SIR - Further to previous correspondence regarding Low Moor shed in Bradford and steam locomotives.
The designer of some of the locomotives that were there, Charles Edward Fairburn, is a forgotten Bradford hero.
He was born in the city (September 5, 1887) and educated at Bradford Grammar School, going on to Brasenose College, Oxford, and later became the chief mechanical engineer for the LMS, where he was responsible for improving Sir William Stanier’s tank engine design.
He was in fact not a steam man, but an electrical engineer, and was instrumental in the design of many of the pioneering diesel electric locomotives, forerunners of the designs operating on Network Rail today.
He married a Bradford girl, Eleanor (nee Cadman) in 1914 and they had two girls, before Fairburn died of an heart attack (October 12, 1945). Eleanor survived him.
He was also known for some work in developing the Sopwith Camel aircraft as a dive bomber whilst serving in the Royal Flying Corps in WW1.
I believe him to be mainly forgotten in the city of his birth, and would be delighted to learn if any ancestors survive within Bradford.
Mark Neale, Oxford Road, Queensbury
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