Henry Vale
by Jim Longworth, May 2025
Henry Vale was born in 1836 in Lambeth, on the south bank of the River Thames to John Vale, an engineer, and Maria Vale, nee Cox. Henry was the third of John and Maria’s four children. At an early age Henry was apprenticed to his father from whom he acquired knowledge of engineering before he left London in 1855 for New South Wales (NSW).
Arriving in Sydney on 13 October 1855 in the 'MYSTERY,' Henry soon accepted a position with the fledgling NSW Railways as an engineer in the Locomotive Branch. Early locomotives for NSW were imported from England, some already assembled, but most were shipped out in parts requiring their assembly at the Redfern locomotive workshops. Henry’s knowledge of engineering meant he became heavily involved in the assembly process and in the training of others, both in assembling and in driving the engines once assembled. As at 19 September 1860, Henry gave his address as 50 Buckingham Street, Cleveland Paddock.
In 1859 Henry married a widow eight years his senior, Mary Brooks. Mary had at least two children: George and Louisa, by her first husband, and he became a devoted stepfather to them. Henry and Mary’s first child, Emily Mary, was born in 1860. Next came Harriet Sarah in 1862, but sadly she died shortly afterwards. Henry John was next (1864), then Frederick James (1867) and finally a second Harriet Sarah in 1869. No.50 Buckingham Street remained the family’s residence throughout the 1860s and early 1870s. The house, which was renumbered 48 in the late 1860s, still stands.
By 1865 Henry Vale, no doubt encouraged by the expansion of railways in NSW, decided to set up his own engineering business. He chose as his partner for the firm known as Vale and Lacy, William Lacy, a 32-year-old engineer had come to the colony with his parents, Patrick and Alicia (née Hennessy), in 1837 from County Tipperary in Ireland. Henry and William probably knew each other from the railway workshops and had formed a friendship there. The men set up an engineering workshop near the bottom of Druitt Street, Sydney, which may be said to have been in an inchoate state. Work had come in so rapidly that time had only been given for constructing such buildings as were absolutely necessary to shelter the workmen, and the valuable machinery which the business demanded. Besides working together happily in a successful business over the next 11 years, the Lacy family moved to live at 50 Buckingham Street, next door to the Vales.
During 1866 Vale and Lacy’s works, Pyrmont, manufactured the first steam locomotive in the colony, a 26-ton tank locomotive producing upwards of 70hp. Attached to four of the six wheels were powerful brakes and sanding gear for when the rails became too slippery for the wheels to hold. It was for railway construction contractors Larkin and Wakeford. The undertaking was somewhat hazardous for a young firm, which had not been established for more than eighteen months. Construction was achieved within a few days of the contract time. An achievement which ought to be recorded as a seminal NSW engineering event. The firm went on to produce wagons and brake vans for the government railway and several locomotives for private industrial railways. Unlike large overseas locomotive builders, which only manufactured locomotives, Australian firms, like Henry Vale’s, produced locomotives and various other engineering equipment, like boilers, machines, tools, etc. Hitherto, locomotives had been imported from Great Britain. Encouraging local manufacture and industry, as distinct from importing ready-made items, was a growing, though not universal, mood of the public.
The first locomotive manufactured by the firm under contract with the government was an 0-6-0 tender locomotive with the builder’s number of 5, being placed in steam on 10 December 1870. It was included in the E17 Class and given the government running number 40, and not withdrawn from service until 1892. Vale and Lacy went on to build five other E17 Class locomotives over 1871-1873, and four N67 Class 0-6-0 tender locomotives during 1875.
Henry’s reputation as a leading NSW engineer was by then firmly established. In 1872 the Agricultural Society of NSW nominated him as a judge of machinery at its Easter Show of that year. The death of William Lacy, aged 43, in January 1876 and restructuring the firm through dissolving the partnership and renaming it ‘Vale and Sons’, may have been the impetus for Henry to leave Druitt Street and to move the works across the waters of Darling Harbour to Pyrmont. The family also moved house, owning and occupying a three-storey ten-room house at Edward Street Pyrmont, which was close to the new works and foundry in Alma Street West. As the two boys, Henry John and Fred, became adults, they joined their father in the business, which was renamed Henry Vale and Sons. Henry’s company, under various names, continued manufacturing locomotives for the NSW government railways. Six 2-4-0 tank locomotives of the F351 Class were built during 1887, and eighteen 0-6-0 tender types for the A93/Z19 Classes over 1882-1886.
Henry was witness to the marriage of Mary’s daughter Louisa Brooks to James Henson in 1872. They were to give their names to Louisa and Henson Streets in the suburb of Summer Hill where they lived. In 1882 before the family moved to Hoberry, a house near the railway at Auburn, Henry’s daughter Emily married Pyrmont chemist Stuart Johnston. After he died in 1884, leaving her with a little boy Walter, she married another chemist Frederick Rose in 1887.
Henry’s business needed a larger site. So, during 1883 he decided to move the works to Auburn, in what was then Sydney’s far western suburbs. The site chosen was strategically located adjacent to and south of the main western railway line. There he built extensive works buildings, with ample yard space for manoeuvring the largest engines and other heavy vehicles, and re-renamed the firm ‘Henry Vale and Sons’.
The younger daughter, Harriet Sarah, married Walter Mate at Hoberry in 1892; but in what must have been a tragedy for Henry and Mary in their advancing years, she died aged 24 in 1894 two weeks after giving birth to a little girl who herself died shortly after. Walter Mate was left with a 17-month old son Leslie who was brought up by paternal aunts.
Henry and Mary were proud of the British Empire. As a culmination of Henry’s career, they both embarked in the Orient Liner RMS ORIZABA in May 1897 to attend the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in London in June. It was their first visit to the ‘home’ country. Before their leaving to visit England, Henry John presided over a luncheon laid on in the Pattern Shop at the works. Henry John superintended the family business pending the fathers return. Henry’s employees at Auburn signed and presented him with a large framed illuminated address just before his departure wishing him God speed and a safe return to Sydney.
Henry retired in 1905 and transferred his remaining interest in the firm to Henry John and Fred. He and Mary lived on quietly at Hoberry until her death at the age of 84 in 1911. A couple of years later, Henry moved to a house at the Enfield end of The Boulevarde in Strathfield, which he also named Hoberry. In retirement his hobby was poultry breeding and keeping Fantails. Once when family members went for a holiday, during the WWI period, the girls asked their Grandpa Vale to look after their Fantails. But he liked them so much that when they returned from their holiday, he wouldn’t give them back.
January 1919 saw the old and respected firm of Messrs H Vale and Sons, dissolve as a partnership. Henry Vale died at Hoberry on 26 December 1922 aged 86. His funeral was held privately at the Rookwood Cemetery and was attended only by his immediate relatives. Henry’s daughters had predeceased him. The state had lost one of its pioneer engineers.
Further Reading
Longworth J, Henry Vale’s industrial locomotives: an overview, Light Railways, June 2020.
