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Title
Correspondence relating to promoting General Electric Company and North British Locomotive electric locomotives to China
Reference
CANT/1/72
Production date
1957 - 1958

Creator

Cantlie, Kenneth Biography Biography
Colonel Kenneth Cantlie (1899-1986), mechanical engineer, was born in London in 1899 as the youngest son of Lady Mabel Cantlie (née Barclay Brown, 1860-1921) and Sir James Cantlie (1851-1926), a surgeon and specialist in tropical diseases. Kenneth Cantlie had a long international career as a designer of locomotives and coaches in Argentina, India and China and promoting the British locomotive industries after the Second World War. The Cantlie family had strong connections to China: Sir James trained Dr Sun Yat-Sen (1866-1925), who became the first president of China after revolution in 1911. Sir James and Lady Cantlie were instrumental in rescuing Sun Yat-Sen in 1896 when he was held captive at the London Chinese Legation by the Chinese Qing Dynasty. Sun Yat-Sen remained a close family friend and became the godfather of Kenneth Cantlie. Kenneth Cantlie was educated in Scotland at Junior School and Gordon’s College, Aberdeen, and University College, London. The loss of his right eye in early childhood resulted in Kenneth being unfit for army service during the First World War, and instead undertook war work at London North Western Railway’s Crewe Railway Shops. He then became an apprentice and a pupil of Crewe’s Chief Mechanical Engineer Mr. Bowen-Cooke, subsequently obtaining a certificate on technical training at Crewe Technical College. Between 1920 and 1923 Kenneth acted as an assistant to the Chief Mechanical Engineer, then Assistant Traction Superintendent and Train Ferry Supervisor on Entre dos Rios Railway in Argentina. In 1924 he joined the Jodphur-Bikanir Railway in India as the Assistant Locomotive Superintendent and then in 1928 as the Deputy Loco Superintendent building 70 coaches to his own designs. In 1929 Kenneth Cantlie was invited by the Chinese government to represent his family at the state funeral of president Sun Yat-Sen when his remains were interred in the mausoleum at Purple Mountain, Nanking and was subsequently appointed to act as an adviser to the Chinese railways by the Minister of Railways Sun Fo, son of Sun Yat-Sen. Before taking up the post in 1930, Kenneth travelled in China, Japan and the U.S. Kenneth Cantlie returned to China in 1930 as the Consulting Expert for Standardisation of Equipment and was offered the official post of the Technical Adviser to the Chinese Ministry of Railways in 1934. He contributed substantially to the rebuilding of the Chinese railways by engineering lines and designed bridges, carriages and locomotives, such as the 4-8-4 KF class locomotives. Kenneth Cantlie was appointed as the Trustee of the British Boxer Indemnity Fund in 1931 and was later awarded the Order of the Brilliant Jade. Kenneth Cantlie married Phyllis Gage-Brown (1896-1965) on 7th April 1931 at the All Saints Church in Kobe, Japan and the family lived in Shanghai and Nanking, China. The couple had three sons, the eldest being born in China: Hugh (1932), Paul (1934) and Bruce St. George Cantlie (1937). The Cantlie family stayed in Nanking until February 1937 when they left for England. The outbreak of the war and Japanese invasion in 1937 prevented Cantlie’s return to China and he stayed in London as the adviser to the Chinese Government Purchase Commission (part of the Indemnity Fund), a post he held until 1950. Cantlie acted as the manager of Caprotti Valve & Gear Ltd Associated Locomotive Equipment Ltd. between 1939 and 1948, becoming the director from the start of the Second World War. Kenneth Cantlie joined the British Army on the 2nd September 1939 and served in various positions in the War Office and invasion areas in Africa and Germany throughout the Second World War. In 1942 he was promoted as Lt. Colonel and 1946 he was posted to the German Section of Home Office in London. After the war Kenneth Cantlie acted as the Overseas Representative for the Locomotive Manufacturers’ Association (LMA) promoting British railway industry exports between 1948 and 1956. He visited and reported on the railways of various countries in North and South America, India, Europe and the Middle East. Cantlie represented the Giesl ejector in the 1950s to the 1970s in various continents including Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. He founded and co-directed a consultancy company called Verity-Orient Ltd. with another locomotive engineer George W. Carpenter. In 1956 Cantlie was invited to attend the 90th birthday anniversary of Dr Sun Yat-Sen as a guest of the Chinese Government, meeting key figures such as Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai. He returned to China again in 1957 to 1958 promoting British companies and also reporting on the trips to the British Ministry of Defence and delivering messages between Zhou Enlai and the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Kenneth Cantlie maintained strong connections to China by visiting Peking and Hong Kong until the early 1980s. Kenneth Cantlie was a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Institution of Locomotive Engineers, the Newcomen Society, the Society of Chinese Engineers and the China Society (London). He was also the founding member of the Conservative Commonwealth Council and a member of the West African Committee. Kenneth Cantlie died 11 February 1986 aged 87 after a long illness in his home, 8 Chester Row, Eaton Square, London.

Scope and Content
Original folder with inscription 'Electric Locos 1957' containing correspondence with the North British Locomotive and General Electric Company on promoting their electric locomotive engines in China including specifications ond price lists. Correspondents include F.A. Manley and RW Norton (GEC) and Robert Arbuthnott (NBL). Includes a bundle of typed notes on history of China.
Extent
1 file with approx. 100 pages
Level of description
FILE
Repository name
National Railway Museum, York

Associated people and organisations

General Electric Company plc Biography Biography
The General Electric Company (GEC) was created as the General Electric Apparatus Company in 1886 by Hugo Hirst and Gustav Byng from a small electrical business established in London by Byng (Gustav Binswanger and Company, using Byng's original name). In 1887 GEC published the first electrical catalogue of its kind. The following year the company acquired its first factory in Manchester where telephones, electric bells, ceiling roses and switches were manufactured. In 1889, the General Electric Co. Ltd. was formed as a private limited company and moved to larger premises at 71, Queen Victoria Street. Now known also as G.E.C., the company was expanding rapidly, opening new branches and factories. Initially manufacture was focussed on electric bells and light fittings, but this expanded to a wide range of electrical equipment - resulting in the firm's slogan 'Everything Electrical'. In 1893, GEC decided to invest in lamp manufacture. The resulting company, (to become Osram in 1909), was to lead the way in lamp design and the burgeoning demand for electric lighting was to make GEC's fortune. In 1900, GEC was incorporated as a public limited company, The General Electric Company (1900) Ltd, (the '1900' was dropped three years later). In 1902, GEC's first purpose-built factory, the Witton Engineering Works was opened near Birmingham which designed and manufactured electrical equipment and machines. Rapidly growing private and commercial use of electricity ensured buoyant demand and the company expanded both at home and overseas, with the establishment of agencies in Europe, Japan, Australia, South Africa and India and a substantial export trade to South America. The outbreak of the First World War transformed GEC into a major player in the electrical industry with profits to match. The company was heavily involved in the war effort, with products such as radios, signalling lamps and arc-lamp carbons. Between the wars, GEC expanded to become an international corporation and a national institution. The take-over of Fraser and Chalmers in 1918 took GEC into heavy engineering and consolidated their claim to supply 'Everything Electrical'. Other major factories included Osram Lamps at Hammersmith and the telephone works in Coventry. During the 1920s, the company was heavily involved in the creation of the UK national grid. In addition, the opening of the new purpose built company headquarters in Kingsway, London in 1921, and the pioneering industrial research laboratories at Wembley in 1923, were symbolic of the continuing expansion of both GEC and the electrical industry. The company took over several companies in the Birmingham area and elsewhere. After being a minor player in tram equipment, the company entered the heavy rail electric traction market in the 1920’s and 30’s. During the Second World War, GEC was a major supplier to the military of electrical and engineering products. Significant contributions to the war effort included the development of the cavity magnetron for radar, advances in communications technology and the on-going mass production of lamps and lighting equipment. After the war the company continued in the full range of electrical equipment from electronics to atomic power stations, but was not very profitable. In 1961, after a failed takeover bid from the English Electric Company, GEC took over Radio and Allied Industries, a small but very profitable television set manufacturer. Michael Sobell and Arnold Weinstock from this company became GEC directors with a substantial shareholding. Weinstock became managing director in 1963 and undertook drastic changes to make the company more profitable. The rail traction operations were closed and the heavy electrical/ power station businesses were sold to Parsons. A number of ex GEC employees were recruited by Associated Electrical Industries (AEI). A hostile takeover bid was made for AEI in 1967 and the relative profitability/share prices enabled GEC to take over the much larger AEI. In 1968 English Electric agreed to merge with GEC. Further takeovers and mergers made the company one of the largest private employers in the UK. In 1989, Arnold Weinstock agreed a merger between the power and transport businesses of GEC and those of Alsthom of France, part of Compagnie Générale d’Electricité (CGE) to form GEC Alsthom. While Weinstock was in charge the UK arm, the company continued to prosper, but after his death of his son in 1996 he was asked to retire and most of the company’s operations were transferred to France, or were sold off. Small sales and service operations remain for some of the products. Many of the factories have been demolished, with only Stafford continuing on a moderate scale.
North British Locomotive Co Ltd Biography Biography
The North British Locomotive Co Ltd was formed by the merger the 'big three' Glasgow locomotive builders (Sharp Stewart & Co, Neilson, Reid & Co and Dubs & Co) in 1903 as a result of increased competition both at home and from abroad. The new company claimed to be the largest manufacturers of locomotives anywhere outside America and was prompted by the ever increasing annual production by the Baldwin Locomotive Company in Philadelphia, USA, which had recently made incursions into the domestic UK market and in India, which the British locomotive industry had considered to be its own special preserve. It was believed that the rivalries and competition between the three companies operating individually within Glasgow had already produced significant technological advances which, in the new North British Locomotive Company would combine to make a single powerful and well equipped company, ready to dominate the market and take on competition, particularly from America. The new company never managed to operate at its capacity of 700 locomotives per year, producing a maximum of 573 in 1905. These numbers were maintained through to 1909 when production numbers began to fall rapidly. During the First World War North British Locomotive Company made locomotives for the War Department, as well as munitions and other military equipment, which were produced in vast quantities to meet the high demand. However, between the two World Wars, while orders were still being received, particularly from domestic railway companies, the fluctuation of demand meant that the company ran into some difficulty. As a result, employee numbers were significantly reduced, and manufacturing was concentrated at Queens Park and Hyde Park works. The last locomotive orders were completed at the Atlas Works in 1923. The Great Depression from 1929 saw the decline in demand for locomotives worldwide, with none built at all in 1932, and by the end of the 1930s, locomotive production at the North British Locomotive Company was operating at a loss. At the outbreak of the Second World War the company concentrated once more on war work, supplying both locomotives for the Ministry of Supply and munitions for the war effort. After World War II there was something of a revival in locomotive manufacturing, with orders being received and agreements being reached to build diesel & electric locomotives with the General Electric Company. This upturn in fortune was not to last however, as the North British Locomotive Company failed to make the successful transition from steam to diesel locomotive production. In 1957, the last order for steam locomotives was placed with the company and the last steam locomotive was completed in 1958. Although the company were making small industrial diesel locomotives, and received some early main line diesel orders from British Railways, the orders were never big enough to maintain the company. Other locomotive manufacturers, who had acted swiftly in transferring from steam to diesel and electric production, were becoming more successful. The company went into liquidation on 19 April 1962 with Messers Andrew Barclay Sons & Co (Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland) acquiring the North British Locomotive Company's goodwill.

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