H. G. Ivatt

Henry George Ivatt, known throughout his career as George Ivatt to distinguish him from his father, was born on 4 May 1886. He was the son of Henry Ivatt, CME of the Great Northern Railway, and was educated at Uppingham School. He joined the Crewe Works of the London and North Western Railway as a premium apprentice in 1904.

He worked in the drawing office, became head of experimental locomotive work, and rose to Assistant Outdoor Machinery Superintendent. After service in the First World War he moved to the North Staffordshire Railway at Stoke-on-Trent in 1919 as Assistant Locomotive Superintendent. He returned to Crewe in 1937 as Principal Assistant for Locomotives to William Stanier, working through the wartime period in successive senior roles under Stanier and Charles Fairburn.

On Fairburn's sudden death in October 1945, Ivatt was appointed CME of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway on 1 February 1946. In his short tenure (eighteen months as LMS CME, then to nationalisation in 1948 and beyond as CME of the London Midland Region until 1951) he produced a coherent set of postwar mixed-traffic and branch-line designs: the Ivatt Class 2 2-6-0 and matching 2-6-2T (introduced 1946, designed for branch-line and rural work), and the heavier Ivatt Class 4 2-6-0. Many of these influenced the later BR Standard classes.

Ivatt was also responsible for the LMS 10000 and 10001 diesel-electric main-line prototypes of 1947 and 1948 (1Co-Co1, 1,600 hp), Britain's first main-line diesels and the direct ancestors of the BR Type 4 / Class 40. He retired in 1951 and died on 4 October 1976.