Worthington Archive
This image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Licence
License this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library
LicenseThis image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Licence
License this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library
LicenseThis image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Licence
License this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library
License
Science Museum Group
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Science Museum Group
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Science Museum Group
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
The collection comprises letters, accounts, specifications, plans and railway‑related memorabilia created or collected by members of the Worthington family. The material reflects the professional work of the civil engineers Samuel Barton Worthington and William Barton Worthington, together with a small group of earlier railway papers and personal items retained by the family.
Samuel Barton Worthington
Material relating to S. B. Worthington documents his engineering work on a range of British and continental railway schemes, including the Sheffield–Rotherham Railway, the Caledonian Railway, the Paris–Rouen Railway, the Orléans Railway, the Lancaster & Preston Junction Railway, and the Lancaster & Carlisle Railway Company (absorbed by the London & North Western Railway Company in 1879). The papers also include material relating to the Gauge Commission of 1846–48.
William Barton Worthington
W. B. Worthington’s papers are more miscellaneous in character. They include Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway reports of visits to America, material relating to arched bridges (1840–1921), and papers concerning rainfall (1929–32).
General papers and collected documents
This group comprises earlier railway papers and other material not directly connected with the careers of S. B. or W. B. Worthington, and may represent records of interest to, or railwayana collected by, the family. Subjects include the Kelso–Berwick Railway (1809, 1824), East Lothian Railway (1825–26), Forth of Clyde–Stirling Railway (1826–27), Clydesdale–Glasgow Railway (1828), Liverpool & Manchester Railway (1824, 1836), Railway Chronicle travel charts (c.1840–50), proposals for a new station at Hunt’s Bank, Manchester, and papers relating to the Manchester Ship Canal (1835–94).
Items from the Worthington family archive
This material comprises personal and largely non‑railway items, including a notebook of Samuel Barton Worthington, an account of a walking holiday by William Barton Worthington, and a book of carte‑de‑visite photographs.
Details
- Measurements:
-
whole archive132.00cm (Shelf length)
- Extent:
- 12 boxes
- Identifier:
- WORTH
- Access:
- Access is given in accordance with the NRM access policy. Material from this collection is available to researchers through Search Engine. The collection came to the National Railway Museum in an extremely fragile state. Conservation work has been undertaken on some of the items – these are marked with an asterisk (*) and are fully open to researchers. Other items are not yet available.
- System of Arrangement:
-
Show
It has not been possible to determine how Samuel Barton Worthington or William Barton Worthington arranged their papers. The collection has therefore been arranged by the cataloguer into four series: 1. Samuel Barton Worthington 2. William Barton Worthington 3. General papers and collected documents 4. Items from the Worthington family archive
- rights:
- Copies may be supplied of items in the collection, provided that the copying process used does not damage the item or is not detrimental to its preservation. Copies will be supplied in accordance with the NRM’s terms and conditions for the supply and reproduction of copies, and the provisions of any relevant copyright legislation.