Engineer Matthew Kirtley and Family

Taken from Derby Works Collection. The locomotive engineer Matthew Kirtley, his wife Ann and their daughters at their home in Litchurch, Derby, about 1870.

Matthew Kirtley was born in Tanfield, County Durham in 1813 and began working as a fireman for the Stockton & Darlington Railway at the age of thirteen. He worked for both George and Robert Stephenson before being appointed Locomotive Superintendent of the Birmingham & Derby Junction Railway in 1839. In 1844 he took up the same role in the newly formed Midland Railway company. He was responsible for many new locomotive designs and stayed in his post until his death in 1873.