R and W Hawthorn Ltd was a locomotive manufacturer in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, from 1817 until 1885.
There followed a number of orders for the Stockton and Darlington Railway. They were great innovators - not always successfully - and their locos had many original features.
In 1838 two were built for the
They continued to build more conventional engines, possibly under sub-contract, among them, three for the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway. In 1850 the company built their first tank locomotive which was supplied to the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway[7] In the 1850s, they also built six 4-4-0ST, Crampton locomotives of the Sondes class for the East Kent Railway.[8] Also, in the quest for a low centre of gravity, four 0-4-0s with the drivers spaced at twelve feet (144 in; 3,658 mm) apart connected to the cylinders by a dummy crankshaft. These were soon withdrawn, and the Cramptons rebuilt into traditional 2-4-0 tanks.
In 1860, eight tender locomotives with a 0-4-2 wheel arrangement, the first tender locomotives to work in South Africa, were built for the
In 1870, they built St. Peter's Works adjoining that of
In 1846, they bought the Leith Engine Works, in Leith, Scotland, for the assembly of locomotives prepared in Newcastle. These works were sold to another company also called Hawthorns and Company, which produced some four hundred locomotives on its own account until 1872.
In 1859, Hawthorns, Leith, built an 0-4-0T locomotive for Messrs E. & J. Pickering, contractors for the construction of the Cape Town-Wellington Railway in the Cape Colony. This locomotive was the first steam locomotive to run in South Africa. In 1861 the Cape Town-Wellington Railway Company took over all construction, and the locomotive, from Pickerings and the locomotive became the Cape Town-Wellington Railway's no 9, later to become known as "Blackie". It was subsequently rebuilt to a 0-4-2 configuration. In 1936 it was proclaimed a national monument and has since been plinthed in the concourse at Cape Town station.[9]
In 1861, Hawthorns supplied an 0-4-0WT locomotive, works number 244, to the Howe Bridge Colliery in Lancashire. Named Ellesmere, it continued in use at the colliery until 1957, when it was the oldest working steam engine in Britain. It is now preserved in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.[11]