CHAPTER V 
THE MACHINERY OF THE EASTERN COUNTIES 
Tus origin and development of the engineering works 
of the Eastern Counties of England constitute one of the 
most remarkable chapters in British manufacturing enter- 
prise. The firms who created the great Eastern Counties 
engineering industry, though now in part amalgamated 
under central managements, were all originally privately 
owned and concerned mainly with the manufacture of 
agricultural machinery and light locomotives. Their works 
were, not inappropriately, established in that part of England 
in which arable farming still holds its own and which covers 
an area stretching from the Thames up as far as the Humber 
River. 
It may cause some surprise to those who associate East 
Anglia and Lincolnshire chiefly with partridge driving, 
sheep grazing, turnips, drainage levels and other agri- 
cultural activities, to learn that the capital invested in 
engineering east of the main line of the London and North- 
Eastern (formerly Great Northern) Railway from London 
to York amounts to almost as much as that engaged in 
marine-engine construction on the Clyde or in shipbuilding 
and engineering on the north-east coast. The capital 
invested in Eastern Counties engineering is in magnitude 
scarcely exceeded by the whole registered share capital 
of the railway locomotive establishments of Glasgow, 
Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle put together. No 
fewer than 20,000 skilled hands find employment in the 
various centres of the industry. Its founders were all 
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