Joseph Hamilton Beattie

Joseph Hamilton Beattie (1808-1871) was a locomotive engineer with the London and South Western Railway.

After the line opened he became the carriage and wagon superintendent at Nine Elms and succeeded John Viret Gooch as locomotive engineer on 1 July 1850.

Initially he designed a series of singles, but the weight of the Southampton and Salisbury expresses led to the development of 2-4-0s.

Beattie was a highly innovative engineer, introducing the country's first successful 2-4-0 locomotive, pioneering feedwater heating, balanced slide valves and coal-burning fireboxes.

Since the Rainhill Trials in 1829, it had been accepted that the smoke emitted by burning coal was a nuisance.