Charles Frederick Cheffins (10 September 1807 – 23 October 1861) was a British mechanical draughtsman, cartographer, consulting engineer, and surveyor. He was an assistant to John Ericsson and George Stephenson, and surveyed for many British railroad companies in the mid-19th century. He is also known for the 1850 Cheffins' Map of English & Scotch Railways and other maps.
Biography
Cheffins was born in London, where his father was the manager of the New River Waterworks Company and supervised the manufacturing of wooden pipes used to supply water to the metropolis. Young Cheffins was admitted into Christ's Hospital as a scholar in July 1815. He remained there until 1822, diligently pursuing his studies, and received several gold medals for his proficiency in mathematics.
Upon completion of his education, he was apprenticed to Messrs. Newton and Son, patent agents and mechanical draughtsmen, where he became practised in making drawings from specifications and from models of machinery. He remained as an employee with Messrs. Newton and Son for some time after completing his apprenticeship.
From 1830 he was engaged by Captain John Ericsson to assist in making drawings for locomotive engines. The next year he became assistant to George Stephenson and prepared plans and sections of the projected Grand Junction Railway. On the completion of the parliamentary submissions for the Grand Junction Railway, between 1832 and 1833, he set up his own cartographical and drawing business, and spent over two decades working as a surveyor for numerous railroad construction projects in the United Kingdom. In 1838, he published his first Map of the Grand Junction Railway and Adjacent Country; and the next year Cheffins's Official Map of the Railway from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. In 1846, Cheffins commissioned John Cooke Bourne to write the History of the Great Western Railway. Occasionally, Cheffins also published lithographical work by others. In the year 1848, he had been elected an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers and continued to take interest in all their proceedings.
One year before his death in 1861, the partnership between Cheffins and his sons—as surveyors, draftsmen, and lithographers—was dissolved by mutual consent. The business continued with Cheffins and his son Charles Richard Cheffins as partners. Cheffins died suddenly from internal injuries on 23 October 1861, leaving his son Charles to complete the work which he commenced a month or two before his death. His death, at the age of fifty-four, was said to have greatly impacted his friends, colleagues, and assistants, who had served under him in the numerous parliamentary campaigns in which he had been engaged – and to many of whom he had shown much kindness in recommending them to posts of trust and responsibility on the Indian Railways.
Work
Locomotive design
About the year 1830, he was engaged by Captain John Ericsson to assist in making the drawings for the Novelty locomotive engine, then about to be constructed by Messrs. Braithwaite and Ericsson, to compete against the Stephenson's Rocket and other locomotives on the Rainhill Trials on the Manchester and Liverpool Railway. The competition went against the Novelty, on account of the failure of its blast apparatus.
Cheffins was present at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and remained some time longer with Captain Ericsson, making drawings for other inventions, among which was a steam fire-engine and a caloric engine – machines which gained public attention, the former of which coming into general use. Cheffins's practical knowledge of machinery rendered him a valuable assistant in the preparation of the designs.
Testimony in patent-right lawsuits
In 1830, Cheffins reputation was such that he testified for the "defendants" in the patent infringement case of Lord Galloway and Alexander Cochrane versus John Braithwaite and John Ericsson, in the Court of Chancery, where it was alleged that the boilers of the Novelty locomotive were of a type too similar to a design of the plaintiffs and where the Lord Chancellor found for the defendants.
Subsequently, Cheffins took the stand in court more often. In one 1847 case narrated in The Railway Record, "Charles F. Cheffins, engineer and surveyor, was called for the defence, proved that he had examined the plans and sections in question, and detected so many errors that the case became quite clear."