| C. Hamilton Ellis | |
| Birth Name: | Cuthbert Hamilton Ellis |
| Birth Date: | 29 June 1909 |
| Known For: | Railway painter and author |
| Education: | Westminster School |
| Employer: | British Railways |
Cuthbert (Chip) Hamilton Ellis FRSA[1] (29 June 1909 - 29 June 1987) was an English railway writer and painter. He was an Associate of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
He attended Westminster school and is reported to have briefly been at Oxford.[2] He published the first of his 36 books, mostly on railway subjects, at the age of 21.[2]
During 1940 Ellis was sent to Switzerland by MI6 under the guise of reporting for Modern Transport to organise saboteurs, but is reported not to have made contact with his handlers.[2]
Ellis covered a broad range of railway subjects in his books, the best-known of which is The Trains we Loved (Allen & Unwin, 1947). His obituarist in The Times commented that his Railway Carriages in the British Isles from 1830 to 1914 (1965, revised from an earlier book) "despite its near-obsession with matters lavatorial and ablutory ... was an epoch-making work".[3] As a knowledgeable railwayman he appeared in the 1968 TV documentary 4472: Flying Scotsman[4] [5] and appeared twice in the BBC TV game show Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? in railway themed episodes.[6] [7]
He also wrote a small number of novels, such as The Engineer-Corporal (1940) and Dandy Hart (1947). Both of which were fictional, somewhat "voluble [and] long winded", and deeply based on an interest in railway operations, which was also assumed in the reader.[8]
He had an interest in model railways: his 1962 book Model Railways 1838-1939 was said by The Times to have "led the way in charting the early history of this ... hobby". He was an early member and for some time Vice-President of the Historical Model Railway Society.
His 1959 humorous book Rapidly Round the Bend was described as "[doing] for railways what Sellers and Yeatman had done for general history" (a reference to the authors of 1066 and All That).
He has paintings in the National Railway Museum, the Royal Logistic Corps Museum and the Museum of Island Railway History[9] on the Isle of Wight. The National Portrait Gallery holds two photographs of him, both taken in the 1960s.[10]
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . Highland Engines and their Work . 1930.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . The Grey Men ... Illustrations by Gilbert Dunlop . 1939.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . The Engineer-Corporal. A story of the American civil war . Terence Cuneo (illus.) . 1940.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Rails across the Ranges . 1941.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Who wrecked the Mail? . Terence Cuneo (illus.) . 1944.
. The Trains we Loved . 1947 . Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2.
. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Dandy Hart . Victor Gollancz . 1947. [8]
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Nineteenth Century Railway Carriages in the British Isles . Modern Transport Publishing . 1949.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Some Classic Locomotives . 1949.
. Four Main Lines . Allen & Unwin . 004385012X . 1950 . Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . The Beauty of Old Trains . 1952.
. The Midland Railway . 0711005516 . 1975 . 1953 . Ian Allan . C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2.
. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . The South Western Railway . George Allen and Unwin . 1956.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . A Picture History Of Railways . Hulton's Picture Histories . Hulton Press . 1956.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Famous locomotives of the world . Globe Books . 1957.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . A Picture History of Ships . Hulton . 1957.
. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Trains and Tractors . Allen & Unwin . 1957.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Twenty locomotive men . Ian Allan . 1958.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . The Young George Stephenson . William Randell (illus.) . Famous childhood series . Parrish . 1959.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . The North British Railway . 1959.
. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . British Railway History . 1830–1876 . Allen & Unwin . 1959.
. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . British Railway History . 1877–1947 . Allen & Unwin . 1959.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . Cars and Trains . John Peter Roberts . 1959.
. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Rapidly Round the Bend . 1959 . Parrish.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Royal journey: A retrospect of royal trains in the British Isles . . 1960.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . The Beauty of Railways . Parrish . 1960.
. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Model Railways 1838-1939 . Allen & Unwin . 1962 . 0043850138.
. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Flying Scotsman, 1862-1962 . Allen & Unwin . 0043850111 . 1962.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Popular Carriage: Two Centuries of Carriage Design for Road and Rail . British Transport Commission . 1962.
. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . The Splendour of Steam . 0043850162 . Allen & Unwin . 1965.
. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Railway Carriages in the British Isles from 1830 to 1914 . 0043850146 . Allen & Unwin . 1965.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . The History of the Great Northern Railway, 1845-1922 . H. V. Borley . 1966.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Railway history . Dutton Vista . 1966.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . The Engines That Passed . 0043850448 . Allen & Unwin . 1968.
. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . The Pictorial Encyclopedia of Railways . Paul Hamlyn . 1968.
. London, Midland and Scottish. A Railway in Retrospect . 0711000484 . Ian Allan . 1970 . C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . King Steam. Selected railway paintings and drawings by C. Hamilton Ellis . George . Perry . 1971.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . London, Brighton and South Coast Railway . 071100269X . 1972.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Railways : A Pictorial History of the First 150 Years . 0856900087 . Peebles Press . 1974 . registration .
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Ships : a pictorial history from Noah's Ark to the U.S.S. United States . 0856900079 . Peebles Press . 1974.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . British Trains of Yesteryear . 0711005494 . 1975.
. Royal Trains . 0710082932 . 1975 . C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . Steam railways . Book Club Associates . 1975.
. Railway Art . 0904069109 . Ash & Grant . 1977 . C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2.
. C. Hamilton Ellis . C. Hamilton Ellis . 2 . The Lore Of The Train . Nordbok . 1977.