Charles Burrell and Sons was a firm of agricultural engineers in Thetford, Norfolk, England originally started by Charles's grandfather Joseph in 1770. In the mid-nineteenth century it turned its attention to steam locomotives for road haulage, at first somewhat unsuccessfully in collaboration with James Boydell. In 1871 it started making road locomotives designed by Robert Thomson of Edinburgh, though rapidly made its own improvements to the design, in particular replacing Thomson's vertical boiler with a railway-style horizontal one which could be fired from the driver's position on the vehicle. It is this modified locomotive which is modelled here.
The model is to a rather small scale of 1:50, and makes up into an odd but rather charming object just 100mm long.