Sharp Roberts and Company is involved in the manufacturing of locomotives is located in the industrial city of Manchester in England. The Company was founded y Thomas Sharp, his brother and Richard Roberts in 1828 that initially manufactured textile machinery and machine tools. The locomotives manufactured by Sharp, Roberts and Company became very popular within a very short span of time.
History of Sharp, Roberts and Company
Sharp Roberts and Company was located at Great Bridgewater Street in Manchester. The first locomotive manufactured by the company was for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. Richard Roberts provided the leading engineering skills of the products that were manufactured by the company. It was a four-wheeled 2-2-0, which had vertical cylinders over the main wheels. The company manufactured another three four-wheel locomotives for Dublin and Kingstown Railway. These early products suffered from a drawback, as there was steam leakage from the vertical cylinders as a result they were abandoned.
Roberts left the company in 1843 and the firm was called Sharp Bros. In between 1851 and 1852 twenty engines were manufactured for the London and North Western Railway. Edward McConnell, subcontracted from Wolverton, designed these locomotives.
John Sharp, the senior partner of the company retired
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in 1852, and was replaced by Charles Patrick Stewart. The name of the company was changed to Sharp Stewart and Company. When Thomas Sharp retired from the company and Stephen Robinson succeeded him. The sole rights of the company were acquired for Giffard's patent injector in 1860. The Company started dealing in general brass, ironmongery, and machine tools. It acquired Clyde Locomotive Works in 1888 and shifted to Glasgow and renamed it as Atlas Works.
In 1889, a number of compounds were manufactured for the Argentine Central Railway including 4-4-0 and some 2-8-0. The Company received a huge order from the Midland Railway in 1892 for manufacturing seventy-five 4-4-0s and 0-6-0s. By this time huge number of 4-6-0 engines were built by the Company for overseas railways, but in 1894 it received the first order for a British line of the Highland Railway. By the end of the 19th century the Company established itself as a major locomotive manufacturing company that was manufacturing and supplying products all over the world.
Till the year 1903, the company constructed more than 5000 engines. In that year it merged with Neilson Reid and Company and Dübs and Company and formed the North British Locomotive Company.
Sharp Roberts and Company in Manchester is one of the leading locomotive manufacturing companies in the country.
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