Personnel
The works manager was Scottish mechanical engineer Alexander Allan (1809–1891) until 1840, when he left to take charge of the workshops of the Grand Junction Railway at Edge Hill, using his experience with Forrester to design the outside-cylinder Crewe-type locomotives.[5]
About the time the firm built engines for the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, William Fernihough served an apprenticeship before moving to Edward Bury; he later gained recognition for his work on locomotive counterbalancing as superintendent of the Eastern Counties Railway.
Benjamin Hick Jr (1818–1845) engineer, formerly of B. Hick and Sons, younger brother of politician John Hick, was working for George Forrester and Co. during 1844 when he presented his improved double-cylinder marine engine to the Society of Arts; a pair equal to 220 hp were built for Scottish shipbuilder John Laird and the 573 ton iron paddle steamer PS Helen MacGregor, sailing between Hull and Hamburg for prominent ship owner Joseph Gee (1802–1860).[34][35][36][37][38] One of the vessel's notable passengers during June 1847 was the young artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler; the Helen MacGregor was the first Hull steamer in the St Petersburg trade.[39] Benjamin Jr died relatively young in 1845, age 27.
Charles Hodgson Horsfall (1810–1847), younger brother of politician Thomas Horsfall, died two years later in 1847.[40]
Partner in the firm, also from a Scottish family, Walter Fergus MacGregor (1812–1863) was the younger brother of James MacGregor (1808–1858), politician, Chairman and General Manager of the South Eastern Railway. MacGregor's mother was also christened Helen.[41]
Following an apprenticeship with Robert Daglish in Sutton, future Prime Minister of New Zealand, Richard Seddon (1845–1906) attained a Board of Trade Certificate as a mechanical engineer from Forresters before he left for Australia on the SS Great Britain in 1862.
Walter Fergus MacGregor has a stained glass window and memorial dedicated to his memory in St George's Church, Everton, also the last resting place of Charles Hodgson Horsfall,[42] it reads:
This Monument is erected by a few of his numerous friends as a testimony of his great worth and many excellencies, and the unfeigned love and esteem they bear to his memory.[43]
MacGregor's second son, Reverend William MacGregor (1848–1937), used his inherited wealth as benefactor to the town of Tamworth, Staffordshire and became a leading Egyptologist and collector of Egyptian antiquities. He eventually held the position of Vice President of the Liverpool Institute of Archaeology. Items from MacGregor's collection are housed in the Ashmolean Museum, British Museum[44] and Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Swansea.[45]
Professionalism
During the construction of the first locomotives for the Dublin and Kingstown Railway officers and directors on several occasions visited the works of both Forrester and Sharp, Stewart and Company of Manchester, who were both constructing three engines each for their new railway. They noted visits to Forresters gave them little cause for concern whereas at Sharps the mechanics were at times found to be partaking of "too ardent feasting at craft clubs" with related absenteeism and irregularities.
