Curly Lawrence

Lillian Lawrence, "Curly" to her friends, was born 27 September 1883 and christened William Morris Benjamin, later changing her surname to Mathieson when her father changed the family name.^[2] After 1902, she changed her name to Lillian Lawrence; she was previously nicknamed "Dolly" at school on account of her long, blond, curly hair, and was pictured on occasion wearing female shoes and clothing while driving her models. After the public transition of Roberta Cowell, Lawrence inquired if someone who transitioned would lose their membership in the Freemasons.^[3].

Despite her 'unusual make-up', as described by her friend George Barlow,^[1] her retiring nature, and the prejudices that may have existed in 1930s, she was readily accepted as an expert live steam model engineer. Lawrence had been making steam engines from tins and bits and pieces since childhood and her engineering skills were largely self taught. In 1908 she married Mabel (formerly Sarah) Munt.^[2]

Lawrence loved steam locomotives from the time she was a child. She spent several years in the employ of the LB&SC Railway, joining as an engine cleaner at the New Cross Locomotive Depot and working her way up to trainee fireman.^[4] Around 1902 she left the railway for the London Underground but negative health effects soon led her to find work as a tram and bus driver instead.^[5] She later became an inspector for the Tilling Group, and head of a factory for aircraft parts during the First World War.^[1]

The turning point in Lawrence's life was in 1922 when she sparked what became known as the "battle of the boilers" with Henry Greenly.^[6] Within two and half years she was established as one of the top professionals in scale or model engineering. Lawrence contended that scale locomotives should be fitted with fire-tube boilers modeled very closely on full-size locomotive practice i.e. be coal fired, with multiple fire-tubes and a number of superheater elements, as compared with then commercial and hobbyist practice of building spirit fuelled, water-tube boilers.^[7]

Lawrence's live steam locomotive type boilers proved to be outstanding steamers, capable of hauling passengers. Her 2½ inch gauge four coupled wheel locomotive, Ayesha (named after a character in the novel She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard), could haul 200lb, when the equivalent sized spirit fired water-tube locomotives of the day could only haul 30lb. Lawrence demonstrated this locomotive at the Society of Model & Experimental Engineers meeting in London in July 1922, as a result of which she was invited to contribute an article to Model Engineer magazine describing its construction.^[8] In 1924, the "battle of the boilers" between a Henry Greenly designed Bassett-Lowke spirit fired locomotive and one of Lawrence's designs vindicated her claims, though it led to a lifelong animosity between her and Greenly.^[9] Ayesha, now owned by The National 2½ inch Gauge Association,^[10] was steamed in June 2016 for the first time in more than 50 years and, after a hydraulic boiler test, ran successfully more than 90 years after the locomotive was built by Lawrence.^[11][12]

Lillian Lawrence wrote construction articles for various British model engineering magazines from 1923 until 1967, shortly before her death. Lawrence wrote nearly 2,600 articles for Model Engineer Magazine from January 1922 (initially in the form of letters to the Editor and then from April 1923 as a full-time contributor) to May 1959 and then again from January 1966 until October 1967. During this time, Lawrence designed 166 different locomotives,^[13] ranging from 0 gauge up to 5 inch gauge, building over 50 herself.^[14] Many of these designs are still available today as sets of drawings,^[15][16] and some were later produced in book form.^{[17][18][19][20][21][22][23]}

Before Lawrence started publishing in the 1920s, model locomotive practice had been divided into two camps. The first encompassed steam locomotives that ran on a gauge of 10¼ inch or greater which followed full scale practice in terms of boiler design and operation, exemplified by the 15 inch gauge Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway in Kent, designed by Henry Greenly. The second encompassed locomotives of 2½ inch gauge or less, designed only to look like full size locomotives while running on spirit-fired boilers, typified by those manufactured by Bassett-Lowke. These latter locomotives were usually run on garden railway layouts hauling groups of model carriages around the track. The gauges between 2½ and 10¼ inch essentially did not exist.

Capable of hauling their drivers, Lawrence's coal-fired designs were rapidly adopted by model railway engineers. Development of coal-fired boilers in the smaller scales (0, 1¾ and 2½ inch gauges) catalysed development of the larger 3½, 5 and 7¼ inch gauges. This is reflected in the range of Lawrence's designs; in the 1920s she produced 27 designs in the smaller scales versus only 1 of 3½ inch or larger, in the 1930s 50 designs in the smaller scales versus 7 in the larger, in the 1940s 17 versus 19, 1950s 10 versus 21 and finally in the 1960s 2 versus 5.^[13]

Lawrence contended that anyone with enough desire could build a working steam locomotive. Many of her designs were based on actual engines, though they were usually modified and simplified for home builders. All were robust and performed well. Her notes on various aspects of locomotive construction were compiled into a book called Shops, Shed, and Road,^[17] first published in 1929 and still considered to be a standard reference for model engineers (republished in 1950 as The Live Steam Book and in 1969 as LBSC's Shop, Shed and Road). Through her articles, Lawrence introduced many enthusiasts to the joys of machine shop work and miniature steam locomotives. "An enigmatic character, not to mention one who had almost no ability to tolerate criticism of her work, she nevertheless had a natural empathy with her readers and a remarkable knack of making the most complicated workshop procedures sound utterly straightforward".^[24] Countless locomotives built to her plans still operate on model railway tracks around the world.^[25] She died on 4 November 1967, having made her last contribution to Model Engineer magazine only one month before. Lawrence's legacy includes 113 published and 29 unpublished designs, including some of the most popular ones as follows:^[14]

• LBSC (2004) [1929]. Shop, Shed and Road - The Live Steam Book. TEE Publishing. ISBN 1-85761-121-7.
• LBSC (1960) [1934]. Betty, The Mongoliper 2-6-2 in 3½ inch Gauge. Model & Allied Publications.
• LBSC (1960) [1949]. How to Build Princess Marina, LMS 2-6-0 Mogul in 3½ inch Gauge. Model & Allied Publications.
• LBSC (1978) [1960]. Building Speedy, A GW 0-6-0 Tank in 5 inch Gauge. TEE Publishing. ISBN 0-85242-538-4.
• LBSC (1975). LBSC's famous 4-4-0 Virginia. Model & Allied Publications. ISBN 0-85242-411-6.
• LBSC (1977). Maisie, Words and Music. TEE Publishing.
• LBSC; Martin Evans (1976) [1968]. Simple Locomotive Building - Introducing LBSC's Tich. Model & Allied Publications. ISBN 0-85242-786-7.
• Martin Evans; LBSC (1980). Evening Star - Building a 3½ inch Gauge BR 2-10-0 Locomotive. Argus Books. ISBN 0-85242-634-8.
• LBSC (1922–1967). "approx. 2,600 articles for". Model Engineer magazine. currently published by MyHobbyStore, Orpington, Kent, UK.

• Model engineering
• Martin Evans
• Rideable miniature railway