Kerr, Stuart and Company - The Company in Liquidation

The Company in Liquidation

In 1929 a petition arrived from the Midland Bank for a compulsory winding-up order of the company. The London-based chairman had been illegally using Kerr, Stuart funds to finance a company in the city called Evos Sliding Doorways. This company had now failed and the Midland Bank (who had no other connection with the firm) required Kerr, Stuart & Co. to meet the Chairman’s obligations. The police were called in, only to discover that the chairman had disappeared and was never to be heard of again. In LTC Rolt's autobiography "The Landscape Trilogy" it is also alleged that the company secretary was discovered to have committed suicide in the Kerr, Stuart's London offices and a large quantity of burnt papers were found to have been burnt in the fireplace. The contracts that were in progress were completed and in 1930 the company closed. In 1930 the firm's goodwill (Designs, spare parts, etc.) was bought by the Hunslet Engine Company.

Some locomotives were built by W. G. Bagnall to Kerr, Stuart designs. This is a result of the chief Kerr, Stuart Draughtsman, F. H. B. Harris and a number of other staff, being employed by Bagnalls. These locomotives include examples of the Haig and Matary classes.

The last steam locomotive built in Britain for industrial use, was a Hunslet built Brazil class engine in 1971. This locomotive is now running on the private Statfold Barn Railway.

The Corris Railway commissioned a new locomotive based on the "Tattoo" design of its original No.4 (KS 4047 of 1921) and this was privately built over a ten-year period and went into service in 2005 as No.7.