Henry Dübs

Henry Dübs (1816 – 24 April 1876), born Heinrich Dübs in Guntersblum 29 km South of Mainz, Capital of Rheinland - Palatinate Germany, was a German-born British businessman and engineer who founded Dübs and Company, at one time the second largest locomotive manufacturer in Britain.

Dübs was apprenticed to a machine tooling business. At the age of 21, having gained further experience in Mainz and Aachen, he had become a machine shop manager.

He moved to England and was appointed as works manager of the Vulcan Locomotive Company Foundry near Warrington, Lancashire, in 1842, at which time he anglicised his name to Henry Dübs.

From 1842 - 1858 Dübs appears to have worked for the Lancashire locomotive builders Beyer-Peacock in Manchester. He lost his position as works manager in 1857 for reasons which may have had to do with his managerial style rather than his technical abilities.

In 1858 Dübs was appointed works manager and company partner at the Clydeside engineers and locomotive builders, Neilson and Company, in place of the existing works manager, James Reid, on the strength of his knowledge of locomotive building. Neilson and Company were at that time changing from being a general engineering concern into specialist locomotive builders.

Neilson realised that he needed “a manager for my works who had some name and reputation for this department of engineering . . . At this time a german (sic) Henry Dubs was strongly recommended to me, as a man in great favour and estimation by locomotive superintendants, and as likely to be of great value to me. Dubs was out of employment, and pressed memuch for the situation”. “I made Mr Dubs a partner, it having been always a principle with me that those whom I employed in any undertaking should not only have a sufficient salary, but also an interest in the undertaking”.

Neilson rapidly grew disenchanted with Dubs who “turned out to be an excellent draughtsman, but was a poor engineer”. Neilson judged him to be “a most pig headed german (sic) and a most difficult man to get along with”. “Dubs made himself so excessively disagreeable and having offered to give up his partnership and leave the works upon my paying him a certain sum of money which I accepted".

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