John Chester Craven

Born	8 August 1813
Died	27 September 1887
Nationality	English
Employer	Hawthorns of Leith; East Lancashire Railway (Locomotive Superintendent); London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (Locomotive Superintendent 1847–1869)

Biography

John Chester Craven (1813–1887) was a British locomotive engineer who served as Locomotive Superintendent of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway at Brighton Works for twenty-two years from 1847. His house policy of designing a different class for almost every duty produced an unusually varied fleet, by his retirement the LBSCR owned 235 locomotives in 72 distinct classes, which his successor William Stroudley devoted considerable effort to standardising.

Born at Hunslet, Leeds on 8 August 1813, Craven was apprenticed at Fenton, Murray and Jackson (the successor to Matthew Murray's Round Foundry) and worked at Hawthorns of Leith and on the East Lancashire Railway before joining the LBSCR.

His designs were practical and varied, 0-4-2 mixed traffic engines, 2-2-2 passenger engines, 0-6-0 goods engines and many small tank engines. He laid out and built Brighton Works as a fully-fledged locomotive shop. Craven resigned in October 1869 after the LBSCR Board, alarmed at the multiplicity of types, asked him to standardise his designs. He retired to Eastbourne and died there on 27 September 1887.

Locomotives designed

LBSCR Abergavenny Class — Craven's 1869 LBSCR 0-4-2 mixed-traffic class.
LBSCR Craven — Generic name for the various 0-6-0 goods engines built under John Chester Craven at Brighton Works in the 1860s for the LBSCR. As with Craven's passenger engines, every locomotive was an individual design — the goods engines comprised numerous slightly different sub-classes rather than a unified family.
LBSCR Craven Singles — John Chester Craven's 1860s LBSCR mixed fleet of 2-2-2 and 2-4-0 express engines, built at Brighton Works. Craven was famous for never building two locomotives exactly alike — every engine was an individual design — and the "Craven singles" therefore comprised numerous slightly different sub-classes.
LBSCR Richmond Class — Craven's 1862 LBSCR 2-2-2 inside-cylinder express engine, named after the Richmond branch and built in small numbers for LBSCR South London services.