A statue of the railway contractor, Thomas Brassey, has been installed outside Chester Station

The Thomas Brassey Society has announced that a statue has been erected outside Chester Station to commemorate Thomas Brassey, a prominent engineer of the nineteenth century.

The bronze statue has been sculpted by Andy Edwards, renowned for the Beatles statues at Liverpool’s Pier Head and many others around the world. We are also thrilled to announce that:

The statue will be formally unveiled by HRH The Duke of Gloucester,  Prince Richard,  on Wednesday, 28th May 2025 at 1.45 pm.

Thomas Brassey was born in Aldford near Chester in 1805 and upon leaving school, he then became an assistant to Thomas Telford, surveying the alignment of the A5 in North Wales. Afterwards he went on to manage Storeton Quarry,  on the Wirral, where stone was provided to George Stephenson’s Sankey Viaduct on the Liverpool-Manchester Railway.

He became a prominent railway builder and during his lifetime he built one third of Britain’s railways, three quarters of those in France at the time and one in twenty miles of the world’s railways during the 1800’s.

It is fitting that the statue is located at Chester Station which he built in 1848, but he also built parts of the Chester - Crewe line, Chester - Holyhead line, Chester - Birkenhead and all of the Chester - Shrewsbury line.

He not only built railways across the world but also major civil engineering works such as the Thames Embankment and Birkenhead Docks. He even built a railway at breakneck speed in Crimea to provide the British and French armies with food and ammunition to assist with the fall of Sebastopol in 1855. At his busiest times he was employing as many as 80,000 men, requiring significant managerial skills and he died in 1870 having accomplished a phenomenal amount of construction across Britain and the world.

The statue has been funded by the Thomas Brassey Society who have raised donations, both large and small, from many benefactors including the Tyrer Trust, the Couch Trust, the Brassey family, Heap & Partners Ltd, Avanti West Coast, the Community Rail Partnerships, Society members and the general public.

Stephen Langtree MBE, Chair of the Thomas Brassey Society, said:

“It has been a long term aim of the Society to erect a statue outside the magnificent Chester Station – one which Thomas Brassey built – and through energetic fundraising and the generous support of many benefactors, our dream of a statue has now become a reality. We hope this results in many more people appreciating his remarkable achievements”.

For further information about this event please contact Communications link, Gillian Bolt on:

07855 968524

...or email: 

petergillianbolt1@btinternet.com

Pictured - The Duke is being assisted by a local guide group who are now offering a Civic Engineering badge option to their girls.