THIS interesting old photograph, taken before the First World War, is of the long-gone Lowca Iron Foundry, near Whitehaven, a business first established in 1763 to make cannon for the fleet of local merchant ships but which in subsequent years, as the railways arrived, became notable, under Tulk & Ley, as manufacturers of locomotives.

The same scene looks very different today and no one, without prior knowledge, would know it had been home to such an important industrial endeavour. There’s a wastewater treatment plant and spoil heap there now.

In 1830 the foundry began making locomotives for the Maryport and Carlisle Railway and just a few years later had built the ‘Lowther’ for the new Whitehaven Junction Railway. It also made improved coal-loading mechanisms for the Whitehaven ‘hurries’.

By 1857 around 20 locos had been built and that was the year Fletcher, Jennings & Co took over the foundry and it became Lowca Engine Works.

Fletcher was Henry Allason Fletcher of Croft Hill and the youngest son of the Fletchers of Tarn Bank, Greysouthen, prominent coalmine owners. Henry possessed an inventive mind, and took out a number of patents; ‘Fletcher’s tank-locomotive’ acquired a strong reputation. He continued to manage the operation until the beginning of 1884, when ill-health compelled him to retire, and the works were sold to the Lowca Engineering Co Ltd. He died later that year, aged just 49. By 1884, 171 locomotives had been built there.

Fletcher had been president of the Whitehaven Scientific Society, to which he contributed a valuable paper on the Archaeology of the Iron Trade of West Cumberland. He was also a magistrate and chairman of the board at Moresby School.

In 1905 the name changed again to the New Lowca Engineering Company Ltd but was short-lived. Orders had fallen off and after a disastrous fire in 1912 production declined, the company being eventually wound up in 1926 and the site taken over by the colliery. In all the works had produced 245 locomotives, the last in 1921.