Wakefield Civic Society, a volunteer run registered charity set up to promote an interest in architecture and built heritage will be unveiling a blue plaque to locomotive builder Thomas Peckett whose company Peckett and Sons built a range of industrial locomotives from their works in Bristol for around 80 years. Some of these locomotives have been popularised in model form by Hornby in their range of OO gauge models.
Peckett was born in Wakefield in 1834 and we have decided to link the blue plaque unveiling to a celebration of Wakefield’s wider railway heritage to coincide with Railway 200.
As well as unveiling the blue plaque, we will have presentations and displays by a number of organisations and individuals, including Wakefield Historical Society, LonGBoaT (who have adopted Kirkgate Station in Wakefield as their home), and Wakefield Railway Modellers’ Society who will be displaying their model of Stanley Canal Basin, featuring Peckett locomotives and ‘Tom Puddings’, the coal container boats that were taken from Wakefield to Goole laden with coal that was then transferred to sea -going ships for onward transportation.
Wakefield can boast a number of firsts in terms of its association with railway history – the first ‘public railroad’ anywhere in the world at Lake Lock, the world’s first railway viaduct and tunnel at Flockton, and one of the country’s most impressive railway viaducts, known locally as the ’99 arches’ but which actually has around 112 arches and bridge spans (possibly more depending on where you count from) and which is claimed to have been built with over 800 million bricks.
All this and more will be celebrated at this event.
We will be publishing details on our website and social media in due course.