Richard Mansell

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Richard Christopher Mansell (October 1813 – 25 May 1904) was an English railway engineer. He was the carriage superintendent for the South Eastern Railway at Ashford by 1851 and later became works manager. In 1877 he succeeded Alfred Mellor Watkin as locomotive superintendent of the SER. When James Stirling was appointed in 1878, Mansell returned to the post of works manager and remained there until he retired in January 1882. On leaving, he received an annual consultancy fee/pension of fifty guineas.

Mansell invented the Mansell wheel, a composite wood-and-metal carriage wheel, for which he held patents in 1848, 1862 and 1866. This design was used after tyre and wheel incidents, and Board of Trade investigators noted its use following accidents at Hatfield on Boxing Day 1870 and at Skipton-on-Cherwell in 1874. By 1874 there were over 20,000 sets in use.

As locomotive superintendent, Mansell designed twelve locomotives: nine 0-4-4T in 1878 and three 0-6-0 in 1879 (seven other designs were cancelled). Three 0-6-0Ts that had been designed by Cudworth were completed under Mansell's supervision in 1877. None of his engines had a particularly distinguished service life; the tank engines lasted about 12 years, and the 0-6-0s lasted about twice as long.

He was the second of five children born to John Mansell, a Customs House Officer in Liverpool, and his wife Margaret Rothwell. He married twice. His first wife, Elizabeth Birchall Norris, was born in 1816 in Liverpool and died in March 1873 in Ashford; they married in 1836 and had three children: Margaret, James Thomas and James Rothwell. His second wife, Emmeline Aldgate Clark, was born in 1833 in London and died in 1912 in Long Marton; they married on 14 April 1874 and had two children: Albert and Emmeline.