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.
Date
1920-1923
Scope and ContentFolder of correspondence, documents and other material relating to the Ferrocarilles de Entre Rios, Entre Rios Railway in Argentina. Contains a leather bound pocket calendar with hand-written notes by Kenneth Cantlie between January and September 1923; blueprint of Entre Rios railway lines and connections; an official copy of Kenneth Cantlie's employment certificate in Spanish and English, translated and attested by the notary in London (August 1923) and copies of the certificate in English; a typed story by Kenneth Cantlie of the origins and critique of term 'Dago' (a derogatory term used by the British of certain nationalities of the time); loose pages and two bundles of hand-written notes, both titled 'Dear Father' (referring possibly to Kenneth Cantlie's father Sir James Cantlie or a priest) recounting Kenneth Cantlie's thoughts and experiences in Posadas, Argentina, his views on people, the country and its history; copy of Kenneth Cantlie's resume; a copy of a paper titled 'Locomotive Freight Rating and Train Resistance' by R.E. Kimberley, The Institution of Locomotive Engineers, South American Branch (1920); typed copies of lyrics to Argentinian tango music; a photographic print of Kenneth Cantlie in a gaucho costume with a dog after a ball in London (1924); a letter by G.R.S. Darroch of London Midland and Scottish Railway, Crewe, to Sir James Cantlie 4th September 1923 on railway grouping, visiting Sir James and a wish to meet Kenneth Cantlie: 'I do not know exactly what he has been engaged on in the Argentine.'
During the First World War the government had taken control of the railways to co-ordinate the war effort. After the war ended it was decided that the railway companies could not competitively return to their prior state, and so the 120 existing railway companies were combined into four companies, which became known as the ‘Big Four’’.
The London Midland and Scottish Railway, also known as the LMS, was founded on 1 January 1923. The London and North Western Railway (LNWR), Midland Railway (MR), Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (LYR), North Staffordshire Railway (NSR), Highland Railway (HR), Furness Railway (FR), Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) and Caledonian Railway (CR) were merged. These eight large constituent companies were joined by 27 other smaller subsidiary railways. The LMS covered the Western half of the country, stretching from the London and the Midlands, through Yorkshire, Lancashire, and up to Scotland. In all the LMS had a total of 7,790 miles of track, which made it the largest railway of the Big Four.
The London termini of the LMS were St. Pancras and Euston stations and it had works at Crewe, Horwich, Wolverton and Derby amongst other locations. In 1934 the LMS moved into a new headquarters at Euston House on Seymour Street (later renamed Eversholt Street) in London.
Charles Napier Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence of Kingsgate was the first appointed chairman of LMS, he had previously been the chairman of the LNWR between 1921-1923. He was chairman of the LMS for one year, and was succeeded by Sir Guy Granet. The management structure was headed by a chairman and a deputy chairman, there was a board of directors that had initially had 20 members, made of men who previously worked for the constituent companies. The first General Manager was Arthur Watson from the LYR. There was a Deputy General Manager for Scotland, a post first held by D.A. Matthieson, formerly of the CR. J.H. Follows, from the Midland Railway, was the first Chief General Superintendent and S.H. Hunt, formerly of the LNWR, was the first Chief Goods Manager. The post of Chief Engineer was initially held by E.F.C. Trench, formerly employed by the LNWR. The first Chief Mechanical Engineer was G. Hughes from the LYR and his deputy was Sir Henry Fowler, from the Midland Railway. The management structure was re-organised from January 1926 and an Executive was set up, Sir Josiah Stamp was the first President of the Executive. From January 1927 four Vice-Presidents were appointed to replace the general managers on the Executive committee. The line was divided up for operational management into three geographical divisions, which were called Western, Midland and Northern. Each division was overseen by a General Superintendent who reported to the Chief General Superintendent.
The main line of the LMS ran from London Euston to Wick over 729 miles. The LMS ran a number of joint railways with the London & North Eastern Railway and the Southern Railway. It ran the Cheshire Lines Committee, the Midland and Great Northern line between Peterborough, the Norwich and Lowestoft and the Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham suburban line with the London & North Eastern Railway. It also joined forces with the Southern Railway to run the Somerset and Dorset line between Bath, Burnham and Bournemouth.
The LMS undertook a limited programme of electrification, mainly focusing on suburban lines in London and Manchester. The LMS owned many hotels, including the Queen’s Hotel in Leeds and the iconic Art Deco Midland Hotel at Morecombe Bay. The LMS also ran passenger steamers from Holyhead, Heysham and Stranraer over the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Following the 1947 Transport Act which nationalised the railways, the concerns of the LMS were taken over by the Railway Executive as part of the British Transport Committee. Within the Railway Executive, British Rail: London Midland Region assumed responsibility for the LMS’s former area of operations.
Sir James Cantlie, physician and medical administrator, was born on 17 January 1851 at Keithmore Farm, Dufftown, Banffshire, Scotland, the eldest son of William and Janet Cantlie. His early education took place at a local school in the village of Drummuir and at Milne's Institution at Fochabers, Speyside. He graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 1871 with an MA in natural science before training in medicine at the same institution and graduating MB and CM with honourable distinction in 1873. Cantlie was appointed instructor of anatomy at Charing Cross Hospital, London, in the same year. He became an instructor in the St John Ambulance Association and in 1882 he joined the London Scottish Volunteers as a surgeon. In 1883 he played a part in the establishment of the Volunteer Medical Staff Corps, volunteering later that year for service in Egypt, where he developed an interest in tropical diseases.
Cantlie married Mabel Barclay Brown on 30 July 1884. They had four sons, Sir Keith Cantlie, (1886-1977), Admiral Sir Colin Cantlie (1888-1967), Lieutenant General Sir Neil Cantlie (1892-1975), and Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth R E Cantlie (1899-1986).
Cantlie was interested in the physical condition of the urban poor and wrote a paper entitled Degeneracy among Londoners which was read at the Parkes Museum in 1885. In 1887 he moved to Hong Kong where he practised medicine and established a medical college for Chinese students, the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese which later became the University of Hong Kong. One of the college’s first students was Sun Yat-Sen, who became the first president of the Chinese republic in 1911. In 1886 Cantlie was appointed advisor to the India Office when an epidemic of bubonic plague broke out in Bombay.
In 1896 Cantlie returned to London to take the chair of applied anatomy at Charing Cross Hospital. Soon afterwards, he was instrumental in obtaining the release of Sun Yat-Sen after his abduction by Chinese agents and detention at the Chinese legation in London.
Cantlie was a co-founder of the Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, which published its first edition in August 1898, and was its editor for the following 23 years. He also played a part in the establishment of the London School of Tropical Medicine which opened in 1899 and where he was the first surgeon and lecturer in tropical surgery. Cantlie’s book Physical Efficiency was published in 1906. He continued his involvement with St John Ambulance and was an adviser to the War Office on the establishment of the medical section of the Territorial Force (later the Territorial Army), formed in 1907.
Sir James Cantlie and his wife Lady Cantlie were commandants in the British Red Cross Society during the First World War. They founded a College of Ambulance and a humanitarian corps to aid those in medical need or poverty. Cantlie was appointed knight of the British Empire in 1918 and received an honorary LLD degree from the University of Aberdeen in 1919.
Lady Cantlie died on 21 December 1921 and Sir James passed away few years after her, on 28 May 1926 at Dorset Square, London, and was buried at Cottered cemetery, Buntingford, Hertfordshire.
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