Marquis Wellington

Marquis Wellington was the fourth and last of the Murray-Blenkinsop rack-and-pinion locomotives built for the Middleton Railway near Leeds, completed in 1813. The engine was identical in design to its three sisters Salamanca, Prince Regent, and Lord Wellington, twin vertical cylinders driving a central rack pinion.

The engine was named to mark the Duke of Wellington's 1812 elevation to Marquess, a further mark of the contemporary celebration of the Iron Duke. Wellington was further elevated to Duke in 1814, by which time this engine was already named. The four-engine class names, Salamanca, Prince Regent, Lord Wellington, Marquis Wellington, celebrated the contemporary British political and military successes.

Marquis Wellington worked the Middleton Railway as the fourth member of the Murray-Blenkinsop class through the 1810s, 1820s, and into the 1830s. The four engines demonstrated approximately 20 years of profitable steam working from 1812 onwards, establishing the world's first commercially-operated steam railway as a viable enterprise.

By the mid-1830s the rack-and-pinion adhesion principle had been superseded by simpler wheel-rail adhesion working. The Middleton Railway abandoned its rack rails in 1834–1835, and Marquis Wellington was scrapped through this period; no original component survives. The Middleton Railway itself is preserved as a heritage railway today.