Richard Edward Lloyd Maunsell (1868-1944), CBE, was born at Raheny, County Dublin in Ireland. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with a Master of Arts and subsequently became a pupil of H. A. Ivatt at the Ichicore Works of the Great Southern and Western Railway (GSWR) in 1988 going on to complete his training under Sir J. Aspinall in Horwich on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. Here he spent some time in the works and drawing office that led to him being appointed as the Locomotive Shed Foreman at Blackpool.

In 1894 Maunsell departed for India as the Assistant District Locomotive Superintendent on the Eastern Indian Railway and during the following two years was promoted to District Locomotive Superintendent on the Asansol District. He returned home in January 1896 where he became the Works Manager at the Ichicore Works of the GSWR, moving up to become the Locomotive Engineer in 1911. In late 1913 Maunsell left for the Southern Eastern and Chatham Railway where he was appointed as the Chief Mechanical Engineer.

During the First World War Maunsell was frequently called on to advise the War Office regarding maintenance of rolling stock in France, he made several journeys to the war area for this purpose and held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps, Territorial Army. In 1918 he was awarded a CBE for his onerous wartime duties.

In 1923 he was appointed the Chief Mechanical Engineer for locomotives, carriages, wagons, and road vehicles, of the newly formed Southern Railway. Maunsell was the president of the Institute of Locomotive Engineers in 1916 and 1928, chairman of the Chief Mechanical Engineers’ committee of the Railway Clearing House in 1935 and is a founding member and past member of the Council of the Institute of Transport. After a period of illness, he retired in 1937, and died in his home in Ashford, 1944.