Edward Bury and Company

Bury, Curtis and Kennedy was a steam locomotive manufacturer in Liverpool, England.

Edward Bury established the works in 1826, under the name Edward Bury and Company. He employed James Kennedy as foreman; Kennedy later became a partner. About 1828, the firm moved to bigger premises in Love Lane, Liverpool, known as the Clarence Foundry.

Their first engine was built in 1830. Called Dreadnought, it ran on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. It was objected to because it was on six wheels and was sold to the Bolton & Leigh Railway. The second, the four-coupled Liverpool, later in 1830, used a cranked driving axle, and was also objected to (by George Stephenson) because the 6 ft diameter wheels were too big.

However, they refined their designs and the resulting 2-2-0 and 0-4-0 locomotives quickly became a standard which was emulated by many other manufacturers, becoming known as the "Bury type". Distinguishing features of these engines were inside horizontal (or near-horizontal) cylinders, inside wrought-iron bar frame, which gave them a light appearance, and the round firebox (D-shaped in plan), with a large domed top surmounted by a safety valve.

Thirteen were supplied to the Great Northern Railway (six of them being sub-contracted to William Fairbairn & Sons), and they became the standard classes on the London and Birmingham Railway, the Eastern Counties Railway, the Midland Counties Railway, the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal Navigation and Railway Company, the Lancaster and Preston Railway and the North Union Railway. Several were exported to the USA, more than from any other British company except R. Stephenson & Co., and where Bury's "bar-frames" became standard. The firm had a reputation for good workmanship, cheapness and reliability.