Blue plaque for Gresley

A blue plaque commemorating Sir Nigel Gresley, the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the LNER, was unveiled at St Anne’s station in Lancashire on October 17.



Chairman of the Gresley Society, David McIntosh, unveils the blue plaque at St Anne’s station in commemoration of Sir Nigel Gresley on October 17. ANDREW NOBLE


Sir Nigel Gresley had significant links with the Lancashire town; the designer of Flying Scotsman and Mallard met his future wife Ethel Frances Fullager, a St Anne’s resident, whilst he was working for the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway at their Horwich Works, and married her in St Anne’s Parish Church in October 1901.

The plaque, funded by St Anne’s Town Council and supported by Lytham St Anne’s Civic Society, was unveiled by Gresley Society Chairman, David McIntosh, and the town’s mayor, Cllr Chery Little.

Chairman of Friends of St Anne’s Stations, Tony Ford, said: “As Chairman of the Station Friends group and the Community Rail Partnership I am really pleased that we have been able to install a blue plaque to mark Sir Nigel Gresley's connection with the town. It is fitting that the unveiling took place 110 years to the day since Sir Nigel and Ethel Fullager were married in the parish church."

The unveiling of the plaque at St Anne’s station follows in the wake of another commemoration of Sir Nigel Gresley life and works, when a statue of the former GNR CME was unveiled in the concourse of King’s Cross station on April 5.

On that occasion, the terminus of the former GNR played host to Gresley ‘N2’ 0-6-2T No. 1744, with an appropriate Gresley teak coach in tow, in light steam in platform 8, the first time an ‘N2’ had visited the ‘Cross’ in preservation.

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They should have put a duck on the plaque (quickly diving behind the parapet).

Andy