Welcome back Albert

Albert the Fowler traction engine has returned back from France to join the Sewards family again!

Fowler 7453 built in 1895 was new to Sewards of Peterfield in October 1895 to join the then busy company of W. Seward, he would join the other engines that already were in the business, one of those engines was of course, Marshall traction engine 14242, Victoria. These two engines worked for many years for the company until the business ceased trading but they stayed in the shed, along with the Fowler Showman’s engine, until all were sold off in 1970. Both Victoria and Albert went off to their new owners, then in the early 80’s they were together again, this time at the British Engineerium in Hove, Victoria belonging to Peter and Shirley Fagg and Albert belonging to Johathan Minns. They were rallied together all over the UK and even visited Europe a few times. Then in 2002 Albert was sold and he went off to France for his new life and later of that same year we purchased Victoria and she came to live with us here in Hampshire.

Over the years we have talked many times about how nice it would be to get these two lovely old engines back together, even if just for a weekend, but deep in our hearts we knew that what we really wanted was to own both of these engines. Well this weekend that dream become a reality and we are now the proud owners of Albert!

It’s been a long process over many months, but he is back here with us and this weekend we have spent cleaning him and then on Sunday steaming him up. There are a few jobs that we need to get sorted but overall he is in good shape. He is going to need lots of polishing to get him up to SOP standards but that will be done over the next few months.

Looking forward over the next few years, he will have his 10 year hydraulic test, we would like to get a new set of tyres on him as the old ones are hanging off of him and our ultimate goal is to paint him back to his original colour, which is green, the same as Victoria. We will keep our fingers crossed that one day that will happen but not for a few years yet!

It has been very emotional and the best weekend, we are so pleased that he is here with us, it’s been a dream of ours for all that time and now it’s happened.

The first event Victoria and Albert will be back together will be at Amberley Museum in Sussex on the 6th & 7th July for their steam show.

Here are lots of pictures of our first few days with him.