National Icon?!

Of the fifty Terriers built by the London Brighton & South Coast Railway between 1872 and 1880, ten survive, representing a fair distribution of originally constructed dates.

But in the downwash of the chaotic John Chester Craven era, William Stroudley was hardly allowed to rush into whole scale changes. New designs had to be proved and the Terrier was no exception. There were problems and doubts to iron out; it would be over eighteen months before a second batch of six would join the original six debutants. Indeed, one could reasonably have expected the lowest numbered machine to have been finished first, if not actually first into service, but No.70’s inherent misfortunes seem to have afflicted it from virtually day one. Why it had to give up its cylinders to No.71 rather than any of the other four cannot be answered with evidence. The suspicion has to be there was some other malady with ‘Poplar’ that determined it would not be first in use. And even though ‘Wapping’ thereby managed to be finished first, it would be beaten into service by the third in the queue, No.72 ‘Fenchurch’. The reason for this is probably two-fold. Scientifically ‘Wapping’ had another technical hitch; aesthetically ‘Fenchurch’ had by far the most posh name of the original six.

Slowly slowly catchy monkey. Over another year would pass before six more Terriers were completed in the last quarter of 1875, the Achilles heel, not surprisingly, being the cylinders. 12 Terriers in 1876 would then more than double the existing number in service and these would be followed by a further three six-batch top-ups concluding with a final eight in 1880.

Question? Do Terriers deserve the title of being a National Icon? After all they were hardly rushed into service in spite of their acknowledged antecedent in the Lochgorm tanks and early numbers in service were small. Nor for that matter was the Supermarine Spitfire with its literal origins more than four years before the Battle of Britain; it would only really prove itself as the various Marks continued to be developed. And of course its ancestry really goes back to the origins of the planes that won Britain the Schneider Trophy. But there is another icon that has incredible parallels with the Terrier and for that we need to turn to the medium of television.

Whatever ones favourite comedy series, it has to be said that Dad’s Army has been one of the most popular and endearing and there is an amazing coincidence with the Terrier story. Both were made over a similar number of years – 1968 to 1977 for Dad’s Army; 1872 to 1880 for the Terriers. Both had notable breaks in their production. The first three series of Dad’s comprised 6-6-14 episodes compared to the 6-6-12 for the engines; nine series and 80 shows was a fairly close correlation to the seven batches and fifty machines (and even closer if one considers the square of the first number almost equals the second!!).