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TRANSCRIPT
Journal
of the
Railway & Canal
Historical Society
Volume 34 Part 1
No 181 March 2002
The Railway & Canal Historical Society
President: Grahame Boyes
Vice-Presidents: Dr A L Barnett, G J Biddle, R Christiansen, J V Gough, W M Reading, K P Seaward
Chairman (Managing Committee): Roger Davies
Hon Secretary: M Searle, 3 West Court, West Street, Oxford OX8 ONP Hon Treasurer: G H Wild, 141 Allestree Lane, Allestree, Derby DE22 2PG
Local Group Secretaries East Midlands (acting): S Birch, 48 Arundel Drive, Bramcote Hills, Beeston,
Nottingham NG9 3FN London: G C Bird, 44 Ravensmede Way, London W4 1TF North East: D B Slater, 8 Grainger Avenue, Acomb, York Y02 5LF North West: G Leach, 5 Tabley Close, Knutsford, Cheshire, WA18 ONP South West (acting): A Richardson, 25 Boscombe Crescent, Downend, Bristol
BS16 6QR West Midlands: R M Shill, 100 Frederick Road, Stechford, Birmingham B33 8AE
Co-ordinators of Special Interest Groups Air Transport: N Wood, The Poplars, Barnstone Road, Langar, Nottingham
NG13 9HH Railway Chronology: D R Steggles, 8 Buckerell Avenue, Exeter EX2 4RA Road Transport: P L Scowcroft, 8 Rowan Mount, Doncaster DN2 5PJ Tramroads: P R Reynolds, 87 Gabalfa Road, Sketty, Swansea SA2 8ND Waterways History Research (including Docks & Shipping):
D I Foster, 10 Mill Cottages, Distington, Workington CA14 5SR
The Railway & Canal Historical Society was founded in 1954 and incorporated in 1967. It is a company (no 922300) limited by guarantee and registered in England as a charity (no 256047)
Registered office: 77 Main Street, Cross Hills, Keighley BD20 8PH
RCHS Journal
Editor: Peter Brown, 34 Waterside Drive, Market Drayton TF9 1HU E-mail: p@peter—quita.demon.co.uk
Book Reviews Editor: Dr M Barnes, Cornbrash House, Kirtlington, Oxfordshire 0X5 3HF (to whom all items for review should be sent)
Distribution Officer: Vacant (For this issue only, please notify the Hon Secretary if copies of the Journal are defective)
The Editor welcomes the submission of interesting relevant articles. Potential contributors should contact him for a copy of the Guidance on writing for the Journal, including the style sheet.
Copyright is vested jointly in the author and the RCHS. No article may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express permission in writing of both the author and the RCHS. Requests to
reproduce articles should be addressed to the Editor.
Printed by Counter Print, 3 Tipping Street, Stafford ST16 2LL
ISSN 0033 8834
1
Journal
of the
Railway & Canal Historical Society
Volume 34 Part 1 No 181 March 2002
Contents
From the President 2
Obituary: Theodore Cardwell Barker 2
Obituary: Peter R Davis 3
West Lancashire Railway Mysteries Unravelled— John Dixon & John Gilmour 4
‘Norwich a Port !’ : Part 2 — Peter Brown 17
At Cocking in 1881 — Robert Miller 30
The Opening of the Chester & Holyhead Railway to Bangor,1 May 1848 — Jean Lindsay 32
From Street to Train — Alan A Jackson 34
The Rosehall Canal: the most northerly canal in Great Britain?— Nicola Forbes & John Howat 38
Foxton Revisited: the inclined plane in context— David Turnock 39
The London Underground and the National Railways— Gordon Hafter 46
From the RCHS Photographic Collection No 16 52
Correspondence 53
Book Reviews 56
2
Dr Janet Cutler, editor of the Journal sinceNovember 1994 and only the fourth to hold theoffice in 47 years, retired after producing the lastissue. The Journal is the Society’s flagship —indeed for many members it is the main reason fortheir membership — so there is no job of greaterimportance to the Society’s well-being. DuringJanet’s period of office, the dedication requiredfrom the editor has increased in proportion to the
From the President
number of pages, which has grown from 48 to 80per issue. In addition Janet has overseen first thetransfer to a less-expensive, but less-experienced,printer and then the change of the Journal’sformat, accepting the ensuing voluminouscorrespondence, comment and criticism withcharacteristic sanguinity. For all this we offer herour sincere thanks, at the same time extending awelcome to our fifth editor, Peter Brown. Grahame Boyes
Theodore Cardwell Barker, 1923–2001Theo Barker was a great enthusiast for history of many sorts and, as well as writing aboutenterprise, put it into practical effect, though always in the academic sphere, by initiating or helpingto initiate many groups, units and endeavours. He was also an expansive, generous individual whogave freely of his time to serve on a wide variety of committees and societies. Theo liked nothingmore than a brisk academic debate followed by wine and food, perhaps in his favourite Italianrestaurant, or the North Sea Fish Bar (a long way from the North Sea), a long-standing venue afterthe seminars he co-organised at the Institute of Historical Research.
Theo was born and went to school in St Helens, where he made a lifelong friend in John Harriswho later also became a professor of economic history. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford,and then at Manchester, where he was awarded his doctorate. Although primarily known amongmembers of this Society for his work in the field of transport history, Theo had a wide range ofacademic interests. These included business history, as evidenced by his history of Pilkingtons(1960); his establishment of Debrett’s Business History Research and the Business History Unit atthe London School of Economics; the history of food shown in his early work in diet and thevolume, Our Changing Fare (1966); oral history; and urban history, especially the history of urbantransport.
Theo’s best work was done in the field of transport history, such as his magisterial two volumes,with Michael Robbins, on the history of London’s transport, his provocative book, with DorianGerhold, on the rise of road transport, and the pioneering book he edited on the economic andsocial effects of the spread of motor vehicles. Although he rarely wrote about railways directly,much of his work illuminated their role by reflecting upon their competitors and complementaryforms of transport. Theo was a pioneer in the history of canals, one of his first publications, in1948, being a history of the Sankey Navigation. He was almost as important as an enthusiast andfacilitator (though he would have scorned the word). He joined the RCHS in 1958 and became oneof its longest-serving office-holders, as a Vice-President from 1978 and President in 1986–8.During this period he gave unstinting support to the Chairman and other officers, but will begenerally remembered for his amiable contributions at society events. He was also instrumental insetting up the Transport History Group of the Economic History Society and, much later, the Roads& Road Transport History Conference, of which he became the inaugural President. He played acrucial part in reviving and maintaining the Journal of Transport History and encouraged manyscholars to achieve their potential via doctorates and publication. His energy, enthusiasm andencouragement will be sorely missed. John Armstrong
3
Peter R Davis, 1921–2001Peter Davis, who died on 27 November 2001, served as the Society’s Treasurer for 21 years. As aChartered Accountant, with his own practice which he maintained until his mid seventies, Peterwas well qualified for this post but his lengthy tenure was but a small part of his total contributionin a wide spectrum of endeavour. A modest, unassuming mien concealed a substantial reserve ofconstructive and informed energy which he was happy to exercise voluntarily in a variety of causesand interests, not least in transport history and preservation of transport relics. This area ofactivity was approached with commendable catholicity.
As a native of metropolitan Essex and a commuter to central London, he saw the need for anorganisation specialising in the history and activities of the Underground and was largelyresponsible for the formation in 1961 of the highly successful London Underground RailwaySociety, becoming its first Chairman and editor of its monthly journal. Soon after its removal toCovent Garden in 1980, he was undertaking duties as one of the voluntary guides at the LondonTransport Museum.
When the Transport Trust was formed in 1965, Peter became its first Treasurer, offering hisoffice near Hyde Park Corner for meetings of the Council. Increasingly involved, he wasappointed Director in 1971, devoting his considerable energy to working up initiatives on severalfronts, notably the Beaulieu Motor Museum nd the Bressingham Steam Museum and in preparingthe Trust’s detailed plan and costings for a National Transport Museum on surplus railway landsaround London’s Crystal Palace Low Level station. The government’s decision to close theClapham based Museum of British Transport and disperse its contents came as a great blow to theTrust, not least to Peter, who had laboured long and hard with the engineer John Howard Turnerand others to prepare a viable scheme for the Crystal Palace site. As someone whose allegiance toLondon was paramount and who sincerely believed that the development of land transport shouldbe studied as a whole rather than in separate compartments, his frustration was bitterly expressedin the Trust’s July 1971 News Bulletin.
Another cause attracting his untiring energy was the Channel Tunnel Association, formed in1963 to promote and assist realisation of this long planned project. He soon became CTAChairman but events slowly overtook any need for such an organisation and Peter lived to enjoythe tremendous satisfaction of seeing the Tunnel become a reality and experience the pleasure ofusing it to continue his travels across Europe with his wife Jackie, who shared his interests.
His disappointment over the Crystal Palace project was much moderated by the formation of theLondon Transport Museum in 1973 and its subsequent expansion and very real success. He wasalso to see the National Railway Museum at York become much more than the poor substitute forthe Crystal Palace scheme he had envisaged in 1971. Although it would seem he never publiclyvoiced the sentiment, it is certain that the honesty and fairness that attended all his dealings wouldhave brought him to admit that events had gone a long way towards changing his initial reactionsto a scheme largely designed by a fellow professional accountant, (Sir) Peter Kemp then serving inthe Department of the Environment.
He was also cheered by victory in another battle — against the several attempts to close theRomford to Upminster rail link, a proposal first emerging in the list published in the ‘BeechingReport’ of 1963. Once again he had been much involved from the beginning, his enthusiasmboosted by the line’s proximity to his native and much loved Hornchurch.
During his last two years, Peter’s grief at the loss of his wife was lightened by his great-grandchildren,whilst the loving care of his natural and adopted sons and daughter and their children allowed him tocontinue to dwell and die peacefully in the house where he was born. There, like Winston Churchill’s,his cat was wont to lie upon his recumbent form, to the very last hour of his days.
Alan A Jackson
4
West Lancashire Railway MysteriesUnravelled
By John Dixon and John Gilmour
Introduction
This article presents the discoveries made from recentre-investigations into two long-standing mysteries ofthe West Lancashire Railway (WLR). In the May1960 issue of the Journal of the Railway & CanalHistorical Society, Maurice Greville was lamentingthe apparent paucity of source material availableconcerning both the WLR’s paddle steamer Virginiaand the Tarleton Branch Railway.
The absence of any relevant surviving WLR minutebooks for the earliest years of the company has beenan obvious hindrance. Forty years on, from muchlaborious scouring of the local contemporarynewspapers combined with some previously unusedsources which may not have been readily availableto Greville at the time, the veils shrouding these twoaspects of WLR history have been partially, if nottotally, withdrawn.
It does seem that our former President might wellhave had more luck in his searches if he had not beenmisled by the published accounts of WLR history.One crucial fact relates to the opening date of theRiver Douglas station, close to the landing stage usedby passengers changing between trains and theVirginia. Published works have given this date as1882, which was the year that the line was extendednortheastwards over the river to Longton and fromwhich date Greville apparently commenced hissearches. In fact, River Douglas station opened fouryears earlier, having been passed fit by the Board ofTrade inspector 13 July 1878, subject to a clock andnameboards being erected.1 It was adjacent to thesouthwest bank of the Douglas just fifteen chainsnortheast of Hesketh Bank station, the original linehaving opened to the public between this latter stationand Hesketh Park station, Southport, on 20 February1878. The Virginia’s passengers were to enjoy justtwo seasons of local pleasure trips during 1878 and1879 after which the service ceased, much to thesatisfaction of the WLR shareholders glad to see theback of this loss-making concern.
The ‘magnificent’ Virginia
With the passing of the WLR’s Act of April 1878,allowing the use of steamer vessels between HeskethBank and various other ports, no time was wasted inacquiring a suitable vessel to carry out a priority aimof the company during a period when the company’srailway line was leading nowhere and was purely alocal concern, namely, the operation of a passenger-carrying service between its present terminus at RiverDouglas station and Lytham on the northern shoreof the river Ribble, backed up with occasional cruisesalong the Douglas and Ribble.
It is not known how the company became awarethat the Great Yarmouth-based paddle steamer,Virginia, was available for purchase but in early June1878 it had set steam for the long trip to the Ribble.2
The Virginia was relatively new, having in 1875 beenbuilt and owned by the Robert Blyth shipyard at GreatYarmouth.3 By 1877, if not earlier, she was operatinga passenger service along the river Yare, calling atintermediate places between Yarmouth andNorwich.4 A one-masted iron paddle steamer, shewas of 46 gross tons, length 87 feet 8 inches, breadth12 feet 2 inches and fitted with two diagonal directcompound engines.3
The journey was quite eventful, stormy weatherforcing her to put into port for safety and repair workon two occasions, at Dover and Poole,5 and latercalling at Queenstown, Southern Ireland (modern dayCobh) for compass repairs.6 On 27 June, three weeksafter leaving Great Yarmouth, she finally arrived inthe Ribble, where she docked at Preston to berepainted and ‘beautified’ after her ordeal.7 Her newowners could now, no doubt, take comfort in thebelief that the Virginia would be quite capable ofhandling any weather likely to be experienced onthe Ribble and Douglas.
About a month later she was ready to start work.For her first revenue-earning outing she left thelanding stage near River Douglas station and headedalong the tributary to its junction with the Ribblenear Naze Point. The round trip was scheduled to
LEEDS & LIVERPOOL CANAL TARLETON BRANCH
WINDSOR ROAD
PIER RIVER RIBBLE N
0<•612 '• /
RIVER DOUGLAS STATION
HESKETH BANK
HUNDRED END
GOODS BRANCH
BANKS
CROSSENS
CHURCHTOWN
HESKETH PARK
PIER
CHAPEL STREET
TARLETON LOCK
STAGE
NAZE POINT TO PRESTON ."'
x
XI
L&NWR and L&YR JOINT
LYTHAM PASSENGER
TO PRESTON DOCK
....,y
GOODS
SOUTHPORT
L&YR L&YR TO LIVERPOOL TO WIGAN
5
excursion from the latter place to Naze Point andreturn. There were no Sunday services, there beingno trains on these days during this first summer; thisremained the case when trains did commence runningon Sabbath days from early October the same year.8
The season ended this month with a final excursion,advertised in the Lytham & Kirkham Times on16 October.
However, it appears the new venture was notproving an immediate success. At the half-yearlyshareholders’ meeting on 9 December 1878, held inSouthport as always, concerns were already beingraised about the vessel’s viability with a call that the
Plan of the West Lancashire area (1880)
take an hour at high tide and was advertised in theLiverpool & Southport Daily News (L&SDN) to takeplace on the first three days of August 1878,connecting with the train services. The proprietorof the L&SDN at this period was Edward Holden, adirector and chairman of the WLR, so it is notsurprising to find this newspaper very much pro-WestLancashire Railway in its reports. The third day wasa Saturday; the following Saturday the Virginia tookher first trip to and from Lytham. During theremaining weeks of the 1878 summer there wereregular trips made between Lytham and the riverDouglas stage at Hesketh Bank with the occasional
Cy Neer of Makers
itegistrar Deka r*-7 /.77
Transcript of Register for Transmission 5t Registrar-General of Shippingand Seamen. M
7..)NICand Pert of Ilaskary it
...Deft Who. Belk N... sod Adana of Haden
tr.-eaa,.,omATe 1 /re/A"
41
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No, Dato end Pert of regime Registry (of any) Witahor. •Ses/U4r.Bt.r
sad if a Stew /hip. how pe
Nemo of Ship
1.
,g4.41
tore part of .ten, under the bowsprit, to lb. 42el osdo of the had of the stern IOW
Main breadth to outside of plank ..
Depth is hold from tonnage deck to ceiling at widshipe
Depth in hold from upper sleek to ceiling at midships, in the taw of three decks and upwards
Len,•th of engine room, if any (AU( Ina C\4- A..1 1(ta,
VIA 1F ENGIN aAlfiran°
12..
Ltp4i1.1 of
PARTICULARS OP TONNAGE.
DICI.IA.711111t11 ALLOWS!, On aerount or VW required fur pnvelling, power On account of fierce occupied by Seamen or
Alveoli*" and appropriated to thew use, end kept fro, (non Goode or stores or every kind, not being tlo perOVISJII property of the Crew
These maces are the following, viz.
Qr If deem snow. Ownere Yes owe do Registrar ie merged to diwiaguish the Nanogiag Owes, by lb. lotten • 11.0." nand *MAO: .Tottiviinmot la so leardsostalts Ilast&s.Clossoal * -̂ •-•Peberrigr NOW* raw Load. -
Kati rim.
Yearns...
22. 3,
Number of Decks
Needier of Masts
Rigged • • ./ Stern • • •
II
Form No. 19.j • &goal Lew"' Woo,
Wirth* British or leaks Rolle
Dassio. W y Baia er
ZOL.,069/X teCif.4.449,4%.01.
,:r-A 2 20
Orem Torun.,
Sons, aypyr Comm
Registered Tonnage
of lifeatA,
4 Naletl, and MK
starker of !Rev-fourth
• • • Iv V
4/1 /Jo•il
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the ati.1) . hekl by
_ 0...n Tonneur. No. of Taro
• Ueda Teenage Deck . Closed in wows above U Tonnage Deck, if tiny
Space or vac" bete tea Decks
Fecoomtle Round Ileum
pike closed in, mom, if say, as (.1k,..,
0./ • ' 914PR )
Total Deductions
Certifwate uf{8'^i" No. Competency Nu.
IB
6
Virginia: Ship register transcript(Courtesy of Merseyside Maritime Museum Archives, Liverpool)
EST LANCASHI RE RAILWAY.
SPECIAL RAIL AND STE 041BOAT EXCURSIONS.
run COMPANY'S MAGNIFTCEN1.' STEAMER
4 4 V HIGINIA." Will Heil daily for an hones Exctusion down the RIVER DUlICLAS, from the NEW STATION on that River At NAZI POINT and back. SPECIAL EXPRF,SS C It AI NS leaving SOUT1 I roux (Lvninp.nR-tiom, 'ITATION) in tanutection therewith SIM under, viz.:—
From Froro Return Trains Windsor-road ltvr. Douglas tram River Stat'n, S'port. Station. Douglas Stat'n
. fur Southport. august 12. . 10 30 a.m. ... 10.45 a.tn. ... 11 40 a.m.
„ 13... 110 a.tit. 11 15 .. 12 30p.m. „ 14... 11 30 flan. 11 45 a.rn. ,.. .. 10 p.m. „ 15... 12 101..m. ... 12 25p.m: ... 1 45p.m.
12 35 p.m. ,.. 12 ... 2 15 p.tn. ,, .17... I 10 p.m. ... 1 25 p.m. . . 2 30 p.to.
.teturn Tickete. including Hail and Boat, to be obtained ONLY tat the Whnhsor•runol Station, Southport :—
First eh,. Cabin Third Class flail and Viral. and Rail Chow Cabin,
S. IS. (;(1
Third Class Itail And Cahho h. By order,
THOMAS C; I 11.11ERT, Secretary mid Mankm.
Southport, Sth 1878.
7
company be rid of her.9 It is worth adding here thatthere was a rival boat plying between Southport andLytham in the summer months; this was the WaterLily, a twin-screw steamer built at Rutherglen, Scot-land, in 1875 and owned by the Southport SteamboatCompany. She was of a similar size but said to be ata disadvantage to Virginia in rough weather, confinedto her station on account of her route being acrossopen water thereby making it difficult to navigatethe narrow channels, while the Virginia’s route wasalong the more protected coastal shore.10 (Thoughhow many people would wish to make a so-calledpleasure cruise in such circumstances?)
With the WLR directors believing the Virginia hadnot had sufficient time for a fair trial, the following1879 season opened with three half-hour excursionsalong the Douglas on Good Friday, April 11, connect-ing with the trains, as usual. Eight days later, servicescommenced between Lytham and Southport, but nowa notable change had been made to the fares in anattempt to boost trade. Gone was the distinction
between 1st and 3rd class, passengers being chargedthe same as for the rival Water Lily, 1 shilling singlefare and 1s 6d return, children being half price. Forthose people wishing to make the double journey onthe same day, however, these return fares only appliedto the Lytham boarders; those boarding at Southportwould need to stay overnight before returning, hardlyan inducement for many to want to make the trip.Also, on most journeys, the Lytham residents hadinsufficient time to sample the attractions thatSouthport could offer as the return Virginia workingfrom River Douglas stage was very soon after arrival.These restrictive working arrangements must havegreatly affected the total number of passengers usingthe Virginia. The Water Lily, on the other hand, wasable to offer its Southport clients at least a couple ofhours in Lytham before needing to make the returntrip.
At the shareholders’ meeting on 20 May 1879 itwas revealed that the Virginia had accrued a loss of£114 over a six month period, from a total loss bythe company of £840.11 One of the shareholders gavehis opinion that the Virginia could not be made asuccess unless she was able to return from Lythamon the same day. Another remarked that only fourpassengers had arrived from Lytham that samemorning and that he was willing to second anamendment that the Virginia be sunk. There wasalso the questioning of extra costs involved in runningsome extra trains to meet the boat. Alderman Fisher,a WLR director, responded by stating it had beenthe board’s desire to operate a service from Southportpier to and from Lytham and River Douglas stagebut the Board of Trade officials had objected to theVirginia becoming a ‘sea-going’ vessel. As theWhitsuntide holiday was just two weeks away, themeeting agreed that it would be an imprudent timeto cease operating the paddle steamer now; despitethe strong feelings of many shareholders present, itwas agreed that a decision on her fate would not betaken until after the end of the current summer season.
Following the shareholders’ meeting the Whitsun-tide weather turned out ideal and an ‘exceptional’number of excursionists was reported to haveboarded the Virginia on the Whit Monday with anestimated 100 people seen on the Water Lily.12 Overthe season as a whole, though, the weather did notshine on the Virginia nor on the company accounts,it being held partly responsible for another half-yearly loss, despite on certain occasions, if notregularly, double trips having being undertaken. Forexample, during bad weather on Tuesday and
L&SDN advertisement, 10 August 1878. Note thedescription of the Virginia as ‘magnificent’.
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WEST LANCASHIRE RAILWAY.
7 ANTED, immediately, Two tborouglilycom• peteut DRIVERS and Two CONDUCTORS
for Om c ibuies.Apply by letter, atltiog full particulars se to where last employed and wages required, to the undev-igned, on or before Tnureday, the 6th instant. None hut total abstainers need apply
THOMAS G ELBERT, Secrets ry and Manager.
Central Office 13, London street, Southport, JI1123 3, 1878.
10
Wednesday, 1 and 2 July, when the Water Lily had tobe tied up at Southport pier, the Virginia completedthe round trip to Lytham and back.13 The lastnewspaper-advertised excursions for the 1879 seasonwere for 29 and 30 August, both days from Lythamand return. No more is heard of her until theshareholders’ meeting of 25 November where it wasreported she had accrued a loss of £86 10s 5d.14
Unsurprisingly, the shareholders were unanimousin their expressed desire of severing the WLR’sinterest in the Virginia. The directors’ feelings werenot reported and no decision on the vessel seems tohave been taken but her pleasure-steaming days wereover. Whatever good looks the company thoughtshe portrayed, these were not enough to overcome acombination of unfortunate tidal times, poor weatherand the public’s general indifference.
Also losing money was the railway company’s newomnibus service which operated around the town tothe temporary terminus at Windsor Road. This hadbeen started on 10 June 1878 on the opening of thestation using two omnibuses especially built for thecompany by Mr S Gower of Stratford, London, andthese were said to have a striking appearance.15
Correspondents in the L&SDN complained of theirregular times these omnibuses kept, a factor whichmay well have contributed to their loss-makingactivity. A report in the same newspaper of Thursday24 October 1878 mentioned that the service wouldcease at the end of the week.
From pleasure craft to workhorse
The prospects at the start of 1880 were no brighterfor the struggling railway company and this year wasnotable for a lack of much news about its activities.Strangely, there were no shareholders’ meetingsarranged this year. No mention of any excursionsby the Virginia can be found in the local press, incontrast to the great many of the preceding two years.Support for the view that the sailings had indeed
stopped comes from the annual reports of the LythamPier Company which in December 1880 announceda fall of more than a half in the year’s steamboats’takings compared to the previous year, from£86 17s 3d down to £36 7s 4d.16 Most of this lattersum can be credited to the Water Lily which was stilladvertising its services in the local press, but it alsoincluded money taken from sightseers using the pierto view the steamers, a great attraction apparently.The following year the Pier Company reported thatthe steamer visits had virtually ceased.
As to the subsequent story of the Virginia just afew morsels of evidence as to her working life havebeen found to add ‘meat to the bare bones’ of thechanges in ownership and her ultimate fate. She wasto stay a further five years with the WLR and, exceptfor a sighting of her in the river Douglas in July 1881by someone describing his journey along the WLR’sexisting line and his observations on the extensionworks to Preston,17 nothing more is mentioned untilher arrival in the port of Preston, without cargo,having arrived from the Asland (alias River Douglas)on 3 April 1885.18 Four months later she was sold.
However, it seems unlikely that the Virginia wouldhave been laid up idle for about five years. The WLRhad been carrying goods over the Leeds & LiverpoolCanal during this period but this came to an end on30 June 1885 after which the canal company agreedto take over this service on behalf of the railwaycompany, including shipment as far as Preston.19 Therailway company had found itself expending toomuch on canal dues and on the wages of boatmen,engine men and the upkeep of the barges. TheVirginia was sold shortly afterwards, the implicationbeing that she had previously been in use in somecarrying or towing capacity on the Douglas and theRibble. There is indeed a later report stating that theVirginia was used to tow schooners and barges loadedwith railway sleepers to Preston wharf20 but we havebeen unable to confirm this.
The new temporary owner was John Paley ofAshton, Preston, a ship owner and dealer, who veryquickly transferred the vessel into the hands of oneof the leading building contractors of the day. AmongThomas Andrew Walker’s notable contracts were theSevern Tunnel, Barry Docks, Preston Docks and theManchester Ship Canal (MSC). This last concernwas not commenced until November 1887; it wouldseem likely that Walker initially employed theVirginia on the Preston Docks venture, work onwhich had started October 1884.
WEST LANCASHIRE RAILWAY COMPANY, CARRIERS.
GOODS STATION, 37, LEEDS-STREET, Livutroot., 30th September, 1879.
This Company begs to inform the Public that, in order to provide for the more convenient conduct of their traffic between Liverpool and Southport, they have rented from the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Company their SPACIOUS WARE-HOUSE AND BASIN, on their Canal, and No. 37, LEEDS-STREET, LIVERPOOL (off Old Hall•etreet).
THOS. GILBERT, Ma❑ager and Secretary.
11
In December 1887 the Virginia left Preston boundfor Garston on the river Mersey where she was tofacilitate work commencing at the Eastham end ofthe MSC.21 Here she was used to transfer materialsfrom Garston Dock across the short stretch of theMersey to the Eastham side.
Walker died in November 1889 suffering fromBright’s disease. His trustees transferred the Virginiain February 1891 to William Hampson Topham, chiefagent for Walker who became works manager to theMSC and, after other contractors took over the work,a consulting agent. In February 1893 the paddlesteamer changed ownership for the last time and camedirectly into the hands of the MSC, under itssecretary’s name, A H Whitworth. She spent herlast years, reputedly, in the dredging department ofthis company22 before being finally scrapped in May1899.
Although no photograph of the Virginia has cometo light, the illustration in Pictorial World magazineof the River Douglas swing bridge at the time it wasconstructed (1882) does show a paddle steamermoored along the south-west bank. Is it stretchingthe imagination, if we are to believe this vessel to bethe once ‘magnificent’ Virginia?
Goods traffic from the Leeds & LiverpoolCanal and by sea
A working relationship with the Leeds & LiverpoolCanal Company (L&LC) had been formed early on,with the first coal barge, the Sisters, arriving atTarleton lock on 10 September 1878 with 37 tons ofcoal from Bamfurlong, Wigan.23 It was laterunloaded from the river Douglas at the pier inHesketh Bank into railway wagons for forwardingto stations en route to Southport. This had been madepossible when in 187724 the WLR erected a temporarywooden bridge over the Douglas at Hesketh Bank.It had a single line of rails and an opening section toallow the passage of vessels. A section of the bridgeformed a platform for space to unload goods fromthe river. The following year a steam-driven cranecapable of lifting 5 tons weight was installed on thebridge25 and it was this that was used to unload thecoal direct from the barges into the railway wagons.The coal barge service immediately proved to be verysuccessful so that the WLR urgently needed tosupplement its stock of fourteen wagons and did soby acquiring a further batch from the AthertonColliery Company.26 These came in September 1878
and, to add to the increased activity in the area atthis time, Alty’s brickworks started sending itsproducts along the WLR necessitating the openingof a goods yard at Windsor Road station, Southport,later in the month. By the start of the winter freezeon 9 December 1878, when the canal froze over, untilthe thaw of 15 February 1879, Hesketh Bank hadseen the arrival of 769 tons of coal and 19 tons oftimber.
A later agreement with the L&LC resulted in theWLR operating its own steam barge services withits first coal consignment arriving in the Douglas viaTarleton lock in early March 1879 carried by No1barge. To facilitate traffic on the new route anagreement was made with the L&LC for the WLR torent the canal company’s warehouse, basin and anoffice at 37 Leeds Street, Liverpool. The agreementwas in force by September 1879, the steam barges,of which there were five in total by 21 November1879, being owned and worked by the WLR23 andsupplemented by privately owned barges.
Also in 1879 goods traffic started to arrive by seaat Hesketh Bank’s River Douglas wharf. On 12 Julythe schooner Sparling was due to arrive with 100tons of slates from Port Dinorwic, north Wales, fortransshipment on the WLR to Southport. On 8November the same year the schooner May ofChester arrived with slates from the Welsh quarries.
The Tarleton branch railway
This single line branch of just over a mile, 1 mile7.25 chains according to the 1881 Act, ran parallelto the River Douglas with a terminus and warehouseat Tarleton lock. It was built to convey the WLR’s
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goods traffic, arriving along the Leeds and Liverpoolcanal, from the lock to the main line near RiverDouglas station and thereby overcome any carryingdelays on the Douglas due to tidal problems.
Greville posed three questions: when was the linebuilt, who built it, and on whose land was it built?We are now able to give most of the answers.
Firstly, following a request by the WLR for tendersfrom prospective contractors in an advertisementdated 17 October 1879 signed by Thomas Gilbert,the company secretary,27 construction work on thebranch started (or was due to start) on 10 November1879, the contractors being Braddock and Mathews,with a completion date set for 29 February 1880.28
The same firm also took over the building of the mainline extension to Longton and Preston. Theconstruction should have been straightforward, nobridges nor any tunnel being necessary. By earlyJanuary 1880 the branch was reported as being‘pushed rapidly forward’.29 After this, however,media interest in the branch line’s progress fell awayaltogether and, as mentioned previously, there wereno half-yearly shareholders’ meetings this year inwhich reference to the line may have been made.Not until 31 July 1880, seven months later, do wefind news that the line is open and traffic is beingtransferred at the Tarleton lock into railway wagons.30
The land on which the line was built belonged tothree landowners, namely, Lord Lilford, Sir ThomasFermor-Hesketh and the L&LC. The ennobledlandowners shared the bulk of the railway land inroughly equal amounts while a small portion at theTarleton lock end belonged to the L&LC.31
Rent books survive for both Lilford and Fermor-Hesketh showing the WLR as tenant to each fromthe commencement of the building of the line.32 Inthe case of Lilford the so-called rack rent for the‘tramway’ was £17 10s 0d per six month period andfour payments were made for the half years 1879(second half), 1880 (first and second half ), 1881 (firsthalf), all paid belatedly by the WLR. After theparliamentary Act of June 1881 granted the WLRthe rights to purchase the branch an agreement wasreached with Lilford to buy his portion for £1,750.This came into force on 3 September 1881 but themoney was not readily forthcoming. However, on23 April 1883, land at Hoole was given up by thecompany as part payment, all the while interest beingcharged by Lilford on the outstanding debt. Thisdebt stood at £850 as late as December 1885 thoughthe interest it attracted, £108 0s 9d, was paid.33 We
have not discovered when the company finallycleared its Lilford dues.
Lilford’s tenants were the sufferers. Among theircomplaints was the lack of a ready route to the riverbank to collect manure and the flooding due to theunculverted railway embankment. Several levelcrossings (there were five in total scheduled onLilford’s land) for animals and carts had not beenproperly completed and fences were unmade inplaces. Some of the work was still unfinished as lateas 1887.34
As for Fermor-Hesketh, the total rack rent duesamounted to £9 14s 9d per six months. (There weretwo accounts as his railway land lay in two separateparishes.) Not only does this sum seem smallcompared to Lilford’s but it appears the WLR didnot pay a penny of it. The ‘arrears’ column mountsup continually each year, the account details finallyceasing in 1894. Greville has pointed out in his 1960article that a WLR minute of February 1895 refersto the conveyance of Fermor-Hesketh’s Tarletonbranch land free of charge to the company, therebyexplaining the cessation of the rent payments. Now,Fermor-Hesketh was one of the WLR’s board ofdirectors and thus he might well have arrangedadvantageous terms for the railway company and, itwould seem from the foregoing, possibly thisextended to overlooking the rent dues.
The small portion of land owned by the L&LCwas leased to the WLR at 20 shillings per annumover an intended 21 years. The original agreementwas with the WLR but later amended to be withEdward Holden, the WLR’s chairman.35 The leaseagreement, therefore, was still running and,presumably, still being paid when the Lancashire &Yorkshire Railway (L&YR) took over the WLR in1897, so that the L&LC did indeed own that portionof land at the Tarleton lock over which there wassome dispute between the two companies at the time.By now, though, the branch line had fallen into almosttotal disuse, the new owners proposing to close thebranch on the last day of 1898.36 When the canalcompany eventually sold its portion to the L&YR in1900 the Tarleton line finally came into soleownership.37
So, the line was built by the WLR on private landwithout parliamentary approval under leasingagreements and, after the later 1881 Act granted thecompany the right to compulsory purchase if needbe, it then found itself quite unable to meet any agreedlump sum payments. Such seems to have been the
14
impoverished circumstance of the company thequestion is raised as to whether or not it did, itself,pay off the contractors for building the Tarletonbranch. It has been reported that Holden, onoccasions, ‘dipped into his own pocket’ to help theWLR. Was this another event that called on him tostump up the contractors’ dues?
Finally, another conundrum. It has been previouslythought that the first engine to work the Tarletonbranch was the Manning Wardle 0-6-0ST Tarleton,built and delivered in 1882, but we now know thebranch was working in 1880. Published accountsstate the WLR as having just three locomotives priorto the Tarleton arrival, of which Banks, an 0-4-2ST,would seem to be the likeliest candidate for the goodswork, but ...?
Notes and references
Our grateful thanks go to all those librarians, recordoffice staff and a long list of individuals whoanswered our very many requests. In particular, wewish to thank Mr H Mayor of the Tarleton Boat Yard,Andrew Farthing of Southport Reference Library,Peter Gibb and Tony Graham for their interest andhelp with this article.
1 Public Record Office, MT6 210/82 Liverpool & Southport Daily News (L&SDN), 28 June
18783 Mercantile Navy List – Annual publication similar
to Lloyds Register4 Information from librarian at Great Yarmouth5 Information from librarians at Dover and Poole6 Liverpool Telegraph & Daily Shipping Gazette,
24 June 18787 L&SDN, 28 June 18788 Ormskirk Advertiser, 3 October1878
9 Shareholders’ meeting reports, Southport Visiter (SV)and L&SDN, 10 December1878
10 L&SDN, 5 July 187911 L&SDN, 22 May187912 L&SDN, 3 June187913 L&SDN, 5 July187914 L&SDN, 26 November187915 L&SDN, 10 June187816 Lytham and Kirkham Times, 15 December188017 Southport News, 30 July 188118 Preston Dock Arrivals book: Lancashire Record
Office, ref DDPP1/119 Southport Standard, Shareholders’ meeting report, 14
November 188520 The Locomotive magazine, 15 May 191821 Liverpool Mercury, 10 December 188722 Information from MSC records of Mr P Dunbavand,
Runcorn23 Tarleton lock keeper’s record book24 L&SDN, 14 April187725 L&SDN, Shareholders’ meeting report, 25 May187826 L&SDN, 28 September187827 L&SDN, 22 October 187928 L&SDN, 8 November187929 L&SDN, 3 January 188030 Preston Guardian, 31 July 188031 Sale plan of Lilford land, December 1886, courtesy
Alty’s brickworks, Hesketh Bank; also 1881 WLRAct, Book of Reference
32 Lilford records: Lancashire Record Office, DDLi 351;Fermor-Hesketh records: Lancashire Record Office,DDHE 99/75–99/103
33 Lancashire Record Office, DDLi 30834 Lancashire Record Office, DDLi 28735 Public Record Office, RAIL 846/2136 Public Record Office, RAIL 343/35837 Public Record Office, RAIL 343/364
15
Temporary timber bridge over the River Douglas,
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Hesketh Bank station looking towards Preston,with the steam shovel on the line
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Hesketh Park Station, looking towards Southport
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Construction
On 3 July 1827, at the first General Meeting, 21directors were elected, William Cubitt appointed asEngineer and Edmund Newton as Clerk. Cubitt wasassisted on the project by his pupils, Field Talfourdand George Edwards; the latter had carried out someof the surveys and was to be associated with it for adecade and a half. William Cole was appointed Clerkof Works. He was described as ‘an intelligentserviceable man, as well as a bit of a poet’; the poemhe subsequently wrote provides much colourful detailabout the engineering works.24
Two 6 hp steam engines and boilers werepurchased from Messrs Fenton & Murray of Leeds(where Benjamin Cubitt, one of William’s brothers,was Works Manager). Other equipment acquiredincluded a 2 hp Trevithick engine and boiler, twopairs of 18 inch force pumps, and five 22 feetArchimedes screw pumps.
Although much had been made in the parliamentaryprocesses of the tender by Thomas Baylis, he wasnot in fact the contractor for any part of the works.Instead, separate contracts were let for each element.
As had been agreed in Parliament, in order toprotect the marshlands, Mutford lock and bridge wereconstructed first and the embankment raised. Thelock had to cope with tidal water on both sides, thetimes of the high tides differing by three hours. Cubittdesigned a lock with two rolling gates and acarriageway over each gate; a hinged extension ofthe carriageway cleverly covered the hole into whichthe gate moved.25 Presumably part of the reasoningwas that traffic would always be able to pass over atleast one gate. However, it is unlikely that aneffective seal could have been created, and the fourwheel truck on which the gate rolled would have beendifficult to move once mud was deposited on its track.This concept was abandoned in favour of a lock withfour pairs of mitre gates, with a swing bridge over
the lock chamber.26 The contractor was Mr Greenof Newport.
Work commenced on 4 September 1827. The firststone of the lock, weighing nearly five tons, wasformally laid by Crisp Brown on 7 July 1828, theday of the regatta on Lake Lothing. He took delightin saying that the opponents in Parliament claimedto have carried out borings at this site and found it tobe a bog, whereas in fact it was hard gravel. Workprogressed quickly, the lock being declared open ona bright sunny day in November 1828. Accompaniedby a band, the official party passed over the bridge,then visited the Company’s workshop and shipyardnearby in Oulton Broad, where they saw the dredgerwhich was being constructed by Jabez Bailey, anIpswich shipwright. They then embarked onto theAugusta, Wallace and Columbus, and passed throughthe lock.
A contract was made with John Pigg of Norwichfor the erection of offices, a dwelling house,enginehouse, workshops and other buildings atNorwich, at a cost of £1,192. The principal buildingstill exists: it is now (2001) the Lowestoft office ofAssociated British Ports, ‘Port House’. Althoughthe contract has survived27, the plans themselves havenot, but it seems probable that the buildings weredesigned by William Cubitt. No allowance had beenmade in the budget for any such buildings.
Next, preparations were made for the sea lock.First the main road from Lowestoft to Ipswich wasdiverted, then the site of the lock was excavated to adepth of some 30 feet. The main contractor for thelock pits and brickwork was Messrs Wright &Cattermoul of Norwich, with stonework by Mr Wadeof Kirkstall near Leeds, and gates by Jabez Bailey.The lock was to have internal dimensions of 150 feetby 50 feet, with brickwork 12 feet thick. As well asthe mitre gates, there was to be a pair of caissons(floating gates) which could be put in position at
‘Norwich a Port !’ : Part 2The Norwich & Lowestoft Navigation, 1827–42
By Peter Brown
Part 1, published in the November 2001 edition of the Journal, ended with the NavigationCompany having obtained its Act of Parliament
18
either end of the lock to enable repairs to be carriedout.
On 8 September 1829 Colonel Harvey laid the firststone in the centre of the excavation upon a basementof brick, before a crowd of about 500 people, usingthe opportunity to make an attack on the selfishinterests of the Corporation of Yarmouth.
The weather that winter was particularly bad, withLake Lothing (in its penultimate winter as a freshwater lake) being covered in thick ice for severalweeks.
The design of the swingbridge over the lock wasbased on that at St Katharine’s Dock, London; it wasin two halves, each weighing 25 tons, turning on 24cast iron rollers. The total length of the bridge was105 feet, with a 16 feet wide roadway (includingfootpaths). The contract was won by John Seaward& Co Ltd of Canal Ironworks, Poplar, in the sum of£3,450. The contract required the bridge to bedelivered within six months, that is, by the end of1830, and erected within a further two months. Itwas manufactured and conveyed to Yarmouth withinthis timetable, but the transportation on to Lowestofthad to wait for the weather to improve. After beingreassembled, it was opened to the public on 9 June1830. Colonel Harvey was reported in the NorwichMercury as having stated that it had the longest spanof any bridge in the country; this was obviouslyincorrect, as Southwark Bridge, designed by JohnRennie, had a central span of 240 feet, but perhapsthe Lowestoft Bridge had the longest opening span.As after the stone-laying ceremony, the Committeehad an excellent dinner, this time going to the Queen’sHead instead of the Crown.
Jabez Bailey contracted to construct a slip forhauling ships out of the water, to the patent of ThomasMorton, at a cost of £1,100. Again, this was not inthe original budget, but the directors thought it wouldpay for itself.
Work continued on the lock and the entrance tothe harbour throughout the next twelve months. Bythe end of May 1831 the lock and its sluicingmechanism were ready for testing. Four trials werecarried out, the last attended by the directors, and itwas estimated that 10,000 tons of shingle, stones andsand were moved. With a fall of only three feet, thewater was said to have moved at nine miles an hour.Cubitt expressed his certainty that a channel ten feetdeep at low tide could be achieved. The first boats,the Ruby and the Georgian, entered the harbour on4 June. The owner of the Ruby, the Revd Alfred
Suckling, later described the experience28:The salt water entered the lake with a strongundercurrent, the fresh water running out at the sametime to the sea upon the surface. The fresh water wasraised to the top by the irruption of the salt waterbeneath, and an immense quantity of yeast-like scumrose to the surface. ... Lake Lothing was thicklystudded with the bodies of the pike, carp, perch,bream, roach, and dace; multitudes of which werecarried into the ocean, and thrown afterwards uponthe beach. ... The waters of the lake exhibited thephosphorescent light peculiar to sea water, on thesecond or third night after the opening.
The phosphorescence was caused by diatoms,microscopic forms of algae.
The first use as a harbour of refuge occurred fivedays later, when a schooner from Goole ran forshelter from the strong north-north-west wind and,seeing there were no breakers on the entrance to theharbour, anchored in the outer cut; after theswingbridge had been opened she warped throughinto Lake Lothing.
The formal opening of the harbour was on 10August 1831. At about eleven o’clock the steampacket Lowther, towing the Orion and the Carrow,entered the harbour, with both lock gates open. TheLuna, arriving an hour later, was locked through. TheLowther took the directors up to Mutford Lock, thenreturned to the assembled crowd at the entrance. Atfive o’clock the sluicing mechanism was demon-strated — and then the directors and their guests (andanyone else who had paid the 15 shilling fee) had aconvivial meal at the Queen’s Head.
Lake Lothing was formally named ‘ClarenceHarbour’, in honour of the King.29 Lieutenant RobertMatthews had been appointed Harbour Master, anddues were charged from 11 August. The Companyhad started trading. Publicly, everybody seemedhappy.
The Exchequer Bill Loan Commissioners
Work on the next and easiest stage, widening anddeepening Oulton Dyke, had already begun. WilliamCubitt gave up the lease of a house near thenavigation works, selling his ‘fine toned cabinet pianoforte, glass, china, a selection of modern householdfurniture, pony and gig’. George Edwards wasappointed Resident Engineer. But behind the scenesall was not well. The Company had run out of money.
Application was made in October 1831 to theExchequer Bill Loan Commissioners for a loan of
19
£50,000 (the maximum amount permitted by the Act)to complete the works. The Commissioners’ minutesnote that £89,633 had been spent; analysed in acomparable manner to the estimates, the actualspending on the various elements had been:
Works at Norwich and along the River Yare -Haddiscoe New Cut, swing bridge
and associated works -Deepening and widening Oulton Dyke -Lock and bridge at Mutford £12,000Deepening Lake Lothing, cut from
Lake Lothing to the sea, piling £18,418Sea lock, sluice gate and bridge at
Lowestoft £26,997Land & estates £3,403Dredging engines £3,735Other
Obtaining Act of Parliament £14,753Buildings at Lowestoft £1,280Morton’s Patent Slip £1,141Management & salaries £4,754Law expenses £1,676Survey, printing & advertising,
interest etc £1,476 £25,080Total cost to October 1831 £89,633
The lock and bridge at Lowestoft had cost doublethe amount provided for in the estimate made inOctober 1826, and the piers had yet to be built. Theestimate of £10,000 for ‘preparatory matters’ wasgreatly understated; indeed, about this sum had beenspent by the time the estimate had been made, leavingnothing for the second attempt to obtain the Act.
Debts totalled about £3,000; in addition, £5,000was due to the Treasurer and sums of £500 to eachof ten of the directors, to whom the Company hadissued promissory notes. The Act had set the sharecapital at £100,000, requiring this to be subscribedbefore work began. However, only about £77,000had been received, partly because there had beenmany forfeited shares. It seems doubtful whetherthe amount promised under binding deeds had eversignificantly exceeded the £80,000 required at thetime the Act was obtained, so the works had probablybeen started unlawfully.
The Loan Commissioners instructed ThomasTelford (their engineering adviser) to survey theworks, and on 3 November 1831, just a fortnightlater, they received his written report. He stated thatthe works completed ‘have been executed with skillin the most perfect manner’. The sea lock was 150
feet long and 50 feet wide, having been built to theselarger dimensions at the request of the Admiralty.His estimate for the works to be done was:
For constructing Entrance Piers £20,000Dredging Lake Lothing and Oulton Dyke £5,250For making the Ship Canal between the
Rivers Yare and Waveney, includinga Swing Bridge etc £17,000
Dredging the upper parts of the Yare toNorwich including a side Cut andSwing Bridge £7,000
£49,250
The works could be completed within three years.He thought they would achieve their statedobjectives, but could not comment about the revenue.(In their application for a loan, the directors hadrepeated the figures given in the Prospectus.)
Colonel John Harvey, Joseph Geldart and WilliamCubitt attended the meeting of the Board ofCommissioners. The latter’s principal concernseemed to be that the Act required the works to becompleted within five years, that is, by 28 May 1832,and a delay could invalidate the right to charge tolls.The deputation agreed to make an application toParliament for a further Act to extend the period.
The criteria to be used by the Loan Commissionerswere set out in the Poor Employment Act of 1817:the carrying on of public works, the encouragementof fisheries, the support of collieries or mines, churchbuilding, and the employment of the poor.30 Againstthese criteria, the scheme ranked well. The minutesnoted that:
the Board considered the importance of this work andthat unless means are provided for the prosecution ofit, the numerous labourers who have been and areemployed must be discharged and thrown out ofemployment on the commencement of a long winter,whereby the tranquillity and safety of that part of thecountry may be exposed to danger.
Having consulted their solicitor, theCommissioners agreed in principle to make a loan,providing that some of the shareholders made asecurity to repay the loan if the Act for the extensionof time was not passed. This the members of thedeputation agreed to endeavour to do.
The deputation met the Commissioners a weeklater and was asked to look again at the forecast ofincome. The figures they produced for the meetingon 17 November were generally a little lower thanthose in the prospectus, but some new sources of
20
income were included:200,000 quarters of corn £2,50052,082 chaldrons of coal £4,97924,159 tons of merchandise, stone,
sand etc £2,26450,000 sacks of flour £417Sundry exports, herrings etc £200Fishing station, pilot boats etc £350Harbour of refuge £1,000Patent slip £100Wharfage £250Ballast £250
£12,310
This would be ample to finance the interest of £2,500(at 5%) and the annual repayment of £2,500 (theprincipal being repaid by equal annual instalmentsover twenty years), leaving £7,310 for repairs,management and interest to shareholders.
Edmund Newton, the Company’s Clerk, wrote aletter listing the ten directors who ‘will guaranteethe repayment of any sum of money, not exceeding£10,000, to the Exchequer Loan Commissioners’.The Commissioners, having received theundertakings they required, agreed to lend £50,000,of which the first £10,000 would be lent immediately,and the balance when the extension Act was obtained.
An unexpected development was the receipt bythe Loan Commissioners of a letter which had beenwritten by the Mayor of Great Yarmouth to theTreasury. He requested that no loan be sanctioneduntil the Town of Yarmouth had been heard, allegingthat ‘it is not a work of public utility, the harbour ofYarmouth now affording every facility to trade’. Amemorial accompanying the letter contradicted muchof what had been said by the deputation from theCompany; in particular it stated that ‘an accumulationof sand has been formed in the mouth of the entranceand that Lowestoft is, and will be, a bar harbour andcannot be made use of as a place of refuge forvessels’.
Telford was asked to comment to a subsequentmeeting of the Commissioners. He repeated someof what he had written previously, adding:
As to the present state of the entrance, until theprotecting piers have been constructed, it must ofcourse be imperfect; the distance from low water atwhich it was found necessary to place the sea lock,was always understood to require this principalmember to complete an effectual scour, and a properapproach.
This satisfied the Commissioners, who minutedthat they saw no reason to change their previousdecision. The Act was obtained in February 1832,despite opposition in Committee by one of GreatYarmouth’s MPs. The deed under the seal of theCompany was received a month later and the balanceof the loan then made.
Tenders for the New Cut (between the Waveneyand the Yare) were invited in the June. The contractwas awarded to Thomas Townshend of Smethwickin the sum of £5,633, and it was completed in January1833. The bridge on the Yarmouth–Beccles turnpikewas the subject of a separate contract with Fenton &Murray. Work then began on deepening the RiversYare and Wensum. The two straightenings whichhad been proposed were never effected.
‘Norwich a Port!’ achieved
The first boat to bring a sea-borne cargo direct toNorwich was the Luna from Goole, commanded byCaptain Moon. The Luna had been the firstcommercial vessel to use the sea lock at Lowestofttwo years earlier; it had been the first to carry a freightto Beccles; and at the end of February 1833, it wasthe first to arrive at Norwich, carrying coal.Unloading was delayed because of objections fromthe Custom House at Great Yarmouth; the NavigationCompany paid the ship’s master £7 in compensationfor the delay.
At the end of May the meadow between FoundryBridge and Carrow Bridge was marked out by Cubittand Edwards so that a dock and turning area couldbe created. The Norwich Mercury regretted thedemolition of the Devil’s Tower, one of the towersof the city walls, but felt it was so dilapidated that itcould not have stood much longer.
At the Company’s Annual Meeting in July, it wasreported that the New Cut had been completed andthe lifting-bridge over it was being erected. CarrowBridge was being replaced by a lifting-bridge, withironwork by Fenton & Murray. It was also said thatthe new navigation had already caused a considerableincrease in business at the port of Beccles, and itwas hoped that the traders of Norwich wouldtransport their goods by the new route. The London,Lowestoft & Norwich Shipping Company advertisedthat two schooners were to be launched in thefollowing week, and that the proposed direct serviceto London would give a great reduction in freightcharges. The following month the steam engines and
21
pumps were advertised for sale.The formal opening of the Navigation was on 30
September 1833. The plan was that two of theLondon, Lowestoft & Norwich Shipping Company’svessels, the City of Norwich and the Squire, wouldbe towed laden from Lowestoft to Norwich by thesteamer Jarrow (then at Yarmouth) if the wind wereadverse. With seeming pettiness, those in charge ofthe Haven Bridge at Yarmouth refused to raise it toallow the Jarrow through. The captain had to wasteseven hours taking the chimney down and waitingfor the water level to fall so that the boat could passunder the bridge, which also meant that he had towait for the next tide before it could pass overBreydon Water. Meanwhile, as the Jarrow had notarrived at Lowestoft, the Shipping Company engageda small steamer, the Susanna, to tow their twoschooners. The wind being dead ahead, and theSusanna being only 7 hp, progress was slow. At theentrance to the New Cut they were met by the Jarrow,which took over the tow. The directors and theirparty, including a band, left Norwich in the steamerTickler, and met the City of Norwich and the Squireat Surlingham Ferry. The crowd assembled on thebanks between Whitlingham and King Street,Norwich, was estimated as between 15,000 and20,000. The boats were greeted with cheers; flagswere waved; cannons were fired. The Mayor, thedirectors of the Navigation Company and theproprietors of the Shipping Company retired toRampart House for a celebratory meal.
The day was marred by the death of RobertAllerton, the son of the captain of the City of Norwich.He was alone in a dinghy transferring the tow ropefrom the Susanna to the Jarrow when heoverbalanced, hit his head against the Jarrow, fell inand was drowned.
Financial and engineering troubles
Earlier that year Edmund Newton wrote to theCommissioners requesting a postponement of therepayment of the loan and the interest, the firstpayment of which was due on 26 March. TheCommissioners refused, but nevertheless theCompany made no payment. Surprisingly, theCommissioners do not seem to have pursued this.
The next communication recorded between theCompany and the Commissioners was on11 February 1834. Newton said the works up toNorwich had been completed and the finances were
now exhausted. The letter continued:Unless more Money is expended, the Works at theSea Entrance may be seriously impaired. The originalintention of constructing the Piers with Wood Pilingwas abandoned, and Cast Iron Piling substitutedinstead at an increased Cost upon the originalEstimate, but this was absolutely necessary, the Groinshaving become infested with the Worm and destroyedto a frightful extent. This added to larger Sumsawarded and paid for the purchase of Lands and forcompensations than calculated upon, have exhaustedthe Loan, and the continued boisterous state of theweather has done some Damage to the Works. Inthis state of things a further outlay seems inevitableto secure any advantage from that already expended.
The ‘sea worm’ referred to could either have beenthe teredo or limnoria (also known as the gribble),both of which attacked wood in inter-tidal waters.The teredo is a bivalve mollusc which bores holesdeep into the wood. The gribble is a small crustaceanwhich tunnels close to the surface of wood forminga spongy mass that then becomes physically eroded.Judging from comments made by George Edwardsmany years later, the works at Lowestoft sufferedfrom both.31 There is no mention of the wood usedat Lowestoft having been treated with any form ofpreservative to inhibit marine borers. (This isparticularly surprising as earlier in Cubitt’s careerhe had been the engineer of Ipswich Gas Works. Animportant by-product of gas-making was tars fromwhich preservatives were derived.)
Thomas Telford was dispatchedto report on the present state of the Undertaking andwhether the Loan advanced has been exclusivelyapplied in the completion of the works referred to inhis former Reports, and for which purpose the Loanwas granted, and whether the further Works nowstated to be requisite formed any part in the originalEstimate.
He found that further work needed to be done, forwhich he estimated the cost as £29,72132:
To complete entrance piles with cast iron £22,240Lake Lothing, Oulton Broad & River
Waveney £1,100New Cut for Ship Canal £1,410River Yare to Norwich £4,910
Presumably the first figure included the amountswanted for the piers. Substitution of the wooden pilesby iron, supplied by the Horseley Ironworks, Tipton,together with other variations, had added £8,801 tohis previous estimate.
Mr Brickwood, Secretary to the Board ofCommissioners, attempted to untangle the finances.
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A summary33 of the receipts and payments from 31March 1832 to 31 January 1834 showed expendituretotalling £53,989 and income from sources other thanthe loan totalling £3,273. (The art of accountancyhad not then been developed to distinguish betweenthe capital costs of the project and the running costs.)The main figures of the expenditure analysis were:
‘By accounts due and since paid’ £16,159Iron piling at entrance £10,796Groyne repairs and temporary piling £969Haddiscoe Canal £9,833Haddiscoe Bridge £2,397Dredging £2,841Carrow Bridge £1,239Land, compensations and sundry works £4,685Legal fees and expenses obtaining loan
and Act £1,435Management and salaries £2,300‘Incidental and tradesmen’s bills’ £1,335
£53,989
The first figure may have alerted Brickwood. Itcomprised the £5,000 owed to the Treasurer, thesimilar sum owed in total to ten of the directors andthe £3,000 creditors, as reported to the Commis-sioners in October 1831, plus a further amount ofabout £3,000 owed to creditors for the period up towhen then the loan money was received. Thus£10,000 of the loan had been used to repay theTreasurer and directors. Brickwood also queried afurther £10,920; part of this was the payment to thecreditors, but the reasons for his doubts about thebalance are unclear.
Not surprisingly, the Commissioners refused tomake any further advances until the discrepancieswere explained. They also requested a list of theshareholders showing, in particular, the arrears withan estimate of the money likely to be received. Theyreceived the information at their meeting on 24 April1834, but it was accompanied by a letter from GeorgeEdwards giving more bad news:
I am sorry to inform the Board that the Timber Pilingat the West end of the Sea Lock continues to giveway from the effect of the Sea Worm, and as the soilwashes away from the back of the Piling theBrickwork wings of the Lock are very much exposed;indeed the Walls altho’ so massive have already begunto crack from the now unbalanced pressure of theSoil at the back of them.
The Timber Piling at the East or Sea End (as I havebefore informed the Board) cannot stand much longer,and should that give way, the exposure of the
brickwork there will be attended with greater dangerfrom the Swell of the Sea. Nothing can be done tostop this evil extending but immediately replacingthe Timber Piling with Iron.
I hope it will not be long before means will beprovided at least sufficient to secure this part of theWork, as every tide adds to the Damage sustainedand to the Expense which must ultimately be incurredin completing this part of the Work.
The Commissioners resolved that they expectedthe shareholders of the Company to provide whateverfunds that may be necessary to complete the works.
Four weeks later the directors forwarded anotherletter from George Edwards:
Since the last Meeting I have been letting in someadditional Cramps to the Stone Coping of the ends ofthe Sea Lock as a temporary resource, but whichcannot prevent further cracking of the Wings, nothingbut substantial piling can prevent much greaterdamage, and I beg again to draw the attention of theBoard to the insecurity of this important part of theWorks.
I beg also to remind the Board of the unfinishedstate of the North Piling at the Harbour’s Entrancewhich was scarcely secure against the swell of theSummer tides Monday last.
The Commissioners repeated their expectation thatthe proprietors of the Company were to raise themoney, adding that if they did not take immediateaction, the provisions of the Exchequer Loan Actswould be legally enforced.
On 10 July the directors sent another deputation,comprising Colonel Harvey, Joseph Geldart, EdmundNewton (Clerk), George Edwards (ResidentEngineer) and Thomas Amyott. The last was bornin Norwich and trained as a lawyer there, but hadbecome a senior civil servant, and was at that timeRegistrar of Slaves in the British West Indies; he heldfive shares and had long been influential inWestminster and Whitehall on behalf of theCompany. The deputation explained their difficultiesin raising money, and requested that the Board takeover control of the whole undertaking and finish theworks. The Board replied that they had no moneyfor such a purpose; instead the misapplied money(which was now stated as £16,500) should be usedtowards the works needed, with the rest being raisedfrom the shareholders.
Nothing happened, so on 9 October 1834 three ofthe Commissioners signed a warrant giving authorityto take possession of the Undertaking. MrBrickwood (the Board’s Secretary) and Mr Winter(their Solicitor) went to visit the works, attended by
23
George Edwards. They observed that some worksneeded to be done promptly to protect and improvethe entrance to the harbour and that the Inner Harbouradjacent to the lock also required the substitution ofcast iron for timber piling. They proceeded toNorwich and met the directors and then a committeeof the shareholders. They reported that it appearedthat ‘the Chairman [Harvey] and Vice-Chairman[Geldart], together with some if not all of the tendirectors, would no longer resist the claim forrefunding the debts paid them individually’, therebygiving time to make the arrangements to completethe works. Because of these signs of co-operation,they felt it best not to allude to the warrant. Theynoted that the income was gradually increasing, from£820 in the twelve months to October 1832, to £1,453in the next year and £2,161 in the last year. Theyalso visited Beccles, where the water-borne tradeappeared to be thriving. Their conclusion was thatthe Harbour and Navigation seemed ‘likely to afforda sufficient security’.
Edwards attended a meeting of the Commissionersthe following month. He estimated that replacingthe wood piling by metal on the seaward side of thelock would cost from £3,000 to £5,000, dependingon the weather, and a further £3,000 would berequired to rectify the inland piling. The Boardrepeated their requirement for the £10,000 to berefunded and for action to be taken to raise the restof the money.
Newton’s formal response was considered at thenext meeting. He denied any procrastination, sayingthe directors had waited to seek the views of aGeneral Meeting and had written to BecclesCorporation asking for a loan. The meeting alsodecided to seek powers from Parliament to raise afurther £30,000. With regard to the £10,000, theletter went on:
the Directors submit that the whole of these sumswere bone fide expended upon the works, theCommissioners’ Security was to that extent benefited,and that it would be a measure of extreme hardshipand injustice to attempt to enforce the payment ofthese sums from any individual parties especially asthe Commissioners avow their determination even ifthese sums were repaid still to take possession anddispose of the Undertaking.
The Loan Commissioners take charge
The Commissioners’ patience was exhausted. Theyresolved to take possession of the Undertaking andto institute legal proceedings for recovering the
£10,000. Brickwood and Winter went to Norwichagain, and on 13 December 1834 served copies ofthe warrant on the Clerk, the Resident Engineer andthe Treasurer. Detailed examination of the accountsshowed that not only had each of the ten directorshad been repaid £500, but that each had also beenpaid interest of £36.15s.7d.
The Attorney General and the Solicitor Generalwere asked for their opinions about obtaining moneyfrom the shareholders and directors. Their opinionwas that the shareholders were liable in proportionto their respective shares, but recommended that noaction be taken against them. Action should howeverbe taken against the Treasurer and directors, and thisthe Commissioners agreed to do.
Now that the Commissioners had taken possession,they were drawn into management issues. InFebruary 1835, George Edwards stated that he hadnot been paid since the end of September last. AsResident Engineer, under the direction andsuperintendence of William Cubitt, he had been paid£250 a year, but now that Cubitt had resigned he wasSole Engineer and Superintendent. He reminded theCommissioners that he had been promised an annualsalary of £500 in this role, and this they agreed topay, together with the arrears. The Harbour Masterasked permission to deduct his salary from hisreceipts; this too was agreed.
The Hon R C Scarlett, newly elected MP forNorwich, was asked by the directors to intercede.He saw Mr Brickwood, who gave explanations whichappeared to ‘materially differ’ from what thedirectors had told him. He said he had recommendedthe directors to make some offer. This they dulydid, requesting that £100 be accepted from each ofthe five directors in final settlement. TheCommissioners refused the offer.
In April, the Board received a letter from GeorgeEdwards saying that there was only £1.7s.1d in thebank, and that a shipload of iron pilings was expectedany hour. It was agreed to advance £2,000, on theunderstanding that this must not be used for currentexpenses. A couple of months later a further advanceof £2,000 was agreed to complete the replacementof the piling. In July, Mr Brickwood visitedLowestoft. The piling was now safe, but the entranceand sea lock still needed a considerable expenditureto complete them. Brickwood’s main reason forgoing was to attend the Annual Meeting in Norwich;he told those present that unless the £10,000 wasrepaid, the Board intended to sell the Undertaking.
24
The sale was arranged for 21 October 1835. Thereserve price was to be £63,500, sufficient to repaythe advances (now £54,000) together with interestand other expenses. Mr Newton wrote askingwhether there would be a reserve, as he felt that if asum smaller than the debt were acceptable, thedirectors might try to find a purchaser. The Boardsaid it was open to any party to make such offer asthey may think fit. However, in the event, no bidswere received. Newton wrote again, saying that therewas a rumour that the Board would be willing to letthe Navigation; the Board’s response was to askformally for the names of the directors betweenAugust 1831 and April 1834, adding that thesubpoenas would be sent direct to him ‘to preventthe necessity of troubling the directors personally’.
The Solicitor General and the Attorney Generaladvised that there was a clear breach of trust andthat the circumstances seemed to show the directorswere well aware of the impropriety of what they weredoing. They recommended filing a Bill in Equity,adding that they believed the directors to be ‘personsof great opulence’. A week later they had beforethem a letter from Mr Newton requesting ‘judiciousand generous forbearance’. He expressed concernthat the action might place the money alreadyadvanced by the Commissioners in great danger, andasked that they make a further advance to completethe Undertaking. The Commissioners refused, sayingthat they had no alternative.
The directors then organised a petition to the Houseof Commons from ‘merchants, traders and others ofthe City of Norwich’ praying that the works ‘mightforthwith be finished at the public expense’. TheChancellor of the Exchequer referred this to theBoard for their comments, and, on receipt of theirreply, took no action.
On 28 April 1836 Mr Brickwood reported that thedirectors had ‘demurred to the Bill for want ofEquity’, in other words, even if the alleged facts werecorrect, the remedy being sought by the Board wasexcessive. The Court of Equity agreed with thedirectors, awarding them costs against the Board.After taking further legal advice, the Board triedagain. Once more the Court of Equity agreed thedemurrer; it also rejected the case because theNavigation Company had not been made defendants.The Board’s Solicitor’s opinion was that this lastpoint was not in accordance with the Exchequer LoanActs. A further hearing was held on the followingday, and this time the Court refused to make any order
as the judge considered the service of the notice onthe Company had been defective. He felt he had nopower to compel a corporation to appear except byissuing of a distringas, that is, an order to distrain onassets; however, the Board was not actually seekingdistraint on the Company.
Day-to-day issues could not wait for the legalprocesses to be completed. The Board refused toincrease the Harbourmaster’s salary in the way thathad been proposed by the directors on hisappointment. Bylaws were agreed. Leases weremade. The dredging engine was hired to the City ofNorwich for deepening the channel between FoundryBridge and New Mills. Edwards wrote to the Boardperiodically, asking permission to do certain repairworks, and always received the instruction to goahead, providing the cost could be met out of income.
George Edwards was getting frustrated. In July1835 he asked for a fortnight’s leave without pay,but this was refused until the piling had beencompleted. The following year he wrote saying thatthe last twelve months had been ‘spent in a moreinactive life than is at all congenial to my views’.He could see no prospect of improvement, so wishedto resign. As he did not want to inconvenience theBoard, he left the time of leaving to them. Theyconsidered the letter but deferred any decision. In1837, the same year as he was admitted to member-ship of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Edwardswas asked by William Cubitt to superintend someworks at Newcastle for a month or six weeks. TheCommissioners reluctantly agreed to this, but he hadto promise that his absences would not be for longerthan a fortnight at a time, that he would be in dailycommunication with the Harbour Master atLowestoft, and that he would return immediately ifnecessary.34
The legal wrangle between the Commissioners andthe directors of the Company continued its slowprogress. In December 1837 Scarlett made anotherapproach on behalf of the directors, asking whetherthe Board would be willing to consider somearrangement that would avoid litigation; he was toldthat if the directors had any proposals to make, theyshould do so promptly. However, it was not untilMarch 1839 that the directors wrote to the Treasury,perhaps thinking they would get a more favourablehearing from the politicians than from theCommissioners, but even then they did not putforward any specific proposals. The Treasuryconsulted the Commissioners, who replied that the
25
legal suit had been pending for several years and waslikely to continue for several more unless an amicableagreement could be made. The Commissioners wereconcerned that the works had been left incompleteand were decaying fast; if the works were notcompleted soon, all public benefits would be lost, aswell as all the money so far invested. They proposedcompounding the debt and interest for £20,000 pluscosts, upon condition that security was given for thecompletion of the works within a limited time. TheTreasury agreed with this suggestion and informedCol Harvey that he should communicate with theCommissioners. A deputation led by Joseph Geldartmet the Commissioners on 18 April 1839, thoughafter the initial face-to-face meeting, they appear tohave retired to separate rooms and exchanged writtennotes. The Board’s first proposal was that theCompany should buy the works for £30,000 plus thecosts of the legal action. The deputation thought themaximum they could raise would be £20,000 plusthe costs, but the Commissioners stated they couldnot recommend this to the Treasury. The deputationcountered by proposing that the legal suit be settledon payment of £5,000 plus costs, leaving theCommissioners to dispose of the works as theythought best. The Commissioners were unanimousthat this was unacceptable.
As nothing further had been heard from thedirectors, three weeks later the Commissionersinstructed their Solicitor to bring the legal case to asearly a hearing as possible and to advertise the worksfor sale by tender. James Walker carried out a survey,but his conclusions were not noted in the Board’sminutes.
Joseph Geldart wrote in August 1839, proposingthat the suit be terminated on payment of £6,500 plus£1,000 costs. He pointed out that some of the elevendefendants had died and others were insolvent. TheCommissioners recommended acceptance of theseterms, subject to the agreement of the Chancellor ofthe Exchequer. Even at this late stage, complicationsarose. Mary Clarke, the executrix of Mr Skipper,formerly one of the ten directors, had takenindependent legal advice which had assured her thatthere was no case to answer. Much to the annoyanceof the other parties, she therefore refused to payanything towards to the settlement, and furthermorewould not even consent to the settlement unless herlegal costs of £230 were met. The others had raisedthe full £7,500 with difficulty, and were unwilling tocontribute any more. Joseph Geldart wrote askingwhether agreement could be made with most of the
parties to the legal action, ‘leaving the refractory andunreasonable party to themselves’. The Commis-sioners agreed to reduce their demand to £7,270.
Disposal of the works
In 1837, complaints were received from Becclesabout silting. George Edwards confirmed that aboutthree feet had accumulated in the westernmost threefurlongs of Lake Lothing. Restoring the originaldepth would be impossible, he thought; instead heproposed some limited dredging at a cost of about£300, which should pay for itself. The Commis-sioners consented to this. On the other hand, theywere unwilling to hire the dredging machine toSouthwold Harbour because of the risks of the seapassage. Nevertheless, although there is no minuteof authorisation, Southwold did hire it at a fee of£100.
The Foundry Estate at Norwich was sold for £725,but most of this was used to pay the accumulatedlegal bills from the action against the directors.
The works continued to decay. In July 1839,Edwards reported that the cash in hand was only£1.11s but that work costing at least £185 needed tobe done. The caissons of the sluice gates were soperforated by the worm that it was with the greatestdifficulty that with extra men to the pumps they couldbe emptied so as to allow the gates to be moved.This repair was necessary because there was a largeaccumulation of sand which could only be removedby sluicing. The groins at the back of the south pierhad been undermined and sunk by two feet. Muchof the shingle with which the pier had been filledhad escaped. He realised that iron pilings would betoo expensive, so suggested the expedient of closingthe spaces between the landward end of the pier andthe existing iron piles with oak piles, and refillingthe pier with shingle. He said that the stonework ofthe gate quoins was so thoroughly dislocated thatevery time the gates were moved he feared somemasonry would fall, and suggested taking the workdown to low water mark and rebuilding it. Minorworks needed included replacing the woodenplanking on Lowestoft Bridge and repairing the banksat Kirkley and Mutford.
To make matters worse, the income was steadilyfalling. Dues had been £2,237 in the year ended 30June 1836; the figures for the three subsequent yearswere £2,045, £1,766 and £1,483. The annualexpenses were at least £1,655, made up as follows:
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Salary of Superintendent £500Salary of Harbour Master £200Wages of bridge-keepers at Lowestoft,
Mutford, Haddiscoe and Carrow £428Wages of man in charge of dredging machine £27Incidental expenses £50Repairs necessary to retain the traffic of the
Harbour and Navigation £450£1,655
Fortunately for Edwards, the Commissioners donot seem to have come to the obvious conclusionthat they were paying their Superintendent too much.Instead they concurred with him that the repairsshould be done; they also resolved once again toadvertise the sale of the harbour and works.
The auction room on 20 January 1840 was nearlyfull. The bidding started at £10,000, and proceededby steps. Mr Winstanley, the auctioneer, thenconferred privately with the Commissioners’Secretary and Solicitor, telling them that there hadnot been any genuine bids so far. They agreed tobuy the property in for £14,500. Winstanley waslater instructed to treat for sale by private contract.A Mr Horton offered £17,000 but subsequently didnot pay the 10% deposit and was found not to be aperson of property, so the sale did not go ahead.
In November 1840, Mr Winter’s successor asSolicitor to the Commissioners, Mr H H Barnes, wassent to Lowestoft to ascertain the prospects of selling.He reported that the works were falling fast intodecay, despite the temporary repairs done. As thesurplus from tolls was inadequate to prevent this, hehad instructed Mr Edwards not to spend any moreon repairs except where it was absolutely necessaryto prevent damage to private property. He made thetelling point that most of the income came fromLowestoft Harbour, so it was important to the tradersthere that it was kept open. The rest of the Navigationproduced little income, and it was unlikely that anypurchaser would come forward from Norwich orBeccles. He had enquired why the Lowestoftmerchants did not seem willing to buy, and was giventwo reasons: if they bought and the speculation failed,they believed they would be under a legal duty tokeep the works open; and secondly, by delaying tooffer to purchase, they felt the Commissioners wouldbe glad in time to sell on any terms. The scrap valueof the works had been estimated by Mr Edwards tobe about £11,000, after allowing for the cost ofmaking good any damage. Of this, the iron pilingswere worth about £4,000, the bridges £2,200, the
land and buildings £2,100 and the dredging engine£1,000. His own opinion was that the Commissionersdid not have the power to close the Undertaking andsell the materials. However, if this power wereobtained, and they then threatened to close theHarbour on a certain date, he thought a purchaserwould immediately come forward.
The opinions of the Attorney General and SolicitorGeneral were sought, and they advised that theCommissioners seek general powers to be able toclose works they took possession of and to sell thematerials. These powers were obtained in April1842.35 The necessary warrant authorising the Boardto ‘destroy’ the Navigation was obtained and, asdesired, caused a stir in the area, particularly amongstthe owners of the marsh lands, such as Mr Gooch ofWrentham, who organised a deputation to protest.On 6 October 1842, the Secretary reported that hehad had an offer of £5,000 from Mr AldermanFarncombe of Lowestoft, on behalf of himself andothers, to purchase the whole of the property of theNavigation. The Secretary was authorised to acceptif he were unable to negotiate a higher amount. Inthe subsequent correspondence, he established thatthe purchasers were not buying it as a speculationbut for the purposes of their shipping trade. However,they would pay ‘not a penny more’, as they wouldbe making a substantial investment to bring theharbour back into repair. The price was thereforeagreed as £5,000; this was paid over promptly andthe new owners took possession on 10 November1842. The legal problems were not quite finished,as the purchasers found that two small pieces of landused by the Navigation Company for over a decadehad not actually been paid for. A jury assessed thevalue as £65, and the Commissioners agreed to repaythis amount.
Later history
The Lowestoft consortium comprised JamesCleveland, William and George Everitt, John SalterLincoln, James Hickling and William Bradley Roe(but not, it seems, Farncombe). They retainedGeorge Edwards and invested £2,000 in repairingthe south pier and other works.36
In October 1844 they sold the undertaking for£12,500 to Samuel Morton Peto,37 who was seekingto develop the harbour in connection with his railwayinterests. Despite his other investments, Peto didnot neglect the Navigation. The sea lock was repairedand Lake Lothing dredged to give ten feet depth in
27
the channel through to Mutford Lock. The New Cutwas also dredged. Steam vessels, many of themcarrying coke for the locomotive depot at Norwich,started to use the Navigation in the way that hadoriginally been intended.38
In June 1845 Peto obtained an Act for an outerharbour and for a railway to link Lowestoft with theNorfolk Railway at Reedham. Part of the route wasalong the western embankment of the New Cut. Therailway and the dock opened on 3 May 1849. ByJune 1850, Peto had spent over £178,000 on theharbour.
The sea lock was removed later in the 19th century;from then, the inner harbour relied on regulardredging. The swing bridge survived until 1897.
The lock at Mutford was rebuilt in 1992.Haddiscoe Cut is still used by a few pleasure boatseach day in summer. In 1958 responsibility wastransferred from British Railways to the East Suffolk& Norfolk River Board and an agreement was madewith the (then) Great Yarmouth Port & HavenCommissioners by which the cut was open to publicnavigation. Hence the cut is now (2001) the respon-sibility of the Environment Agency; it is expresslyexcluded from the Broads Authority’s maintenanceobligations. Cubitt’s bridge over the cut was replacedin 1961.
The Great Yarmouth Haven & Piers Commis-sioners obtained a further Act in 183539, authorising‘the full and effectual clearing and depthening of thatpart of the River Yare leading from Yarmouth toNorwich called Breydon’. Following the advicegiven by James Walker back in 1826, a double lineof stakes, boarded and filled with flints and othermaterial was erected at the west end of BreydonWater in order to divert the currents; this becameknown as the ‘Dickey Works’. No doubt dredgingwas done at the same time.40 However, the passageacross Breydon was not really satisfactory until afterthe passing of a further Navigation Act in 1849.41
At the insistence of the Lords of the Admiralty, aclause was included which compelled the Commis-sioners to deepen the channel to at least ten feet atlow water, previous Acts having merely permittedimprovements.42 After this, Norwich’s principaloutlet to the sea was indisputably through GreatYarmouth.
Conclusions
Why was the Navigation a failure? Several reasonscontributed:
• The obvious outlet for the port of Norwich wasthrough Great Yarmouth — this would haverequired much simpler and cheaper engineeringto achieve. The Norwich interests failed toovercome Great Yarmouth’s resistance to thescheme.
• The Navigation was under-financed from the start.The required capital was never raised, and the costwas under-estimated.
• Once the Exchequer Bill Loan Commissionerstook over, insufficient investment was made tofinish the scheme; also, they were reluctant,unenterprising and ineffective managers.
• There were engineering failures, in particular withthe choice of wood and the design of the entrance,but it was the gradual build-up of mud in LakeLothing which ultimately threatened the harbour.
• It was built at a time when the transition from windto steam power for boats was beginning. TheNavigation was not particularly suitable fortraditional ships but was too early to be used toany great extent by steamers.
• The opening of the railway was the final blow.At no time did the Norwich interests appear to have
distinguished between the Borough of GreatYarmouth and the Great Yarmouth Haven & PiersCommissioners. A more effective strategy wouldhave been to convince some of the Norfolk andSuffolk nominees to the latter body that their interestswould not be harmed by enabling Norwich to becomea port. Indeed, the deepening of Breydon Waterwould have directly benefited Beccles and Bungay,the Suffolk towns on the River Waveney. In addition,both parliamentary procedures and fund-raisingwould probably have been easier if the NavigationCommittee had included representation fromLowestoft and Beccles.43
Party politics did not help. At this time the Torieswere in the ascendancy at Norwich and the Whigs atYarmouth. The scheme was heavily promoted bythe Tory members on Norwich City Council; supportfrom the Whig interests there was lukewarm at best.At a national level too, support was sought from andgiven by the Tories, which had the effect of polarisingattitudes in a way that a bi-partisan approach maynot have. This may have worked against the directors
28
in the later 1830s, when they were trying to getsympathy from a Whig national administration forthe remission of their debts.
The delays from 1822 to 1825 were mainly becausethe necessary funds could not be raised. It was onlywhen London-based speculators backed the schemethat, perversely, Norwich people committedthemselves to a substantial investment. Furthermore,it was both unlawful and irresponsible for contractsto be let before the full £100,000 required had beenraised, particularly after the experience of thedifficulty of raising the £80,000 needed to go aheadwith the Bill.
The cost of the engineering works was under-estimated, as was so often the case. The morefamiliar types of work, that is, Mutford lock andbridge, Haddiscoe Cut and bridge, and the works inthe River Yare, cost only slightly more than had beenforecast. The sea lock and bridge cost more thandouble the estimate, and the other works at Lowestoftwere over budget to an even greater extent. AlthoughCubitt must bear the responsibility for this, it shouldbe remembered in mitigation that as eminent anengineer as Telford thought his estimates werereasonable.44 What is surprising is that there was noallowance for contingencies in the 1826 or laterestimates. Without any explicit increase in theestimate, extra works were done, such as increasingthe size of the sea lock, and erecting the buildingsand patent slip at Lowestoft. Also, non-engineeringcosts such as obtaining the Act were underestimated,even when most of the costs must have been known.
The role of Exchequer Bill Loan Commissionerswas to make loans for public works. A bodyindependent of the government of the day had beencreated so that the difficult and sensitive decisionscould be removed from political pressures. TheCommissioners themselves were volunteers andunpaid. They had no desire to take over theNavigation and were ill-equipped for its day-to-daymanagement. Although some other borrowersdefaulted, this seems to be the only case where theCommissioners took direct control; more generally,the local company continued as the managers. Onesuspects that the Commissioners took suchexceptional action here because they had lost all trustin the Company as a result of the dispute over therepayment of the loans from the Treasurer and theten directors.
It is impossible to know for certain whether theearly spending of an extra £10,000 or so on entrance
works to the harbour would have saved the project,but some local commentators believed that. Insteadand understandably, the Commissioners took the viewthat they had to be cautious with public money, andwould only allow extra spending out of the revenueincome. Maintenance was neglected, which wascatastrophic in the medium term.
The use of untreated fir for harbour works quicklyproved to be a failure, necessitating its replacementby cast iron. From the various reports, it seems as ifthe lock gates and the sluices were initiallyunaffected.
At the start, the sluicing mechanism seems to haveworked as intended, being used once or twice in everycycle of spring tides. However, the material movedwas deposited further offshore creating a bar. Theever-changing sand banks were a major problem;southerly winds tending to fill up the mouth of theharbour and north-westerly winds tending to clearit. George Edwards considered that the lock had beenbuilt too close to the sea; relocating it would haveimproved the sluicing ability, and making longer pierswould have better protected the masonry of the lockfrom the direct action of the sea.45
Because Lake Lothing was open to the sea mostof the time, the flood tides brought in sand whichwas then deposited. Neither the ebb tide nor theperiodic sluicing was able to remove this as fast as itbuilt up. Indeed, as the volume of water in LakeLothing diminished, so did its effectiveness as abackwater providing a scour through the entrance tothe harbour. The build-up of mud became even worseonce the use of the steam dredger in Lake Lothingceased in about 1839. A remedy suggested by JosephHume MP in 1846 was to use surplus water from theRiver Waveney to help scour Lake Lothing. He notedthat this was specifically forbidden by the Act, evenduring periods when an excess of water in the riverwas causing flooding.46
Many of these problems would have been over-come by proper continuing maintenance, as indeedthey were once the harbour was in Peto’s ownership.
Nevertheless, as a harbour of refuge, the originalscheme had some success. George Gowing, the agentto Lloyds, estimated from his personal experience,that from 1832 to 1845 the total value of propertysaved amounted to £131,317.16s. The residents ofLowestoft had also benefited from lower coal pricesand from the creation of the export trade of driedherrings to London.47
Haddiscoe Cut was unpopular with the operators
29
of sailing vessels, not just because they had to payfor the bridge to be raised. Arthur Patterson wrote48:
My skipper says he hates this straight-as-a-rule Cut;most skippers dislike it for its monotony of trending,which may mean, on a contrary wind, a ‘tow’ on thetowpath, a dreary scrunchy pull of two good miles;and no refreshments until moored at Reedham’squayside.
The scheme as a whole is well summed up by whatThomas Amyott wrote to his friend James Bennett,one of the directors of the Navigation Company, in1835: ‘A Yarmouth friend of mine told me the otherday that we had done Yarmouth much harm andourselves no good. I am afraid there is some truth inthis!’49
Notes and references
The principal sources used have been:• Norfolk Record Office (NRO), Y/PH1 & 2:
Commissioners of the Great Yarmouth Haven & Piers,minutes, 1824 33
• Public Record Office (PRO), PWLB2/9-20: ExchequerBill Loan Commissioners, minutes, 1831-43
• Norwich Mercury, 1827-34Regrettably, the minutes of the Norwich & Lowestoft
Navigation Company do not seem to have survived.My thanks to David Cubitt for identifying the relevant
articles in the Norwich Mercury.
24. Cole, W, A Poetical Sketch of the Norwich &Lowestoft Navigation Works, privately published,1833, Suffolk Record Office, Lowestoft Branch(SRO,LB), 942.64L — reproduced in the Journal ofthe Norfolk Industrial Archaeology Society, 2000
25. SRO, LB, 339/15/1–5: Plan dated 30 July 1827; NRO,MS 364: specification dated 20 July 1827
26. NRO, MS 467927. NRO, MS 124628. Suckling, Revd A, The History and Antiquities of the
County of Suffolk, Vol 2, Beccles, 1848, 73–7529. The name ‘Clarence Harbour’ was never popularly
adopted. Curiously, the public house of that name isnear Carrow Bridge in Norwich, rather than atLowestoft.
30. Boyes, G, ‘Exchequer Bill Loan Commissioners as asource of canal and railway finance’, Journal of theRailway & Canal Historical Society, November 1978
31. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil
Engineers, 27 November 1849, Vol 9, 4532. PRO, PWLB 2/14 :Exchequer Bill Loan Commis-
sioners, minutes, 22 October 1835. The figures donot add up to the total, differing by £61.
33. NRO, MS 125234. At about this time, George Edwards was responsible
for a major development in the standard divinghelmet. The open helmet had been invented by Johnand Charles Deane; George Edwards added a boltedflange arrangement between the waterproof suit andthe copper helmet.
35. 5 Victoria 2, Cap 936. Murton, A E, ‘Lowestoft in the Nineteenth Century’,
Lowestoft Journal, 5 January 190137. SRO, LB, 263: Evidence to the Tidal Harbours
Commission38. Brooks, E C, Sir Samuel Morton Peto, Bury Clerical
Society, 1996, pages 129–13139 Great Yarmouth Haven, Bridge and Navigation Act
1835, 5 & 6 William IV, Cap 4940. Allard, P, ‘The Breydon Water Dickey Works’,
Yarmouth Archaeology 2000, Great Yarmouth &District Archaeological Society
41. Great Yarmouth Haven, Bridge and NavigationImprovement Act 1849, 12 & 13 Victoria, Cap 48
42. Malster, R, Wherries and Waterways, Terence Dalton,Lavenham, 1971, 19
43. In December 1827, Cubitt reported to the Corporationof Beccles that the River Waveney could be madenavigable to Beccles for sea-borne vessels up to tenfeet draught at a cost not exceeding £1905.15s. AnAct was obtained in 1831 It was later stated that theAct cost £1,615 but only £16 was spent on improvingthe river. [SRO, LB, 263]
44. Telford’s endorsement of Cubitt as an engineer isfurther evidenced by his being one of Cubitt’sproposers for admission to the Institution of CivilEngineers in 1826, and his nomination of Cubitt ashis successor as engineer to the Birmingham &Liverpool Junction Canal and the Ulster Canal in1832.
45. Edwards, G, Suggestions for the improvement ofLowestoft Harbour, January 1838, SRO, LB, 269
46. Hume, J, Report on Lowestoft Harbour, April 1846,SRO, LB, 267
47. SRO, LB, 263: Evidence to the Tidal HarboursCommission
48. Patterson, A H, Through Broadland by Sail andMotor, Blakes, London, 1930
49. NRO, COL/2/113: Letter from Thomas Amyott toJames Bennett, 12 July 1835
30
My wife is interested in genealogy. One of the toolsat her disposal is the national census held every tenyears from 1841 to 1891, in particular that for 1881as that has been fully indexed and is readily availablefor consultation in most reference or local historylibraries; it is also available in compact disc form.Libraries tend to have the census details for the otheryears only for their own locality and not nationally.The 1901 census has recently been made availableon the internet.
When she discovered that one ancestor had comefrom Cocking, a village in West Sussex about ninemiles north of Chichester, I offered to look at the1881 census return for that village to see what wasrecorded about that branch of her family. As well asthe names of anyone staying at a particular address,the return should also quote the relationship with thehead of the household, their age in years, maritalstatus, occupation and place of birth. It should beremembered that the information was not alwaysentirely accurate, ages in particular could beunderstated, there were some curious spellings andthere could be transcription errors through the mis-reading of handwriting.
The railway through Cocking was a single linebranch from Chichester to Midhurst. The 1887Bradshaw shows the London, Brighton & SouthCoast Railway (LBSCR) operating six passengertrains each way daily, with an extra on Thursdaysplus another up only on Wednesdays, and three eachway on Sundays. All trains stopped at all stations.According to Clinker’s Register1, the station becamea halt with truckloads of goods only handled as from23 May 1932, was closed to passengers on 8 July1935 and closed completely on 31 August 1953.
It was therefore a surprise to discover manyrailwaymen staying at Cocking in April 1881. Theyare on 14 consecutive entries2 plus another nearby,with seven of them described as ‘Railway Hut’ andthe others having no address other than Cocking.There were no fewer than 31 who gave their occupa-tion as railway labourer, plus three engine driversand one each of clerk, blacksmith, carpenter and
general labourer, and another who described himselfas a railway miner, a total of 39.
The most likely explanation was that they wereengaged on building the railway, with some of themliving in temporary huts, and sure enough the linewas opened to traffic on 11 July 1881 according toDendy Marshall3, being a part of the LBSCR system.An earlier scheme by the Chichester & MidhurstRailway, authorised in 1864, came to nothing andwas abandoned in 1868. It was taken over by theLBSCR in 1877 and confirmed by an Act of 1878which altered the junctions.
Popplewell4 gives the original contractor asDierden & Buxton to 1868, then Thomas Oliver. Hequotes three engineers in turn: Edward Woods,Frederick Dale Banister and H J Mannering, and hissource as the Bognor Express & West Sussex Journalof 12 July 1881. F D Banister was the LBSCR’schief engineer in 1881, whilst Thomas Oliver was awell-known public works contractor. Smith & Cole5
give his title as ‘T Oliver & Son’ and his period ofoperation as 1864 to 1915. This contract with theLBSCR started in 1878; previous work done wasmostly for the Midland Railway including Stantonto Shipley (1869), Cudworth to Barnsley (1869),West Hallam to Mapperley and Mansfield (1870),the Stantongate Quarry branch at Wellingborough(1874), Teversal to Pleasley (1874), the Mortonbranch at Doe Hill (1875–6), Bennerley to Bulwelland Watnal colliery (1875), the Sharnbrook Viaduct(1877) and the rest of the Wellingborough to Bedfordwidening (1880–2).
The reason for quoting all these contracts is forcomparison with the birth places of the children ofthese railway workers. Six children aged from 3 to7 years had been born at Kimberley, which is on theBennerley to Bulwell line, with another seven aged1 to 14 from Bulwell, six aged 5 to 11 born inMansfield, and four who just gave ‘Derbyshire’ withages 4 to 11. The inference is that their fathers hadbeen working for T Oliver & Son on previouscontracts and were prepared to move around thecountry when required. Five children, all under 2,
At Cocking in 1881
By Robert Miller
31
had been born locally.Other children had been born in widespread
counties: one each from Buckinghamshire, Cheshire,Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey,Yorkshire and the Isle of Wight, plus two fromLeicestershire and four from the London area. Thismay mean that their fathers had previously beenworking for a different employer, perhaps anothercontractor.
Fourteen of the railwaymen had their wives andfamilies with them, plus another three wives whosehusbands were away on the day of the census. Therewere 22 single men, three married men and a widowerwithout wives or families who were all lodging withthe families in the 15 Cocking premises.
There is diversity in the birth places of the 39railwaymen and three wives whose husbands wereaway. Four each came from Nottinghamshire andSussex, three each from Hampshire, Warwickshireand Scotland, two each from Devon, Dorset, Lanca-shire, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, and one each fromCambridgeshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Kent,Middlesex, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire,Shropshire, Staffordshire, Surrey, Westmorland,Wiltshire, Worcestershire and Ireland. Clearly thecommon perception that the railways were largelybuilt by Irishmen did not apply to this part of Sussex.It will be noted that there were only four local men.
Regarding surnames, Smith not surprisingly wasthe most common with five representatives, allapparently unrelated even though two were in thesame hut; there were two each of Davis, Madgwickand Murden who were all fathers and sons, plus twoeach named Day and Taylor who were not related.The other 27 had the following surnames:
Baker, Bennett, Boon, Burrows, Butcher, Denyer,Dowling, Eastman, Freeman, Johnson, Johnstone,Judge, Knight, Lines, MacFarlane, Moore, Mowbray,Murray, Norman, Parkes, Roberts, Robinson,Snookes, Toppam, Walker, Williams and Wood.
Looking at addresses at the other two placesselected for intermediate stations on the line, therewas no one with a railway occupation staying atLavant but in Singleton there was a wife (bornlocally) of a railway inspector; he was away at thetime of the census. There were several railwaylabourers staying at Midhurst, some in lodgings, butas there were existing railways in the town there wasonly one person found who could definitely beassociated with the construction of the new line.Living in West Street was Charles Perkins, a railway
contractor’s clerk aged 31, born at Stoke Dameral,Devon, with his wife from Eccles in Lancashire anda one year old son born locally in Lavant.
The 1881 census also records that Thomas Oliver,aged 47 and born in Lowtown (presumably Lowton),Lancashire, a civil engineer and railway contractoremploying 918 men, and also a farmer employing 6men, 2 boys and 2 women, was living on WorthingRoad, Tanbridge, Horsham with his wife CarolineJane Lenn Oliver, 49, born St Columb, Cornwall,and unmarried children Thomas William ReneOliver, 25, born Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, a civilengineer, Francis Gibbon Oliver, 19, a brewer’s pupil,Mary Helen, also 19 (presumably a twin), andCaroline Annie, 17, all born at Horsham; also fourfemale servants and a male gardener, all born inSussex.
I could find no trace of the engineer M J Manneringanywhere in Sussex, Surrey or Kent.
Frederick D Banister, a civil engineer aged 58, bornHolborn, Middlesex, was living at 117 Denmark Hill,Camberwell, Surrey, with his wife Anne, 56, bornClifton, Gloucestershire, single daughters Mare E(20) and Ethel A (18), married daughter Emily CAstbury (27), all born in Hove, son-in-law WilliamS W Astbury (39), born Stxxd, Lancashire (probablyStand, near Radcliffe), a merchant and varnishmanufacturer, and three female servants,
The foregoing indicates one way in which censusreturns can be used in a different way in research.Similar studies could be made of localities adjacentto other railway lines under construction at the timeof the census or of communities with a highproportion of railwaymen.
Notes and references
1. C R Clinker and J M Firth, Register of ClosedPassenger Stations and Goods Depots in England,Scotland and Wales, 1830–1970, 1971, 32
2. This particular part of the 1881 census can be foundunder PRO reference RG11, piece 1130, folios 13–15, pages 19–23
3. C F Dendy Marshall, A History of the SouthernRailway, 1936, 316
4. L Popplewell, A Gazetteer of the Railway Contractorsand Engineers of Central Southern England, 1830–1914, 1984
5. F D Smith and D Cole, Contractors’ Locomotives,Part IV, 1970, 24
32
May Day 1848 was an auspicious date for Bangor.With the opening for passenger traffic on that day,Bangor became, for two years, the terminus of theChester & Holyhead Railway. Celebrations werereserved for the full opening to Holyhead, andBangor expressed little public interest in the event.There was no bunting, no bonfires were lit, nofireworks were set off and there were none of thecrowds which usually marked an important localevent. Perhaps the atmosphere of the ‘HungryForties’ was not conducive to celebrations, althoughthe railway had provided work for hundreds ofnavvies along the line. In any case the people ofBangor were accustomed to regular coaching serviceson the Holyhead Road, even if they were somewhatslower: 27 hours from London to Holyhead in the1830s. As far back as 1776 the White Lion, Chester,had run a ‘flying post chaise’ on the road to carrypassengers daily, except Sundays, to Holyhead for 2guineas. In 1808 the road to Capel Curig was openedand thereafter the mail coach left Shrewsbury everynight to travel along the new route through Corwenand Capel Curig. By 1817 the ParliamentaryCommissioners had improved this road and thenorthern route through Chester running along thecoast. Thomas Telford, as engineer, was responsiblefor transforming the Holyhead Road, and hecompleted the two suspension bridges at Conwy andMenai Bridge in 1826. However, once railways wereestablished, there were new opportunities to speedup communication with Ireland.
Two routes were proposed: one from Shrewsburyvia Welshpool and Dolgellau to Porthdinllaen inCaernarfon Bay, the other from Chester along thenorth Wales coast to Bangor with a crossing overthe Menai Straits to Holyhead. The Governmentcame down in favour of the coastal routerecommended by George Stephenson in his reportof 1838. His scheme needed another bridge overthe Straits. The Chester & Holyhead Railway Billreceived its Royal Assent on 4 Ju1y 1844. Theauthorised capital was £2,100,000, in £50 shares. An
Act for the Menai crossing was obtained on 30 June1845. Robert Stephenson, the son of George, wasappointed engineer in chief and George King becameSecretary. Robert Stephenson decided on the ideaof a tubular bridge, known as the Britannia Bridge,to span the Straits. There was to be a tubular beaminside which the trains would run. He was helped inthe plans by the mathematician and engineer, EatonHodgkinson, and by William Fairbairn, the civilengineer and shipbuilder. A tubular bridge was tobe built over the Conwy and this was used as a trialfor the Britannia Bridge.
The first of the two Conwy tubes was floated andplaced in its permanent position by 16 April 1848and the second was in place on 8 December 1848.Stephenson was assisted by Brunel, his friendly rival,and by Capt Christopher Claxton, of the Royal Navy,in this arduous work. At the end of April 1848, J LA Simmons of the Board of Trade inspected theConwy bridge and the line to Bangor which hadseveral tunnels and two viaducts over the rivers Ceginand Ogwen. He reported that the ‘stupendous’ workswere well executed. The line, which was to beworked by the London & North Western Railway,contained many engineering feats. Sea water causeddifficulties at Penmaenmawr where there was a tunneland a viaduct, and Bangor station was in a valleybetween two hills. The line tunnelled through theBangor Mountain for 913 yards to the east andthrough the Belmont tunnel for 726 yards to the west.Hundreds of navvies were engaged to blast throughthe slate and shale.
The local newspapers reported enthusiastically onthe progress of the line from Conwy to Bangor. TheCarnarvon & Denbigh Herald gave weekly bulletins,noting on 8 April 1848 that a ‘large party of directors,engineers and contractors’ had been staying at theGeorge Hotel, Bangor Ferry: ‘On Wednesday MrKing, the Secretary, accompanied by most of thegentlemen ... inspected the line from Conway toBangor. On Thursday the party made a visit to theBritannia Bridge and were much pleased with that
The Opening of the Chester & HolyheadRailway to Bangor, 1 May 1848
By Jean Lindsay
33
magnificent structure as far as it is completed.’Edward Betts, the contractor, gave the party ofbetween 50 and 60 a ‘sumptuous luncheon’ atMaltraeth, ‘excellently prepared by Miss Roberts ofBangor Ferry’. In the evening the party ‘sat down toa dinner worthy of the occasion at the George’. Thefollowing week readers were told that the line wasin ‘excellent working condition’ and that ‘heavytrains’ had traversed the line from Chester to Conwyalmost daily since ‘January last’. Two locomotivesand tenders, having passed down the line to Conwy,were taken to pieces so as to be conveyed over thesuspension bridge and were then traversing the linefrom Conwy to Bangor station. The ‘monster tube’over the Conwy had been successfully raised andwas ‘now suspended’ and the ‘enormous beamsconnected with the Hydraulic Engines 15 ins aboveits permanent level to make room for the masons tobuild the stone pier’ on which it was to rest. A ‘greatnumber of hands’ were employed ‘night and day’and the tube was lowered to its proper level on time.Francis Thompson was responsible for the architec-ture of the tubular bridge and for ensuring that thebridge harmonised with the medieval castle. He wasalso the architect for Bangor station.
The advertisement for the opening of the line, adistance of 59¾ miles, was made by George King,the Secretary. It said simply:
The Chester Holyhead Railway will be opened fortraffic between Chester and Bangor on 1 May. Thetrains for the month will be as follows:Departure from Chester to Bangor, 8 and ½ past 10o’clock in the morning. ¼ before 2 and 25 minutespast 4 o’clock in the afternoon.Departure from Bangor to Chester, 7 and ½ past 9o’clock in the morning, 3 and 7 o’clock in theafternoon.Sunday trainsFrom Chester, 8 o’clock in the morning and 25minutes past 4 o’clock in the afternoonFrom Bangor, 7 o’clock in the morning and 7 o’clockin the evening.
The Carnarvon & Denbigh Herald, 13 May 1848,published an account of their reporters’ first trip on‘this important line’. They declared that they were‘satisfied that it is the best and most agreeable in thekingdom both as to smoothness of motion and beautyof scenery’. Their description was such as to whetthe appetite of all would-be travellers:
After starting from Bangor and emerging from thetunnel the prospect is truly pleasing, affordingsketches from the Llanllyfni Mountains on the one
hand, and taking in the castle and domain of Penrhyn,the Menai Straits and the coast of Anglesey on theother. The eye is hardly satisfied with the view beforethe train enters the Llandegai tunnel, and on reachingthe opposite side the panoramic view which thescenery affords is such as to make the best attempt atverbal description in every way vague and meagre:on the right the eye revels among hills and valleysand on the left the expansive bay of Beaumaris, withthe noble mansion of Sir Richard Bulkeley Bart,command attention. As the traveller proceeds pastAber, Penmaenmawr, Bryndyffyn — the picturesquemansion of Sir Charles Smith — on to Conway, thescenic effect is enchanting. At Conway the ancientcastle with its new appendage, the tube, has been toooften described to need further notice from our pen.... Every part of the coast line on past Abergele, Rhyland up the banks of the Dee to Chester, present pointsof interest to the lover of nature, and while the speedwith which the trains traverse the line is equal to thatobtained on the first railways in the kingdom, the rapidalteration which the scenery each minute presentslessens still further the distance and makes the tripone of the most agreeable we have for a long timeenjoyed.
The Chester & Holyhead Railway Company soonran into financial difficulties and was taken over bythe London & North Western Railway Company in1859, but by then the branch to Llandudno had beenbuilt (l858) and a pattern of cheap trips and excur-sions had been laid down. As early as 3 June 1848an advertisement appeared for an ‘annual excursionfrom Bangor to London and back for 27 shillingsand 6 pence!’ Details were given of trains fromBangor leaving at 4am ‘punctually’ on Saturday 10June and Monday 12 June, the Whitsuntide holiday,‘taking up passengers at Conway, Abergele, Rhyl,Mostyn, Holywell, Flint and Queen’s Ferry’. Thechoice of the coastal route did little to encourageindustry but it ensured that north Wales became amecca for excursionists mainly from the north andmidlands of England. New seaside resorts, such asLlandudno, Colwyn Bay and Rhyl, sprang up, to beapplauded by some for bringing employment anddeplored by others for their anglicising influence.However one feels about these developments, Bangorshould have remembered with pride the 150thanniversary of the day the Chester & HolyheadRailway was opened to Bangor, but in fact there waslittle public notice of the event.
Sources
P E Baughan, The Chester & Holyhead Railway, Vol 1,1972, 82–85
34
Although it so often forms an integral part of thejourney on underground and elevated railways andhas made a very substantial contribution to theirprogress and smooth operation, vertical transport-ation has received scant attention from railwayhistorians. Dates and details are often brieflymentioned but the relationship between its techno-logical progress and the development of this type ofrailway deserves some systematic consideration.
As London’s first underground railways were ingreater part built just below street level, theirpromoters did not consider it necessary to providemore than steps and slopes to link platforms to thesurface. In the harsher social climate of the mid 19thcentury it was possible easily to brush aside themobility needs of the physically handicapped andelderly.
In one case there was a persistent demand for astation which appeared logical and worthwhile butthe unusual depth of the line at the proposed site madeprovision difficult and costly, significantly more soif lifts were to be provided. In such circumstances adecision to build was easily deferred or dodged overa very long period.1
When urban railways crossed below rivers anystations necessary close to the banks would be deepenough to justify some form of vertical transpor-tation; for London’s Tower Subway (1870) andLiverpool’s Mersey Railway (1886) this wasprovided. In the latter case, the satisfactory operationof commodious lifts probably played a part inreinforcing the decision to build London’s firstenduring deep level tube railway. Indeed for the deepunderground lines in London, exploiting theunrestricted space below the drains, sewers, servicepipes and cables, efficient and reliable verticaltransportation was absolutely central to success andsmooth operation. As time passed, this assistancefor passengers also came to assume greatersignificance as a component of the shallowerunderground systems and of elevated railways, sinceit could render these more accessible and thus moreattractive to those with limited mobility.
Lifts
Although steam powered lifts were in use from the1830s and the technology of hydraulic operation wasdeveloped in the 1840s, both modes were initiallylimited to industrial purposes, partly because theywere subject to serious accidents. It was not untilthe mid 1850s that the American Elisha Graves Otis(1811–61) perfected and demonstrated his springoperated safety device, which would arrest theplatform’s descent if there were any failure in thesuspension. This opened the way to elevators suitablefor regular public use. Passenger lifts were installedin stores and hotels in the USA from 1857 and thisuse intensified towards the end of the 1860s.London’s new railway hotel at Charing Cross (1865)was given a ‘rising room, fitted with comfortableseats’.
Looking at the pattern of development, it seemsat least open to doubt whether it would have beenpossible to supply suitable and reliable passengerlifts on any significant scale at stations on Britishunderground railways before the 1870s, even if thishad been considered necessary.
The Tower Subway of 1870 beneath the Thames,the world’s first (and very short) deep levelunderground railway, did have two inadequate andunreliable steam powered lifts which carried amaximum of seven persons, only half the numberaccommodated in the cable hauled car. The endstations were 58 feet below the surface at Tower Hilland 52 feet at Vine Street and lift transits took a totalof 50 seconds, almost as long as the rail journey time.The inadequacy and poor performance of the liftscontributed to the early collapse of railway operationand conversion before the end of 1870 to a pedestriansubway. Staircases then installed had 96 steps in thenorthern shaft and a rather smaller number on thesouth bank. Despite this, weekly throughput rose to20,000, only fading away after the opening of TowerBridge in 1894.2
By the time the Mersey Railway was built in themid 1880s, suitably large and reliable hydraulicpassenger lifts were widely available from British
From Street to Train
By Alan A Jackson
35
and American suppliers. Burrowing below a riveragain produced deep level stations either side, atJames Street, Liverpool (100 feet below the surface)and at Hamilton Square, Birkenhead (85 feet). Bothwere given a group of three Easton & Andersonhydraulic lifts with a speed of 125 feet per minuteand a capacity of 100 passengers. Dubbed ‘flyingballrooms’, these worked satisfactorily from theopening of the line in 1886, making an essentialcontribution to the smooth flow of passenger traffic.Giving evidence to an 1892 ParliamentaryCommittee, Sir Douglas Fox, whose firm had actedas the railway’s consulting engineers, remarked thatthe line’s ten million passengers a year were beingcarried entirely by the lifts except for the very fewwho chose to walk up the stairs. He added that thiswas being achieved without delay or accident.3
In contrast, those using another riparian station,Wapping, on the East London Railway, at the northend of the Thames Tunnel, were obliged for some45 years to climb 100 stairs to the street 51ft above.Two 30 passenger electric lifts were eventuallyinstalled in 1915.
The Mersey experience would have given confi-dence to those planning London’s first enduring deeplevel tube railway, the City & South London(C&SLR), in the late 1880s. Clearly conscious ofthe importance of adequate vertical transportation,they decided to provide twelve 50 passenger lifts,two at each station, cautiously choosing the well triedsuspended hydraulic design.4 These were suppliedand installed by Sir William Armstrong, Mitchell &Co. of Newcastle on Tyne. James Henry Greathead,the project’s engineer, determined to ease thepassengers’ lot by reducing the number of stairs andpassages to be negotiated, designed the stations withone rail tunnel slightly above the other, placing thelower lift landing at a compromise height betweenthe two. The exception was the northern terminus atKing William Street, where platforms were at thesame level and the lifts came down to this.
Before the C&SLR was opened, the technicaljournal Engineering had commented perceptively onthe crucial role to be played by the lifts, declaringthat the success of the whole project would dependvery much on their performance. It was suggestedthat if they were commodious and rapid so that therewas no waiting and little crowding, the popularity ofthe railway would be greatly enhanced but shouldthere be stoppages and breakdowns of the lifts, thepublic would turn away from the new enterprise.
In practice during the early years so crucial toestablishing public confidence, the C&SLR workedwell. There was however an isolated unfortunateincident which highlighted a design fault: the lack ofsafety interlocking between the starting mechanismand the closing of the lift gates. On 27 July 1891, atthe Oval station, a passenger thoughtlessly trying toboard a lift already beginning to ascend found hisfoot trapped. He was carried upwards, to meet aquick death, beheaded by a cross beam.
In the USA the development of efficient and fastelectrically powered lifts was driven forward at anenhanced pace to meet the needs of a new feature ofthe cityscape from the late 1880s, very tall iron orsteel framed commercial buildings designed toprovide the maximum internal space with theminimum footprint on costly urban land. The OtisElevator Co produced its first electric design in 1889.Britain was close behind. Its first electric lifts wereinstalled by R Waygood & Co at the Crystal Palacein the following year. Waygood was later to combinewith Otis; as Waygood Otis until 1957, then OtisElevator, it has had a very long association with theLondon Underground.
Multiple unit operation, the invention of the greatAmerican electrical engineer Frank J Sprague (1857–1934) was first demonstrated by him in 1892 as ameans of controlling lift operation in the new PostalTelegraph Building on Broadway, New York.Sprague’s company was chosen in 1897 to supplyall 48 lifts for the Central London tube railway(CLR), opened in 1900. In this installation each carhad a capacity of 50 persons (90 at Bank station).Sprague proudly wrote5 in 1901 that these lifts hadcarried up to 400,000 passengers in one day, but histhree machines at the Shepherds Bush terminusproved inadequate to handle the heavy trafficinterchanging there between the railway and theLondon United Tramways. Four Waygood electro-hydraulic lifts in new shafts, with a capacity of 55 ineach car, had to be added as early as 1902–3.
The City & South London Railway extensions of1900–01 were also served by electric lifts after a trialconversion of one at Kennington in 1898, claimed atthe time to be the largest electrically operated lift inthe world. The Great Northern & City tube railwayopened in 1904 with a mixture of hydraulic andelectric lifts, the former the last of their kind to beinstalled on the London Underground.
Not surprisingly, given the strong U.S. influence,the three Yerkes tubes of 1906–07 received 140
36
electric lifts, all manufactured and installed by theAmerican Otis Elevator Co. These included five carswith a vertical rise of 181 feet at Hampstead, wherethe platforms were 192 feet beneath the hilltop villagestreet. Lift transit times here and at some otherstations were reduced with the introduction of highspeed equipments from 1924 onwards, an enhance-ment latterly combined with automatic operation.
Escalators and moving walkways
Electrically powered escalators and walkwaysappeared in the USA in the 1890s, at first as pleasurerides in fairgrounds and amusement parks. Althoughby 1900–01 demonstrated as suitable for daily publicuse and at that time installed in department stores inChicago and Philadelphia, heavy duty versions werenot proven in railway service in time to be adoptedfor large scale use on London’s first tube railways.Two Reno machines were however imported in the1900s, only one seeing extended public use.6
By 1911 there were about 50 escalators operatingat stations on New York’s elevated system and inthat year two Otis machines began operation at EarlsCourt Station, London, quickly achieving popularityand success. Further installations followed, eightstations benefiting from this innovation between 1912and 1915. Sufficient confidence had been generatedby April 1923 for the Underground Company toannounce that no more new lifts would be installedon its system except in places where the tunnels wereunusually deep.7 This was later given a curious twist:almost certainly repeating a statement from an officialUnderground Company source, The Times of 30August 1928 reported that at some deep stations liftswould remain; two long flights of escalators atHampstead ‘would be fatiguing for passengers’.
Not everyone was pleased with the modernisationof vertical transportation on the Underground,especially the nervous, lame and elderly. Concernwas voiced in The Times and pleas made that at leastone lift be retained at each station8. Assurances weregiven that a fixed stairway (or stationary escalator)would always be available when lifts were replacedbut that was not the same thing as walking on thelevel into and out of a lift.
For the operator and the great majority ofpassengers the change brought substantial gains:escalators speeded passenger flow through thestations, keeping everyone on the move by providinguninterrupted transit between street and platform
throughout the traffic day, giving those in a hurry theoption of increasing speed by walking up or downwhat some people used to call a ‘moving staircase’.Movement to and from platforms at busy times wasno longer intermittent, allowing full advantage to betaken of speeded up train services. Until automaticoperation was introduced on the LondonUnderground from 1932, lifts were very labourintensive, demanding much staff time to control theiroperation and the passenger flow at landings. Theywere also more expensive in terms of electric currentused. There was another perhaps unexpected resultof the change: the public liked the way in whichescalators speeded up the transition between trainand street, making the tube so much easier andpleasing to use; children and young people wereparticularly enthusiastic about them. It was not justthe novelty and modernity of the experience but alsothe way in which the inclined shafts and widelandings added a more spacious feel to the hithertosomewhat claustrophobic stations. In 1928 theOperating Manager wrote ‘wherever escalators havebeen installed an increase in traffic has resulted’.9
With escalators assuming the major role in movingpassengers to and from the platforms of the deep levelstations in London, it was necessary to developspecially robust types able to withstand the exactingdemands of continuous operation for around 20 hoursdaily, including handling full loads at peak hours.This requirement was satisfactorily achieved byWaygood Otis between the wars. Maximum speedswere increased over the years but it was discoveredthere was a limit to increasing capacity in this way;if speed were pushed higher than 145 feet a minute(equivalent to about 10,000 passengers an hour) somepassengers would hesitate to step on and off, holdingup the flow.
Doing without
In the late 19th and early 20th century, undergroundstations at greater than subsurface depth wereoccasionally left without any form of verticaltransportation, usually for reasons of economy. Thecable hauled Glasgow Subway of 1896 was kept asnear to the surface as possible and no lifts wereprovided, even at Buchanan Street, its deepest station,40 feet below the street. In London, examples ofnon-provision included Gillespie Road (laterArsenal), only 30 feet deep and, most famously, theWaterloo & City tube line of 1898 which waspredominantly used by a heavy daily flow of captive
37
season ticket holders. Muscular effort was neededto negotiate its sloping subways and stairs, a climbof 59 feet at Bank and 41 feet at Waterloo. TheLondon & South Western Railway installedescalators over part of the distance at the latter in1919 but no relief was available at Bank untilTravolators came into use in 1960 after some 30 yearsof pressure for improvement. Travolators, a form ofstepless escalator, offered two sloping andcontinuously moving walkways, both runningupwards in the morning peak period. At other timesone ran up, one down. The infamous tunnel of stairsinterrupted by short landings (originally a slope),which had no doubt taken a heavy annual toll inpremature heart attacks since 1898, remainedavailable for the downward morning flow and forthe athletic and impatient all day.
Recent developments
Recent construction in London has seen the returnof the lift at rebuilt and new stations, principally toallow the physically disabled, the encumbered andthe elderly infirm access to the Underground (andalso to the elevated stations of the Docklands LightRailway). The Jubilee Line extension to Stratfordof 1999 not only introduced the new feature ofassisted horizontal transportation — moving walk-ways to ease passage through lengthy subways atWaterloo — but had an extremely lavish provisionof escalators, 118 for its 10 stations, increasing theUnderground’s total by nearly 40 per cent; theenlarged Westminster station was given no fewer than17 escalators and five lifts.10
Escalators remain the major vertical mover at urbanrailway stations where there is more than a briefdistance below or above the street. It is impossibleto imagine how the present very high level ofunderground railway traffic in London could behandled without them.
Notes and references
This general survey was inspired by a letter written tothe author by Michael Robbins after he had read thearticle mentioned in reference 1 below.
1. See the author’s ‘No station for Mount Pleasant’,London Railway Record, 26, (January 2001), 17
2. C E Lee, ‘The Tower Subway: The First Tube Tunnelin The World’, paper read to the Newcomen Societyand Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 18 Novem-ber 1970
3. Evidence to the Joint Select Committee of the Houseof Lords and the House of Commons on the Electricand Cable Railways (Metropolis), 18 May 1892, para1310
4. P P Holman, The Amazing Electric Tube: A Historyof the City & South London Railway, 1990, 24
5. F J Sprague, ‘The Rapid Transit Problem in London’,The Engineering Magazine, XXII, 1, October 1901,3
6. A form of vertical escalator, the Reno SpiralConveyor, was experimentally installed in a lift shaftat Holloway Road station, Piccadilly line, in 1907. Itseems to have enjoyed the briefest of lives and thereis doubt as to whether it was ever in public use. Asloping Reno Conveyor with a capacity of 3,500passengers an hour was installed at Seaforth Sandsstation on the Liverpool Overhead Railway in January1901, becoming the first railway escalator in Britain.It was taken out about the end of 1906 when the stationwas rebuilt.
7. TOT Magazine, April 1923 and Tramway & RailwayWorld, 24 March 1923
8. The Times, 15 May 1928, 17 May 1928 and 31 July1935
9. J P Thomas, Handling London’s Underground Traffic,1928, 189
10. For further details of lifts and escalators on theLondon Underground see D F Croome and A AJackson, Rails Through The Clay: A History ofLondon’s Tube Railways, 2nd edition, 1993, passimand Appendix 3. For escalator provision on theJubilee line extension see M A C Horne, The JubileeLine, 2000, 64–80, passim
Roses!! House
........
Site of lake
R. Conley
9"
1000 feet
Basin B Boat House
T ROSEHALL CANAL
38
The short Dingwall Canal in Ross and Cromarty isunique in having been constructed as a result of anAct of Parliament primarily concerned with thebuilding of Highland roads and bridges. Completedin 1817 and just over a mile long, it linked the countytown to the Cromarty Firth for about 50 years untileclipsed by the Highland Railway, which bisected it.Today it is chiefly remembered as being the mostnorthern canal in the British Isles. However eventhat epitaph is undeserved for there is another whoseclaim to that honour is greater. It lies approximately27 miles further north as the crow flies.
Soon after the River Peffry at Dingwall wascanalised, another short canal was dug at the behestof Lord Ashburton on the Rosehall estate ten or somiles north-west of Bonar Bridge in Sutherland. Asit was entirely on private land presumably no priorauthorisation by Parliament was needed. The raisond’être was the carriage of timber and sandstone fromMorayshire, which was shipped up the Kyle ofSutherland and then along the canal for therestoration, between 1818 and 1825, of the house atRosehall. This house, originally owned by theBaillies of Douchfour, had been partially destroyedby fire in 1804.
The Rosehall Canal: The Most Northerly Canal in Great Britain?
By Nicola Forbes & John Howat
The course of the canal is shown on the 1:2500Ordnance Survey (OS) map that was surveyed 50years later. No more than 550 yards long it ran fromthe river in a more or less north-norwesterly directionuntil the final 100 yards which angled a degree ortwo past north to terminate in the apex of a smalltriangular basin. Here there was a sturdy stoneboathouse from which it is said that Lord Ashburtonwould take his boat down to the Kyle. Thus the littlewaterway also seemed to have served a recreationalpurpose, similar in some ways to that of Sir AndrewWood in Fife 300 years or so earlier. In due coursethe western side of the basin was incorporated in afour-acre ornamental lake created in the low-lyingground between the boathouse and the main house.
The now empty Georgian-style house at Rosehall,the lake with several wooded islets, and theboathouse, all remain. The tree-lined course of thecanal, now little more than a substantial silted weedyditch about 20 feet across, is easily discerned as itcrosses the flood plain of the river in a straight line(grid reference NC478010).
It is not clear how the water level in the canal wasmaintained at a sufficient depth for navigation or if
39
Perhaps the most outstanding project of a short-livedcanal renaissance, the Foxton inclined plane survivedfor only ten years, and there has always been anelement of mystery as to the miscalculation thatbrought about the sudden demise of a facility thatappears to have been perfectly satisfactory inengineering terms.1 This paper will not repeat thetechnical details which have been amply discussedelsewhere2,3,4 but will attempt to set out a contextualapproach, focusing on the Royal Commission onCanals & Inland Waterways (RCC&IW), which doesnot seem to have been considered to any extent inthe past. It constitutes part of a wider survey ofLeicestershire canals which appeared in 1996 as adiscussion paper.5
Through canal traffic between the East Midlandsand London was much reduced by the 1890s and thecoal was down to 115 tons in 1890. Yet theamalgamation of the Grand Junction Canal (GJC),Grand Union Canal (GUC) and Old Union Canalcompanies in 1894 has been described as ‘a
preliminary to a last great effort to compete in theNottinghamshire and Derbyshire coal trade’6, areference to the inclined plane opened at Foxton in1900. The Commission was told of the need forthrough tolls and larger forwarding companies, with‘business in the hands of educated and organisedconcerns’7 and Foxton was to create a more efficientwaterway that might attract a higher quality service.The Manchester Ship Canal, opened in 1894,provided a psychological boost at a time when theeconomy was performing well and waterway trafficwas increasing, especially on the GJC: from 1.17million tons in 1888 to 1.62 in 1898 and 1.79 in 1905.Higher toll revenue generated optimism; even thesuggestion that if only capacity could be increased itwould be possible to make toll reductions andcompete effectively with the railways that wereinvesting heavily in improved passenger services atthe time; provided of course that the economycontinued to boom and government remainedwedded to the idea of free competition.
Foxton RevisitedThe Inclined Plane in Context
By David Turnock
indeed vessels could actually venture out on to theriver or vice versa, for there is no entrance lock wherethey meet. The Kyle is still just about tidal at thispoint. Perhaps transhipment was necessary at somestage in the journey up river. The modern 1:25 000OS map suggests a small basin at the river end of thecanal, about 500 yards below the confluence of therivers Oykell and Cassley, a little below the pointthat the Kyle splits to pass around Eilean anSpannaidh, a low-lying island, but nothing is shownon the older large-scale map of 1874.
A short-lived and insignificant enterprise maybe,but the Rosehall Canal is the most northerly inBritain.
Notes and references
The authors are grateful to Mr Wilfred Simms of WestSussex and Mrs Graesser of Rosehall for their assistancewith this article.
• K R Clew, ‘The Dingwall Canal’, Journal of the Railwayand Canal Historical Society, 1975, Vol XXI, 4-12.
• E Beaton, Sutherland, an Illustrated ArchitecturalGuide. The Rutland Press, 1995, 20-21.
• Ordnance Survey 1:2500 Sutherland, sheet CI.12,s1874.
40
The Foxton inclined plane and itssignificance
The inclined plane at Foxton certainly constituted adramatic start to the improvement process. A gooddeal of time was saved at one of the canal system’smore notorious bottlenecks, but more important waseffective sealing of the summit canal from the pointof view of water loss which meant that the reservoirssupplying the Foxton summit were able to contributemore to ease problems at Braunston. Since the levelat the top of the Braunston flight was some 50 feetbelow the Foxton level of 412 feet, the eliminationof all losses at the latter’s northern end wouldaugment the southward flow and reduce the need forpumping at Braunston. Company records show thatrainfall in the area fluctuated considerably from yearto year and this affected the water level in thereservoirs in the winter time when they needed to beat virtually full capacity to cope with traffic duringthe following summer. The reservoirs held as manyas 7,600 lockfulls of 56,000 gallons each inDecember 1886 and December 1891, but as few as800 in December 1893. The Foxton level providedsome water for the Braunston summit because watercascading through Watford locks helped to maintainthe level at Norton Junction. But there was alwaysthe possibility that the reservoirs on the Foxtonsummit could be used entirely for the benefit of theBraunston summit if losses at the Foxton end wereeliminated.
This was no doubt one reason why B W Cook, thecompany’s engineer at Blisworth, suggested in 1894that the entire ‘Leicester Line’ might be convertedinto a railway.8 This was rejected, but instead theold pumping equipment at Braunston was refurbishedin 1897 and back-pumping on the Long Buckby flightcontinued, while the depth of water along the summitsection was increased by one foot in order to holdmore water. It is understandable that fuller use atBraunston of the Foxton level’s reservoirs was seenas an attractive prospect and one that could moreeasily be realised as a result of the 1894 amalgama-tion (significantly occurring during the period ofintensive pumping activity at Braunston just noted,which encouraged the GJC to increase its offer pricefor the GUC). The significance of the Foxton levelis demonstrated by the canal company’s recordswhich show that even in the period 1910–1916 (whenthe Foxton lift was closed) only 35.1% (63,160lockfulls) of the water supplied to the Braunstonsummit came from the reservoirs built along this
section; 6.0% (10,710 lockfulls) came from theBraunston pump and the remaining 59.0% (105,890lockfulls) from the Foxton level.
A further merit of the Foxton plane was toovercome the handicap imposed by narrow locks ata time when Fellows Morton & Clayton (FM&C)were interested in making more extensive use of wideboats. This company took over the London trafficof the London & Midland Counties CarryingCompany in 1886. Their ‘fly boat’ services tookthree days for the journey from London to Leicesterand their cargoes included chemicals for Boots atNottingham. FM&C were also important as GJCshareholders after 1888 and so their call for wideningat Foxton and Watford carried considerable weight.At this point it is relevant to recall that the GJC washaving problems on the Braunston summit when thepurchase of the Union Canals was completed. Therewas a considerable backlog of maintenance workwhich was rectified after the takeover by a dredgingprogramme, based on surveys of the canals in thearea carried out by T W Millner. However, with theprospect of outlays in purchase and maintenance inmind, FM&C were asked if they could make moreuse of the canal. Under these circumstances theyundertook to modernise their fleet, subject to anincrease in capacity, and presented a challenge thatcould hardly be ignored. Thus there appears to havebeen a gentleman’s agreement over a modernisationprogramme.9 Certainly FM&C continued to pressthe company over improvements and in 1896–7 theycomplained about the lack of progress in wideningthe locks at Foxton and Watford.
And this is where the anomalies start to escalate.The improved water supply was significant, but notto the extent of £39,000 which the inclined planecost to install between 1898 and 1900.10 Withoutanother lift at Watford wide boats could not operate;saving time at Foxton for narrow boats would not ofitself transform the company’s fortunes. There wasno way the Foxton inclined plane could generate asurge in traffic and it might be predicted that it wouldoperate at a loss in the short term. No doubt a crucialpoint was the cyclical trend in the economy whichgenerated increased traffic and toll revenue in the1890s before going into reverse so that the businessclimate changed accordingly during the first decadeof the new century. Total traffic transferred inLeicester from the GJC to the Leicester Navigationgrew from 9,100 tons in 1895 to 14,700 in 1905 butin the other direction the trend was sharplydownwards from 27,600 to 15,800: an overall decline
41
of 17%.11 The incline engine had always been shutdown at night and this had been a problem for the‘fly boat’ services which were sometimes delayed.So in 1908 the locks were reinstated for night use,which meant water losses at Foxton and also highermaintenance costs that further eroded the viabilityof the lift. But the closure decision in 1910 seemsremarkably precipitate considering the powerfulimagination that launched the scheme in the firstplace. One wonders therefore what else the companyhad in mind?
The vision of Gordon Thomas
Thomas was the GJC’s chief engineer and washeavily involved in the Foxton enterprise. He gavemuch careful thought to the canal business and hiscompany’s position in particular. His evidence tothe Royal Commission (on 6–7 November 190612
and again on 12 May, 16–17 June and 14 July 190913)amounted to a comprehensive though informal plan.He spent much of the time in June outlining his visionof an ‘improved canal’ with larger boats and fewerhold-ups, thanks to speedier loading/unloading, fewerclosures and the elimination of lock flights by lifts.One of the commissioners, Lord Brassey, noted thatThomas had worked out ‘a large scheme of canalimprovement necessarily involving a heavy expendi-ture’, but remarked that while the idea had beendiscussed with other engineers the plan had not beenformally submitted for professional criticism.14
Thomas envisaged canals 45 feet wide and 7 feetdeep, for although narrow boats drew only 4 feet3 inches of water, levels were lower in summer, andwater under the boat contributed to speed. Hereferred to width at bridges as 32 feet (currently 14–16 feet) with an average speed of three miles perhour for a loaded train and five miles per hour forempty boats. He saw boats of 80–100 tons as theoptimum for both the needs of customers and efficientdeployment on the canals.15 Such boats would be77 feet long and 14 feet wide, drawing 4½ feet (5 feetin the case of 100 ton boats). He proposed locks253 feet long, 16 feet wide and 6½ feet deep so thatthree boats could be accommodated together, thatis, a steamer carrying 60 tons with two barges of 80–100 tons each. Three boats in a train would be themaximum because a larger number would be difficultto handle on curves and at locks. However, manyflights of locks would be replaced by lifts, with theminimum height for a lift set at 21 feet (that is, threelocks) unless there were special water supply
problems. He preferred an inclined lift to a verticallift because there was greater choice of site, theweight was more widely distributed and it wascheaper to work. Money might come in the form oflow interest loans to a specially-constitutedcorporation to which Thomas thought the companiesand shareholders would have no objection.
On this basis Thomas envisaged a comprehensivemodernisation of the canal from the Erewash toLondon. A total of 157 locks between Langley Milland the capital ‘would be reduced to 70 in numberby the construction of twelve inclined lifts’. At thesame time the length of the waterway would bereduced from 167¾ miles to 152½. The cost wasestimated at £4.29 million or £28,100 per mile.Working in a north–south direction, the first liftswould be in the Wigston–Foxton area (three in all),followed by the existing Foxton lift and then Watford,Long Buckby, Stoke Bruerne, Grove, Leighton,Berkhamstead (two) and Hanwell. Running north-wards from the Braunston summit to Birminghamthere would be lifts at Braunston, three others on thedescent to Leamington, with another three at Hattonand one at Knowle (making fifteen in all on theLondon–Birmingham route). On the Fradley routelifts were envisaged at Hillmorton with two more onthe Coventry Canal. The lifts would reduce theamount of water needed to handle a great increase intraffic. But more water could be found above theFoxton summit: it was an ‘excellent situation forreservoirs and the water impounded at Naseby wouldbe available ... for distribution to almost any part ofthe canal system’.
His calculations were based on an additional fourmillion tons of freight passing the full length of GJCto generate £600,000 of toll revenue, calculated at0.20 pence per ton-mile. Current canal costs at 0.40pence per ton-mile could be brought down to only0.10–0.20 pence. This traffic would be additionalto existing traffic of some two million tons trans-ported over an average distance of only 23½ miles.Such an income was deemed to be sufficient tomaintain an improved waterway. He was confidentthat such traffic could be generated through coalmoving south and general merchandise from the Portof London going north. The railways might well findit difficult to compete, for although they might havean advantage in speed this was not very effectivelyused. In fact, railway haulage of coal was quite slow:perhaps around five miles per hour. Figures werequoted for Measham Colliery for February–Marchindicating that rail transport took between one and
42
four days, that is, an average speeds of 1.2 to 4.8miles per hour. So, rather than try and match thereduction, ‘with their perfected organisation [theymight] well utilise the improved waterway rather thancarry their low-class merchandise on their rails at aloss’. Thus ‘improved canals must bring prosperityto the railways’. It is not clear to what extentThomas’s plan was endorsed by the company.However, it seems that at one stage they wereprepared to make a start, perhaps on an experimentalbasis, through the construction of a single inclinedplane at Foxton.
The Royal Commission on Canals andInland Waterways
At this point it is important to look more closely atthe RCC&IW because, although this enquiry was notanticipated when the inclined plane decision wasmade, its findings and the government’s reaction tothem were crucial for the future of the venture. TheCommission heard a great deal of evidence from allsections of the canal business and endorsed the viewthat railways had killed off most of the long-distancetraffic. So the waterways ‘have had no share in theenormous increase of internal transport businesswhich has taken place between the middle of thenineteenth century and the present time’.16 However,canals in private ownership were increasing theirtraffic slightly, some companies were makingvigorous efforts, and it was significant that more coalwas being carried to London along the waterways in1905 than in 1880 in both absolute and relative terms.But much of the coal moved to London by canal arosesimply out of convenience when collieries andcustomers were situated on canal routes. Otherwiseprofits were very small and some canal-ownedcarrying companies gave up the trade because ofdifficulties with return cargoes and falling profits withdwindling traffic. The potential also seemed limitedbecause of what the Commission referred to a‘vicious circle’ whereby the authorities owning thecanals were ‘weak, divided and disorganised’ so theycould not ‘raise the money necessary to improve them[and] inspire no confidence in the investing public’.17
The Royal Commission’s aim was to find remediesfor ‘decline or stagnation’18 for the benefit of inlandindustrial locations like the Black Country whichwere experiencing difficulty in an era of increasingcompetition and trade dependence. Midlandmanufacturers had to compete in London withGerman producers enjoying the benefit of the Rhine
waterway: costs from Koln to London could becheaper than from Birmingham.19 Hence therelocation of some Midland businesses in coastalareas. If only costs could be reduced by making moreeffective use of the potential advantages of watertransport it would help the interior industrial regionsand boost the canal business at the same time. Whatwas wanted was an improvement in canal carryingwith new companies coming into the businessstimulated by the prospect of greater profits. TheRoyal Commission was much influenced by GordonThomas, for the GJC was described as an ‘expertwitness’, being one of the few canal companies whichhad ‘to a certain extent moved with the times’.20
The Commission proposed21 a network of routesfor development to either a 100 ton or 300 tonstandard. Attention was concentrated on the ‘cross’with links from the Humber, Mersey, Severn andThames converging on a Midland system consistingof two loops: one serving the West Midlands andanother to the east connecting Norton, Trent Lock,Fradley and Birmingham (within which the Ashby,Coventry and Oxford Canals would retain theirexisting dimensions). Outlining their strategy, theRoyal Commission said that ‘in estimating the newworks required we have minimized the number oflocks and have introduced lifts in all cases wherelong flights of locks now exist. By these means,which will not increase the cost, much time will begained on the journey, while use of the lift willconsiderably reduce the expense of obtaining thenecessary water for working the traffic.’ The typeof lift thought ‘most suitable’ was the Foxton lift,with some modification. Other types of lift wereconsidered ‘but none appear to have so manyadvantages or to be so economical in constructionand working as the inclined system’.
For Route 1 (Birmingham to London), whichwould be joined by the Leicester Line at Norton, theRoyal Commission envisaged a large number ofimprovements. Lifts would be installed at fourteenplaces: Knowle, Hatton (Lower and Upper), Cape,Radford, Stockton, Braunston, Norton, StokeBruerne, Horton, Marsworth, Berkhamstead (Upperand Lower) and Nash Mills. New approach sectionsto the lifts on either side of the Braunston summitwould allow the length of summit to be increasedfrom three miles and 30 chains to four miles and 37chains. Locks would be retained only at Bordesley(reducing the flight from six to three), at Calcutt westof Braunston, and at various places in the LeightonBuzzard area (single locks at Cosgrove, Stoke
43
Hammond, Leighton Buzzard and Grove). However,on the gradual descent from Tring summit the 21locks would be reduced to only eighteen betweenKings Langley and Cowley, followed by a single lift(at Norwood/Hanwell) with four locks retainedthereafter at Osterley, Brentford (two) and theThames. In all 14 lifts and 31 new locks wouldreplace 160 locks at an estimated cost of £4.17million for 100 ton barges and £7.44 million for the300 ton variant.
On the Leicester Line the 100 ton variant involvedreplacement of all locks between Norton Junctionand Aylestone with a total of six lifts. Crick andHusbands Bosworth tunnels were to be rebored withtheir length unchanged (1,528 yards and 1,166 yardsrespectively). There would be several short cuts toreduce the length of the canal between the twotunnels; also a Theddingworth deviation and themajor alterations at Kibworth near of Foxton: ‘animportant deviation ... leaving the existing canal onthe high level above Foxton Incline, following thehigh ground for a distance of nearly four miles untilin the neighbourhood of Kibworth it drops almost107 feet by means of two inclined lifts and joins theexisting canal a little beyond Crane’s Lock’.Saddington tunnel and the Foxton lift would bebypassed, although the latter would be retained togive access to Market Harborough. Furtherdeviations were proposed at Wigston (with a furtherlift) and Glen Parva where the final lift was to beinstalled. Then the Commission noted that ‘the RiverSoar, which is entered a little beyond King’s Lock,is very tortuous for the next mile and a quarter. So anew cut about a mile in length is proposed with asingle lock to replace the two existing locks atAylestone and St Mary’s Mills.’ The total distancefrom Watford to Leicester would be reduced to 29miles and 21 chains, with a somewhat shorter summitlength of 20 miles and 2 chains.22 There would bewidening and deepening through Leicester and it wasthought appropriate to install locks 262 feet in lengthto accommodate three 120 ton Trent barges(measuring 83 feet by 14 feet 5 inches with a draughtof 5 feet 4 inches) and not just to the standard 100ton boats. New cuts would be made at Birstall,Cossington–Mountsorrel, Mountsorrel–Barrow andLoughborough (each about a mile in length exceptfor Mountsorrel–Barrow) and a short cut atKegworth. For the 300 ton variant an additionaldeviation was needed to get sufficient clearanceunder the railway between Norton Junction andWatford. The higher summit between Watford and
Crick was designed to get over the Northamptonrailway and replace Crick Tunnel with a cutting.Meanwhile, a lower level in Leicester was neededfor clearance at bridges.
Sadly however the government refused to acceptthe Royal Commission’s recommendation offinancial assistance to modernise the canals; it isinteresting to note that this disappointing outcomein 1910 coincided with the GJC’s decision to closethe Foxton inclined plane which had been keptworking — at a loss — in order to demonstrate themodel which the Commission so enthusiasticallyendorsed.
The lift was used occasionally in 1911 andmaintained until the First World War broke out. Itwas then left derelict until 1928 when it wasdismantled and all the metal was taken away. Theupper access arm was blocked while the lower branchwas used for moorings. The site became overgrownuntil improvements were undertaken afterLeicestershire County Council provided a car parkand picnic site. Two years later the local branch ofthe Council for the Preservation of Rural Englandmade an agreement with British Waterways Boardto clear part of the site and improve public access.Clearance was undertaken by youth groups during1974 and the agreement was taken over by the FoxtonInclined Plane Trust in 1980 with preservation andrestoration in mind.23 A comprehensive restorationplan was approved in 1982 and the engine house waspartially reconstructed and opened as a museum in1988. More radical restoration does not appear tobe an immediate possibility but at least this interestingfacet of local canal history has been brought closerto the public’s attention.
Discussion
There were obviously grandiose plans based on theFoxton model, although it cannot be proved thatThomas’s evidence, which the Royal Commissionenthusiastically endorsed, reflects the thinking of hiscompany a decade earlier when work at Foxton wasapproved. But it seems likely that there was, at leastfor short time, a resolve to create a modernised canalroute. And it certainly makes much more sense tosee the Foxton inclined plane as one of a set — thefirst of a rolling programme — rather than an isolatedventure. If the company had intended to installinclines all the way along the route from Leicester toLondon there would have been very good reasonsfor starting the process at Foxton: as already
44
indicated, water would be saved for the Braunstonsummit, FM&C could introduce their wide boats(given appropriate measures at Watford) and thedelays at the locks would be eliminated. One lift inisolation could not be expected to boost trafficsignificantly, but the company would at least havehoped for the continuance of the favourable climateof the late 1890s.
It may be surmised that the Watford flight was theintended site of the second lift, had the programmecontinued. In 1897 the engineer at Kilby Bridgementioned, in a reply to a complaint about low waterat Welford, that the company intended to remedymatters, for it was ‘just commencing putting in patentlifts at Foxton and Welford and doing away with theantiquated locks’, enabling three quarters of the waterto be saved.24 However it is curious that Thomaswas evasive about Watford when questioned laterby the Royal Commission. He would not concedethat there was any anomaly in having only the oneinclined plane at Foxton. Yet the Commission clearlythought otherwise because they say in their report25
that the 41 mile section of canal from Norton Junctionto Leicester included the barrier of seven 7 feet 3inch locks at Watford and that ‘if it were not for theselocks at Watford a barge 14 feet in width could passfrom London to the Nottinghamshire collierydistrict’. They also say that ‘the throttling at thispoint [Watford] of the barge traffic ... would certainlyhave been remedied long ago if the whole route fromLondon to the Humber had been in one strong handand a single authority had a strong interest indeveloping communication within the coalfield’.They also say quite pointedly that it was ‘not madeclear’ why the GJC had not been able to carry outimprovements at this critical point.
However, Thomas stated ambiguously that narrowboats (carrying 20 tons of general cargo or 30 tonsof coal) would always be the mainstay — incontradiction of his advocacy of 40 ton loads — andso the Watford conversion was consideredinappropriate. An incline or wide locks at Watfordwould only be advantageous if boats came along inpairs.26 Movement would be slower where narrowlocks occurred, but the canal was by no means beingused to full capacity and investment would make littlesense until that situation arose. After all, there wouldnot have been the same water-saving justification forthe lift at Watford since it was always intended thatwater would cascade from the Foxton summit to
maintain the lower Braunston level. And wide locksat Watford (authorised in 1900) would only makesense if there was room along the summit pound forwide boats to pass. Gordon Thomas also made otherexcuses, such as the poor state of the navigationsnorth of the Trent — like the Erewash Canal and theNutbrook Canal — which were much involved inthe coal trade.27
It may well be that Thomas felt he had to defend acompany that was getting cold feet after 1900. Thefact that the first inclined plane cost much more thanwas expected might well have led the company tocurtail its development plans after this ‘last ditchstand’ over canal modernisation at Foxton.28 Thecompany would also have been disappointed overthe stagnation of traffic after 1900. The atmosphereof disenchantment is demonstrated when thecompany allowed its options to purchase the ErewashCanal and the Leicester and LoughboroughNavigations to lapse in 1900. The decision wasconfirmed in 1901 and 1902 when the two companiesoffered themselves to the GJC. There was clearly afeeling of disappointment that their investment in thepurchase and refurbishment of the Union Canals hadnot paid off and that acquisition of further canalcompanies would merely add to the financial burden.
This sense of gloom, with substantially loweredperspectives, was then reflected by the decision torebuild Watford Locks as narrow locks in 1901–2.29
Certainly the interest in accommodating wide boatswas very much on the ebb after 1900. In 1911, thecompany decided that wide boats should not operatenorth of Stoke Bruerne because of the trouble causedin the tunnels where wide boats could not pass eachother. However, this mood of despondency,punctuated by Thomas’s recommendation that asecond lift should not be built, contrasts with hisforward-looking approach in evidence to the RoyalCommission. But there must have been a bigdifference between what was commercially feasiblein 1900 and what may have been considered theultimate objective in 1894 (and was still seen as theideal by Gordon Thomas in 1906, given satisfactoryfinancial arrangements). Presumably, Thomas hadto avoid communicating a sense of disappointmentover the commercial failure of the Foxton lift in thehope that the Commission would support his visionand that government would then help the companyto secure investment capital.
45
References
1 Anon, ‘Barge lift at Foxton Leicestershire constructedby Messrs J & R Gwynne & Co Ltd EngineersLondon’, Engineering, 1901, Vol 71, 111,114
2 P Gardner and F Foden, Foxton Locks and BargeLift, Leicestershire County Council, Leicester, 1979
3 D Goodwin, ‘1894 plans: Bertram William Cook’,Union: Journal of the Old Union Canals Society &Foxton Incline Plane Trust, 1987, No 80, 10–11
4 D Tew, Canal Inclines and Lifts, 1984, 36–385 D Turnock, The Canals of Leicestershire and their
Impact on the Landscape, Leicester UniversityGeography Department Occasional Paper 37, 1996
6 C Hadfield, C (1966) The Canals of the EastMidlands, 1966, 186
7 Royal Commission on Canals & Inland Waterways,Minutes of Evidence, Volume 5 (Part 2), 1909, Cd4840, minute 34, 669
8 D Goodwin, ‘1894 plans: Bertram William Cook’,Union: Journal of the Old Union Canals Society &Foxton Incline Plane Trust, 1987, No 80, 10–11
9 D Goodwin et al, The Foxton locks and inclinedplane: a detailed history, undated, LeicestershireCounty Council, 9
10 Royal Commission on Canals & Inland Waterways,Evidence and Appendices, Volume 3, 1907, Cd 3718,minute 19, 673
11 Royal Commission on Canals & Waterways, Fourthand Final Report: England & Wales and Scotland,Volume 7, 1910, Cd 4979, paragraph 286
12 Royal Commission on Canals & Inland Waterways,Evidence and Appendices, Volume 3, 1907, Cd 3718,minute 19, 330–770
13 Royal Commission on Canals & Inland Waterways,Minutes of Evidence, Volume 5 (Part 2), 1909, Cd
4840, minute 40, 299–55014 Royal Commission on Canals & Inland Waterways,
Evidence and Appendices, Volume 3, 1907, Cd 3718,minute 19, 771–780
15 Royal Commission on Canals & Waterways, Fourthand Final Report: England & Wales and Scotland,Volume 7, 1910, Cd 4979, paragraph 723
16 Ibid, paragraph 2017 Ibid, paragraph 37718 Ibid, paragraph 2119 Ibid, paragraph 45920 Ibid, paragraph 14521 Royal Commission on Canals & Inland Waterways,
Volume 9: Reports and the Cost of Improving CanalRoutes, 1910, Cd 5083
22 Royal Commission on Canals & Inland Waterways,Volume 10: Water Supplies to Canal Routes, 1910,Cd 5883, pages 118–9
23 M E Bower, ‘Foxton locks and barge lift’, Union:Journal of the Old Union Canals Society & FoxtonIncline Plane Trust, 1979, No 37, 7–8
24 M Beech, ‘Naseby notes’, Union: Journal of the OldUnion Canals Society & Foxton Incline Plane Trust,1985, No 69, 16
25 Royal Commission on Canals & Waterways, Fourthand Final Report: England & Wales and Scotland,Volume 7, 1910, Cd 4979, paragraph 142
26 Royal Commission on Canals & Inland Waterways,Evidence and Appendices, Volume 3, 1907, Cd 3718,minute 19, 687
27 A H Faulkner, The Grand Junction Canal, 1972, 19728 M E Bower, ‘Foxton locks and barge lift’, Union:
Journal of the Old Union Canals Society & FoxtonIncline Plane Trust, 1979, No 37, 7–8
29 D Blagrove, Waterways of Northamptonshire, 1990,49
46
Introduction
The Underground railways of London, unlike thosein other major cities anywhere else in the world, wereunique in that the first lines were built and to someextent conceived as a part of the national railwaysystem. Indeed the original ‘Underground’ line, theMetropolitan line from Paddington to Farringdon,had not only mixed gauge track but a loading gaugewide enough to take Great Western locomotives androlling stock, and was worked originally with thelatter railway’s material. It was also connected almostimmediately to the Great Northern Railway at KingsCross, and after extension beyond Farringdon to theCity, to the Great Eastern Railway at Liverpool Street.Subsequent extensions to the system included manylinkages to suburban lines of the main line railwaycompanies operating in and around London.
Recent moves (during the time Railtrack wasconsidering bidding for the Underground’s Sub-Surface Infraco) to establish further links were foundto be impracticable not so much by incompatibilitiesin signalling, loading gauge and electrificationsystems, as by lack of capacity for introducing furtherservices to existing Underground lines withoutcutting back the existing services using the lines,which would have been unacceptable.
Without going back in detail to the nineteenthcentury, the paragraphs which follow describe thelinks and interworkings which have existed betweenthe Underground and the national railway systemfrom the thirties until the present day. This coversthe period during which they rose to a peak as a resultof the implementation of the 1935/40 New WorksProgramme.
This programme, developed by the then ‘National’government in collaboration with the four major mainline railway companies (popularly known as ‘TheBig Four’) and the then recently created LondonPassenger Transport Board (LPTB), was intendedto effect much needed improvements in London’spublic transport which the privately owned transportoperators would have had difficulty in financing.Thus although the required capital was raised by the
undertakings themselves, the cost and the ability todo so were helped by the provision of governmentguarantees. The developments were also designedto help in reducing unemployment, still very highfollowing the 1929 stock market crash and thesubsequent world-wide depression.
The rather later reduction in interworking and thenumber of links between the systems resulted initiallyfrom the gradual abandonment of local goods trafficin favour of concentration on bulk flows betweenstrategic centres. This was later accelerated bymanagements wishing to simplify operations andeliminate conflicting requirements and under-usedfacilities, especially where this could lead to staffsavings.
The mid-thirties situation
By the mid-thirties, immediately before the start ofthe 1935/40 New Works Programme, no fewer than27 links of various types existed between linesoperated and owned by the London PassengerTransport Board, and those of the four main-linerailway companies and their various jointcommittees.
These links were of three categories:
A. links carrying regular passenger and also in somecases goods traffic;
B. links which carried regular or intermittent goodstraffic only; and
C. links which existed only for the transfer of stockbetween administrations, or for the railways’ ownother requirements. This category also includesconnections which had fallen into disuse, butwhich were maintained in a semi-reusablecondition. An example of this sort is theconnection, maintained but unused for manyyears, between the District and London Midland& Scottish Railway (LMS) lines just north ofeach company’s South Acton station.
The London Undergroundand the National Railways
By Gordon Hafter
47
Western London
In the mid-thirties, after the work for the extensionof the Piccadilly Line westwards from Hammersmithhad led to the elimination of Studland Road Junctionand the spur which joined the Southern Railway (laterleased to the LPTB) tracks to the Hammersmith &City Railway (H&CR) and West London Railway(WLR) via Hammersmith Grove Road station, theconnections in West London in the three categorieswere as follows:• At Turnham Green between the District Line and
the Southern Railway line to Richmond [categoryA], and between the District Line and the North &South Western Junction line via Acton Lane andBollo Lane Junctions [B]. The former was usedby District trains to Richmond, the latter by LMShauled goods trains to and from High StKensington and West Kensington goods depots.
• Just west of West Kensington station from theDistrict Line to West Kensington Goods Depot [B]and at High Street Kensington from the DistrictLine to High Street Kensington Goods Depot [B].
• At Putney Bridge between the District Line andthe Southern Railway line via East Putney toWimbledon. Between the latter station and EastPutney, the line was used both by District Line andSouthern Railway passenger services (whichcontinued to Waterloo via Point Pleasant Junctionand Wandsworth Town) and by Southern Railwayempty stock movements between Waterloo /Clapham Junction and the Wimbledon Parkentrance to Wimbledon Depot. [A]
• South of Kensington – Addison Road (nowKensington – Olympia) Station from the DistrictLine both from West Kensington Junction [A], andfrom Lillie Bridge Depot [B], to the West LondonExtension Railway. This carried passengerservices (operated by LMS electric stock) fromEarls Court to Willesden Junction via Kensington– Addison Road, and ‘trip’ or pick-up goods trainsbetween Lillie Bridge Depot (LPTB) and WarwickRoad Sidings (Great Western Railway) off theWLR. Much of the Underground’s new rollingstock was delivered to the system over thisconnection also.
• West of Latimer Road (H&CR) to the West LondonRailway [A]. This carried H&CR trains, formedof ‘Great Western and Metropolitan Joint Stock’,running between Kensington – Addison Road andWhitechapel / New Cross / New Cross Gate via St
Mary’s Curve, though the actual service patternprobably altered from time to time.
• At Royal Oak, where the H&C line joined the mainGreat Western Railway (GWR) relief (slow) linesand used these lines jointly with GWR suburbantrains into Paddington – Suburban, originallyknown as Paddington (Bishops Road ) Station. [A]
• At Paddington – Suburban / Praed Street Junctionwith the Circle Line. [A] This carried H&CR trainsto and from the north side of the Circle Line, GreatWestern peak hour suburban trains from Sloughto Liverpool Street (hauled by MetropolitanRailway electric locos between Paddington–Suburban and Liverpool Street), and regularevening fresh meat trains from the Great Westernto Smithfield Depot (between Farringdon andBarbican). These were steam hauled by GWRpannier tanks over the Circle Line, though latterlyin the 1960s haulage was by class ‘08’ 0-6-0diesels.
• At Wood Lane between the Central Line and theEaling & Shepherd’s Bush Railway [A], for thethrough Ealing Broadway to Liverpool Streettrains, and between Wood Lane Depot and the WestLondon Railway [C], the latter originally for stocktransfers and engineers’ trains. The Ealing &Shepherd’s Bush Railway also had industrial sidingconnections to premises on the south side ofWestern Avenue Park Royal Estate, and at EalingBroadway with the relief lines of the GWR mainline, but these were not strictly links between theUnderground and the GWR in view of the GWR’sownership of the Ealing & Shepherds BushRailway. The latter was officially transferred toLondon Transport on 1 January 1948.1
North-western London
There were numerous connections in north-westLondon:• A connection between the Bakerloo Line and the
LMS at Queens Park [A], by which Bakerloo trainswere extended over the electrified ‘New Line’paralleling the West Coast main line to WatfordJunction.
• A connection between the Croxley Green LMSelectrified branch from Bushey / Watford HighStreet and Croxley Depot, which housed andmaintained a number of Bakerloo trains.
• A connection between the Metropolitan Line and
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Finchley Road Goods Depot/Sidings of the LMS(Midland) located between the Midland main lineat Finchley Road and the Metropolitan Linebetween Finchley Road and West Hampstead [C].Although shown as category C because it was usedonly for the exchange of traffic, that is, the transferof goods wagons from the Metropolitan to the LMSand vice-versa, it was in regular use; goodsconsigned from Metropolitan goods depots on theUxbridge branch, for example, to destinationsserved from the Midland main line were routedthrough this connection.
• At Harrow-on-the-Hill South Junction between theMetropolitan Line and the London & North EasternRailway (LNER) (Great Central) leased line toMarylebone. [A] This carried all the main lineand suburban trains from Marylebone to Chesham,Aylesbury and beyond. From Harrow-on-the-HillStation onwards, the Metropolitan Line becamethe ‘Metropolitan & Great Central Joint CommitteeLines’, although the Watford (Metropolitan)branch was actually a Metropolitan Railway andLNER joint line, having been built after theabsorption of the Great Central into the LNER.
• At Aylesbury between the Metropolitan & GreatCentral main line and the GWR branch fromPrinces Risborough [A]. This carried the GWRsuburban train service between Aylesbury andLondon – Paddington.
• At Quainton Road, between the Metropolitan &Great Central and the LNER (Great Central) mainline to the north. [A]
The service between Quainton Road and VerneyJunction having already been abandoned, as also theBrill branch, these connections are not listed for the1930s generally.
Northern and north-eastern London
In the mid thirties, there was only one link betweenthe Underground and the main lines:
• A category C connection between the GreatNorthern & City Line at Drayton Park to HighburyVale Sidings (LNER) for stock transfer only.
Eastern London
There were a number of connections in easternLondon. These concerned the District Line, althoughthe Whitechapel & Bow Railway was built originallyas a joint District and London, Tilbury & Southend
Railway (LT&SR) enterprise, and were:
• A connection between the District Line and theLMS (LT&SR) at Campbell Road Junction bywhich the District trains were projected over theelectrified ‘slow’ lines of the LT&SR [A]. Theyshared the use of these tracks with steam-hauledslow trains, initially to Barking, and after laterelectrification to Upminster. These tracks werealso used by the electric-hauled ‘Southend ThroughTrains’ from Ealing Broadway to Southend whichwere formed of LMSR stock but hauled by pairsof District electric locomotives between EalingBroadway and Barking where a change over toLMS steam haulage took place.
• A connection [C] between these same lines and‘Little Ilford’ Sidings/Depot, which stabled andcarried out light maintenance on District stock.
• St Mary’s Curve between the District Line just westof Whitechapel and the East London Railway,which was run by a joint committee of the LNER,Southern Railway and Metropolitan Railway (thelatter becoming part of the LPTB in 1933). [A]This carried a through service from Hammersmith(H&CR) and from Kensington Addison Road viaLatimer Road and the north side of the Circle toNew Cross and New Cross Gate. [See earlier —Western London: Latimer Road.] Followingnationalisation, the situation changed here, becausethe East London Railway became part of theUnderground, and its connections with theSouthern Railway (South Eastern Section) at NewCross and with the Southern Railway (CentralSection) at New Cross Gate became new categoryB connections, as did the connection at the northend of the East London Line with the LNER (GreatEastern) at Shoreditch. The St Mary’s Curvecategory A connection then became an ordinaryinternal connection within the Underground.
South London
There were, from the mid-1930s, no connectionsbetween the Underground and the main line railwaysin south London, until the East London Line becamepart of the Underground. [See previous paragraph.]
Central London
There were five connections in Central Londonbetween the Underground and the main line railways,all of them with the Metropolitan Widened Lines
49
(which were not electrified at that time).• A connection with the LMS (Midland) line
between St Pancras and Kentish Town [A] andKing’s Cross (Metropolitan) by which LMSsuburban trains reached Moorgate, steam-hauledthroughout.
• A pair of single line connections between KingsCross (York Road) (up), but King’s CrossSuburban (down), and King’s Cross (Metropolitan)Stations [A] which carried the Great Northernsuburban trains to and from Moorgate.Outside the hours during which passenger trains
operated, both these sets of connections also carried(on the so-called ‘Widened Lines’) a fairly intensiveservice of LNER and LMS goods trains to theSouthern Railway, mostly bound for Hither Greenmarshalling yard, and to the LNER goods depot justwest of Farringdon station. There was also a servicefrom the GWR, but on the Circle Lines proper as faras Farringdon (where the trains were crossed over tothe Widened Lines) to Smithfield meat depot.
• Connections from the Widened Lines to the abovetwo depots, and to the Southern Railway at LudgateHill / Blackfriars, via Snow Hill, all category B.
The 1935/40 New Works Programme
At the start of this programme, some ten years afterthe ‘grouping’ which established the ‘Big Four’ mainline railways, the Underground was, apart from theMorden extension of the City & South London andthe Bakerloo line to Elephant & Castle, a purelynorth-of-the-Thames undertaking. The District didreach Richmond and Wimbledon south of the river,but over the lines of the Southern Railway, while theMetropolitan also reached New Cross and New CrossGate, but over the lines of the East London RailwayJoint Committee.
The main line suburban services north of theThames were fragmented between three companies,the LMS, the LNER (which had far the largest part)and the GWR, and none of these companies sawthemselves economically, still less profitably, ableto electrify their suburban lines, apart from the LMS‘New Line’ and the North London Line, which werealready electrified.
The Southern Railway, on the other hand, wasformed from companies which already had stronginterconnectional working arrangements, andfollowing amalgamation into the Southern Railwayunder the charismatic and powerful character of Sir
Herbert Walker, embarked on the systematicintegration (with a few notable exceptions) andelectrification of its services. The need forUnderground services south of the river was thereforemuch less pressing, as the Southern Electric per-formed much the same function, albeit at lowerpassenger train frequencies, offset by many morethrough services and the advantages of parcels andluggage handling available at almost all stations.
The government’s attention was thereforeconcentrated on improving suburban services northof the river, and consisted of two main and differingprojects. One was the electrification (at 1500V DCoverhead, as advocated by the Weir report) of theintensively worked Great Eastern main line suburbanservice to Shenfield. This was subsequently extendedto electrification of the Enfield Town and Chingfordbranches, though only after conversion to AC tractionin 1960.
The other was the ‘partnering’ of the main linessuburban infrastructure with the expertise of theUnderground in organising and operating intensivepassenger services, by electrifying and turning overa number of LNER and GWR suburban services toUnderground operation, while leaving the provisionof goods, parcels, luggage in advance and excursionservices, as well as the operation of stations servedby both organisations’ trains, to the main linecompanies who owned the infrastructure.
Thus it was that it was intended to join the GreatNorthern & City Line at Drayton Park to the LNERline from Canonbury to Finsbury Park, and thenceto electrify the LNER lines to Alexandra Palace, EastFinchley, High Barnet and Edgware via Highgate andPark Junction. To implement all these new services,the LPTB ordered the 1938 Tube stock, some ofwhich was owned and paid for by the LNER.
At the same time, the existing ‘Highgate’ (nowArchway) branch of the Northern Line (then calledthe Edgware, Highgate and Morden Line) was to beextended via a new station below the existing LNERstation at Highgate, to a junction with the LNER HighBarnet branch just south-east of East Finchley station.The Mill Hill and Edgware branch was also to bedoubled as well as electrified, and a new junctionput in at Edgware where the LNER and Undergroundcrossed each other. Edgware LNER passengerstation would be closed, but the goods yard retained,and the passenger services diverted into EdgwareUnderground and extended to Bushey Heath.
In the event, the war intervened, and post-war
50
stringencies prevented the electrification of thesection from Finsbury Park to Park Junction andAlexandra Palace, as also the Bushey Heathextension and the Edgware doubling. The linebetween East Finchley and Park Junction waselectrified, but only for the purpose of enabling tubetrains to reach Highgate Depot and also HighgateWood Sidings alongside the Alexandra Palacebranch, this branch being later abandonedcompletely. The Finchley Central to Edgware branchwas also not electrified throughout, but only as faras Mill Hill East, after which it continued as a goods-only single line to Edgware; Mill Hill (The Hale)and Edgware (LNER passenger) stations were closed.
It was also intended to incorporate the GreatNorthern & City (GN&C) Line into the NorthernLine of the Underground. The GN&C was ownedafter 1913 by the Metropolitan though the whole ofthe actual station at Finsbury Park (serving theGN&C, Piccadilly and the LNER itself) was ownedby the LNER. This intention was carried through, inspite of the abandonment of the Alexandra Palaceelectrification, the (tube) rolling stock receivingheavy maintenance at Golders Green, but light dayto day maintenance at Drayton Park Depot.
Transfer of the stock from the re-named ‘NorthernCity Line’ to and from Golders Green was effectedby steam haulage of the units from Drayton Park viaHighbury Vale and Finsbury Park to Highgate Depotvia Park Junction. The locomotive and match wagonscould there be released and returned to the LNER,while the tube trains proceeded under their ownpower via East Finchley (reverse) and Euston (City)(reverse) to Golders Green for attention.
Occasional Sunday excursion trains formed ofBritish Railways (BR) mainline stock with steamhaulage also used the East Finchley – Highgate –Finsbury Park route, plus regular goods traffic andcoal for Mill Hill gas works.
Thus while the Drayton Park connection with themain line already existed in the mid-thirties, two new‘main line links’ were created, at East Finchley[category A, later B, and still later the boundary wasat Park Junction], and at Edgware itself, where thejunction between the LNER and Underground lineswas put in [C] although never used for passengertraffic, but only for stabling empty stock.
Following the withdrawal of the BR goods servicesto High Barnet and Edgware, and the final closureof Mill Hill gas works, services which were allworked over the Finsbury Park to East Finchley BR
branch and thence over the Northern Line, theFinsbury Park to Park Junction line was singled, andthere being no further call for the use of BR motivepower, the Northern City stock was transferredbetween Drayton Park and Highgate Depot byhaulage with London Transport (LT) batterylocomotives. The Park Junction connection thusbecame category C.
Finally, partial collapse of the road overbridge atCrouch End closed station caused the Highgatebranch of BR to be closed completely, and theNorthern City stock was then provided fromNeasden, with battery locomotive haulage viaFarringdon (Widened lines – reverse), King’s Cross(BR) and Finsbury Park (reverse).
The intended Category A connection at DraytonPark was never achieved in Underground days, butwas fully activated after the Northern City Line washanded over to BR in connection with the GreatNorthern Suburban electrification project of theEastern Region of BR, though it ceased of course tobe a connection between the Underground and thenational railways.
The period from 1940 to 1965 therefore saw theestablishment of three new Underground – main linelinks on the Northern Line alone, but also theirsubsequent abandonment for various reasons.
The other principal 1935/40 New Worksprogramme projects affecting the Underground werethe Central Line eastern and western extensions.These involved partly new construction (four-tracking the GWR/GCR joint line to Ruislip leavingtwo tracks for the exclusive use of Central Line trains,and new tube tunnel construction from LiverpoolStreet to Leyton and from Leytonstone to NewburyPark) with electrification of the existing Leyton–Ongar and existing Hainault loop lines, the latter onlyfrom Newbury Park to Woodford.
Two new Underground – main line connectionswere created by this project at the east end of theCentral line, and one was broken and one created atthe western end.
At the east end, a double track junction was createdat Leyton where the new Central Line tracks fromStratford joined the existing LNER line fromStratford (Loughton Branch Junction) to Ongar. Thisstarted as category A, but was demoted to B oncethe electrification to Ongar was complete, althoughfor many years thereafter the first passenger train inthe morning from Epping and Loughton was toLiverpool Street BR via Loughton Branch Junction
51
and worked by a DMU, as was the last journey outat night.
A category B connection was created at NewburyPark where the new tube line from Leytonstone viaGants Hill joined the eastern side of the existingLNER Hainault loop line. The LNER line southwardsfrom Newbury Park was singled, being required onlyfor the daily pick-up goods and occasional excursionor special train traffic, and the triangular junctionswith the Great Eastern main line at Goodmayes andSeven Kings reduced to a single west-facing junctionat Goodmayes.
From the Epping section, excursion traffic onSundays continued to be worked by BR (EasternRegion) locomotive-hauled stock, both to the eastcoast (via Stratford) and to the south coast viaLiverpool Street (reverse on to the East London Lineat Shoreditch) for many years until the abandonmentof local goods yards on the Epping branch calledinto question both the connection at Newbury Parkand the cost of maintaining Leyton Junction, and bothwere removed.
A temporary category C junction was alsoestablished during the construction of the VictoriaLine at Northumberland Park, for bringing inmaterials.
Later Developments
Following the general abandonment of local goodstrain services and depots in the London area, manyof the B and C category links fell into disuse, and asrecorded in the case of the Northern and Central linesabove, were removed. Unfortunately, this provokeda general inclination not to be bothered with thecomplications of dual or even through working.
Thus came about the segregation of the LT linesto Upminster from those of BR, although dualelectrification would have been quite feasible, asinstanced by the overlapping sections of 750V DCand 25kV AC at various points on the NationalRailways network, for example, at Euston main line,where two of the tracks up Camden Bank areelectrified on both systems. There are also all thoseplaces such as Acton Central, Farringdon, DollandsMoor, and the West London section north of the A40overbridge, where both systems exist on the sametracks for changeover purposes. Somewhat similarconsiderations exist where the use of the fourth railbonded to the running rails, to enable Undergroundtrains to run over what are basically 750V DC third
rail systems, provide few problems. These exist onthe Harrow & Wealdstone, Richmond and Wimble-don lines.
Segregation, rather than the provision of the usualcurrent rail gap section, was also resorted to atKensington Olympia when the West London line waselectrified at 750V DC by BR for the empty Eurostarand Channel Tunnel freights, it being felt that theRuislip Depot connection with the Chiltern line wassufficient for bringing in rail and ballast, and theconnection from Lillie Bridge Yard to the WLR linewas really no longer needed.
The Olympia service is now (2001) provided byDistrict trains and therefore access from the LondonUnderground Olympia branch to the through platformroads, as was required when the LMS Willesden –Earls Court service served Olympia, is no longerneeded. And while the line to Willesden High Levelhas now been re-electrified, it is a mixed 750V DCand 25kV AC overhead line electrification, and theservice is provided by dual voltage class 313 stockrunning from Clapham Junction to Willesden as wellas by Connex class 319 units running from Gatwickto Rugby, the latter via Willesden Low Level, andnot calling at Willesden where the low level stationwas closed during the fifties, though it may now bere-established.
This Olympia link is the last one to be abandonedduring the recent phase of reducing main line links,and no further reductions appear to be envisaged.
Many of the current misunderstandings concerningthe incompatibility of the LT and the national railwaysloading gauges, electrification and signallingrequirements have centred on proposals to use thenorth side of the Circle as a cheap substitute forCross-Rail. It must not be forgotten that only a fewyears ago a Sunday excursion comprising a GatwickExpress rake of Mark II coaches sandwiched betweenbattery locos ran from Wimbledon to Barking viaVictoria and back from Barking to Richmond viaHigh Street Kensington, and thence after crossingover to the Windsor lines at Richmond, back toWimbledon via Strawberry Hill and Kingston, stillin charge of the LUL battery locos.
The overwhelming reasons for rejecting such aCross-Rail substitute are in fact platform lengths andeven more so, the inability of the Circle Line to handlethe extra trains without fatally damaging the existingCircle, H&C, Wimbledon – Edgware Road andMetropolitan Main City services, rather thantechnical incompatibilities.
52
Notes and references
This is a revised and corrected version of an article whichoriginally appeared in the February 2000 issue of‘Underground News’, the journal of the LondonUnderground Railway Society. The Editor is pleased toacknowledge the agreement of the Editor of thatpublication to its reproduction here.
The author held various engineering and operating postson the Underground system from 1946 before retiring asDirector of Mechanical Engineering in 1985. The sourcesare largely the author’s personal experience and papers.
1. T C Barker and M Robbins, A History of LondonTransport, Volume 2, The Twentieth Century to 1970,1974, 341.
From the RCHS Photographic Collection No 16
Print JGS 242
This photograph from the Jeffrey Spence collection has nothing to indicate the location or date. If you canidentify where it is or provide any other information about it, please contact Stephen Duffell, Hillcroft, Ford,Shrewsbury, SY5 9LZ, or telephone 01743-851154 (weekends) or 01625-514828 (office hours), or e-mailduffell@connecta net.
Nobody has yet identified the photographs reproduced in the July and November 2001 Journals.
53
Navigation on the River Severn from the15th to the 19th centuries
John Marshall raises interesting questions [RCHSJournal, November 2001, pages 639–640] as tohow boats navigated rivers such as the Severnwhere the current was faster than a tow horsecould walk. Dr Roger Pilkington in Slow Boatthrough Germany (Macmillan, 1963) describeshow unpowered barges travelled down the Weser,there still being a few such vessels at that time.The average gradient of the Weser is 40 cm per kmand there is only one lock above Minden. Thegradient of the Severn from Bewdley to Worcesterwas very similar before the weirs and locks werebuilt and the same method of navigation mightwell have been used.
If the bed of a river is sloping, the force ofgravity causes the water to move downstream. MrMarshall points out that the water towards theedges is retarded by friction with the banks andthat the current is swiftest in midstream. However,a vessel in mid-stream is even less retarded. If oneconsiders such a vessel which is stationary withrespect to the water, it will be drawn forward downthe slope by gravity. Initially the only retardingforce will be the slight air resistance, the vessel, ofcourse, being moving relative to the land; unlikefriction between two solid objects, a liquid willproduce a retarding force on a floating object onlyif if the object is moving through the water. Thevessel will thus accelerate until the gravitationalforce forward is equal to the viscous drag of the,
by now, slower moving water. On the Weser adeep laden unpowered barge might travel at up totwo knots faster than the water, and Dr Pilkingtonstated that he saw such barges with a small butclearly visible wash.
It is probable that trows on the Severn werestarted by poling as was done with the barges onthe Weser. It is just possible that sweeps or oarswere used as with lighters on the Thames tideway.It is well known that poling or quanting wasextensively used by Norfolk wherries when windand tide failed. The extent to which trows usedsails when in the river as distinct from the estuaryis another unanswered question. The current couldbe used to help negotiate bends. The stream isfastest around the outside of a bend; if a vessel issteered towards the inside of the bend, the bow isin the relatively slower and the stern is in the fasterwater. This, of course, helps to turn the vessel inthe desired direction. One notices this effect evenwhen taking a powered narrowboat down awinding river.
Procedure at Newbury bridge on the RiverKennet probably throws light on the method ofgoing upstream through a bridge with no towpath.Here there was not only no towpath under thebridge but also some way each side as there werebuildings right up to the water’s edge. A notice,now preserved, reads:
The Captain of every Vessel allowing Horses toHaul across the Street will be fined.
This suggests that the normal method of passingsuch a bridge would be for the horse to continuepast the bridge for perhaps half the length of thetow rope. The vessel would then be moored oranchored as appropriate for the particular site.The rope would be detached from the vessel andits end tied to a float and let down through thebridge to be reattached to the vessel which couldthen proceed. At Newbury a specially long ropeand a float, which still exists, were kept at the lockabove the bridge. Normally the ordinary tow rope,as used on a river, would suffice for thismanoeuvre but doubtless a trow would havecarried a spare rope which could have been tied tothe normal one if such a length were needed.
Navigating the Severn, or any other free-flowingriver, would have required great skill. Everyvoyage would have been different owing to the
Correspondence
A History of North Eastern RailwayArchitecture
The Journal’s Gremlin struck at my review of theabove book in the November 2001 issue. Thepenultimate sentences should have read: ‘Indeed,the whole book is largely a one-man production.How many authors possess the ability to actuallydesign their book as well, with skill and care whichmore than one commercial publisher could wellemulate?’
Gordon Biddle
54
varying water levels and winds. Each flood wouldhave altered the positions of shoals. While thebasic principles might have been written down in apage or two, this would hardly have helped theboatman even if he had been able to read. Thenecessary skills could have been learned only byyears of working with a master who knew the riverin all conditions. While navigation to and fromShrewsbury and, even more so, Welshpool, wouldhave been possible on only a limited number ofdays a year, it is likely that below Bewdley, wherethe river is larger, navigation would have beenfairly reliable. There would have been droughtsand floods, but less frequently than nowadays withthe rapid run off owing to modern farmingmethods and especially built-up areas such asTelford.
Stuart Chrystall
I read John Marshall’s letter with great interest.He is absolutely right. Simply going downstreamwith the current would give no steerage.
The late Fred Rowbotham, Secretary of theSevern River Board for many years, told me whenI was researching my book on the StroudwaterCanal, that boatmen used trailing weights behindboats to help them control the downward journey.I regret I have no information (or inspiration!) asto how trows went upstream through bridgeswithout towpaths.
Michael Handford
The discrepancy rebutted: George Dowvindicated?
Brian Lamb in his article in the July 2001 issueargues that George Dow mistook both the date ofappointment of James Meadows as Secretary ofthe Sheffield, Ashton under Lyne & ManchesterRailway (SAMR) and of his resignation as GeneralManager. While Dow’s work can be criticised onsome grounds, I was surprised to read that hischronology appears to have been inaccurate.
It seems to me that the order of events was thatfollowing an approach by the Manchester &Buxton Railway in September 1845, the PeakForest Canal (PFC) committee to the former’sannoyance agreed to accept the SAMR’s offer on2 October 1845.1 This was reported to the SAMR
board on 15 October and at a special generalmeeting of the railway on 3 December theagreement was given approval subject to that ofParliament. This was not obtained until July 1846though the Bill was presented to the Commons asearly as 4 February by John Parker, MP forSheffield and Chairman of the SAMR, andEdmund Buckley, MP for Newcastle under Lymewho had chaired the PFC Committee on 2October.2 Nevertheless on 23 December 1845 theSAMR board appointed Meadows, as Dow stated,Clerk & Secretary from 1 January 1846 andPlatford, Secretary until then, was made TrafficManager. Meadows was present at that andsubsequent board meetings and so was fullyinvolved in railway as well as canal matters. Theduties were perhaps not well demarcated or clearlyexplained because on 4 March it was thoughtdesirable to define them and make them clear tothe parties affected. Meadows was to be called theSecretary and he was to be responsible for thegeneral superintendence and control of the wholeof the Company’s affairs, property and officers.Platford’s job was split; he was now to be theGoods Manager and have the immediatemanagement of that department. Gretton wasappointed Superintendent with responsibility forpassengers, stations and operational staff. Bothreported to Meadows. The SAMR committeeestablished on 21 September 1846 was to espousea more direct management of the Peak Forest andMacclesfield Canals and Meadows attended thefirst meeting that day. On 18 November itresolved that Meadows be allowed in respect ofthe management of the canals £400 beyond hissalary of £800 for the railways, though this doesnot seem to have received the ratification of theboard which was presumably necessary.3
The Manchester Sheffield & LincolnshireRailway came into existence on 1 January 1847 asa result of an amalgamation including the SAMR.It was therefore necessary to appoint officers andon 6 January the Earl of Yarborough wasappointed Chairman and Meadows Secretary, withColonel Humfrey, the Secretary of three otherconstituents of the amalgamated company,Assistant Secretary. In 1848 Yarborough wantedto reduce the size of the Board and to appoint ageneral manager with a seat on the Board. Theformer was agreed on 29 May, though only tookeffect in 1849, but it was only on 1 November thatthe Directors discussed and agreed to definitions
55
of the functions of the principal officers includingMeadows as General Manager and Humfrey nowSecretary, that is, head of the office department.Perhaps in anticipation of this Meadows hadformed an officers’ committee, which first met on18 November. He signed the minutes of theofficers’ meeting on 4 December, but that was thelast set in the minute book.
Certainly Dow was not aware that Meadowsbecame the manager of the Rochdale Canal thoughthat was recorded later in the standard history ofBritish canals.4 The information in Lamb’s articleabout his application for the post is however newand welcome. But Dow does not actually say thatMeadows resigned on 21 December 1849. Hemerely says ‘21 December’. In the context thedate is not completely without ambiguity but in thesame sentence Dow goes on to say that the generalmanagership was unoccupied for a year whichsince Allport took up post on 1 January 1850 mustmean that Dow intended December 1848.Moreover in Appendix V Dow lists Meadows’term as General Manager as beginning and endingin 1848.5
I conclude that Meadows was working for therailway from 1 January 1846, though it wasalready in virtual control of the canals. One canmake some interesting speculations about thisstage of his career, but I do not think there is anyhard evidence. Was he given the job with theSAMR in part for making sure that the PFC didnot fall into the hands of the Manchester &Buxton, dominated by people from the Manchester& Birmingham Railway? We do not know howbusy he was as agent for the PFC and also theAshton and certainly we cannot say he was fullyemployed in the affairs of the canals in 1846, asBrian Lamb asserts. He would not be the first orlast official of a company that was being takenover who was anxious to serve his new employersand prepared to put himself about. Railways werewhere the excitement lay in 1845–6. We can onlyspeculate why he left the SAMR. Was hedisappointed at not getting the extra £400 or theseat on the Board which had been held out in May1848, but which neither he nor his successorsattained? Or did the Board think that while he wasof secretarial calibre he was not a general managerof an undertaking which was primarily a railwaycompany and asked him to resign? If so they actedvery quickly when the Rochdale vacancy came up.Or is Brian Lamb right and Meadows decided a
canal life was preferable? These questions areprobably unanswerable, but it seems worth raisingsome alternative hypotheses to the one putforward.
David (D J) Hodgkins
1. D J Hodgkins, ‘The Peak Forest Canal — Lime andLimestone, 1794–1846, Derbyshire ArchaeologicalJournal, 1987, 88
2. PRO, RAIL 610/6; House of Commons Journals,101–2, 1846, 47
3. RAIL 610/6 and 610/224. C Hadfield & G Biddle, The Canals of North West
England, 1970, 2, 4305. G Dow, Great Central, 1, 1959, 121 and 281
56
Book Reviews
Early Limestone Railways — John van Laun252pp, 21 maps, 117 drawings, 43 photographs, hardback, 250 x 195mm, The Newcomen Society, London, 2001,ISBN 0 904685 09 8, £27.50 + £4.85 p&p
Here is a detailed record of the history and technologyof the railways which, from c1785 onwards, broughtlimestone from the quarries to the blast furnaces atthe heads of the Welsh valleys, which were then themajor part of our iron industry. The task includedexamining the historically vital transition fromwooden rails to iron rails, and a good case is madefor all-iron edge rails being first used in this region.This is followed by a close investigation of thedevelopment, line by line, of flanged iron rails (platerails or tram plates) which, although now and forlong regarded as an aberrant form of the railway,became so widely used, particularly in south Wales,that the choice between edge and plate rails was finelybalanced in the national view.
Comparison with Rattenbury’s book on theBrecknock & Abergavenny Canal tramroads isinevitable, because several railways are common toboth, but the approach is quite different. His book isabout railways which joined the canal and is basedon documentary evidence supported by fieldwork.This book deals with the lines which broughtlimestone to the furnaces. The documentary sourcesunderpin a fund of archaeological evidenceenhancing the knowledge of the tracks themselves.
The maps alone could attract some adversecomment. They are well drawn, relevant and carrynumbered National Grid km squares (a very usefuldevice) but they frequently depict the railways asmere filaments, too thin to be readily followed, andwith names too small to read without a glass. Thisstricture does not detract from an understanding ofthe numerous finds of track items, the main meansto which are the drawings of Michael Blackmore who
has rendered dozens of rails, plates, chairs and sillsinto well-nigh perfect images. The only flaw appearsto be in fig 3, where a flat iron plate of 1767 forprotecting wooden rails at Coalbrookdale has threenail-holes in the way of the wheel-path, and not asthe text says, ‘through projecting lugs’; but in fig 16a waggon dated 1796 is standing on iron plates whichare identical except that the holes are in the lugs, amuch more likely location.
There is much information on associated topics,such as the iron industry, the working of the quarries,other transport modes, the civil engineering involved,the use of locomotives and the question of tramroadgauge measurement. The notes/references,bibliography and index are all full and to highstandards, and the appendices include lists of railwaymaterial cast at Ebbw Vale and Plymouth furnacesin the late 18th century and of finds with theirlocations and many other details. The book itself isworthy of its contents — not too heavy, a clear reader-friendly typeface, paper of the right gauge, weightand surface, well bound in maroon covers with alight-coloured illustrated jacket.
This volume is a superb cornerstone in the edificeof early railway history. Through its pages we cansee, not only the great labour and ingenuity of thosewho built these railways, but the unsparing labour ofthe author and those who helped him. The dedicationto the memory of Gordon Rattenbury, and the namingof a long line on the Llangattock escarpment as Bick’sTramroad, after the historian who recently discoveredit, are apt and eloquent embellishments to a finerecord. HARRY PAAR
The Diary of Charles Wood of Cyfarthfa Ironworks, Merthyr Tydfil 1766–1767 — edited byJoseph Gross with an introduction by Philip Riden238pp, 6 illustrations, hard cover, Merton Priory Press, 67 Merthyr Road, Whitchurch, Cardiff, CF14 1DD, 2001,ISBN 1 898937 48 6, £20
Making this diary freely available to the generalpublic is thanks to Philip Riden tracking down inAustralia the owner of the original manuscript. Thejealously guarded microfilm copies in British
libraries and record offices, previously accessible toonly a few privileged academics, are now legitimisedand the whole diary (including the 1750s memorandaand Wood’s 1754 tour of ironworks in the Midlands)
57
has been transcribed for this publication by Dr JosephGross.
From Apri1 1766, Charles Wood was residentagent at Cyfarthfa to Anthony Bacon and WilliamBrownrigg. He oversaw the building of the firstforges and blast furnace there and his diary offers afascinating insight into mid eighteenth century projectmanagement. Apart from its obvious importance toiron industry and engineering history, there is muchto reward the transport historian.
A great deal of the building work consisted of theseveral water courses from the River Taff and thereis discussion in the diary of the special properties ofhydraulic lime (Cardiff lime). Wood was fortunateto have the well respected William Edwards(architect and builder of the world famous arch atPontypridd) and his son David working for him. Suchwas their relationship that in June Wood releasedthem temporarily with no argument when they wonthe contract to build the bridges over Kymer’s Canalin Carmarthenshire.
An aspect of transport covered in the diary is thechoice of port to which they should plan to send theirfinished product. In September 1766 Wood’sfavourite was the well established coal port ofNewport, more convenient for London than wasCardiff which then dealt primarily with Bristol andso would necessitate costly transhipment of their ironat Bristol. The turnpikes were just being built so he
was also considering using Neath — packhorseacross the mountain and waggon from Pont NeddVechan to the river estuary.
The whole diary, even including the technicaltabulations, is a very readable account as one is sweptback to those pioneering times in the village ofMerthyr Tydfil, soon to become a much morestressful frontier town when Richard Crawshayarrived.
The book would have benefited from inclusion ofa glossary of terms. Another sad omission is any sortof visual interpretation from the diaries of how thesefirst ironworking structures at Cyfarthfa looked oreven where they appeared on the present topographyat Merthyr. It is surprising that Riden chose not toinclude as an illustration the background to the 1780spainting of Samuel Homfray at Cyfarthfa. This hasbeen reproduced in Peter Lord’s book IndustrialSociety (1998) and in Lawrence Ince’s The SouthWales Iron Industry (1993) and depicts Cyfarthfaironworks and forge in some detail. A map,indicating the locations of farms, coal pits and ironmines mentioned in the text, would also have beenuseful.
The publication of Charles Wood’s diaries is longoverdue and Joe Gross, Philip Riden and the ownersof the originals are to be congratulated. However,they do leave it to the reader to interpret the materialand this is a lost opportunity. STEPHEN ROWSON
Caradon & Looe: the Canal, Railways and Mines — Michael Messenger168pp, 222 illustrations, hard covers, Twelveheads Press, Chy Mengleth, Twelveheads, Truro, Cornwall TR4 8SN,2001, ISBN 0 906294 46, £26
This is a well produced book with many fineillustrations, good clear text and a good basicorganisation.
It sets out to cover the transport routes of the LooeValley and their links to the industry of Bodmin Moor.It carries out a challenging task well and manages tobalance the early period of canals wherecontemporary information is slight with the laterperiod of steam railways where much is known. Thisis not just a railway, canal or even mining book,though railway readers will find most to enjoy.
On the cover and in the text the book claims thestory ‘could only have happened in Victorian Britain’.This sets the author a further task, perhaps anunnecessary task. The humour of the chapter subheadings, for example, Chapter 4: ‘You have the
unenvied distinction of having the only railwayswhich can be beaten by one horse carts’, suggeststhat the author will break through to a new strengthin the story — but there the humour stops. There arestrong characters and strong story lines but, to anextent, the book falls between two stools.
The index is relatively weak and, for those seekingto pick out facts rather than read the narrative, thiswill be a handicap. For those who are interested inexploring the Caradon to Looe lines, the book willbe an invaluable read. The canal reappears in thetext as the line of rail and the canal is explored fromsea to moor. The last short chapter ‘The Future’ setsthe scene for a revival of interest in the industrialremains and the branch line. TONY CONDER
58
The Anatomy of Canals: the Early Years — Anthony Burton and Derek Pratt160pp, 143 photographs, 29 in colour, soft covers, Tempus Publishing Ltd, The Mill, Brimscombe Port, Stroud, GL5 2QG, 2001,ISBN 0 7524 2137 9, £15.99
Anthony Burton, author, and Derek Pratt,photographer, have combined their separate talentsand enthusiasms to produce a delightful meanderthrough the canal world of 1760 to 1790, or whatcurrently remains after later upgrading anddestruction. 1790 is chosen as the cut-off date forcanals qualifying as ‘early’. Canals begun after 1790are not covered so the use of cast iron is excluded,as are the deep cuttings and other improvements ofTelford and even Smeaton. In practice the canalscovered were all planned and promoted some timebefore 1790 and were followed by a prolongedeconomic pause, the result of the American war ofindependence. The next round of canal building doesindeed represent a different age of technology.
The early period has a strong claim as the mostfascinating and unprecedented surge of engineeringactivity and invention in the UK. But the authorwarns against complacency by appropriately placing,before the coverage of the Bridgewater Canal, a shortaccount of the Canal du Midi. This was close on acentury old when the Duke himself was inspired toconsider a more modest version to serve his coalmines at Worsley. The experiment was a brilliantsuccess. It propelled James Brindley into the historybooks when the Bridgewater was followed by a series
of projects which spanned the country. Theseincluded the Trent & Mersey, the Staffordshire &Worcestershire, the original section of the Oxford,the Birmingham and a dozen others. Perhaps the mostoutstanding early feat of civil engineering was theLeeds & Liverpool Canal (even though its construc-tion extended to 1816).
The text introduces us to the highlights of eachwaterway, explaining how the extant structures relateto the original design. This includes many charmingexamples of contour canals, complete with theirbridges and other structures, which have subsequentlybeen adapted or abandoned by straightening orrationalisation. But for those not familiar with everydetail of these great works, it will be a pleasure todiscover how much is left, and even better, how muchis now being restored. As the author points out, it isnecessary to keep regularly up to date.
The story is handsomely supported by photographswhich would merit a volume in their own right andwhich remind us that these works represent a seriousgenre of Georgian architecture. The quality ofreproduction leaves a little to be desired, particularlyin the colour plates. But for a modestly pricedvolume, the contents represent excellent value.
JOHN UFF
Burntisland: Fife’s Railway Port — Peter Marshall192pp, 109 illustrations, 29 maps and diagrams, paper covers, Oakwood Press, 2001, ISBN 0 85361 578 0, £12.95
To many transport historians, the name Burntislandmeans the world’s first train ferry, although the authorseems to prefer roll on roll off, which really onlyrelates to road vehicle ferries. The invention ofThomas Bouch, builder of the first Tay Bridge, his‘floating railway’ plied across the Forth from Grantonfor forty years until the opening of the Forth Bridgein 1890. Illustrations and diagrams of the ferryequipment and its vessels make a particularlyvaluable contribution to the book, which begins withthe early history of Burntisland and goes on to detailrelationships, often acrimonious, with the railwayswhich built docks and eventually became part of theNorth British Railway. The company played aleading part in a local economy largely dependent
on coal and shipbuilding. Readers may be surprisedto learn that the Burntisland yard built its last ship asrecently as 1968.
This very detailed history also gives extensivetreatment to the area’s industrial railways.Appendices cover early locomotives, tables of coalshipments from Burntisland and its principal rival,Methil, ferry revenues 1835–8, mineral wagons,including drawings, details of ferry vessels, and auseful chronology. Many of the illustrations andmaps are of considerable historical value in their ownright. The local and national research that has goneinto the work is highly commendable, but unfortu-nately it is devalued by not troubling to prepare morethan a very paltry index. GORDON BIDDLE
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Sir William Stanier — J E Chacksfield168pp, A5, 132 photographs, 7 plans and diagrams, soft covers, Oakwood Press, 2001, ISBN 0 85361 576 4, £11.95
This is a biography from which the whole manemerges. We are given sufficient details of his familylife to see him as child, father, uncle and grandfather,while the professional aspects of his career arecovered fully. We can follow his rise on the GWRfrom pupil to assistant chief mechanical engineer andhis appointment in 1932 as CME of the LMS wherehe had to sort out a gigantic muddle. He was a manof few words and plenty of action and a skilleddelegator. Although a strict disciplinarian in hisprofessional life, his affability towards hissubordinates and his engineering colleagues is clearlyseen. The design of the ‘Duchess’ 4-6-2 went aheadat Derby while Stanier was in India preparing a reporton Indian railways. Details of individual locomotivedesigns, being plentiful elsewhere, are omitted exceptwhere they had universal application, such as longlap long travel valves, high degree superheating andadequate bearing surfaces. We can almost feel hisembarrassment over the ‘Jubilee’ boiler problems.Following the death in 1941 of his almost exact
contemporary Gresley on the LNER, he received arequest from Edward Thompson for a detailed reporton the so-called Gresley valve gear for 3 cylinderlocomotives. The report is published in full inAppendix Three. Three cylinder engines which wereStanier’s responsibility had three sets of Walschaertsvalve gear.
During World War 2 he moved across intogovernment engineering posts and it is difficult toput a date on the termination of his railway career.After his work on the LMS his wartime activitiesthough important are less interesting but are coveredadequately and concisely. A lecture he gave on 15October 1952 (a week after the Harrow disaster)forms Appendix Four.
Photographs are well selected and the text is notpadded out with logs of runs. With its strong backthe book will not lie open on the desk without theuse of weights, and can be tiring to hold in one hand.
JOHN MARSHALL
Locomotion : Two Centuries of Train Travel – An Anthology — P J G Ransom215pp, hard covers, Sutton Publishing, 2001, ISBN 0 7509 2590 6, £20.00
If you have friends who are railway enthusiasts orwho are mildly interested, make a present to them ofthis book. If you want to relax with a railway historybook which will broaden your approach and entertainyou without telling you more than you want to knowabout some specialised aspect of our passion, get itfor yourself.
It is an anthology with a significant proportion ofthe text contributed by the anthologist. He explainswhy he has included each entry, commenting uponits importance and relevance. In this he improvesupon early anthologies such as Robbins.
The entries are classified as The Beginnings,Across the World, Railways in their Heyday, NarrowGauge, On the Footplate, Disasters, Heroes and aHeroine, Times of Change and Railway Preservation.Voracious railway readers will have come acrosssome of the entries before. But the prefaces and the
quality of the collection as a whole compel the readerto read even the familiar again. Nothing dry isincluded. From Fanny Kemble on the Rocket andBrunel before the Gauge Commissioners to Rolt ontaking over the Talyllyn and Fiennes on Beeching,there is humanity about every chosen piece. Railwayfiction from such as Charles Dickens and JohnMasters is also here. The contributions are notlimited to the UK: there is a lot of particularly goodstuff from the USA. There is a bibliography and anindex of authors and sources but no general index.
All readers will find their own gems. Here is one— Brunel’s own words on being asked by the GaugeCommissioners if, in retrospect, he thought it hadbeen judicious to alter the gauge to 7 feet: ‘I shouldrather be above than under seven feet now, if I hadto reconstruct the lines’.
MARTIN BARNES
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The Landscape Trilogy: the Autobiography of L T C Rolt — L T C Rolt with an Introduction bySonia Rolt655 pp, 26 photographs, hard covers, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, ISBN 0 7509 2478 0, £25.00
This volume comprises the three volumes of TomRolt’s autobiography, the first of which, Landscapewith Machines, was published in 1971, with theremaining volumes following posthumously in 1977and 1992. This new collection includes a shortintroduction by his widow Sonia. This addsbackground to the reasons why Tom Rolt began hisautobiography relatively young and explains how hewrote the later volumes in some haste. Newphotographs replace some of those in the originalvolumes. This apart, this book simply puts the threevolumes, within the original typesettings reduced tothe same size, under one cover, at a reasonable price.
Those who have not read all three volumes willfind many acute observations of people, events andscenes, and much which explains Rolt’s varied life.The first two volumes proceed broadly inchronological order, while the final volume selects
developments of importance in his final 23 years.While there is some source material for transport
history, as in his account of the development of theNational Railway Museum, the main historicalinterest lies in the addition of his perspectives. Thus,portraits such as the canal workshops at Tardebiggeor events in his 1952 season on the Talyllyn Railway,tell us much about Tom Rolt’s views of those placesand events, and take us into his world — almost his‘inner landscape’ — far more than many self-justifying or factual memoirs would do.
Tom Rolt was one of the most significantindividuals in the fields of canal and railway revival,engineering biography and industrial archaeology.This volume contains the best possible introductionsto his motives and involvements, and must form anessential beginning for the critical appraisal of hiswritings and other work. JOSEPH BOUGHEY
The Limestone Quarries of Caldon Low — Basil Jeuda192pp, 245 x 170 mm, 182 photographs, 21 maps & plans, many facsimile documents, Churnet Valley Books, 1 KingStreet, Leek, Staffs, 2000, ISBN 1 897949 64 2, £12.95
This is a history of a complex of quarries that hasbeen worked continuously since 1769. Even at thatdate the limestone reserves at Caldon Low wererecognised as justifying the construction of the 17-mile Caldon branch of the Trent & Mersey Canal
The Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation — Mike Taylor128pp, 190 b&w illustrations, map, hard covers, Tempus Publishing, 2001, ISBN 0 7524 2128 X, £10.99
This is in Tempus’s popular ‘Images of England’series. To describe it as a picture book is not tobelittle it — one picture is worth a thousand words.In any case, Mr Taylor, an acknowledged expert onthe Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation,contributes a brief but useful introduction, and hiscaptions to the illustrations, mostly 20th centuryphotographs of fair quality or better, are rich in detail.They are divided into an historical section and nineothers each covering a geographical sector of theNavigation, from Hull, its outlet, to Sheffield. Mostpresent-day traffic is pleasure boating, but the bookrightly concentrates on commercial traffic, coveringa wide range of craft (including icebreakers,
inspection launches, etc) and cargoes — coal,especially important, pit props, petroleum, grain,limestone, chemicals and much else. The Don’scontribution to boat-building at Thorne (Watersideand the canal frontage), Stainforth, Levitt Hagg andSwinton is well represented. Dunston’s (Thorne)launched their last wooden boat in 1923 (3 March),not 1922 as stated. Other topics like locks (and thescenery generally, including many Navigation-sidebuildings and structures), connecting road services,leisure activity, personalities, even Mexborough’sone-time ferry are touched on in this atmosphericpublication. PHILIP SCOWCROFT
(T&M). However, the quarries were not merely amajor traffic source for the canal and, later, therailway. In 1797 the quarrying rights fell into theT&M’s hands, passing to the North StaffordshireRailway (NSR) when it purchased the canal in 1847.
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For many years the quarrying rights were sublet, butfrom 1866 the NSR worked the quarries directly, apractice continued by the LMSR until 1934, afterwhich they were sublet to Derbyshire Stone Ltd, nowpart of Tarmac. It is not clear when British Railwaysceased to receive royalties, but it may have been asrecently as 1990.
The author has deliberately not repeated thematerial available in other books on the Caldon canaland tramroads and the NSR. He concentrates on thequarries themselves and the social history of the
remote community of quarry workers. Nevertheless,there is plenty of transport interest here, not leastbecause much of the story takes place during theperiod when the railway company was in directcontrol. There is a separate chapter on the commun-ity of Welsh miners and their families that the NSRrecruited from Amlwch in Anglesey to undertake thesupervisory and skilled work in the quarries and forwhom it then had to provide company housing andthe site for a Welsh-language chapel.
GRAHAME BOYES
The Glastonbury Canal — Geoffrey Body and Roy Gallop47pp, 17 photographs, 5 drawings, 5 maps, soft covers, Fiducia Press, 4 Woodspring Avenue, Weston-super-MareBS22 9RJ, 2001, ISBN 0 946217 08 4, £5 (£4 post free to RCHS members)
Dunball Village, Works and Wharf — Geoffrey Body and Roy Gallop22pp, 6 photographs, 2 drawings, 2 maps, soft covers, Fiducia Press, 4 Woodspring Avenue, Weston-super-Mare BS229RJ, 2001, ISBN 0 946217 10 3, £3 (£2.50 post free to RCHS members)
The Glastonbury Canal (1833–54) was an engin-eering and financial failure. It cost more than threetimes its original estimate, and the annual incomenever reached a third of the forecast. Eventually theSomerset Central Railway built much of their linealongside it. The authors acknowledge the researchdone by Dr A M Boyd, the results of which(supplemented by Robin Atthill, Charles Hadfieldand Kenneth Clew) were published in the RCHSJournal in July 1977. The book’s text, about doublethe length of the Journal article, contains essentiallythe same story but with more background informa-
tion. It is particularly strong on identifying the tracesof the canal which can still be seen.
Dunball is a riverside hamlet north of Bridgwater,close to exit 23 on the M5. Shortly after the mainline was opened in 1841 a cement works wasconstructed and a short branch built to the wharf.The local industries and the port use have varied overthe years; indeed the wharf is still regularly usedthough the railway link closed in 1962. This well-researched and readable booklet will appeal mainlyto those interested in Somerset local history or BristolChannel shipping. PETER BROWN
The Bullnose Morris — Jonathan Wood32pp, 52 b&w illustrations, card covers, Shire Publications, 2001, ISBN 0 7478 0491 5, £3.50
The Bean — Jonathan Wood32pp, 53 b&w illustrations, card covers, Shire Publications, 2001, ISBN 0 7478 0482 6, £3.50
Here are two more in the Shire album series devotedto British cars of the past: concise but interestingtext, lavishly illustrated. Both look at cars of the1920s which sought (and in Morris’s case succeeded)to outsell in Britain the phenomenally popular FordModel T. Morris, from Oxford, endured variousvicissitudes pre-1914 but he learned fast and by 192540% of all British-manufactured cars were BullnoseMorrises, Oxfords and Cowleys. The secret ofMorris’s success was that he assembled rather than
manufactured cars, components, even engines whichironically were American-designed, being broughtinto the Cowley factory. John Harper Bean hailedfrom the Black Country and his 11.9 and 14 hp carsmanufactured 1919–29 on sophisticated movingtrack assembly lines were popular, not least inAustralia, without quite challenging Morris. Beancommercial vehicles, vans, lorries and buses, are alsocovered. PHILIP SCOWCROFT
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Copperopolis: Landscapes of the Early Industrial Period in Swansea — Stephen Hughes358pp, 276mm x 250mm, 217 photographs, 44 maps, 92 sketches and other illustrations, board covers, Royal Commissionon the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, Plas Crug, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 1NJ, 2000, ISBN 1871184 17 7, £38.30
If the quality of a book can be measured by the timespent in preparation and research, then Copperopolisdeserves the highest credit. The text was researchedand compiled by Stephen Hughes, but wasconsiderably improved upon by Paul Reynolds andseveral other people.
This book is not for light reading and is bestconsidered as a text source for the industries, peopleand transport around Swansea. In particular itconcentrates on the banks of the River Tawe wherecopper smelting was performed. Chapter 2 isdedicated to transport and deals with coal roads,railed ways, canals, river navigation and waterpower.There are detailed descriptions of the early railwaysand canals including evidence that undergroundcanals were established here before those at Worsley.Some 50 pages are dedicated to the transport scene
and pieces on transport also appear elsewhere in thetext. There are brief biographies of engineers thatinclude William Edwards [bridge builder], Evan,David and Roger Hopkins [railway engineers],Charles Roberts, Thomas Sheasby (Senior) andThomas Sheasby (Junior) [canal engineers]. Thereare also biographical notes on the industrialists andvery detailed information on education, industry,housing and religion. The survey is completed witha study of Landore that includes the development oftransport there. Such is the word content thatphotographs, maps and other illustrations aresometimes crammed into small places, but generallythey are well presented. The text is invaluable forthose interested in industrial archaeology and familyhistory, but is deficient in any description of coppertransport. RAY SHILL
The Isle of Wight Central Railway — R J Maycock and R Silsbury288pp, A5 format, many photographs, maps and plans, hard covers with printed end papers, Oakwood Press, 2001,ISBN 0 85361 573 X, £22.95
Volume 115 in the Oakwood Library of RailwayHistory is a companion volume to The Isle of WightRailway by the same authors. It charts the historyand story of the largest pre-grouping railwaycompany on the island, which was formed by theamalgamation of the Cowes & Newport Railway, theIsle of Wight (Newport Junction) Railway and theRyde & Newport Railway in 1887. As well asdiscussing early railway schemes and the constituentlines of the Isle of Wight Central, the book also goeson to discuss such matters as accidents, complaintsand the Board of Trade, operational matters, and the
last years of the Company from 1918 to 1923. Theyears from 1923 onward are only touched upon verybriefly and are hopefully to be the subject of a furthervolume. The book contains good descriptions of thelocomotives and rolling stock used upon the systemand shows the chronology of the various Isle of WightActs of Parliament. There is a useful bibliographyand a good index. A useful and informative additionto the library of anyone interested in the history ofthe Isle of Wight in general and its railways inparticular, although perhaps a little expensive for theaverage reader. RODNEY HARTLEY
Track — Jim Pike154pp, 279mm x 200mm, 184 b&w illustrations, Sutton Publishing, 2001, ISBN 0 7590 2692 9, £19.99
Track claims to be the first book-length study of thepermanent way; but the wide margins, large print andpaucity of footnotes and citations quickly indicatethat it is not one of the publisher’s historicalmonographs. The work is intended to be non-technical, but that is no excuse for spreading itscontents so thinly over a very wide field.
A quick skim through early types of track, without
a mention of the work of M J T Lewis, is followedby a perfunctory discussion of more moderndevelopments. Points and crossings, sleepers andfastenings and lineside furniture are dealt with equallybriefly, though with some interesting illustrations,several taken on the preserved line to Bolton Abbey.An attempt to deal in a single chapter with twohundred years of civil engineering, including bridges
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and tunnels, is over-ambitious, and the section ontrack maintenance does not describe any modernequipment.
The book provides a pleasant evening’s browse,
but appears to be aimed at a typical family visitor toa preserved railway who does not have access to the1935 edition of Railway Wonders of the World.
DENNIS HADLEY
Steam Locomotives in Industry 1930–50 — John K Williams and Bob Miller64pp, 98 photographs, soft covers, Industrial Locomotive Society, D R Embling, Sales Officer, 77 Station Crescent,Rayleigh, Essex SS6 8MR, 2001, ISBN 0 9540726 0 X, £6.70 (including p&p)
This special 100th edition of the Society’s journal,The Industrial Locomotive, is limited to 500 copies,so prospective purchasers should not long delay theirorders, for this is a very worthwhile project. It isbased on the premise that early Society newslettershad no illustrations and, therefore, the rare andvaluable photographs taken by the pioneer membersof the Society were unrecorded and unavailable.There is no theme or overall pattern to thepresentation of these photographs; they are ofvariable quality and the captions are almost toocondensed and full of data. None of this matters
when set against the rarity and curiosity of what wesee. There are locomotives built to 4’0" and 9’0"gauges and many more beside shown in over 90different locations. They are the products of all themajor manufacturers of industrial engines and alsothose whose name has, perhaps, been long forgotten,like Alexander Chaplin & Co Ltd or Gibb & Hogg.The journal starts with a useful and interesting briefhistory of the Industrial Locomotive Society. If youare interested in industrial railways this is definitelyfor you. WILLIAM FEATHERSTONE
The Last Days of the Old Corris — G Briwnant-Jones48pp, 4 colour and 61 b&w illustrations, 2 maps, soft covers, Gomer Press, Llandysul, Ceredigion SA4 4QL, 2001,ISBN 1 85902 011 9, £8.95
In 1994 this author and publisher produced GreatWestern Corris, a book about the 2ft 3in gauge CorrisRailway in the post-grouping era. The work underreview supplements the previous book and is basedupon further photographic material collected by theauthor, mainly from the 1930s and 1940s. It containsmuch of interest for those specialising in Welshrailway history and the narrow gauge.
The book is divided into two main sections,covering the periods before and after closure, and
finishes with notes about the current preservationscheme. The pre-closure photographs include someof poor quality but great interest, including oneshowing a train on the last day of operation. Theunlucky Henry and Richard Casserley visited the lineon what would have been the next operational day tofind that it had closed, and 20 of the 35 post-closurepictures were taken by them on that occasion.
TIM EDMONDS
British Small Mines (South) — A J Booth96pp, 123 b&w photographs, one location plan and 27 site plans, Industrial Railway Society, 2001, hard covers ISBN1 901556 20 4, £18, soft covers ISBN 1 901556 21 2, £15
This is the fourth and last of Adrian Booth’s verywell produced picture books on the surfacearrangements of British small mines which he hasvisited and photographed since 1980. The presentvolume covers eighteen mines in the north Midlands,three in mid-Wales and seven in the Forest of Dean.A dated surface sketch plan accompanies each entry.
The format remains the same with the mines beingpresented in order not geographically, nor byindustry, but by name of mine. As such, this is not abook to be read from cover to cover; rather it is forthe modeller’s reference or as a supplement to thememories of those of us who have already visitedsome of the places described. STEPHEN ROWSON
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Return to Blaenau 1970–82 — Vic Mitchell and Alan Garraway96pp, 240x170mm, 89 photos, 7 maps, plans, boards, Middleton Press, 2001, ISBN 1 901706 64 8, £13.95
This book is No 10 in a series titled ‘Great RailwayEras’. It is divided into years from 1970. Each yearcontains photographs and substantial text (in a rathersmall typeface) describing the progress of thereconstructed track of the Festiniog Railway (so speltwith one ‘f’ as in the original Act, for most of theperiod) from Portmadoc (Porthmadog) to BlaenauFfestiniog. The photographs are all original andinteresting; maps and plans are well drawn, some
even have a scale, and they all contain a mass ofdetail. The greatest interest centres around the layoutand construction of the deviation from Ddualt toTanygrisiau, but all along the route there wasconsiderable reconstruction work on theinfrastructure and track to convert it from a mineraltramway to a substantial passenger carrying mainline. JOHN MARSHALL
Croydon’s Transport through the Ages — John Gent (Editor)96pp, 210x295mm, 63 colour illustrations, 138 b&w illustrations, 12 maps, soft covers, Croydon Natural History &Scientific Society, 96a Brighton Road, South Croydon CR2 6AD, 2001, ISBN 0 906047 17 X, £8.75 + £1 p&p
A largely pictorial review of the history of transportin the Borough, with a separate section for eachmode. There are plenty of well-reproducedphotographs and maps, including two where alltransport infrastructure, past and present, has beensuperimposed. No significant errors are apparentbut railways and tramways are somewhat over-represented at the expense of other modes,
particularly road freight transport which isoverlooked except for a few local delivery vehicles.The construction of the pioneering Croydon Bypassin the early 1920s deserved more than a briefmention, and there are no post-war photographs ofCroydon Airport while it was still operational.Otherwise this is an attractive package.
GRAHAM BIRD
Enamel Advertising Signs — Christopher Baglee and Andrew Morley40pp, copious colour illustrations, paper covers, Shire Publications, 2001, ISBN 0 7478 0510 5, £4.50
This splendid little booklet stirs memories of cornersweetshops, Camp Coffee, cure all Wincarnis and,of course, railway stations, where vitreous enameladvertisements often outnumbered the company’sinformative signs. In full colour on art paper, thebook sets out the history of enamel signs from 1889to the 1960s, including manufacture and design, andthe multitude of products and services they
advertised, concluding with advice on collecting andrestoration, and a list of museums with displays. Onlyadvertising signs are covered, so apart from a coupleof tram stops at Crich and an Underground roundel,there are no railway signs. The Great Western’s blueand white ‘All tickets and contracts must be shewn’(sic) is not seen here, but no matter; the book is adelight. GORDON BIDDLE
Atlas of London 1935 — the Railway Clearing House45pp, mainly maps, Ian Allan, hard covers, 2001, ISBN 07 110 2789 7, £14.99
This is a reprint of the Railway Clearing House mapsof the London area published in 1935 and depictingthe system at that time. At a scale of 2 inches to themile, they show full detail of junctions and congestedareas such as Willesden and Kentish Town very
clearly. A surprising amount of non-railway detailalso appears. The canals are accurately depicted aswell. Period indications abound, such as a tiny thingcalled the Great West Aerodrome where Heathrownow is and the Wembley Exhibition loop.
MARTIN BARNES
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Branch Lines around North Woolwich from Victoria Park to Beckton and Gallions — J E Connor96pp, 120 photographs, 25 maps & diagrams, 66 reproductions of tickets and labels, laminated boards, MiddletonPress, GU29 9AZ, 2001, ISBN 1 901706 65 6, £13.95 post free
As another Middleton album compiled by an eastLondon railway specialist, with layout andtypesetting by his firm, this shows variations fromthe usual Middleton product, notably a somewhatlonger introductory text and slightly more detailedtreatment generally. As well as the lines in the title,coverage embraces Custom House to NorthWoolwich and the internal system at Becktongasworks but not the Silvertown Tramway andDocklands Light Railway.
Cartographic reproduction occasionally falls below
the usual Middleton standard, notably in a somewhatsmudgy Ordnance Survey plan of the Custom Housearea. The heavy use made of reproductions of ticketsand labels produces relevant decoration but returnsvery low value in terms of information for the amountof space occupied. With its rare views of bombdamage, North Woolwich railway pier and the gasworks signal boxes and its detailed survey of stationchanges, this publication offers the serious studentof London railway history a useful image reference.
ALAN A JACKSON
Sussex Narrow Gauge — Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith96pp, 240mm x 175mm, 122 b&w illustrations, 18 illustrations of tickets, 29 maps, pictorial boards, Middleton Press,2001, ISBN 1 901706 68 0, £13.95
Something different here — and not just the crisplyprinted illustrations. Sixteen industrial lines arecovered in 40 photographs plus maps: mainly clayand gravel transporters, but also the 18 inch line thatconveyed coal from the riverbank to Bredewaterworks. At one period the Rye area was a centreof industrial rail activity.
A major section illustrating the working museum
at Amberley Chalk Pits is followed by short tours ofeight lines built for pleasure seekers, including theDevil’s Dyke Steep Gradient Railway, the Rye &Camber, and Volk’s Electric Railway; lines usingminiature locomotives are not covered here.
Only a tantalising taste for several lines, but overallan interesting survey with some fascinating photos.
DENNIS HADLEY
Western Main Lines: Newbury to Westbury including the Marlborough Branch — Vic Mitchelland Keith Smith, in association with Kevin Robertson96pp, 120 photos, 23 maps & diagrams, 8 reproductions of tickets, laminated boards, Middleton Press, 2001, ISBN1 901706 66 4, £13.95 post free
Opening with just two pages of skimpy ‘backgroundnotes’ this ‘absorbing album’ follows the usualformula. Especially welcome here are occasionaldetails of staff numbers and boxes containingstatistics of all station traffics at intervals of ten yearsfrom 1903 to 1933. As is usual in this series, there isno bibliography to inspire further reading.
The cartography is clear, the photographs carefully
selected to show infrastructure, steam and dieseltraction, staff groups and accidents. We can forgivethe hackneyed shot of juxtaposed railway and canalgiven that much is fresh, including an earlyThorneycroft GWR truck piled with empty milkchurns at Bedwyn station and military activity atPatney & Chirton. ALAN A JACKSON
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Black Country Canals — Paul Collins202 b&w photographs, 4 maps, 10 engravings and other illustrations, Sutton Publishing, 2001, ISBN 0 7509 2031 9,£10.99
Sutton Publishing continues to produce qualityphotographic reproductions with their latest canalbook which deals with Black Country Canals. DrPaul Collins has assembled a varied collection ofphotographs, which includes examples from thecollection of the Black Country Museum, Alan Smithand former RCHS member the late Neil Pitts. Theselection is quite broad and would appeal to thosewith casual interest or anyone with a deeperunderstanding of transport history.
Dr Collins does his best to dispel a few local canalmyths, but may have inadvertently created a fewmore. The avid historian might take issue with someof the statements made or with the grouping of thephotographs. A note that the London & BirminghamRailway leased the BCN ignores the deeper truth ofthe London & Birmingham Railway and BirminghamCanal Arrangement Act. The chapter headed theWalsall Canal is actually a pot-pourri of the BCN-
built Bentley, Tame Valley, Walsall Junction andWalsall Canals as well as the originally independentWyrley & Essington Canal.
Many people have a problem relating to theboundaries of the Black Country, but Paul confineshis illustrations to the accepted ‘Black Country’towns that lie within the industrial conglomerationsituated between Smethwick, Stourbridge, Walsalland Wolverhampton. The canals located within thisarea are dealt with to varying extents with theStourbridge and Dudley Canals particularly wellcovered. The former staple industries, whichincluded coal mining, fireclay mining and ironworking, are copiously represented, as are themodern developments and improvements. There arealso a few rarely published photographs of tugs, cabinand open boats. Many RCHS members may, inconsequence, find this book a welcome addition totheir library. RAY SHILL
Sir Nigel Gresley: The Engineer and his Family — Geoffrey Hughes215pp, approx 170 b&w photographs, 25 line diagrams, soft covers, A5, Oakwood Press, 2001, ISBN 0 85361 579 9,£14.95
After early years on the London & North WesternRailway and the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway,Herbert Nigel Gresley went to the Great NorthernRailway. At the grouping he became ChiefMechanical Engineer of the London & North EasternRailway (LNER) and held the post until he died in1941. He was world class as engineer and as managerwith an enviable record of purposeful experimenta-tion and innovation. Nobody will take away hisposition as designer of the fastest steam locomotiveever. The fleet of modern locomotives with whichhe equipped the LNER over a period of only eighteenyears was varied and efficient. It included not onlythe three brilliant classes of Pacific, but hardworkingsecond rank engines such as the V2s and the K3sand bold experiments such as the ‘hush-hush’ high-pressure loco and the ‘Cock of the North’ Mikados.Gresley was also a highly competent and distinctivedesigner of carriages for the Great Northern and theLNER.
Geoffrey Hughes’ book begins with chapters aboutGresley’s ancestors (a family of country gentry inNorth Staffordshire) and about his wife and children.
There is relatively little about Gresley the man andthe engineer. This can only be because, despitedetailed research over many years, not much is knownabout him. It is unlikely that any more than is herewill ever be known.
The major part of the book is based on the principlethat ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’. It comprisesa detailed and readable account of Nigel Gresley’swork. Every class of new locomotives is describedand its work put in context. His alterations to otherengineers’ products are included. There areanecdotes along the way which give us glimpses ofthe man – such as, for example, his slightly truculentreport of the 1925 locomotive exchange involvingone of his A1 Pacifics and a Great Western Railway‘Castle’.
The last chapter is a useful account of whathappened to his engines after Gresley died and howhis successors dealt with them. There is acomprehensive bibliography and an index. Whetherthey already know a lot or a little about Nigel Gresley,no reader will be disappointed by this book.
MARTIN BARNES
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St Austell to Penzance — Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith96pp, 121 photographs, 25 maps, board, Middleton Press, 2001, ISBN 1 901706 67 2, £13.95
This book covers the main line west of St. Austelland the Newham branch at Truro. The Hayle Railwayis mentioned, but description of its pre-1852 route islimited to the termini. After a two-page historicalintroduction the book consists of photographs withinformative captions, extracts from large scale maps,station statistics and a dozen tickets. Data includesdates for track doubling (in 18 stages) and of signal-box closures. Photographs from different periods
reveal many changes over the years and there aresome fine pre-grouping station views. About 70%show locomotives and trains of various descriptions,with perhaps unexpectedly more ‘County’ 4-6-0sthan ‘Castles’, and more Class 50s than hydraulics.This is a useful and informative book which will bevalued particularly by those too young to have knownthe line and stations in their prime.
ALLAN BRACKENBURY
The Snowdon Mountain Railway — Keith Turner156pp, 248mm x 173mm, 100 black & white and 28 colour illustrations, 4 maps, soft covers, Tempus Publishing, TheMill, Brimscombe Port, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG, 2001, ISBN 0 7524 1748 7, £15.99
Snowdon was a popular tourist attraction, with arefreshment room at the summit, long before therailway came. When it did come, it was constructedremarkably quickly: within 14 months of thecompany’s formation, the first train reached thesummit. As it was built on private land, no Act ofParliament was needed. One unexpected reason forits creation was the success of the North WalesNarrow Gauge Railway, which had a station namedSnowdon, in luring tourists away from Llanberis.
The book starts by setting the scene: tourism andaccess to Llanberis, previous schemes for a railwayup Snowdon, and worldwide development of rackrailways. It continues with the line’s constructionand disastrous opening day, the fatal accident andlocomotive No 1’s leap into oblivion. Services were
not halted until another derailment a few days later.After reopening, the railway settled down to becomea vital part of the tourist industry and the story isbrought up to date into the diesel age. Separatechapters cover locomotives, rolling stock and track& signalling. Changes of ownership are mentionedbriefly, including a time in the 1920s when the linewas effectively under the same control as theFestiniog and Welsh Highland.
Snowdon’s railway has become regarded as almostpart of the mountain itself and this book tells its storywith enthusiasm. Unfortunately some of the blackand white photographs are too dark to be clearlyvisible. There is a list of sources but no index.
ALLAN BRACKENBURY
Quarry Hunslets of North Wales — Cliff Thomas256pp, 198 photographs, 6 locomotive plans, boards, Oakwood Press, 2001, IBSN 0 85361 575 6, £22.95
This is a very well produced book, of the highstandards we expect from Oakwood Press. It isprinted on art paper and the quality of photographicreproduction is superb. The variety of illustrationsis also very pleasing — not just broadside views oflocomotives so often seen in such histories, but alsolocos on trains, in sylvan settings, in stations andsome very interesting quarry views. A map showingthe location of the various quarry systems would havebeen useful for the reader no intimately acquaintedwith north Wales. The book starts with a very usefulchapter on the anatamy of a Hunslet, followed by
descriptions of various types and classes. Twochapters follow on driving and maintaining theengines; these sections are tantalisingly short and onewishes they were longer. The book concludes witha chapter on where the Hunslets are to be found now,an index of locos (always useful in a reference work)and models of them. At £22.95, it is not cheap, butit is well worth it as a very complete record of theseonce ubiquitous locos. Fortunately there are stillsome of them working on preserved lines.
WARWICK BURTON
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This book sets out to be a reader’s guide to railwayrecords in the Public Record Office (PRO) and openswith a short section on how to use the PRO.Chapter 1 gives a potted history of Britain’s railways.The first two sections of this are far from satisfactory,repeating, for instance, the old myth that ‘tramway’derives from the name of Benjamin Outram andomitting mention of such important early lines as theMiddleton Railway (the first to obtain an Act ofParliament), the Swansea & Mumbles (the first publicpassenger line) or the Surrey Iron Railway (the firstpublic goods line). The rest of the potted history is auseful summary for anyone not familiar with Britishrailway history.
Chapter 2 explains how the records came to thePRO and where else the researcher might look forrecords. Chapter 3 describes briefly the types ofrecords from the railway companies and BritishRailways in the PRO. Chapter 4 is a useful summary
Railway Records: A Guide to Sources — Cliff Edwards234pp, 5 photographs, 20 photographic reproductions of documents, soft covers, Public Record Office, Kew, Richmond,TW9 4DU, 2001, ISBN 1 903365 10 4, £14.99
of sources of information relating to railways to befound in other government records held at the PRO— sources which might not be obvious to theresearcher. Chapter 5 gives a brief guide to railwaystaff records, nicely illustrated with reproductionsof some. This section could have been fuller as manyresearchers into railway records are pursuinggenealogy. The final two chapters deal with maps &technical records and photographs. There then followtwo lengthy appendices detailing the BritishTransport Historical Records codes and the contentsof the PRO’s RAIL and AN series of records,conveniently arranged alphabetically by railwaycompany. This guide has some defects, and will nodoubt be revised to iron these out, but on the wholeit is a useful guide to the researcher confronted bythe apparently overwhelming mass of material at thePRO. WARWICK BURTON
Ian Allan reprints
Ian Allan has recently reprinted the following books:• GWR Country Stations 2 — Chris Leigh• An Historical Survey of Selected LMS Stations
Volume 1 — R Preston Hendry and R PowellHendry
Short reviews
GNSR Bridges — Andrew BrownPost Office Sorting Carriages — Keith Fenwick24 and 13 A4 sheets respectively, Great North of Scotland Railway Association, 20 Farquhar Road, Huntly, AberdeenshireAB54 8FH, 2001, £2.00 and £1.00 plus 50p postage
These are numbers 31 and 32 in the GNSRA’scommendable series of abstracts or data sheets aboutaspects of the Great North of Scotland Railway. Thefirst is a line-by-line tabular listing of all thecompany’s bridges, giving their number, name,location and type.
Post Office sorting carriages were introduced on
the GNSR in 1886 and withdrawn as a wartimeeconomy in 1916 and never re-introduced. Thesecond Abstract gives details of the vehicles, theservices they operated and the locations of mailbagexchange apparatus, illustrated with drawings,photographs and personal recollections.
• An Historical Survey of Southern Sheds — ChrisHawkins and George Reeve
• A Pictorial History of Crewe Works in the Age ofSteam — Edward Talbot