boiler the engine could not make the steam which powered the locomotive. Parkside was the site of a fatal collision on the opening day of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. While the trains in the opening parade were stopped at Parkside to take on water, William Huskisson MP was struck by Stephenson's Rocket coming up the other track. He died later that day.
Level of description
ITEM
Repository name
Science and Industry Museum
Associated people and organisations
- Liverpool & Manchester Railway CoBiographyBiography
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was first proposed by William James and Joseph Sanders in 1821. In 1826 George Stephenson was appointed chief engineer. The company originally intended to use fixed locomotives to pull freight trains between Liverpool and Manchester, but following the Rainhill Trial competition of 6 October 1829, locomotives in the style of Stephenson's Rocket were commissioned. The company opened the line between Liverpool and Manchester on 15 September 1830. The first passengers travelled along the line two days later and goods on 1 December. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was absorbed into the Grand Junction Railway on 8 August 1845.
- Bury, Thomas TalbotBiographyBiography
The architect and engraver Thomas Talbot Bury was born in London in 1809. He studied under Augustus Charles Pugin as an articled apprentice from 1824-1830. In 1830, he established his own studio at 7 Gerrard Street, Soho. From 1845-1849, Bury was in partnership with Charles Lee. Alongside his architectural practice, Bury produced engravings and lithographs of his own and other architects' drawings, notably those of Augustus Welby Pugin and Owen Jones. Bury worked with A W Pugin on designs for the details of the houses of parliament under Sir Charles Barry. Bury became an associate of the Institute of British Architects in 1839, and a fellow in 1843. He became a vice-president in 1876. In 1863, he was made a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and was also a member of the council of the Royal Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, a member of the Cambrian Archaeological Association, and an associate of the Society of Civil Engineers.
The first edition of his Coloured Views of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was published by Rudolph Ackermann in 1831. Bury’s prints are the finest of the various series of prints published to commemorate the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, on 15 September 1830. The prints include thirteen hand-coloured aquatint plates engraved by H. Pyall and S. G. Hughes from drawings made by Bury.
Bury died on 23 February 1877 at home at 50 Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, London, and is buried at Norwood cemetery.
- Huskisson, WilliamBiographyBiography
William Huskisson, statesman, was born on 11 March 1770 at Birtsmorton Court, near Malvern in Worcestershire. He was educated in England until 1783 when, after his father’s second marriage, he moved to Paris to be educated by his mother’s uncle, Richard Gem, a doctor who had settled there in 1762. Huskisson was living in Paris when the French Revolution broke out, and witnessed many of the key events, including the fall of the Bastille. In late 1790 he became private secretary to the British ambassador in Paris, Earl Gower. He returned to London in September 1792, where Gower’s patronage provided him with an entrée into political circles. He held various government offices from 1795, including President of the Board of Trade from 1823 to 1827. At the time of his death he was Member of Parliament for Liverpool. He died on 15 September 1830 as a result of injuries received at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, when he was knocked over by the Rocket. His death is generally recognised as the first railway fatality.
Subject
Conditions governing access
Open access.
Conditions governing Reproduction
Copies may be supplied in accordance with current copyright legislation and Science Museum Group terms and conditions.
