Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - The Penarth Harbour, Dock & Railway Co. dispute with Messrs. Smith, Knight & Co. . .

The loss to the company being over (£) 69,000l., [equivalent to £5.6m in 2021] the extra cost of the works over Messrs. Smith and Knight's contract, and the solicitors charges. A dividend of 4 per cent. was declared. It is stated that next year the dividend would probably be 4½ per cent. The meeting was made special, and the directors were authorised to issue additional share capital.' - Engineering [516] [499] 10th September 1875.

Thus the long standing arguments, litigation and arbitration between the Penarth Company and Messrs. Smith and Knight was over. Smith and Knight were effectively bankrupt but the Penarth Company and the TVR continued to prosper.

I still can't help feeling that Mr. John Hawkshaw and Smith and Knight had previous experience of one another and that it was animosity which prevailed during the foregoing dispute and which lasted for over a decade. I am unable to substantiate this statement but the list below may assist ; strictly Without Prejudice!

Prior to the opening of the Institution of Civil Engineers (I.C.E.) building at 1-7 Great George Street in 1913 (which was designed by Charles Barry, a pupil of John Hawkshaw!) and by 1858, more than forty engineers had addresses in the same street and probably met up at the local coffee houses. Close by, in Duke Street, the offices of Isambard Kingdom Brunel were located. [1364]

No.  1 - Smith & Knight - contractor
No.  4 - Thomas Brassey - 'greatest railway builder'
No. 15 - Thomas A. Walker - contractor
No. 24 - George Stephenson - 'the father of railways'
No. 24 - Robert Stephenson - civil engineer
No. 32 - Charles Barry & Sons - pupil of John Hawkshaw and architect of House of Parliament
No. 33 - John Hawkshaw - civil engineer
No. 33 - John Clarke Hawkshaw - civil engineer
No. 33 - Harrison Hayter - civil engineer