Arthur Percival Heywood

Sir Arthur Percival Heywood , 3rd Baronet (1849-1916) was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Percival Heywood. He grew up in the family home of Dove Leys at Denstone in Staffordshire.

The home looked over the valley where ran the North Staffordshire Railway from Rocester to Ashbourne. The family travelled by train to their relatives in Manchester and on holiday to Inveran in the Highland region of Scotland, thus Sir Arthur developed a passion for the railway from an early age.

He assisted his father in his hobby of ornamental metalwork, with a Holtzapffel lathe, and in his late teenage, built a four inch gauge model railway with a steam locomotive. Wanting something on which his younger siblings could ride, he went on to build a nine-inch gauge locomotive and train, which gave him the experience for his later ventures.

Initially schooled at Eton, in 1868, he went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he made friends with the local railway people, cadging lifts on the footplates of locos. He passed out with a degree in Applied Science. As a landed gentleman, however, convention frowned on him developing an engineering career.

In 1872 he married his cousin, Margaret Effie, daughter of the Reverend George Sumner, Rector of Alresford in Hampshire and set up home on Duffield Bank, near Duffield near Derby, the headquarters of the Midland Railway. Since many of the directors lived in Duffield, he soon developed an interest in Derby Works. He became aware of experiments by the Royal Engineers in building railways in warfare.

These first experiments had been distinctly unsuccessful, as had previous attempts dating back several decades to build "portable railways" for agricultural use. Thus, at what was known as the Duffield Bank Railway, Heywood developed what he called the "minimum gauge railway". He settled on 15 in (381 mm) as the optimum, his previous 9 in line having proved to be too small to carry people in a stable manner. Built on a steep hillside, the line was an ideal testing ground and, to gain the adhesion for steep gradients and the ability to negotiate small radius curves, he built six-coupled locomotives with what he called his "radiating axle."

Though the line remained in use for many years and was visited by many potential buyers, the only interest came from the Duke of Westminster for whom he built the Eaton Hall Railway.

Sir Arthur also had a keen interest in campanology (bell ringing) and he founded the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers. He was often to be seen a Duffield's St. Alkmunds Church and in the years up to 1887, augmented its peal from six to ten..

Sir Arthur's father died in 1897 and he inherited Dove Leys, where he began to build another railway between the road, where there was a coal store, and the house. His intention was to extend to Norbury railway goods yard, but Colonel Clowes who owned the land in between refused to give him wayleave. Sir Arthur then extended the line southwards to nearby Dove Cliff farm, which was part of his estate, and thence to Rocester station. However he was again unable to obtain wayleave from his other neighbour, Colonel Dawson.

When World War I began in 1914, all three of his sons went on active service, as did many of his staff. Sir Arthur carried on, particularly with work on the Eaton Hall Railway. However he was unwell in the early part of 1916 and took a turn for the worse on the 19th. April during a visit to Duffield Bank and died in the afternoon.

References

• Clayton, H., (1968) The Duffield Bank and Eaton Railways. The Oakwood Press, X19, ISBN 0-85361-034-7
• Smithers, Mark, (1995) Sir Arthur Heywood and the Fifteen Inch Gauge Railway, Plateway Press, ISBN 1-871980-22-4.