tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64713295717669166862024-03-19T02:32:19.412+00:00Turnip RailDavid Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.comBlogger240125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-12802028084068907072015-01-17T13:37:00.000+00:002015-01-17T13:37:46.112+00:00Britain’s first railway? Business and Beaumont<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/23.79px "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Two lines originally thought to have been built around one year apart fight it out for the claim to be the ‘first’ British railway - this post explores the history of one of them. Huntingdon Beaumont was born at Coleorton in Leicestershire in around 1560, the youngest son of Sir Nicholas and Ann Beaumont. They exploited the rich supplies of coal within their estate and it is here that the young Huntingdon learned the business of mining. Driven by his insatiable energy, clear vision, but a reckless streak, in 1601 he moved to Nottinghamshire, and using what he had learnt at his parents’ mining business leased and worked coal pits at Wollaton, Strelley and Bilborough...</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/23.79px "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/23.79px "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><strong>To read the rest of my post, please visit my new site <a href="https://davidturnerrailway.wordpress.com/2015/01/17/britains-first-railway-business-and-beaumont/">HERE</a></strong><a href="http://davidturnerrailway.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/dont-confuse-your-bradshaws/"></a></span>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com219tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-11129974007879826082014-11-13T19:27:00.002+00:002014-11-13T19:34:35.308+00:00Don't Confuse Your Bradshaws <div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent;">One of the questions I frequently get asked as a railway historian is “do you ever watch the Michael Portillo show? You know, the one where he goes around with a Bradshaw’s Guide?” Usually, I respond that I don’t very often. This is not because I dislike the show, I just lack the time to watch it. I nonetheless think the BBC produced an excellent program that has re-awakened national interest in the Victorian railways and their legacy; this is to be celebrated. Where previously railway history books were relegated to a bottom, lonely shelf in bookshops, now they can lay claim to whole bays.</span></div>
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<b>To read the rest of my post, please visit my new site <a href="http://davidturnerrailway.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/dont-confuse-your-bradshaws/">HERE</a></b></div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-22456078902729711322014-07-15T22:09:00.000+01:002014-08-26T09:22:28.660+01:00From nothing to everything: the development of the career railway workerIt has been proclaimed in many places, at many times that
before 1914 a job on the railway was a job for life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Railway workers' careers apparently followed
a set course: starting out in their teenage years, employees would undergo some
form of apprenticeship, gradually move up through the ranks of their department,
and would eventually retire at the age of 60 or 65. Throughout, in return for
diligent and obedient service – a form of supplication to the law of the
railway - employees received a high degree of job security, the opportunity to
rise into positions of authority and, at the end of their careers, that rarity
of the Victorian world: a pension.<sup>[1]</sup>
<br />
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<br /></div>
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But these patterns of employment had to have been instituted
by company managers and directors at some point. The idea of a career railway
worker would have been an alien concept to all railway staff in 1840, perhaps
even as late as the 1850s. Yet by the 1890s, if you wanted it, obeyed the rules
and did not find better employment (or for that matter were killed when doing
your duties – a sadly not uncommon occurrence), the railway could easily be
your home for life. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_5-ov91Qt6lKg1bguwQI10YHCD7zzkIB9PFsWkct-vnZoPtfsnkTwwG40mx1TO4ncT6XX4wTjLuHJEQsoEorzsuMJo7vphyphenhyphenQ1q-o3MAJ0KysOnJT48nOMaGrBHngtwq7RHvuUOvzZy9F_/s1600/Staines.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_5-ov91Qt6lKg1bguwQI10YHCD7zzkIB9PFsWkct-vnZoPtfsnkTwwG40mx1TO4ncT6XX4wTjLuHJEQsoEorzsuMJo7vphyphenhyphenQ1q-o3MAJ0KysOnJT48nOMaGrBHngtwq7RHvuUOvzZy9F_/s1600/Staines.jpg" height="251" width="400" /></a></div>
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Pinpointing when the ‘career’ railway employee came into
existence is not easy. Amongst a multitude of small railway companies, by the
1860s Victorian Britain was the possessor twelve large ones, each of which
instituted different employment policies at different points. To add to the
melee of confusion, railway workers were divided amongst themselves with regard
to pay, working conditions and status. The status and pay of a platelayer,
fixing and maintaining the track day in day out, was far lower that the
engineman driving the train past him. The clerical staff – who were the only staff in Traffic Departments who had any realistic chance of entering management if they had the talent and ambition –
likely looked down on the porters, pushing suitcases and boxes around station
all day. This staff separatism, which management frequently encouraged to keep
the staff divided, lest they undertake some collective action over wages or
working conditions, meant that industry decision-makers usually determined recruitment
and employment policies on a grade-by-grade basis. Standardisation within a
company was definitely not the norm. </div>
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Nonetheless, despite these issues, general conclusions
about when the career railway worker emerged onto the industrial landscape are possible.
As early as the 1850s the career railway clerk started appearing. Before then clerical
work on the railways was not acknowledged as being particularly unique – the
industry being very young – and so the companies recruited the talented, of any
age, from wherever they could. For example, on joining the London and South
Western Railway<sup>[2]</sup> as a clerk at the age of thirty-five in 1835, no
doubt after being in some other clerical position, William Mears would likely
never have entertained the idea that he would retire in 1881. </div>
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Yet, very gradually, from the 1840s onwards, the railways
established regulations for the recruitment and employment of clerks. In 1846 the
London and North Western Railway (LNWR) laid down regulations for incremental
pay and promotion amongst clerks, a preference for filling vacancies internally
and a set age range for new apprentice clerks – fourteen to sixteen. <sup>[4] </sup>Other
railways did the same around this time; the LSWR brought in some rules around
1843;<sup>[5] </sup>although rigid formalisation of its promotional and pay
procedures was not deemed necessary until the early-1850s.<sup>[6] </sup></div>
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For the rest of the staff – known as the ‘wages grades’ -
the structured railway career started much later. The 1870s saw the Great
Western Railway (GWR) progressively specify the route careers should take, when
staff should be promoted and their pay each step of the way.<sup>[7]</sup> Similar
rules for new police and porters on the LNWR, as well as a minimum height of
5ft 7in (although this likely came into force earlier), were formalised in 1860.
Such regulations, which governed recruitment and the notion of career on the railways
into the twentieth century, had become the norm throughout the industry by the
1870s.<sup> [8]</sup></div>
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Despite the institution of these rules, they did not immediately
give birth to a culture where railway employment was automatically considered a
lifelong vocation. Did the teenager joining the railway as a junior clerk, lad
porter or engine cleaner in the 1870s think they would be with the company
until retirement? It is improbable they could be sure of this. Surrounding new
recruits were old hands. These older men may have believed in the security
railway work provided, they may even have realised the jobs they were doing were
their last, but they would have understood that not everyone stayed with the
railway until the end of their working lives. They had been losing colleagues
to pastures new (or destitution) for decades – a fact they would undoubtedly have
imparted this fact to newcomers. In the London, Brighton and South Coast
Railway’s case, sixteen per cent of all employees resigned or were dismissed in
1865-69.<sup>[9] </sup></div>
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The understanding that working on the railways was a
lifelong vocation only emerged around 1880s and 1890s, when almost all staff
had been with the industry from their teens. Within the Great Eastern Railway,
for example, the recognisable facets of railway employment – recruitment at an
early age, clearly defined career paths and vacancies being filled by
individuals on a lower rung of a promotional ladder – became embedded between
1875 and 1905, with the decisive years being between 1885 and 1895. </div>
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The developing idea that railway staff were in a lifelong
career manifest itself in other ways in this period. The first railway staff
magazines, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">South Western Gazette </i>and
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Great Western Railway Magazine (and
Temperance Union Record)</i>,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>appeared
in 1881 and 1888 respectively. The magazines’ content of news, reports and
informative articles about the railways’ activities reflected employees’ deep connection
with the railway and its family of staff, which in part were bound together by their common state: a railway employee for life. Railway employment as a lifelong
pursuit was also a factor in the rise of the railway labour movement after 1870. The Amalgamated
Society of Railway Servants started in 1871, the General Railway Workers
Railway Union established itself in 1889 and the Associated Society of
Locomotive Engineers and Firemen came into existence in 1880. <sup>[10]</sup> Railway
workers took pride in their work, looked out for each other and, thus, fought
hard as a group for the improved pay and working conditions they deserved. Had railway
workers believed their time on the railway was limited, fleeting even, the establishment
of such movements would have been unlikely: the fight would have been a redundant
enterprise.</div>
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There was no such thing as a lifelong railway worker in
1840. This idea, which constitutes a fundamental part of the popular conception
of the railway history, developed slowly over many decades, at different speeds
in different places. There was an evolution; in the early years of the industry
men (and some women) just happened to work on the railway, by the 1890s they proudly
called themselves ‘railwaymen’ (and railwaywomen).</div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]
Peter Howlett, ‘The Internal Labour Dynamics of the Great Eastern Railway
Company, 1870-1913', <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Economic History
Review</i>, 57, 2 (2004): 404</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[2]
Then named the London and Southampton Railway.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[3]
The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 411/492, Clerical staff character book No. 2,
414</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[4]
TNA, RAIL 410/1876, London and North Western Railway Company: Records. STAFF RECORDS.
Salaries alteration book, 1-3</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[5]
TNA, RAIL 411/1, Court of Directors Minute Book, 11 August 1843</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[6]
TNA, RAIL 411/216, Special Committee Minute Book, ? January 1859</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[7]
Mike Savage, ‘Discipline, Surveillance and the “Career”: employment on the
Great Western Railway 1833-1914’, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Foucault,
Management and Organisational Theory</i>, ed. Alan McKinlay and Ken Starkey,
(London: Sage, 1998), 81-82</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[8]
TNA, RAIL 410/1829, Conditions of service; retiring allowances; scales of pay
and other general staff matters: papers, Regulations as to Appointments,
Extracts from the Minutes of the Board of Directors, 10 March 1860</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[9]
P.W. Kingsford, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Victorian Railwaymen</i>,
(Frank Cass & Co., 1970), 42</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[10]
David Howell, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Respectable Radicals:
Studies in the politics of railway trade unionism</i>, (Aldershot: Ashgate,
1999), 6</span></div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-21688760206047097542014-01-18T21:17:00.000+00:002014-01-20T09:41:05.289+00:00Railways and 'the beautiful game' before 1914: football, fans and formalisationRecently I have been doing
some work on how the railways of Britain
influence the development of organised sport before 1914 and most of my
investigations have focussed on the ‘beautiful game’: football. Early forms of football, which used rules that may have borne
only a passing similarity to those in the current game, was being played in
public schools from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>[1]</sup> However, by the late-nineteenth and
early-twentieth centuries going to a football match was on the nation’s
favourite pastimes. The question I have therefore been asking is to what extent
to were the railways a factor in transforming football (and while we are
thinking about it rugby) from a ramshackle game into the popular spectator
sport it is today? Were the railways a key factor because of the improved
transportation they provided, or did other, non-railway factors play a role,
for example urbanisation or increasing incomes and leisure time amongst working
class individuals? This issue can be split into two parts. Firstly, to what
degree did the railways augment the number of spectators going to matches? And,
secondly, how did it change participation in the game?<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ll start by talking
about how attendance at football matches was augmented by the railways. The
traditional view was that the railways played a big role, and some have argued
that the improved transport communications they brought widened the population’s
access to sporting events generally. L. H. Curzon was a proponent of this idea.
In 1892 he wrote ‘today the railways convey the masses in large numbers to the
different seats of sport’.<sup>[2]</sup> Years later this view was echoed by scholars.
Vamplew argued that that ‘railways revolutionised sport by widening the
catchment area for spectators,’<sup>[3] </sup>while<sup> </sup>Simmons
concurred, stating that they ‘contributed to the growth of spectator sports.’<sup>[4]
</sup>While not directly mentioning football, these statements heavily imply
that these academics believed that that the railways were a major factor in its
development as a popular spectator sport after the 1870s.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Recently, however, this
view fallen out of favour. Huggins and Tilson argue that the role of the railways
in the growth of football spectatorship from the 1870s onwards has been
overstated. Most supporters rarely ventured to away matches, except in the case
of a local derby or an important cup tie. Indeed, the vast majority of fans
travelled to local matches by foot and, from the 1890s, by electric tram.<sup>[5]</sup>
David Goldblatt, a noted football historian, agreed, arguing that ‘apart from
local derbies away fans were almost absent [from matches] during the’ whole of
the period between 1880 and 1914.<sup>[6] </sup> Exemplifying this, even when a special train accommodation
was put on for away fans by the railway companies it was not well used. In 1886
Middlesbrough F.C. was to play Lincoln in an early round of the F.A. Cup. The railway
provided a special saloon carriage for away fans, but only 200 excursionists
travelled by it, which included the team and officials.<sup>[7]</sup> </span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh47j68qsDjp36EnNkZaQhf9_MSY8edF9dLqL0TF1-2fg_2Cp-3CxH5sOSUpaaF17ZZkDLqhkOcHhErNKD6tYORufx3tETT4sKr0-dt5n_g-VSAalaUTz4fucwcCK83G6mCo3bDJuH6xz_/s1600/Hotspur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh47j68qsDjp36EnNkZaQhf9_MSY8edF9dLqL0TF1-2fg_2Cp-3CxH5sOSUpaaF17ZZkDLqhkOcHhErNKD6tYORufx3tETT4sKr0-dt5n_g-VSAalaUTz4fucwcCK83G6mCo3bDJuH6xz_/s1600/Hotspur.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So why did football fans not travel to away matches that often?
Primarily, it was because of economic and time constraints. Most did not have
the money to travel to away matches, while in an era when many employed
individuals worked on Saturday morning, they also lacked the time to traverse
the hundreds of miles to an away fixture.<sup>[8] </sup>As such, there is a good case for saying that growth of football
spectatorship after the 1870s, particularly amongst the working classes, was not because of the improved transportation the railways provided. Rather, other
factors played a role, for example working individuals' increased disposable income. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But
what about participation in football? Here academics are broadly in agreement
that the railways played a much bigger role in its development, mainly through
allowing teams to play games outside their locality, as Mason has argued.<sup>[9]</sup> McDowell has suggested
the growth of Cumnock in Scotland as a football centre has ‘as much to do with
access to railways as to mere corporate acumen.’<sup>[10]</sup> Lastly, Golblatt similarly argued that by the 1880s trains allowed the
bigger teams to conduct Easter and Christmas tours.<sup>[11]</sup><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> </span>For example, in December 1902 Dundee United
conducted its Christmas tour, visiting Derby and Newcastle. A journalist reported
that ‘Whilst I write we are en route for Newcastle where the United are met on St
James’ Park. It is a seven hours’ journey from Derby to Newcastle – 19 hours in
a railway train out of 36 hours is not at all pleasant.’<sup>[12]</sup></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Alongside this, the railways were also
important in the growth of formal football associations and leagues. The
Football League, for example, recruited teams to it on the basis of their
distance from a station. The result was that Sunderland was not elected to it
initially because the Midland clubs felt that transportation costs to play
games in the city were excessive.<sup>[13]</sup>
But it is important, as Huggins and
Tolson suggest, not to see the railways as a ‘panacea’ for team sports,
as many football clubs had to shorten postpone and cancel games in the 1880s
and 1890s because of the railway network’s failures.<sup>[14] </sup>In 1874 (when presumably players could
still handle the ball) a football match between Durham School and Stockton was
shortened from four twenty-minute quarters to fifty minutes owing to the ‘usual
unpunctuality of the North Eastern Railway, the train reaching Durham fully
half an hour late.’<sup>[15]</sup></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Overall, there is good
evidence that the railways played a mixed role in the development of football
as the nation’s most popular sport. On the one hand it was instrumental in
establishing the organisational structures within the game. However, the growth
in the popularity of the sport and the number of spectators that saw matches
was down to other influences.</span></span>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">[1] Richard William Cox,
Dave Russell and Wray Vamplew, <i>Encyclopaedia
of British Football</i>, (London, 2002), p.234</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">[2] L. H. Curzon, <i>A Mirror of the Turf</i>, (London 1892), p.
32 <i>cited in</i> Mike Huggins and John
Tolson, ‘The Railways and Sport in Victorian Britain: A critical reassessment’,
<i>Journal of Transport History</i>, 22
(2001), p.100</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">[3] W. Vamplew, <i>Pay up and Play the Game</i>, (Cambridge
1988), p.47</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div>
</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">[4] Jack Simmons, The
Victorian Railway, (London, 1991), p.300</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">[5] Huggins
and Tolson, ‘The Railways and Sport’, p.108-109</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[6] David
Goldblatt, <i>The Ball is Round: A Global
History of Football</i>, (London, 2007), p.53</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[7] Huggins
and Tolson, ‘The Railways and Sport’, p.108</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[8] Huggins
and Tolson, ‘The Railways and Sport’, p.108-109</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">[9] T. Mason, <i>Association Football and English Society,
1863–1915,</i> (Brighton, 1980), p. 146–7</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">[10] Matthew Lynn McDowell, ‘,Football,
Migration and Industrial Patronage in the West of Scotland, c.1870–1900’, <i>Sport In History</i>, 32 (2012), p.408</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">[11] Goldblatt, <i>The Ball is Round</i>, p.53</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">[12] <i>Evening Telegraph</i>, Friday 26 December 1902</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">[13] Goldblatt, <i>The Ball is Round</i>, p.53</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">[14] Huggins and Tolson,
‘The Railways and Sport’, p.109-110</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">[15] <i>York Herald</i>, Saturday 21 November 1874</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></span></span></span></div>
</div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-20210236586143226412013-12-23T23:46:00.001+00:002013-12-24T14:40:47.565+00:00When Victorian railways conspired against ChristmasOne of the features of the late Victorian British railway
industry was competition, with railways in all parts of the nation trying to
out-perform each other in order to win the patronage of passengers. From the
1880s the Great Western and London & South Western Railways accelerated
their services as well as increased the luxury in which passengers were
conveyed, to secure the business to West Country locations such as Exeter and
Plymouth.<sup>[1]</sup> Competition between companies also existed on the routes between Nottingham and Leeds,
Liverpool and Hull, and Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as between other major
cities.<sup>[2]</sup> <br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Some historians have argued that these struggles between
railways were a major factor in their declining profitability after 1870, as
faster trains and more luxurious carriages cost more to build and operate.
Cain, for example, stated his belief that ‘service competition alone would have
been sufficient to promote levels of capital spending and methods of operation
that continuously eroded profitability.’<sup>[3] </sup>Personally, I have always
doubted the extent to which competitive trains services actually eroded
companies’ profitability. I argued in my thesis, on the management of the
London & South Western Railway after 1870, that service competition was on
the margins of the railway’s activities. It and the GWR ran hundreds of
services each day and only four or five express services to the West Country
were truly ‘competitive.’<sup>[4]</sup></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
One of the fiercest competitions between railway
companies were the famed ‘Races to the North’ in 1888 and 1895. Two groups of
companies that had control of the east and west coast main lines competed for
the fastest trains between London and Scotland. On the east coast route the
competitors were the Great Northern (London to York), North Eastern (York to
Edinburgh) and North British Railways (Edinburgh to Aberdeen); while on the
west coast route the contestants were the London and North Western (London to
Carlisle) and Caledonian Railways (Carlisle to Edinburgh and Aberdeen). The race
of 1895, which received the same attention in the press as the derby at
Cheltenham, captured the public’s imagination, culminating in a west coast
train on the night of 22 and 23 August making the journey between London and
Aberdeen in 8 hours 42 minutes. This was eight minutes quicker than an east
coast train the night before.<sup>[5]</sup></div>
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<br /></div>
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Because of events like this, the press liked to paint
these railway races as battles between warring powers. But how serious was the
animosity between the companies? Did the east and west coast railways really
treat their competitors as enemies? Or were the ‘races’ just an exuberant, but
good-natured, expression of a rivalry between them? Perhaps an event that
occurred before Christmas 1882 suggests an answer to these questions.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In early December 1882 a very thick letter arrived at
King’s Cross headquarters of the Great Northern Railway. Before a list of 214
names was a letter addressed to those in authority within company:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
Gentlemen</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Xoc6QmYq6YdiV1k5p2_nktYq4pSZJz5mHp6jqEx6SZxKEruc63rOG0LOMjzQ1cJ4srlHe_bU67MraHsnWbeXkJRhdArkm5D0-wcaiKEcJgH3WdssowSUV4VC2SEXa5uQSbgwJcBRXlW4/s1600/Petition.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Xoc6QmYq6YdiV1k5p2_nktYq4pSZJz5mHp6jqEx6SZxKEruc63rOG0LOMjzQ1cJ4srlHe_bU67MraHsnWbeXkJRhdArkm5D0-wcaiKEcJgH3WdssowSUV4VC2SEXa5uQSbgwJcBRXlW4/s320/Petition.jpg" width="254" /></a><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
the undersigned draw your attention to the fact that there are in London many
Scotchmen who desire to avail themselves of the opportunity of visiting their
friends in Scotland during the short vacation at Christmas but are deterred
from doing so by the heavy railway fares.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 7.65pt;">
We would therefore
petition to you to give this subject your full consideration and endeavour to
make some arrangement, whereby the result aimed at by your petitioners may be
gained namely: a reasonable reduction in fares between London and Scotland
equal to, if not quarter than that granted during the summer months.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
are certain that should you see your way to meet us in this matter, it would
not only confer a great boon, but from the large numbers availing themselves of
the opportunity, prove equally to your advantage.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
are yours respectfully…<sup> [6]</sup></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But this petition was not the only one to be sent, and a
duplicate also landed on the desk of George Findlay, the London and North
Western Railway’s General Manager. I suspect Findlay’s natural response was to
reject the request. But he was an astute railway manager, and possibly because he wished to maintain good relations with his east coast
rivals, he contacted to his opposite number within the GNR, Henry Oakley. ‘As I
presume a similar application has been addressed to you’, wrote Findlay ‘I
shall be glad to know if you will be prepared to join us in declining to accede
to the request.’<sup>[7] </sup>Oakley’s response is not contained within the
file, but the two companies decided to reject the petition. Findlay also communicated
with the Midland Railway, who likewise operated a route between London and
Scotland, and while they had not received a petition, they too were to going to keep fares at established levels.<sup> [8] </sup></div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In 1882 three railway companies, all of which were
theoretically competing with each other for traffic between London and Scotland,
collectively agreed to deny travellers making this journey reduce-rate fares
over the Christmas period. Of course, this case does not indicate the nature of
the GNR and LNWR’s relationship five or ten years later when they were racing. Nevertheless,
it may suggest that despite superficially appearing to be competing railways, as
a matter of fact their relationship was actually quite close and they worked
together when it was mutually beneficial for them to do so. ‘Market forces’, in this case at
least, did not really work. One thing is for certain, the Great Northern, London
& North Western and Midland Railways spoiled Christmas for a lot of London-based
Scotsmen and their families in 1882.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
--</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1]
Jack Simmons, ‘South Western v. Great Western: railway competition in Devon and
Cornwall’, <i>The Journal of Transport
History</i>, 4 (1959), 27-34</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[2]
Jack Simmons, <i>The Victorian Railway</i>,
(London, 1991), p.83; Jack Simmons, <i>The
Railway in England and Wales, 1830-1914, </i>(Leicester, 1978), p.84-85</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[3]
P.J. Cain, ‘Railways 1870-1914: the maturity of the private system’, in,
Michael J. Freeman and Derek H. Aldcroft, <i>Transport
in Victorian Britain</i>, (Manchester, 1988), pp.115</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[4]
David Turner, ‘Managing the “Royal Road”: The London & South Western
Railway 1870-1911’, (Unpublished PhD Thesis. University of York, 2013)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[5]
Oswald S. Nock, <i>The Railway Race to the
North</i>, (London, 1958), p.120-121</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[6]
The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 236/721/9, From London `Scotchmen' asking for
reduction in fares to Scotland during Christmas vacation, Letter from
organisation committee to Great Northern Railway, 4 December 1882</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[7]
TNA, RAIL 236/721/9, From London `Scotchmen' asking for reduction in fares to
Scotland during Christmas vacation, Letter from George Findlay to Henry Oakley,
11 December 1882</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[8] TNA, RAIL 236/721/9, From
London `Scotchmen' asking for reduction in fares to Scotland during Christmas
vacation, Letter from George Findlay to Henry Oakley, 13 December 1882</span></div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-21409707536069396282013-11-12T15:43:00.000+00:002013-11-12T15:43:56.334+00:00How drunk were late-Victorian train drivers?Every now and again, when I go looking for such things, I
find cases where Victorian engine drivers got drunk and then proceeded to
operate their vehicles. A few days ago I discovered one case from 1891 of an
express driver who, after leaving Liverpool Street Station, was found to be
quite sozzled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On his journey he had
stopped the train at Broxbourne for five minutes, for no apparent reason, after
which the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bury and Norwich Post</i>
recorded the ride to Bishop Stortford was ‘most uncomfortable.’ On arriving at
the station the station master was alerted to the driver’s inebriated state and
the latter was, after some wrangling, finally removed from the locomotive. The
train continued its journey under the charge of a goods train driver (who
likely relished the chance operate an express.)[1]
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This and other cases made the newspapers because a train
under the charge of an intoxicated individual was clearly an accident risk. But
reviewing such reports cannot give me an accurate indication of how frequently late-Victorian
engine drivers were found to be drunk. To determine this hard data was
required.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
While Victorian railway companies kept staff registers
which listed their employees’ positions, pay and promotions, most also kept
‘Black Books.’ These ominously titled volumes recorded every instance where an
employee disobeyed the rules and was punished. They recorded small
transgressions, such as when forms were incorrectly filed, to major offences,
for example criminal activity, refusing to follow orders, or drunkenness – the subject
of this post. Indeed, from the time of the earliest railways being intoxicated
while on duty was a serious offence, and rule 12 of the London and South
Western Railway’s (LSWR) 1897 rule book stated: ‘The company may at any time
without notice dismiss or suspend from duty any servant of the company for
intoxication.’[2]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Ag0HV01a_-6yMbRSmlWSKKmPYS69yTFsgMOftMw3kCVFQzQMipTJmxEFsiEVQbG1T7zeGg-33PFA8aMJcWjRFrN5njGQNFrIwVZPSjs4Y6AgtNL91X-kuomFAmnQ2ngcc2tzKOwWgO0Z/s1600/Staines.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Ag0HV01a_-6yMbRSmlWSKKmPYS69yTFsgMOftMw3kCVFQzQMipTJmxEFsiEVQbG1T7zeGg-33PFA8aMJcWjRFrN5njGQNFrIwVZPSjs4Y6AgtNL91X-kuomFAmnQ2ngcc2tzKOwWgO0Z/s320/Staines.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So, it was to the Black Books (available through
Ancestry.com) that I turned to find out about drunkenness amongst nineteenth
century engine drivers. Despite a reluctance to again study the LSWR, it being
the company I have done my thesis on, a Black Book dedicated to the
misdemeanours of its footplate crew (drivers and firemen) between 1889 and 1896
was available on-line. This volume was the perfect choice for my research.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In total I surveyed the records of 584 LSWR firemen and
drivers in the Black Book. Between 1889 and 1896 these individuals collectively
transgressed the rules 1,728 times. However, amongst these punishments the
number issued for intoxication was small, with only seventeen instances being
recorded (0.98 percent of cases). Additionally, these seventeen offences were
only committed by fourteen individuals (2.50 percent of the sample), three of
the men being repeat offenders.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
These findings clearly suggest that for the most part the
LSWR’s drivers and firemen were, while at work at least, a temperate group of
employees.[3] The supports the commonly held view at the time that railway
employees stayed away from alcohol while at work. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">South Western Gazette</i>, the company’s staff magazine, reported in
1885 that at the inaugural meeting of the Exeter branch of the United Kingdom
Railway Temperance Union, the Bishop of the city had commented that the
organisation was ‘very peculiar and very striking’ as ‘it could not be said
that railway men as a general rule were tempted to drunkenness.’ Generally they
were ‘as a body were as temperate a body as could be found.’[4]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
As for the fourteen drivers and firemen found to be under
the influence while at work, it is probable that most never got as far as being
in control of a train. Usually the ‘Black Book’ recorded that they came ‘to
duty the worse for drink’ or they were ‘under the influence of drink whilst on
duty’, and only in two cases was it explicitly stated that a driver had been ‘under
the influence of drink whilst in charge of an engine’: J. Appleton of the Nine
Elms Shed was caught in May 1896, while R. Reid., who was based at Twickenham, was
found driving a passenger train while drunk in August 1889.[5] </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
From this evidence it can therefore be tentatively
suggested that instances where drivers ‘under the influence’ actually got onto the
footplate of their locomotives, such as the one cited at the start, were
exceedingly rare on the late-Victorian railways. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
------------</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] <i>Bury and
Norwich Post</i>, 20 January 1891</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[2] South Western Circle Collection [SWC], <i>1897 Rule Book</i>, p.9</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[3] The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 411/521, London and
South Western Railway Company. STAFF RECORDS. Black Book - fines to drivers and
firemen, 01 January 1889 - 31 December 1896. Accessed through Ancestry.com.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[4] <i>South Western
Gazette</i>, January 1885, p.6</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[5] TNA, RAIL 411/521, London and South Western Railway
Company. STAFF RECORDS. Black Book - fines to drivers and firemen, 01 January
1889 - 31 December 1896, p.11 and p.29. Accessed through Ancestry.com.</span></div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com260tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-60686948543915547262013-10-10T13:21:00.001+01:002013-10-15T13:02:54.589+01:00Working City to City: The LNWR's on-train typist service of 1910<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mE8ewQxtNZErHLuqq3k_235vbIK0HHPWSnfFrZr3AG5IRTOuHN6wFt59tbV5ZVKmpJpqp9CmhkR-Y9a-RKmJnSKwf10XfCbOs7nGfLtYV8p5AcW0YQOnh3LFaAysvBnwah-5WhCj70y6/s1600/trains75-620x413.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mE8ewQxtNZErHLuqq3k_235vbIK0HHPWSnfFrZr3AG5IRTOuHN6wFt59tbV5ZVKmpJpqp9CmhkR-Y9a-RKmJnSKwf10XfCbOs7nGfLtYV8p5AcW0YQOnh3LFaAysvBnwah-5WhCj70y6/s320/trains75-620x413.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I am sure from the very earliest days of the railways passengers
must have done work on the train. It is, some might say, a tradition of the
travelling businessperson. However, the declining cost and increasing hardiness
of laptops has undoubtedly changed the nature of train-based work. Rather than
simply reading policy documents and making notes, as was likely the case in the
poorly lit Victorian railway carriages, those travelling to their place of work
can now produce via their laptops formal documents that will go on to their colleagues,
managers and companies’ directors. The train can be, for many, a second office
that is possibly more pleasant than the one at their final destination.
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But the ability to produce formal document on the train
is nothing new. Long before the laptop was invented, from February 1910 businessmen
on the London and North Western Railway’s (LNWR) “City-to-City” express had facility
to have their important and urgent documents typed.[1]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsFfy3Q4piaue0kJiJ4odpszMAXQH2uNw1vThcfaI9rcwvYHtmIg6i7mgTIp979LwD47CswjN-SIOxj-MdYTaWsitMVnaeUF_EFTOpKHrY4ud6EBvzMJX1f-eKa6t74vVtWPLK70hXYqoo/s1600/City-to-city2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsFfy3Q4piaue0kJiJ4odpszMAXQH2uNw1vThcfaI9rcwvYHtmIg6i7mgTIp979LwD47CswjN-SIOxj-MdYTaWsitMVnaeUF_EFTOpKHrY4ud6EBvzMJX1f-eKa6t74vVtWPLK70hXYqoo/s320/City-to-city2.jpg" width="257" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The typist's compartment on the "City-to-City".</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The “City-to-City” express was inaugurated by the LNWR between
Birmingham and London Broad Street Station to compete with the Great Western
Railway’s express services between the same places (the GWR’s services ran into
Paddington). Starting from Birmingham at 8.20 am and arriving at 10.35 am, the morning
“City-to-City”, which also had a breakfast car attached, took two and a quarter
hours to make the journey, whereas the GWR’s service took fifteen minutes less.
Although, if you made the journey by the GWR it possibly would have taken you
longer overall reach your place of work, Paddington being some distance away
from the commercial centres of London. Broad Street Station on the other hand
was only a short walk away from the city.[2] The return run of the “City-to-City”
started from Broad Street at 5.25pm and arrived at 7.40pm.[3]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Presumably in an attempt to entice to their services businessmen
who were eager to save time at work, the LNWR took the innovative step of
providing Britain’s first ever on-train typist service on the “City-to-City”. Situated
in a compartment specially fitted up with a desk and chairs, the shorthand typist
was available to take dictation of letters at any time on the journey.[4] On the
inaugural run of the express the work was supervised by Miss Tarrant of the Euston
typing room; while on subsequent journeys a Miss Boswell took over.[5] It would,
however, seem that there was some initial objection to this service in the press
. In the ‘Woman’s Gossip’ section of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cheltenham
Looker-On</i> it was stated that while 5 or 6 hour journeys for passengers was ‘tiring
in itself’, the ‘girl’ doing the typing was expected to be at her post five
days a week to ‘do office work all the time.’ In its estimation this would be
too much work for the ‘girl and exclaimed that ‘the doctors talk of the growth
and spread of nervous habits among the people, but who can wonder at it?’[6]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgduEiOl0ltSE5FaDIIvirHkVgw2cOBJbDtUlqXpeW63He_9fmdCKtgs_8tTS5k4cpxkQZkqsBeB_rcca19RT5Sp0622hVK5bPhtC1OhoxcvVZXexNBgPWpqSSQflL1QOI-EoD1a6w-R9k5/s1600/City-to-city.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgduEiOl0ltSE5FaDIIvirHkVgw2cOBJbDtUlqXpeW63He_9fmdCKtgs_8tTS5k4cpxkQZkqsBeB_rcca19RT5Sp0622hVK5bPhtC1OhoxcvVZXexNBgPWpqSSQflL1QOI-EoD1a6w-R9k5/s320/City-to-city.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first letter from the "City-to-City" express.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Initially, it would seem the typing service was
successful. “I have been kept busy all the way up,” Tarrant said in an
interview shortly after the “City-to-City’s” inaugural return run, “twelve
passengers dictated letters to me and only once, when we were passing through
the Kilsby Tunnel,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was the dictation
interrupted…I had no difficulty whatever in using the typewriter, and all my
clients appeared to be highly satisfied. The experiment was quite a success.”[7]
Yet, after two months the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tamworth Herald</i>
would report the typewriting services had ‘not been so well patronised as was
expected would be the case.’ It would seem that travellers using the service
were unable to overcome the fear that any business they conducted through the
train’s typist would not be confidential. Yet, irrespective of customers’
trepidation, the LNWR decided to extend the service to other trains.[8] Whether
the typist service was successful in the long-run is unclear, only a closer
examination of the company’s files may reveal this. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
--------</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] <i>Evening
Telegraph</i>, Wednesday 2 February 1910, p.4</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[2] Wolmar, Christian, <i>Fire and Steam: A new history of the Railways in Britain, </i>(London,
2007), p.188</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[3]<i> The Railway
Times</i>, 22 January 1910, p.122</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[4] <i>The Railway
Times</i>, 22 January 1910, p.122</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[5] <i>Aberdeen
Journal</i>, Thursday 03 February 1910, p.6</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[6] <i>Cheltenham
Looker-On</i>, Saturday 29 January 1910, p.16</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[7] <i>Evening
Telegraph</i>, Wednesday 2 February 1910, p.4</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[8] <i>Tamworth Herald</i>,
Saturday 16 April 1910, p.6</span></div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com78tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-56355070868052502982013-09-29T21:08:00.001+01:002013-09-30T08:41:06.505+01:00"One broad principal of economy"; One female booking clerk in 1903Whenever a railway company decided to employ a woman as a
clerk before 1914, the newspapers always described the event as an ‘experiment’
or an ‘innovation.’ The Caledonian Railway took such a step 1903 when it
decided to hire an unnamed woman as booking clerk at Perth Station. ‘RAILWAY INNOVATION
AT PERTH’ was the title of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Evening
Post’s</i> report.[1]
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In reality this was not an innovation. The Edinburgh,
Perth and Dundee Railway, which later became part of the North British Railway,
had employed a woman as a booking clerk a Perth Station in 1858.[2] Other
British railway companies were also employing large numbers of women in similar
positions on their networks by 1903. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Yorkshire
Evening Post</i> reported that ‘the female booking clerk is no new thing in Glasgow;
there have been girl booking clerks in the West of Scotland for ten years.’[3] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Evening Post</i> itself acknowledged how
the Caledonian’s new policy was not unique, ‘In the ticket office she may be
something of a novelty in the North, but not so further South. The London and North-Western
was already ahead in its employment of ladies on the ticket staffs.’[4]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In fact, the Caledonian’s appointment of 1903 was only a
unique because it was the first time it had dabbled with such an ‘experiment.’ The
plan was, it seems, to expand the number of female booking clerks on the
company’s network. In one officials’ view the ‘lady clerk was here to stay,’ with<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>‘female labour in the service of the
pen…rapidly widening.[5] </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
As with all instances of women being employed as clerks there
was a large degree of doubt as to whether they had the skills or aptitude
to perform their roles adequately. A Caledonian official thought
that ‘it was not imperative that she should run up columns of figures or juggle
with statistical puzzles of periodical survey. Her usefulness could be
exploited without any apprehension of accounting difficulties.’[6] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Yorkshire Evening Post </i>went one
further affirming that there were just some things that female booking clerks were
incapable of doing; ‘her sex unfits her for the country station, where the
booking clerk adds to his duties those of ticket collector.’[7] Whether this
was the view of railway companies’ managements is unclear.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
If there was doubt amongst Caledonian officials that women could perform the role of booking clerk adequately, why then did they proceed with the 'experiment'? Let us not presume it was because a railway manager had a
particularly progressive or feminist outlook and wished to promote equal
opportunities in the workplace. Between 1897 and 1901 the Caledonian’s
operating ratio – its operating expenditure expressed as a proportion of
revenue – rose from 50.4% to 56.4%.[8] Such an increase in operating costs,
principally because of higher coal prices, affected most British railways in this
period and, like most companies, it is presumed that the Caledonian
enacted an immediate economy drive in response. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The employment of female booking clerks was therefore likely
part of this quest to reduce costs. The ‘official’ highlighted that
they were paid less than their male counterparts: ‘the salary for mere
ticket-selling would be somewhat under that of the regular male ticket clerk.
She was a commodity of cheapness and so long as she went into the clerical market
so long would she prove a mercantile rival on the railway as on any other
railway.’ He foresaw that the female booking clerk was a permanent fixture ‘so
long as one broad principal of economy rules the railway organisations of
today.’[9] Another benefit for the railway of employing female booking clerks was that they were
never moved from their position or were promoted. ‘The male booking clerk,’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Yorkshire Evening Post</i> contended, ‘is a
restless animal with a keen eye on promotion, and the only way to keep him in
the service is to change him from station to station…the girl clerk does
not leave her post until she marries.’ Because the women were never given the
opportunity to move from the position in which they were initially employed,
this reduced the cost for the railway company of finding and training a constant
stream of new male booking clerks.[10] </div>
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Overall, the Caledonian’s example has shown how important
it is to place the growing number of women employed on Britain’s railways after
1900 in context. In 1901 1,633 were working on Britain’s railways; by
1914 this number had risen to 13,046.[10] I would say that to a large extent
this growth was driven by British railway companies’ desire to cut costs, and not principally because individuals in authoritative positions in the industry that had progressive outlooks. </div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[1] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Evening Post</i>, 6 October 1903, p.2</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[2] Wojtczak, Helena, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Railwaywomen</i>, (Hastings, 2006), p.27</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[3] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yorkshire Evening Post </i>, 12 October 1903, p.4</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[4] Evening Post, 6
October 1903, p.2</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[5] Evening Post, 6
October 1903, p.2</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[6] Evening Post, 6
October 1903, p.2</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[7] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yorkshire Evening Post </i>, 12 October 1903, p.4</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[8] Board of Trade, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Railway Returns</i>, 1897 and 1901</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[9] Evening Post, 6
October 1903, p.2</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[10] Wojtczak, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Railwaywomen</i>, p.4 – The first figure is
from the 1901 census returns and could be open to change. I feel personally
that it is a little low.</span></div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-22231218014440999662013-06-04T10:28:00.004+01:002013-07-07T20:15:08.440+01:00Note on the Dugald Drummond postI have today deleted one post from Turnip Rail because, well, I don't agree with it. The post, written in 2010, was on the topic of the London and South Western Railway's Locomotive Superintendent between 1895 and 1911, Dugald Drummond. In the post I criticised him for his poor management of the company's Locomotive Department. As is the way with historical study, in mid-2012 I changed my views based on evidence. Since that time I have modified and refined them considerably as research progressed and have ended up both praising and criticising Drummond in my thesis.<br />
<br />
Over the years I have had numerous communications on the post with interested individuals and each time I have had to explain how my views have changed. Today, when I received another message, I just decided to delete the post (and I apologise to the individual who posted the comment). It was becoming very repetitive to keep communicating on this topic when the post did not reflect my views. <br />
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In due course I will write a post on what I actually think of Dugald Drummond.David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-68815162887656069212013-05-20T11:57:00.001+01:002013-05-22T23:41:00.574+01:00Teacher, Tram Manager and Entrepreneur: The Remarkable Life of Euphemia PenmanEuphemia Penman was a remarkable woman who rose to become one of the most respected managers in the emergent tram systems of late-Victorian London. In the period, given the social conventions of the time, this was without a doubt a significant achievment.<br />
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For those of you that have followed TurnipRail for some time I can happily report that my thesis on the management of the London and South Western Railway is nearly at an end. What I have not divulged before is that after it is dispensed with I am hoping to start exciting new work on the management history of trams and trolleybuses. It was while doing some preliminary work for this new project that I came across ‘Miss Penman.’ <o:p></o:p></div>
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But first, I feel a bit of background is required. In the 1870s numerous tram systems had been established in London under the Tramways Act 1870. One part of this legislation specified that local authorities were able to acquire these companies, much to their annoyance, after they had been operating for twenty-one years. In 1898 the London County Council (LCC), who always seemed to work in the interest of those it served, decided to take advantage of this clause and started the processes of acquiring the London Tramways Company (LTC).<sup> </sup><o:p></o:p></div>
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It was on a list of senior LTC officials the LCC was going to re-engage after the take-over that I first found Euphemia. Within the new organisational structure she was to take up the important position of ‘Superintendent of conductors and of checking staff at chief and cash offices,’ and<sup> </sup>her proposed salary was an impressive £350 per annum with ‘house, coal and light.’<sup>[1] </sup>(this later increased to £400).<sup>[2] </sup>Given this level of seniority and pay was very unusual for a woman in late-Victorian businesses, I resolved to find out more about Penman’s life and career.<o:p></o:p></div>
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She was born to David and Rachel Penman in Breath, Scotland, in 1852 and in that year she had three older brothers, James, William and Harry. Beyond this very little has been found about her early life. By 1870 she was teaching a ‘Sabbath evening class’ in Dysart (near Kirkcaldy) and in March that year, because of the high esteem in which she was held by her students, they presented her with pew bible in which was inscribed the following: ‘Presented to Miss Euphemia Penman as a token of respect, by her Sunday Scholars. – Dysart March 28 1870.’ She would never be aware of it, but this was not the last ‘token of respect’ Euphemia would receive in Dysart.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Euphemia’s first position in the tramway industry was as a simple checker of tickets on the Glasgow Tramway and Omnibus Company (GTOC).<sup> [3] </sup>She seemingly rose through the ranks quickly and by 1879 she was forewoman of the female staff employed at the company’s central offices. Clearly she made an impression on the GTOC’s senior management. When Mr Smart, its most senior official, gained the same post within the LTC in 1879<sup> [4]</sup> she followed him south, becoming head of its women checkers’ department.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the same time many other GTOC staff followed Smart to the LTC.<sup>[5] </sup> This is very interesting, as the movement of so many officials from an established tram system (the GTOC being formed in 1871) to a newer one evidences that within the early tram industry there was a dearth of knowledge on how to administer and operate these new transportation systems. The LTS was therefore astute in recruiting officials that at that point would have been considered experts in tram management. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Between 1879 and 1898 Euphemia’s status rose within the company and indicative of this by 1890 she was living in a house provided by the LTC at its headquarters on the Camberwell New Road.<sup>[6] </sup>The organisation grew, and in 1894<sup>[7] </sup> she was given the huge responsibility of overseeing the company’s 560 conductors.<sup>[8]</sup> Her duties were to receive reports daily as to their work, engage and, if necessary, dismiss any, and she also oversaw the distribution of tickets.<sup>[9] <o:p></o:p></sup></div>
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In the 1890s for a woman to possess such authority within business was exceptional. The <i>Sunderland Daily Echo</i> stated she was the ‘only woman in England who occupies the very unique position of superintendent of tramway conductors.’ Like in her days as a Sunday school teacher she was respected by those beneath her, the paper reporting ‘that she has won the respect and confidence of the men is shown by the fact that there is not one who has a word to say against her encroachment into what one would ordinarily regard as the special preserve of man.’ The men apparently spoke highly of her fairness, her strict regard for discipline and business abilities.<sup>[10]</sup><o:p></o:p></div>
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Indeed, it was Euphemia’s business abilities that make the last part of her story even more fascinating than it already is. She was not only a woman with decision-making responsibility within a major company, but she was also a businessperson outside it. In late-May 1899 she and her partner Robert Lindsay, who was changing professions, dissolved their business as cab proprietors operating out of Oak Tree-place St. John’s Road, London.<sup>[11] </sup>Little is known about this concern, although it was not small. As a result of it shutting down in early-May Lindsay was advertising the sale of twenty-five horses, twelve ‘hansom cabs’, twelve cab harnesses, a chaff machine, a platform weighing machine and ‘usual sundries.’<sup>[12]</sup> <o:p></o:p></div>
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The extent of Euphemia’s involvement in this firm has not been determined; yet, given the cabs traded under R. Lindsay’s name, and taking into account her responsibilities within the LTS, it is more likely she was a silent partner. Irrespective of this, this activity demonstrates that she actively sought commercial opportunities for herself beyond her employment.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In March 1899, only months after transferring to the LCC’s employ, Euphemia fell ill; another likely reason by the cab business was dissolved. No reports detail what she was suffering from, however, she underwent an operation that unfortunately did not rectify the problem and on Tuesday 9 July she died suddenly while recovering in Margate.<sup> [13] </sup>She was buried two days later in Glasgow.<sup>[14] </sup>Reflecting her successful life, her will left the considerable sum of £624 14s 2d to three individuals; Thomas Gibson, a watchmaker, Joshua Kidd Bruce, a veterinary surgeon, and Thomas Davies.<sup>[15]</sup><o:p></o:p></div>
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Euphemia was greatly mourned after her death and, as a testament to the high regard in which she was held, the LTC’ directors and employees raised funds for a memorial to commemorate her life. Designed by D Carnegie and Son of Dundee, in January 1900 a granite monument was erected in Dysart; the same place where her Sunday school students had presented her with a bible thirty years before.<sup>[16]</sup><o:p></o:p></div>
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I have only briefly touched on the life of Euphemia Penman in this short biography, yet there is clearly much more to be discovered about her. What has however been demonstrated is that she was a remarkable individual within the late-Victorian period; not simply because she defied social conventions that said that only men were to rise high in business, but because of the clear talent she brought to her work, the entrepreneurial spirit she had and the high esteem in which she was held by those employed under her.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[1] London Metropolitan Archives [LMA], LCC Min 6719, Highways Committee Minute Book, 10 November 1898, p.70<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[2] LMA, LCC Min 6720, Highways Committee Minute Book, 23 March 1899, p.346<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[3] <i>Hull</i> <i>Daily Mail</i>, Thursday, 18 August 1898<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[4] <i>Evening Telegraph</i>, Thursday, 13 July 1899<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[5] <i>Hull</i> <i>Daily Mail</i>, Thursday, 18 August 1898<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[6] Retrieved from Ancestry – Electoral register, Camberwell, 1890, p.188<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[7] <i>Evening Telegraph</i>, Thursday, 13 July 1899<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[8] <i>Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette</i>, Saturday 26 November 1898, p.5<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[9] <i>Evening Telegraph</i>, Thursday, 13 July 1899<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[10] <i>Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette</i>, Saturday 26 November 1898, p.5<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[11] <i>The London Gazette</i>, 16 June 1899<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[12] <i>The</i> <i>Standard</i>, Monday, 1 May 1899, p. 12<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[13] <i>Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald</i>, Saturday 22 July 1899<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[14] <i>North Wales Chronicle</i>, Saturday, 15 July 15 1899<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[15] Recovered from Ancestry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[16] <i>The Courier and Argus</i>, Tuesday, 16 January 16, 1900, p. 6</span></div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-75014003806862944162013-01-14T11:39:00.003+00:002013-01-14T11:44:08.550+00:00For ticket holders and dignitaries only - why I felt cheated by "Steam on the Underground"‘The events’ writes the Transport for London's (TfL) website ‘will explore the
tube’s history and will look at the role it will play in the future – both in
the lives of Londoners and the economy of the City and the UK.’ We have
repeatedly been told that London’s underground network is the lifeblood of the
city; flowing into the veins of all who live and work here. We have been told
that it serves us, that it functions for our benefit, through times of happiness
and joy; and through sorrow and heartache. This does, therefore, lead me to ask
why one of TfL's events, the running of steam on the Underground, was seemingly
so poorly orchestrated that there was no hope that most Londoners could get a descent
look-in.
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I’m not talking about the lottery for tickets to ride on
the steam train. There were limited spaces and this was probably the fairest
way to decide who got to go on the historic run. Nor am I talking about the
success of getting a steam engine running on the underground in the first place;
that is a notable achievement. Rather, I am talking about the chronic lack of
information available; the very un-friendly provisions for families and the
arrangements for viewing the train at Moorgate.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO-Fvz2DFSVAz15yepRA6iOTVeOZd6F2ljXqvDvFXQs8uN6eNDc-r4QZvhcMR2ZimB3rhOTzJ-9pnSFQPthJjqtvTIL3x6RPTj13kNMJgSFjfW0hg_uzcPOzz-rEEqpFh46miiMtKJp64Z/s1600/tube+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO-Fvz2DFSVAz15yepRA6iOTVeOZd6F2ljXqvDvFXQs8uN6eNDc-r4QZvhcMR2ZimB3rhOTzJ-9pnSFQPthJjqtvTIL3x6RPTj13kNMJgSFjfW0hg_uzcPOzz-rEEqpFh46miiMtKJp64Z/s320/tube+3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Enthusiasts at Earl's Court</b></td></tr>
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The underground’s website suitably praised TfL’s operation
of a historic train; except that crucial of all information, the route and
times of its journey. Nether was their information on the best places to see it. I knew, as did almost every railway enthusiast, which
rather obscure website held such information. But imagine if I were a parent
wanting to take my children to see the run, would I have known which website to
go? I don’t think so; I don’t think many would have known how to find the times
out. Consequently, at the stations I visited it was clear that the railway
enthusiast fraternity had turned out in droves; while ‘Londoners’, young and
old, were in short supply. Why the times were not on the main TfL
site (or if it was it was very well hidden) is beyond me.</div>
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TfL also probably made a windfall out of the steam
train’s journeys. This wasn’t because of the £180 it cost to ride on it, that
presumably covered the cost of operating the train. I’m referring to all those
who ‘touched in’ with their Oyster cards, but failed to touch out in time
because they were waiting around for the steam train, meaning money was
subtracted from it. Suffice to say I got stung twice. I topped up my Oyster
like a good little lad at Hampton Court; I usually top it up to the price of a
travel card, so I had £8.90 when I left there. But after being inside Earl’s
Court Station waiting for the steam engine for about an hour, on attempting to
leave I was told I had no money. I queried this, but eventually put it down to
some fault in the system and topped up again. Yet, when the same thing happened on attempting to leave
at Barbican, after being ‘inside’ the tube for about two hours - it was only
then I twigged. I appreciate I should have been more astute and figured this
would happen; after all, I travel on the tube weekly. But what about the
uninitiated; someone who was unfamiliar with Oyster cards and visiting to
specifically see the train? I dread to think how much TfL made out of such
people who made the same mistake I did. Yet, people could have avoided such a blunder if TfL had simply placed a mention on their website and at stations ‘Do not use an Oyster
if planning to stay in the station for some time – use a paper Travelcard.’ Would
this have been so hard? </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitN_VwLRhPulY7h_dZPM-2VxZXMMT2DR6IHkjlI_S8bIQxPywX3MjAGIXLnnAE4Y9kf0wsCW4ACNiV-VFUehLjQ3SP5Whf0JAQkyu2aflWZzFUMCPSbdNff-xIUbyUMq4Y2idIsyZcdA-B/s1600/tube+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitN_VwLRhPulY7h_dZPM-2VxZXMMT2DR6IHkjlI_S8bIQxPywX3MjAGIXLnnAE4Y9kf0wsCW4ACNiV-VFUehLjQ3SP5Whf0JAQkyu2aflWZzFUMCPSbdNff-xIUbyUMq4Y2idIsyZcdA-B/s320/tube+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>I probably got one of the best views - still dreadful though</b></td></tr>
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But then there was what happened at Moorgate. Now, I know
that a lot of people wanted to get to the steam train to have a look, but the
way that the situation was handled was verging on the infuriating. For those
who are unaware; Moorgate has two terminal platforms. When I arrived behind the
barrier, TfL had decided to put the steam train in one of these and then had shoved
a tube train, completely obscuring mine and others view, in the next. This was
followed by at least 45 minutes of very mixed messages from different officials and police
officers as to whether the tube train would move – at first it was going to; but then it didn’t; although we weren't certain of that for some time. Following this the
dignitaries who had just got off the steam train came round in front of us,
wandered up and down the stationary tube, and then left by another train that
had arrived on a platform we were on. </div>
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Still our view was obscured. I heard a mother with three
children, one of the few families I saw there, say ‘this whole thing has been
organised against children’ – a sentiment I couldn’t disagree with; especially
as she was unsure whether her two boys would get a look at the steam train.
Eventually, we were let on the stationary tube so we could peer through the
windows at the piece of railway heritage on the next line. It was ridiculous
really. You weren’t able to take descent photos because of the glare from the
glass; you weren’t able to even see much because of the people cramming by the
windows; and awe and wonder was in generally short supply. Then, I heard the
crying from down the train; one of the children who had waited couldn’t see it.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgExc-Prexmz3q2N1hKve-UM09U4oppxPVVgH35Nth8TCtrkTPIjVartGCRR1_NS5M7tDqe33n33hYav-ggzvYKay-xwByvpdw6-LhQk573ISHpnjq03R9412y8mU3k5cp0-XpAWddol7Vs/s1600/tube+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgExc-Prexmz3q2N1hKve-UM09U4oppxPVVgH35Nth8TCtrkTPIjVartGCRR1_NS5M7tDqe33n33hYav-ggzvYKay-xwByvpdw6-LhQk573ISHpnjq03R9412y8mU3k5cp0-XpAWddol7Vs/s320/tube+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>No way to see much, if any of the steam train.</b></td></tr>
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The steam train was only at Moorgate for about an hour
and half. Would it have been so hard for TfL to cordon of one side of the platform
for that short time, have the barrier patrolled, and remove the tube train so
that all, not just dignitaries, could see the steamer in all its splendour?
Would that have been so hard? In the end I came away with numerous blurry photographs
and lots of reflection from the window. Unsurprisingly, most around me had
exactly the same grumble.</div>
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All in all, a steam engine on the underground was a
wonderful thing; and those who got the special service running should
rightfully be congratulated. But I am sorry to say that as someone who has paid
for the journey through may underground fares, who loves the tube and
is interested in railway history, it seemed that unless you were lucky enough to have a ticket to ride or were a dignitary, you were a burden to TfL; not worthy of suitable attention or information. Overall, I came away feeling
cheated; I had paid £18.90 topping up my Oyster, had waited over four hours in the cold, all for limited return. Therefore, TfL take note; you claimed this event was for those who live and work in London; yet you created a reality that was quite different.</div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-54994794945310380252012-12-24T08:58:00.001+00:002012-12-24T09:21:42.685+00:00Counting customers - railway traffic before Christmas in the 1800sThere is no doubt that the four or five days before Christmas
are some of the busiest for Britain’s railways as people travel home to see
their friends and relatives, or return bleary eyed from Christmas parties and
gatherings. No doubt the flooding in Britain has reduced the number of trains
running in the period this year. However, nationally, 22,247 trains were
scheduled on the 21 December; 20,436 on the 22<sup>nd</sup>; 11,588 were
supposed to run yesterday and 18,968 are due to run today.<sup>[1] </sup>Most
Train Operating Companies have not supplement their regular scheduled services,<sup>[3]</sup> Chiltern being the only one.<sup>[2]
</sup>Thus, with largely regular Saturday and Sunday timetables in operation on
the 22<sup>nd</sup> and 23<sup>rd</sup> December, and with trains stopping
early today, many passengers will feel like they have travelled in tin cans by
the end of the festive season.
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
However, it is no comfort to say so, but crowded trains
are what the Christmas passenger has experienced for over a century. In the
nineteenth century particularly, the various railway companies provided the
press with a plethora of data on their Christmas traffic. In the days after the
25 December how many passengers to and from stations were commonly mentioned in
newspapers, especially as the numbers usually grew each year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The number of passengers who travelled in the festive
period from London via the Great Western Railway (GWR) perfectly shows this
growth. In 1895 the number booked at the company’s City and West End Offices
and London Stations between Friday 20 December and Thursday 26 December at noon
was 40,750. This was an increase on 1889’s total of 37,000. Indeed, in 1895
5,953 passengers travelled from Paddington on Saturday 21 December; with 8,992
being conveyed on Christmas Eve.<sup>[4] </sup>Therefore, with Christmas
passenger numbers increasing so rapidly year on year, it is quite possible that
individual travellers found themselves progressively squeezed as the railways
struggled to keep pace with the changing demand. <sup><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></sup></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
However, as we are currently told passenger numbers in
this country continue to grow, it would be interesting<sup> </sup>to see this
year whether the 374 and 307 trains scheduled leave Paddington on the 21 and 24
December respectively are on average they are more packed than those on the
same day in 2011.<sup> [5] </sup></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But passenger data was not the only information the
newspapers featured; and the amount of parcels handled by stations also
appeared alongside it. Those passing through the London and North Western
Railway’s Euston Station were of particular interest and, <a href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/christmas-fare-from-provinces-euston.html">as I related in a blog post last year</a>, special arrangements were established there in the 1840s
to handle this vast and growing traffic. Statistics have been found which show that number of
parcels arriving at Euston in the three days before and the morning of the 25
December grew most years. They were as follows:</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
1848 - 12,000 [6]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
1849 - 15,000 [7]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
1850 - 10,000 [8]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
1851 - Inward and Outward: 40,000 (figures for the week
before Christmas) [9]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
1852 - 12,000</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
1853 - 12,500 [10]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
1864 - 17,000 [11]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Therefore, by digging into<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>nineteenth century newspapers we can gauge
how the railways became an integral part of Christmas for Victorians;
performing the same function as do for passengers today, through taking them
from home to merriment and delivering them all they needed for Christmas cheer.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Much thanks must go to Tom Cairns for the data he provided
on current train operations.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
A Very Merry Christmas<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
My other Christmas posts are as follows:</div>
<a href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/christmas-fare-from-provinces-euston.html"><br /></a>
<br />
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/pretty-festoons-of-holly-leaves-are.html">'Pretty Festoons of Holly Leaves Are Displayed' - The Decoration of Railway Stations Before 1900</a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/christmas-fare-from-provinces-euston.html">"Christmas fare from the provinces" - Euston Station and the Distribution of Festive Goods in the 1840s</a></div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/extra-train-will-leave-shoreditch.html">"An EXTRA TRAIN will leave Shoreditch" - Trains on Christmas Day before 1900
</a><br />
<a href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/victorian-railway-christmas-parcels.html">A Victorian 'Railway' Christmas - Parcels, Pastimes, Profit and Poetry</a></div>
</div>
<a -="-" 1840s="1840s" and="and" christmas="christmas" distribution="distribution" euston="euston" fare="fare" festive="festive" from="from" goods="goods" href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/extra-train-will-leave-shoreditch.html" in="in" of="of" provinces="provinces" station="station" the="the">
</a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/victorian-railway-christmas-parcels.html"></a></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
---------</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[1] Data kindly provided by Tom Cairns <a href="http://realtimetrains.co.uk/">http://realtimetrains.co.uk</a> and Twitter:
<a href="https://twitter.com/swlines">@swlines</a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[2] <a href="http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/seasonal/Christmas_2012/index_custom.html">http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/seasonal/Christmas_2012/index_custom.html</a>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[3] <a href="http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/seasonal/Christmas_2012/index_custom.html">http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/seasonal/Christmas_2012/index_custom.html</a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[4] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Morning Post - </span></i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Friday 27 December 1895</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[5] Data kindly provided by Tom Cairns <a href="http://realtimetrains.co.uk/">http://realtimetrains.co.uk</a> and Twitter:
@swlines</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[6] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Morning
Post</i>, Tuesday, December 26, 1848</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[7] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Daily News, </i>Wednesday,
December 26, 1849, Issue 1119</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[8] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Era</i>,
Sunday, December 29, 1850</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[9] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Standard, </i>Saturday,
December 27, 1851, p.1</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[10] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Essex
Standard</i>, and General Advertiser for the Eastern Counties, Wednesday,
December 28, 1853</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[11] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jackson's
Oxford Journal</i>, Saturday, January 9, 1864</div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-86778268020243698982012-12-18T23:14:00.000+00:002012-12-24T08:56:35.127+00:00'Pretty Festoons of Holly Leaves Are Displayed' - The Decoration of Railway Stations Before 1900In the late nineteenth century most railway employees would
find themselves at work over the Christmas period, even on Christmas Day itself.
Therefore, it is unsurprising that many felt the need to adorn their places of
work so that the spirit of Christmas would remain with them while
on duty. The decoration of stations was seemingly a collective effort by station
staff, and it was reported by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reading
Mercury </i>in January 1887 <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that </span>at Sunningdale station on the London and South
Western Railway (LSWR) ‘all the men have worked at the decorations during
their “off time” under the supervision of the station master.<sup>[1]</sup><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This decking out of stations at Christmas allowed
travellers to pass a wealth of colour while on their journeys. In 1884 the
London and South Western Railway’s (LSWR) staff magazine, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">South Western Gazette</i>, reported that the
standard of decorations at suburban stations was ‘quite up to the standard of
past years’.<sup>[2]</sup> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Whitstable
Times and Hearne Bay Herald</i> stated in 1881 that the London, Chatham and
Dover Railway’s (LCDR) station at Canterbury ‘looked exceedingly pretty’ and
that ‘there had been no stint in the quality of decorative material, and it
had been put up in a manner that evinced care and taste on the part of the
decorators.’<sup>[3]</sup> Furthermore, in 1887 the adornments at the LSWR’s Totton,
Redbridge and Lyndhurst Road Stations were described by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hampshire Advertiser</i> as being ‘very
effective, reflecting credit on those who carried out the work.’<sup>[4]</sup> </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Decorations were usually a mix of local plants,
particularly evergreens, with other items added. In 1888 the booking office and
waiting room at Purley on the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR)
was decorated ‘effectively and prettily’ with holly and ivy.<sup>[5]</sup> Furthermore,
the copious adornments at the LSWR’s Sunningdale Station in 1886 were described
in full, as follows:</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
‘The evergreens, relieved by
numerous flags, and mottoes have a very pretty effect. The pillars are entwined
with Turkey red, above which is a diamond shaped wreath, with Chrysanthemums,
yellow, white and pink bronze at each point. The booking office is adorned with
great taste, and a number of pretty festoons of holly leaves are displayed.’<sup>[6]</sup>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Additionally, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gazette</i>
recorded that the parcels office staff at Richmond station in 1887 had…:</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
“…vied with their parcel brethren
at other stations in the way in which they have recognised this season of the
year by wreathing and other decorations on the walls and around the windows of
their office; the result has been very successful…a considerable quantity of
evergreen has been expended in all decorations of this Richmond parcels office.
We hear it is as well as any in the vicinity.’<sup>[7]</sup></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Staff at Norbiton in 1884 and Camberley
in 1885<sup>[8]</sup> did things a little differently; lighting their booking
offices and waiting rooms with Chinese lanterns. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gazette </i>recorded how at Norbiton ‘The effect at night is
exceedingly pretty, and reflects great credit upon the designers.’<sup>[9]</sup></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It is unknown when stations were decorated by their staff.
However, only one article I have found reports a station's adornments before
25 December, suggesting that most stations were decked out shortly before Christmas Day.<sup>[10] </sup>As<sup> </sup>for when they were taken down, this is again
a bit of a mystery. Yet, clearly some stations were a bit lazy in doing so. At Saxmundham Station on the Great Eastern Railway in 1875, decorations were
noted to be still up in the waiting room at a staff supper on the 12 January.<sup>[11]</sup></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I have always felt that the Victorian railway community’s
decoration of stations is akin to what many of us do at our own places of work;
we decorate to help us remain festive while grafting. Consequently, our festooning of desks and walls follow in a long tradition of work-place
festivities. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY READERS </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
My other Christmas posts are as follows:</div>
<a href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/christmas-fare-from-provinces-euston.html"><br /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/christmas-fare-from-provinces-euston.html">"Christmas fare from the provinces" - Euston Station and the Distribution of Festive Goods in the 1840s</a></div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/extra-train-will-leave-shoreditch.html">"An EXTRA TRAIN will leave Shoreditch" - Trains on Christmas Day before 1900
</a></div>
</div>
<a -="-" 1840s="1840s" and="and" christmas="christmas" distribution="distribution" euston="euston" fare="fare" festive="festive" from="from" goods="goods" href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/extra-train-will-leave-shoreditch.html" in="in" of="of" provinces="provinces" station="station" the="the">
</a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/victorian-railway-christmas-parcels.html">A Victorian 'Railway' Christmas - Parcels, Pastimes, Profit and Poetry</a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
----</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[1] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reading Mercury</i>, Saturday 01 January 1887</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[2] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The South Western Gazette</i>, January 1888, p.8</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[3] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald</i>, Saturday 01 January 1881</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[4] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hampshire Advertiser</i>, Saturday 31 December 1887</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[5] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Surrey Mirror</i>, Saturday 22 December 1888</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[6] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reading Mercury</i>, Saturday 01 January 1887</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[7] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The South Western Gazette</i>, January 1888, p.11</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[8] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reading Mercury</i>, Saturday 02 January 1886</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[9] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The South Western Gazette</i>, January 1884, p.2</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[10] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Surrey Mirror</i>, Saturday 22 December 1888</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[11] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Ipswich Journal</i>, Saturday 16 January 1875</span></div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-78596019659306588652012-10-27T15:21:00.001+01:002012-11-27T15:25:50.725+00:00'It is impossible to manage a [pre-1914] railway by theory" ... or is it?In the early 1900s the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) was
one of five British railway companies that began sending its clerks to
the London School of Economics (LSE) to undertake classes in 'railway
administration.' The aim of this move was to augment the skills and knowledge
of its clerical staff, the company's future managers, in a period when
the quality of the railway industry's management was being questioned
and it was being challenged by high material and labour costs, competition from trams on suburban routes, increased
government intervention and stagnating traffic growth. Indeed, this caused a severe drop in company profitability from the late 1890s onwards.<br />
<br />
However,
before the First World War the idea of railway employees attending
universities to receive management training was not universally accepted
within many companies'. Furthermore, this attitude was not restricted
to the railways and Amdam argued that historians have almost unanimously
concluded that within British industry generally there was a
‘skepticism towards business education within the both the academic and
business community’.[1]<br />
<br />
This scepticism towards was expressed frequently by LSWR clerks in the company's staff magazine, <i>The South Western Gazette</i>,
which was largely written and edited by them. When Hilditch, the
Waterloo Station Superintendent, retired in 1905, the piece announcing
this stated that he had had ‘a good plain practical education, but he
possessed, in addition, what universities have not yet been able to
provide, namely, a shrewdness and capacity for sound common sense, a
cool head and clear intellectual grasp.'[2] The anti-university feeling
was reiterated in 1909 when another clerk, writing on the matter staff
education, stated that ' I will dismiss the question of the London
School of Economics by saying that “it is impossible to manage a railway
by theory.” Indeed, he preferred an institute where individuals could
learn 'practical' railway skills.[3]<br />
<br />
The problem with
this attitude was that it was what had created many of the problems
railway management faced immediately after the late 1890s. Indeed, because many
senior officials felt that good railway managers were born within the
industry, not
made outside it, and thus recruited the vast majority internally,
companies' decision-makers were highly institutionalised within the
practices and norms of
the railways that employed them and the industry as a whole.
Consequently, railways were unable to respond adequately to the
challenges they faced as there was severe lack of innovation within them
and few new ideas were being generated. This is what my PhD shows in the LSWR's case.<br />
<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1]Amdam, Rolv Petter, ‘Business Education’, in Jones,
Geoffrey and Zeitlin, Robert (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Business
History, (Oxford, 2007), p.586 </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[2] <i>South Western Gazette</i>, September 1905, p.9 </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[3] <i>South Western Gazette</i>, December 1909, p.10</span>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-9746038225086695732012-10-24T13:33:00.000+01:002012-10-24T13:33:18.412+01:00Re-startDear Friends<br />
<br />
I am looking to re-start the TurnipRail Blog soon - so keep your eyes peeled!<br />
<br />
Best Wishes<br />
<br />
DavidDavid Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-45468011701017157222012-06-15T17:01:00.001+01:002012-10-24T13:26:10.489+01:00A Temporary End to Turnip RailDear all. It is with much sadness that I write this post.<br />
<br />
On
Monday I had my Thesis Advisory Panel, where, after much discussion, it
was decided that I need more work on my PhD than could be done within
the three months of my remaining registration. Indeed, I may even need
to extend my work until Christmas. Consequently, this has left me very
disheartened, as I was hoping to start a book in October.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>*UPDATE* I have decided not to pursue a career as an author and have decided to go into academia full-time when my PhD is over. It is why I did the PhD and, ultimately, I'll have the opportunity to do the thing I love, research. I am not saying I will never write a popular book - just not yet.</i><br />
<br />
However,
this said, I am determined to get the work done as soon is as humanly
possible (before Christmas hopefully). The problem with a thesis, any thesis, is by the end those
doing them want to get shot of them. Indeed, while I love my topic and
the subject matter, I feel that after six years it is time to move on.
Therefore, to speed my work, I have taken the decision to virtually
suspend working on anything new for my sites, 'Turnip Rail' and 'Turnip
Rail's Waiting Room'. Given my lovely, loyal readership, this decision
has not been taken easily, and I do feel I am letting down the people
who like the site and who have made it such a success over the past two
and a half years. I thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for their
support. But I have to get the thesis done ASAP. My career, and my
sanity perhaps, depends on it.<br />
<br />
But I will leave you with this thought: Turnip Rail will return, you can be sure of it. <br />
<br />
With Love<br />
<br />
DavidDavid Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-43578817681722438652012-06-02T21:27:00.000+01:002012-06-03T11:40:10.858+01:00Did the Management Ever Control Britain's 19th Century Railways?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmfy_DUM4V6XCtNlX8RSC9qH0jMgQ3MPp7v_19J0qkABpAji1Du30vEkHVbbamRa-VPqMXCX5L6nUgNVGvY7r3Wx5nY55uTUXHkk5wZkgFpg58sRzBMKkibQAi3KufLCxRmlwAUNRPd4mp/s1600/Chandler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmfy_DUM4V6XCtNlX8RSC9qH0jMgQ3MPp7v_19J0qkABpAji1Du30vEkHVbbamRa-VPqMXCX5L6nUgNVGvY7r3Wx5nY55uTUXHkk5wZkgFpg58sRzBMKkibQAi3KufLCxRmlwAUNRPd4mp/s320/Chandler.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alfred Chandler</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The rise of what Alfred Chandler called the ‘visible hand’
of management has dominated the business history literature for forty years.
Simply put, Chandler argued that managers came to dominate American business in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As technology was introduced
to companies and markets expanded, their processes of distribution and then coordination
became more complex as they increased in size. Consequently, this generated a
need for better administrative control of the organisations’ activities,
leading to the rise of the ‘visible hand’ of management. Indeed, as managers
grew in number within firms, they increasingly steered their destinies, wrestling
control of corporate strategy from companies’ shareholders, financiers and
directors. Chandler
called this ‘managerial capitalism.’[1]
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In the United States this process occurred first in the
railroads. When faced with challenges such as safety concerns, then the
increasing volume, speed and complexity of traffic on the line, companies quickly
developed hierarchies of railway managers to coordinate their activities,
leading to the rise of the ‘visible hand.’ Ward argued that a situation had developed
on the Pennsylvania Railroad by 1873 where ‘paramount executive authority had
emerged’, directors were by then ‘pliant acceders,’ and shareholders were
virtually impotent.[2] Indeed, there is no doubt that Chandler admired
railroads, such as the Pennsylvania, where managers had seized control of the organisation,
arguing they were the best managed and innovative. They adopted high-level
strategic direction, with considerable authority delegated to operating units
and complex administrative practices were developed.[3] Indeed, Zunz also
argued similar of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, which he considered
an exemplar of good management practice because it was controlled by the
company’s management class.[4] </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The question, therefore, is to what extent this process
was replicated in the British context? How much control did British railway
managers have over their companies’ directors and shareholders in the
nineteenth century, and, ultimately, their destinies? Chandler argued
that because of the nation’s smaller size British railway managers were
challenged less than their American counterparts to develop new and innovative
management techniques.[5] Therefore, this possibly implies that British railway
managers did not secure the same level of control as some American managers. However,
Channon countered this by arguing that British railway managers were challenged
in different ways because of the country’s high-density, expensive and
intensive network, which was, unlike in the United States, complete in its
operating and physical details in a much shorter time period after the industry’s
establishment.[6] Therefore, while not ruling out a rise of the ‘visible hand’
of management, this may suggest that a different pattern of managerial development
occurred within British railways. Nevertheless, neither of these perspectives
really answered the question of whether there was a rise in the ‘visible hand’
of management in the British railway industry in the nineteenth century.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
No comprehensive history of British railway management before
1914 has been written. Therefore, I have had to compile what I know about the
rise of the ‘visible hand’ from case studies. However, some historians have broadly
attempted to assess when the railways’ management class, particularly within larger
companies, came to dominate the industry’s direction. Cain argued that General
Managers, who were usually at the top of railway companies’ hierarchies, were the most
important decision-makers in the industry by 1870.[7] Channon made a similar claim, stating that
before 1870 managerial ascendency ‘cannot be assumed.’[8] I believe both were
wrong, and using a number of case studies I will suggest that management cannot
be said to have ascended into a position of control before the 1900s.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKc7bjG8RYANfFdqmE4R5ZOxeXsNBDgLjsIkSRJB7xRZcHQ0TV7ou57G-N3YcuBXdi5rx970T4vPsoq-np0CuO7r3rmR5QHNl2IOO8RqkerIJVK0iN8HSqnYu-9cm81HEYIFcPqVrGhipa/s1600/Moon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKc7bjG8RYANfFdqmE4R5ZOxeXsNBDgLjsIkSRJB7xRZcHQ0TV7ou57G-N3YcuBXdi5rx970T4vPsoq-np0CuO7r3rmR5QHNl2IOO8RqkerIJVK0iN8HSqnYu-9cm81HEYIFcPqVrGhipa/s1600/Moon.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Richard Moon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Terry Gourvish’s book on Mark Huish, the London and North
Western Railway’s General Manager between the company’s formation in 1846 and
1858, is an enthralling text. It relates the story of a railway manager who
during his administration and after his death was considered ‘unscrupulous,
dictatorial and Machiavellian’; controlling the companies' policies. At face value this would suggest he was the
first ‘managerial capitalist’ in Britain’s railway industry. Yet, Gourvish’s
research showed the reverse. He argued that while Huish had more control of
the company’s policies than his contemporaries, he did not possess the
‘dictatorial’ influence in decision-making often ascribed to him.’ Indeed, his
resignation was forced on him 1858 as he did not satisfy the board’s
requirements regarding inter-company diplomacy.[9]</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq-mIN4TqWD257mmPXzjh7J0JFuAVnWhGM2jDl08rIBnHb8ZUuIHzf3hvBASHlcyGl5CkIuBXrGkWQvMLB7AZafCh5jYbtgwTHbPf2TG4mX-h-vGTYIeXc10BvgtagAofka6MmOE4z-JE6/s1600/Scott.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq-mIN4TqWD257mmPXzjh7J0JFuAVnWhGM2jDl08rIBnHb8ZUuIHzf3hvBASHlcyGl5CkIuBXrGkWQvMLB7AZafCh5jYbtgwTHbPf2TG4mX-h-vGTYIeXc10BvgtagAofka6MmOE4z-JE6/s320/Scott.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Archibald Scott</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Indeed, it was the career of the man who instigated Huish’s resignation,
LNWR director Richard Moon, that truly shows that the ‘visible hand’ of management did not really control policy on the
British railway network until long after it had on many American railroads.
Moon was appointed chairman of the company in 1861 and stayed in the post for
thirty years. Before his ascendency becoming chairman, he had a reputation for taking
a highly detailed interest in most of the company’s operational affairs, even
when they were beyond his remit. Indeed, most railways’ boards met twice monthly,
with directors meeting in committees the day before. Yet, Moon would be active
in the company’s affairs every day of the week. Thus, when made chairman his
controlling instincts were let loose. His biographer, Peter Braine, described him as being
‘not only a managing director, but also effectively his own General
Manager,’ throughout his chairmanship. [10] Indeed, the company’s General Manager between 1858 and 1875, William Cawkwell, was
very much under his and the board’s control.[11]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But directors having control of companies’ strategic
direction was not unusual in the period. Lord Salisbury, chairman of the Great
Eastern Railway between 1868 and 1871, looms large in the company’s history. On
his appointment the GER was in chancery. Yet, he successfully turned it around
and it began paying dividends again in the 1870s.[12] On the London and South
Western Railway, as I will explain in my thesis, policy was dominated by
directors until the 1881 when they gave the General Manager, Archibald Scott,
more ‘general control’ over the concern’s affairs.[13] However, even then he
was still under their control and did not have a decisive role in corporate
decision-making. Lastly, on the Great Northern Railway in the 1850s, 60s and
70s it had directors who ‘thought they knew more about the business than the
company’s senior officers.’[14] Therefore, this would suggest that the dominance of company boards was still present in the industry as late as the 1870s.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Indeed, from the 1860s there also appeared controlling positions
within companies which would now be described as managing directorships. In
most cases the individuals taking these positions were ex-managers, who on
retirement became controlling directors. The most prominent examples of this
were Edward Watkin and James Staats Forbes. They were fierce rivals, with
Watkin chairing the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire (1864-1894), South
Eastern (1866-1894) and Metropolitan Railways (1872-1894); while Forbes was
chairman of the London, Chatham and Dover (1873-1898) and Metropolitan District
Railways (1872-1901). Both men had served as railwaymen and then had moved onto
railways’ boards where they dominated policy.[15] The other example of
this was the managing directorship of the Daniel Gooch on the Great Western
Railway. Gooch had been the company’s Locomotive Superintendent between 1837
and 1864, and when he resigned took up a position on the board.
He then became the company’s chairman, and had a position akin to a managing
director between 1865 and his death in 1889.[16] Furthermore, James Ramsden on
the Furness railway also was in such a position between 1866 and 1883.[17] </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWBHpO-0lxjKRfacEtrR0EYVHwUg7nL-r1OVKneYnUrQZKN0YL8NyNtVT_M3wcGTDYMt6vuCd8Ta1SEyAPz1r2MclHc9NEGdlyBrnphMOL_SByMrgWEPXGuoLvtq3f7Fp4yV0_ohzeWJe/s1600/Myles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWBHpO-0lxjKRfacEtrR0EYVHwUg7nL-r1OVKneYnUrQZKN0YL8NyNtVT_M3wcGTDYMt6vuCd8Ta1SEyAPz1r2MclHc9NEGdlyBrnphMOL_SByMrgWEPXGuoLvtq3f7Fp4yV0_ohzeWJe/s320/Myles.jpg" width="207" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Myles Fenton</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But by the late 1880s the dominant power of railway
managers was coming through more widely within the British Railway industry.
Between 1885 and 1897, as my thesis will show, Charles Scotter was the dominant
General Manager of the London and South Western Railway, controlling almost all
aspects of policy, large and small. Cornelius Lundie, General Manager and
Superintendent of the Line of the Rhymney Railway between 1858 and 1904, ran
the railway as he wished with little or no reference to the board’s interests.[18]
Even Watkin relied on the General
Managers at each of his companies for their safe and efficient operation. They
were the SER’s Myles Fenton, William Pollitt at the MSLR and John Bell at the
Metropolitan.[19] Indeed, Hodgkins argued that because Pollitt and Bell were
rivals a proposed link between the MSLR and Metropolitan in the 1890s would
have been difficult to arrange. Therefore, this suggests that despite Watkin’s domineering
chairmanship of his companies, his chief executives still heavily influenced
their railways’ policies.[20] </div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwQLE3TRcxc1uaP5LSs-aAQaBjhEPGqd97FlDDpo2EaTWuhrEPU3vaAnDG66tjWeDoZrlMLCTs1_MooMxjGZzaNlEySfpFV2l9nOuwuZGkvV-109cwfyOfRCnBh5JFX8PU77aGDrbXWgpQ/s1600/Sir_George_Gibb.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwQLE3TRcxc1uaP5LSs-aAQaBjhEPGqd97FlDDpo2EaTWuhrEPU3vaAnDG66tjWeDoZrlMLCTs1_MooMxjGZzaNlEySfpFV2l9nOuwuZGkvV-109cwfyOfRCnBh5JFX8PU77aGDrbXWgpQ/s320/Sir_George_Gibb.png" width="236" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">George Gibb</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
These cases were, however, only the start of a shift of towards
the absolute control of the ‘visible hand’ of management within Britain’s
railways. In 1891 George Gibb was appointed General Manager of the North
Eastern Railway. Gibb reformed the company’s operations and, through dominating
the company’s board and staff, dragged it into a position where experts
acknowledged it was a model of good management practice.[21] But Gibb was just
the first of a new breed of railway executives. Indeed, as a crisis hit the
industry around 1900, as passenger, goods and revenue growth stalled, the cost
of fuel and materials increased, and railway securities became less favoured as
investment opportunities, the role of reversing the industry’s financial
situation fell onto the shoulders of executives.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
After 1900 a raft of new and innovative managers
came to the fore within British railways. Sam Fay, an ex-LSWR employee, became
the Great Central Railway’s General Manager in 1902, and through his dynamic
leadership transformed it from being a poorly performing to concern into one
that, while never rich, made great advances and innovations in operational practice.[22] On the Midland
Railway Cecil Paget, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, devised a whole new
method of train control that added greatly to the company’s operating
efficiency,[23] reducing delays to freight trains from 21,869 hours in 1907 to 7,749
hours in 1913.[24] Lastly, in 1912 Herbert Walker became the LSWR’s General
Manager. Through dominating the company’s directorate he reformed its
management and introduced electric traction onto its ailing suburban
network.[25] </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Of course, not all railways had General Managers that were
as dynamic as these three. However, generally by the early twentieth century executives
controlled the strategic direction of most of the largest companies within the
British railway industry. Furthermore, the process of the rise of the ‘visible
hand’ was also helped, as my thesis will relate and as Channon discussed,[26]
by directors having less time to dedicate to the companies they served. Before 1900
the many took an active interest in their railway companies as they had little
else to occupy their time. However, from around 1900, as the British corporate
economy grew, they took on other external responsibilities, such other
directorships. Thus, large numbers of directors were
occupied by these activities, leaving vacuum of control into which railway executives could step.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2z9VnDgaYyqcAEMgHDaLDfzySXGp8pxmORcm1k-whfI-GLc3y4-5p5AWLaiVIzWBqx1cjArYe5qBHJTeLl3AWaemGfwHzUVf0PWVtS8FAjUu6bYuUj_iZYfqZWpvr3M5ziRkYydC3s24q/s1600/Walker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2z9VnDgaYyqcAEMgHDaLDfzySXGp8pxmORcm1k-whfI-GLc3y4-5p5AWLaiVIzWBqx1cjArYe5qBHJTeLl3AWaemGfwHzUVf0PWVtS8FAjUu6bYuUj_iZYfqZWpvr3M5ziRkYydC3s24q/s320/Walker.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Herbert Walker</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Therefore, it is not surprising that on the formation in
1912 of the Railway Executive Committee, established to organise Britain’s
railways in wartime, all its members were General Managers of the country’s
largest companies. Indeed, the diminished role of the railway directors in the administration
of the industry by that time was reflected by the fact that not one was
present on the REC. Consequently, Britain’s railways in World War One
was completely managed by the ‘visible hand’ of management,[27] the final proof that it had
secured strategic control of the industry by 1914. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Overall, this survey [tentatively] disproves Channon and Cain’s claims
that railway managers were universally important to British railways’ policies by 1870, and there was much variance in who controlled their direction. Overall,
in the contrast with experience of the American railroads, the rise of the ‘Visible
Hand’ of management occurred relatively late in the British context; only
truly emerging after 1900. But why this was so?<br />
<br />
I think that Chandler was correct to
some extent in arguing that British railway managers were challenged less than
their American counterparts because of the country’s smaller size. Despite the
dramatic traffic growth throughout the century, the smaller size of British railway companies meant that there was never a point until
after the 1890s when the internal administrative control required by them was beyond the ability of one director or their boards to organise. Indeed, the highly centralised
management structures of British railway companies throughout the period, where decisions could be
made by a small group of directors or managers at the top of the hierarchy,[28] meant that dynamic and knowledgeable
individuals, irrespective of whether they were directors or a managers, had the possibility of controlling their railways. Thus, this is why it is unclear before 1900 if management had 'ascended' within the industry. Indeed, one factor in an individual controlling a railway in the period was his personality; and all of the men mentioned were certainly characters. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
-------------</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] Channon, Geoffrey, <i>Railways in Britain
and the United States,
1830-1940: Studies in Economic and Business History</i>, (Aldershot,
2001), p.5</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[2] Ward, James A., ‘Power
and Accountability on the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1846-1878’, <i>Business History Review</i>, XLIX (1975),
p.58</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[3] Channon, <i>Railways in Britain
and the United States,
1830-1940</i>, p.5</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[4] Zunz, Oliver, <i>Making America
Corporate: 1870-1920</i>, (Chicago,
1990), p.47</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[5] Chandler,
Alfred D., <i>Scale and Scope: the Dynamics
of Industrial Capitalism,</i> (London,
1990) p.253</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[6] Channon, <i>Railways in Britain
and the United States,
1830-1940</i>, p.29</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[7] Cain, P.J., ‘Railways
1870-1914: the maturity of the private system,’ <i>in</i> Freeman, Michael J. and Aldcroft, Derek H. (eds.) <i>Transport in Victorian Britain</i>, (Manchester, 1988), p.112</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[8] </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Channon, <i>Railways in Britain
and the United States,
1830-1940</i>, p.44</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[9]
</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Gourvish, T.R. <i>Mark Huish and the London & North Western Railway</i>, (Leicester,
1972), p.167-182</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[10] Braine, Peter, <i>The Railway Moon – A Man and His Railway:
Sir Richard Moon and the L&NWR, </i>(Taunton,
2012), p.477</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[11] </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Channon, <i>Railways in Britain
and the United States,
1830-1940</i>, p.44</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[12]
Barker, T.C., 'Lord Salisbury, Chairman of the Great Eastern Railway 1868-1872'
in Marriner, S., <i>Business and
Businessmen: Studies in Business, Economic and Accounting History</i>, (Liverpool, 1972)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[13]
<i>The South Western Gazette</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">, December 1881, p.2</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[14] </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Simmons, Jack, <i>The Railway in England
and Wales 1830-1914</i>, (Leicester, 1978), p.247</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[15] Gourvish, T.R., ‘The
Performance of British Railway Management after 1860: The Railways of Watkin
and Forbes’, <i>Business History,</i> 20
(1978), p.198</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[16] Cain, P.J., ‘Railways
1870-1914: The maturity of the private system’, in Freeman, Michael J. and
Aldcroft, Derek H. (eds.) <i>Transport in
Victorian Britain</i> (Manchester,
1988), p.113</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[17] </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Simmons, <i>The Railway in England
and Wales
1830-1914</i>, p.247</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[18]
Simmons, <i>The Railway in England and Wales 1830-1914</i>, p.247</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[19] Gourvish, ‘The
performance of British railway management after 1860’, p.188-191</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[20] Hodgkins, David, <i>The Second Railway King: The Life and Times
of Sir Edward Watkin</i>, (Melton Priory, 2002), p.609</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[21] Irving , R.J., <i>The North Eastern Railway Company: An
Economic History, 1870-1914</i>,
(Leicester, 1976) p.261-264</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[22] Dow, Andrew, ‘Great
Central Railway,’ <i>The Oxford Companion to
British Railway History</i>, (1997, Oxford), p.191-192</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[23] Burtt, Philip, <i>Control on the Railways</i>, (London, 1926),
p.144-151</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[24] Edwards, Roy, ‘Divisional
train control and the emergence of dynamic capabilities: The experience of the
London, Midland and Scottish Railway, c.1923-c.1939, <i>Management and Organisational History</i>, 6 (2011), p.398</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[25] Klapper, C.F., <i>Sir Herbert Walker’s Southern Railway</i>,
(London, 1973), p.33-76</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[26] </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Channon, <i>Railways in Britain and the United States,
1830-1940</i>, p.187-188</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[27] Pratt, Edwin A., <i>British Railways and the Great War:
Organisation, Efforts, Difficulties and Achievements – Vol. 1, </i>(London,
1921), p.40-50</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[28] Bonavia, <i>The Organisation of British Railways,</i>
p.17-18</span></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-72891885769760334622012-05-12T18:13:00.002+01:002012-05-12T19:03:11.360+01:00A Brief History of the Female Railway Clerk 1830-1914While I have written frequently about female clerks on
Britain’s railways before 1914, I have never penned a complete history.
Therefore, this post will provide a broad survey of the changes in women’s
clerical employment on the railways between 1830 and 1914.
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Initially it may be useful to specify who I am talking
about. Women were employed in three clerical positions on the Victorian railway.
Firstly, there were the booking clerks; who sold tickets to passengers and
registered their luggage. Secondly, women were engaged as administrative
clerks, to fill in returns, conduct correspondence, and deal with the day-to-day
station administration. Lastly there were telegraph clerks, who sent and
received telegraph messages. It would be interesting to talk about these types
of clerks separately. Yet, that would take some time and I have decided to just
do a general history of all female clerical workers.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
When the first female clerks were engaged on Britain’s
railways is uncertain. However, the earliest I have found was Margaret Savage,
who was appointed as a Telegraph Clerk at the London, Brighton and South Coast
Railway’s (LBSCR) Three Bridges Station in August 1855. Two years later Margaret’s
sister, Harriet, was also employed there as a Booking Clerk. Clearly, both
Margaret and Harriett only got their jobs because their father, Thomas, was the
Station Master there.[1] The same occurred in the case of Elizabeth Spearpoint, who
was appointed as Telegraph Clerk at the LBSCR’s West Croydon Station in October
1857 because her father, Robert, was in charge of that station.[2] Interestingly, what these and other appointments by the LBSCR suggest
is that in the 1850s it was the first company to adopt a coherent policy regarding
female clerical staff, which was simply to appoint station masters’ daughters in clerical
positions. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It is not clear to what extent similar opportunities were available for women on other
railways. Yet, a letter to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Times</i>
reported in 1858 that:</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
“In taking a ticket the other day
at the Edinburgh station of the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway, we were
pleasantly surprised on being waited upon by a blooming and bonnie lassie, who,
along with an activity quite equal to, exhibited a politeness very rare in
railway clerks of the literally ruder sex. We observed that the department was
entirely occupied by women, there being another giving out tickets, and a third
telegraphing.” [3]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Nevertheless, the evidence suggests before 1870 different railways adopted different
policies regarding female clerks, and many, such as the London
and South Western, Great Western, Metropolitan and London and North Western
Railways, did not employ any. Thus, the first reference to a
female clerk in the London and South Western Railway’s files, of which I have done
an extensive survey, was in 1871, as follows: </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
Mr Fifields Daughter – Read letter
from Mr Fifield Agent at Oakley Station requesting that his daughter may be
appointed as Telegraphist at that Station at a pay of 7/- per week</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
Recommend
this to the Board[4]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Indeed, the fact that this matter had to be submitted to
the board suggests that this was the first case the company had considered. Thereafter,
the LSWR employed some female clerks, but these were in isolated cases and
there was no set policy. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The first case of a railway company employing a large group
of female clerks at one time was the London and North Western Railway between late
1874 and 1876. The women were working in the Birmingham
Curzon Street Station Goods Department and their role was to make 'abstracts from invoices for
the ledger accounts of credit customers and for forwarding to the Railway
Clearing House.’[5] Following this, the company began employing large
numbers of female clerks around the its network, at locations including
Camden, Shrewsbury, Bolton, Manchester and Wolverhampton.[6]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The success of this ‘experiment’ (a word used frequently)
meant that other companies began investigating the possibility of engaging
women for clerical work. Most notably, the Great Western Railway investigated
it thoroughly for about six months in 1876. On the 30 August its board minuted
that:</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
‘…female clerks might be employed
with advantage, but their work should be confined to offices (such as Goods or
Abstract Offices) where they could be employed separately from the men clerks,
except when the member of a station master’s family may be employed at the same
station himself.’[7]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This was a promising start, and a later letter by a
senior management endorsed these views. Indeed, on 24 November a meeting of
goods managers authorised a trial of clerks at Birmingham, Bristol and Plymouth
Goods Stations. For some unknown reason the trial was not proceeded with,
and it was not until 1905 that the matter was considered again by the company.[8]
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Nevertheless,
despite the LNWR’s ‘experiment’ being successful, it would not be
until after 1900 that the cases of women being engaged in clerical
positions
on the railways became common. In March that year twelve were employed
at Kings Cross Station by the Great Northern Railway, with the
North British Railway engaged forty as telegraph clerks at Edinburgh
Waverly
Station. In 1901 the North Eastern Railway employed six women as
telegraphists
at York, with an undetermined number of female clerks being appointed there in
the Traffic Statistics office the following
year.[9] In 1906 the Great Western Railway
employed a number of women in clerical positions at the Paddington Goods Department, followed by
female telegraphists
and tracers in 1908 and 1910 respectively.[10] One of the last places to
engage
female clerks was the Railway Clearing House, which in 1912
appointed
twenty-seven who were related to men working there. This number
had increased
to 180 two years later.[11] Thus, by July 1914 there were 2,341 female clerical staff
working on Britain’s railways.[12] </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD1RuykPRhTSpBGUOjo_WWihVUWpdQdRh68afJu5wZy52v6nn8597wzD4ZjecTQYa0VHnXf6SE8cJd25iYYwNg7NX4znvmJUBAnSF0kZOTXC1MIGBa8moR_i3mzpJtKOig65F8nkwPH5CN/s1600/Initial+Entrance+March+1914.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD1RuykPRhTSpBGUOjo_WWihVUWpdQdRh68afJu5wZy52v6nn8597wzD4ZjecTQYa0VHnXf6SE8cJd25iYYwNg7NX4znvmJUBAnSF0kZOTXC1MIGBa8moR_i3mzpJtKOig65F8nkwPH5CN/s320/Initial+Entrance+March+1914.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The LSWR's 'Conditions of Service' for female clerks.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
However, not all companies were quick to appoint women in clerical capacities, and it was only in March 1914 that the London and South
Western Railway drew up formal 'conditions of employment'.'[13] Indeed, by
the coming of war, the company had only employed six female clerks.[14]</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Overall,
how should we think about the increase in the
number female clerks within British railways after 1900? It would be
easy for
me to simply claim this change occurred because it became more socially
acceptable for women to take up such positions. Yet, I cannot help think
that
there was an economic rationale involved on the railway companies’ part.
Between 1870 and 1900 the profitability of British railway companies
declined, with the industry’s operating costs increasing from fifty-one
to
sixty –two per cent of revenue over the period. Indeed, the most
significant
rise in companies’ expenses occurred in the late 1890s.[15]
Consequently, the railway companies
began looking at many ways to economise from around 1900.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Indeed,
given that female clerks were paid less than their
male colleagues, this raises an interesting question; to what extent was
the expansion of women’s clerical employment on railways after 1900
advanced
by changes in society, or changes in the nature of the railways’
business? My impression
is that alterations in society's attitudes made the employment of female
clerks more
acceptable. Yet, because the cases of their employment on the railways grew rapidly
after 1900, with little progress directly before it, I would also suggest
that the industry's weakened financial circumstances stimulated managers
into taking advantage of changing attitudes by employing more women in clerical positions, thus reducing railways' wage bills. Indeed,
when the London Underground was considering engaging women as clerks in
1907,
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Railway Gazette </i>stated the
following: ‘such an innovation has obviously only one raison d’être, that of economy…’[16] </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Of course, I may be wrong in this assessment, which is
based on the information I have to hand. Therefore, I am open to other
perspectives and suggestions.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">---------</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 414/770, Traffic
staff: register of appointments Indexed, p.62</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[2] TNA, RAIL 414/771, Traffic staff: register of
appointments Indexed, p.77</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[3] <i>The Times, </i>quoted
in Wojtczak, Helena, <i>Railwaywomen</i>,
(Hastings, 2005), p.27</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[4] TNA, RAIL 411/241, Traffic Committee Minute Book,
Minute 575, 30 November 1871</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[5] <i>The Englishwomen’s Review</i>, Friday, 15 February
15th, 1878</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[6] TNA, RAIL RAIL 410/1837 to <span class="apple-style-span">RAIL 410/1842, Salaried Staff Registers.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="apple-style-span">[7] GWR Board Minute, 30
August 1876, quoted in, Matheson, Rosa, <i>The
Fair Sex: Women and the Great Western Railway</i>, (Stroud, 2007), p.50</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="apple-style-span">[8] Matheson, <i>The Fair </i>Sex, p.51</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[9] Wojtczak, <i>Railwaywomen</i>,
p.29-31</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[10] <span class="apple-style-span">Matheson, <i>The Fair </i>Sex, p.52-54</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="apple-style-span">[11] </span>Wojtczak, <i>Railwaywomen</i>, p.29</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[12] Wojtczak, <i>Railwaywomen</i>,
p.38</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[13] TNA, RAIL 411/275, Traffic Officers’ Conference,
March 1914, Appendix 1</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[14] TNA, RAIL 411/506, Clerical register - Female staff,
Various Staff Records</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[15] Gourvish, T.R., <i>Railways
and the British Economy: 1830-1914</i>, (London, 1980), p.42</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[16] <i>Railway
Gazette, </i>quoted in Wojtczak, <i>Railwaywomen</i>,
p.27</span></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-88005898463822521052012-05-06T19:32:00.003+01:002012-05-07T13:04:10.055+01:00A Misinformed but Devious Take-over of a Railway<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ8rUjifU0gRO7N4SRRg0sy9hJIHdoUh8Qdpmy3RenEuya0po2SNWTdOn4z7gv3Q6lBB_uiYsH54eJ2RH_KJf8vDih9TsehEET1J2PHhI3TlbcO8S4IasvDpSNbbX1V5m81lmdtyuJip25/s1600/S&d_1875.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ8rUjifU0gRO7N4SRRg0sy9hJIHdoUh8Qdpmy3RenEuya0po2SNWTdOn4z7gv3Q6lBB_uiYsH54eJ2RH_KJf8vDih9TsehEET1J2PHhI3TlbcO8S4IasvDpSNbbX1V5m81lmdtyuJip25/s400/S&d_1875.gif" width="363" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Somerset and Dorset Railway in 1875</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The ultimate point of my PhD on the London and South
Western Railway’s (LSWR) management between 1870 and 1910 is to determine the quality of managers' and directors' decisions in the period. Therefore, I deal with questions
surrounding what drove decisions and what decision-makers
knew when making them. One event I focus on is the LSWR and Midland Railway’s lease
of the Somerset and Dorset Railway (SDR) in 1875. <br />
<br />
<i>The LSWR and Midland Railway's Lease</i> <br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The SDR was formed from a number of small companies in 1862. Yet, after
connecting to Bath in 1874 it got into financial trouble, even though the trade
with the Midland at that place and the LSWR at Templecombe was healthy.[1]
Consequently, the beleaguered company approached the Great Western Railway
(GWR) with the proposal that it would purchase the SDR. Thereafter, the GWR and
its Bristol and Exeter Railway (BER) allies engaged in protracted negotiation
with the SDR,[2] and by early August a deal was close. On the 12 August
1875 James Grierson and J.C. Wall, the GWR and BER General Managers, visited the LSWR’s
General Manager, Archibald Scott, at Waterloo. The LSWR and GWR were fierce competitors, but as an act of good faith Grierson and Wall informed Scott of the negotiations and offered the LSWR a working agreement on the southern part of the
line between Templecombe and Wimborne.[3] Scott expressed his alarm at the proposal[4] and
requested another meeting on the 16 August to give him time to consult the LSWR’s
board.[5]</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWqCYo708wJ5Rz7Or5TWfAgoNVRY0fBFzN2_G2nommNyKR2t78a85ADznGc3m9toISjXfarRmZjIhD4_-v4fvZr77OKD-e30GITP1B-hl80dt9wlYW2JzlUC55QV_n3AR4IorsWDJRtkyR/s1600/ImJamesJosephAllport.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWqCYo708wJ5Rz7Or5TWfAgoNVRY0fBFzN2_G2nommNyKR2t78a85ADznGc3m9toISjXfarRmZjIhD4_-v4fvZr77OKD-e30GITP1B-hl80dt9wlYW2JzlUC55QV_n3AR4IorsWDJRtkyR/s320/ImJamesJosephAllport.jpg" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James Allport</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It was at that point that the LSWR out-flanked the GWR. Scott met his board on 13 August and was
immediately sent to Birmingham to confer with the Midland’s Deputy Chairman and
General Manager, James Allport.[6] By the 17 August they decided to work with the LSWR to offer
the SDR a better deal than the GWR and B&ER's.[7] Yet, knowledge of Scott's trip was withheld from
Grierson and Wall when he met them on sixteenth,[8] with Scott stating that a
LSWR half-yearly meeting of proprietors had prevented the board considering the
matter.[9] This gave the LSWR and Midland time to finalise their deal with the SDR board, who on 19 August rejected GWR and BER’s offer. The agreement between the LSWR, Midland and SDR was signed on the 1 November.[10] Naturally, the GWR was angered by
Scott’s actions and opposed the leasing Bill in Parliament.[11] However,
against its many protestations, this passed on 13 July 1876.[12]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i>Decision-making</i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The question remains as to why the LSWR decided to go behind the GWR's back and secure the SDR for itself? Certainly, LSWR decision-makers thought their company would benefit from leasing the SDR and augmenting its infrastructure. Scott described its traffic as being ‘in its infancy’ and at the
parliamentary committee investigating the lease stated that:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-bz7nNTJMtTIaC7W4Mjh3fMZFewhSydhtOArp6xCZXZ1f-oNJLxhyphenhyphenhAJtOuhBwdtWVT0EIxNR-fZaM6hBvEg4vycY9sdjcrZIgzXI6rvIxKrVE6Q9Mv9kIIBWPJApNyDoVFAYTjBNL66V/s1600/Grierson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-bz7nNTJMtTIaC7W4Mjh3fMZFewhSydhtOArp6xCZXZ1f-oNJLxhyphenhyphenhAJtOuhBwdtWVT0EIxNR-fZaM6hBvEg4vycY9sdjcrZIgzXI6rvIxKrVE6Q9Mv9kIIBWPJApNyDoVFAYTjBNL66V/s1600/Grierson.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James Grierson</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
‘A considerable
amount of money will have to be expended on the Somerset and Dorset Line to
improve it and make it efficient for traffic purposes, and I have no hesitation
in saying that the traffic to be carried over the Somerset and Dorset Line in
connection with the South Western system and the Midland as well as locally,
will be very large indeed.’[13]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
However, the LSWR did not employ accurate predictions of the
capital expense required to realise the SDR's revenue generating potential. Like
Channon argued regarding the Midland’s London extension in 1869, LSWR decision-makers’
knowledge of costs and revenues was too incomplete for accurate predictions of
these things to be made.[14] Furthermore, there was realistically not time
enough between Scott being notified of the GWR and BER’s plans on the twelfth,
and the agreement’s completion on the nineteenth, for accurate forecasts to be formulated. This is not to say LSWR decision-makers had absolutely no
idea of the potential revenues and costs of taking over the line, and the proposal
for the LSWR to operate between Wimborne and Templecombe was deemed
objectionable because Scott recognised the region’s poor revenue
generating potential. But this analysis was not systematic, and based on
‘gut-feeling’ and experience. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In reality, the potential profits the SDR could generate with investment was
not the reason the LSWR joined with the Midland to lease it. Before 1876 the
SDR generated little traffic for the LSWR. In 1871 freight moving from the SDR
onto the LSWR’s system contributed to the latter revenue of only £38,282,
rising to £54,482 by 1875, the increase being because the Bath connection opened. Yet, this still only constituted 2.19 per cent of the LSWR’s gross receipts in 1875[15] and it
is unlikely this traffic alone justified the lease.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rather, the timing of the LSWR’s approach to the Midland and SDR were
determined by the GWR and B&ER’s actions. The LSWR's trade could have been potentially disadvantaged if they had taken over the line, and Portal, the LSWR Deputy-Chairman, stated
that the GWR and B&ER’s proposals were ‘highly injurious to the interests of the
public, contrary to the interests of Parliament and hurtful to the South
Western Company.’[16] Strategically, the SDR was important for the LSWR, with
trade coming through it from the north and South Wales to Southampton. In
August 1875 Scott stated that ‘…naturally the South Western Company, [has been]
interested…for so many years been in the traffic in connection with the Somerset
and Dorset line.’[17] Therefore, the GWR’s proposals would have given it
control of this traffic, possibly damaging the LSWR's revenue. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Thus, the LSWR’s concern to control its trade and territory on its
own terms, overrode others regarding the investment the line needed or its
revenue generating capacity. Indeed, LSWR decision-makers were attempting to
protect a regional monopoly, as Dodgson argued occurred at the time in the
industry more generally.[18] </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeFuPzyrCY90RUdcJAhDnfoXAa-E84OLI7iQYwEC3vlzZ3D5152MLW9bsXjiczOXloQJIpJXXv_JjQvC-toP3hNRdhP-2bvcv7IFH7YdScCqXZr7bCf3eNNSosVAHfX6-pTaoDxdvMirfB/s1600/Scott.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeFuPzyrCY90RUdcJAhDnfoXAa-E84OLI7iQYwEC3vlzZ3D5152MLW9bsXjiczOXloQJIpJXXv_JjQvC-toP3hNRdhP-2bvcv7IFH7YdScCqXZr7bCf3eNNSosVAHfX6-pTaoDxdvMirfB/s320/Scott.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Archibald Scott</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
However, the lack of accurate cost and revenue predictions played a role in LSWR decision-makers’
mind-sets when approaching the SDR takeover. Firstly, they had believed from as early as
the 1840s that traffic and revenue would always increase irrespective of the
state of the economy (as I prove elsewhere in my Phd). This fed the belief that territorial
protection would always put extra traffic onto the LSWR’s system, which would
ultimately be good for company profits. Consequently, because accurate project forecasting was largely absent and decisions were usually made based on gut-feeling, these largely assumed beliefs underpinned the rationale and timing of most decisions. Indeed, in the SDR's case, for the LSWR to loose territorial control, may also have potentially lost it the profit from the naturally assumed traffic growth. Again, Channon argued that similar thinking was behind the Midland Railway’s construction of the London extension.[19]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<i>A Successful Take-Over?</i><br />
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Ultimately, the SDR lease mirrored Watkin’s extensions of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire railway to
some extent, as Hopkins described them as ‘expensive failures’ because they ‘were
not properly weighed up as investment opportunities’.[20] While the the success of the SDR lease is hard to determine accurately, it was seemingly limited. Between 1875
and 1880, when the LSWR and Midland was investing heavily in the line,[21]
passenger numbers hauled grew by 53.22 per cent, and goods tonnage hauled increased
by 26.75 per cent.[22] Contrastingly, the LSWR’s passenger traffic numbers grew
by 44.26 per cent and goods tonnage by 37.90 per cent over the same period. Yet, thereafter, traffic growth
on the SDR stalled, and between 1885 and 1895 the passenger and goods traffic originating from the company grew by 26.94 and 14.58 per cent respectively, while the LSWR’s
proportions were 53.02 and 34.47 per cent.[23] Therefore, in later decades the SDR’s own traffic
growth was proportionately much lower than the LSWR’s, and its traffic would have made up proportionately less of its parent company's over time.[24] Nevertheless, the benefit of the LSWR controlling the
line for its traffic from the north and South Wales may have been considerable as the SDR provided a more direct route to Southampton for it, but this cannot be determined.</div>
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Overall, however, the case of the SDR lease shows that rather than
mid-Victorian railway managers and directors making calculated decisions about network expansion;
the protection of territory was a very important concern for them in the period. Yet, this was despite them never being able to truly quantify what the costs and benefits of protecting this territory would be. </div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[1] Williams, R.A., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The London and South Western Railway, Volume
2: Growth and Consolidation,</i> (Newton Abbot, 1973), p.173</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[2] MacDermot, E.T.,
revised by Clinker, C.R., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">History of the
Great Western Railway: Volume 2</i>, (Shepperton, 1982), p.52</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[3] The National Archives
[TNA] RAIL 1066/1692, Sir D. Gooch to the Hon. R.H. Dutton Bart. 26 August
1875, p.44</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[4] TNA, RAIL 1066/1692, Wyndham
S. Portal. To Sir D. Gooch, 4 September 1875, p.46</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[5] TNA, RAIL 1066/1692,
Sir D. Gooch to the Hon. R.H. Dutton Bart. 26 August 1875, p.44</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[6] TNA, RAIL 1066/1692,
Archibald Scott’s evidence for Somerset and Dorset Railway Bill, Minute No.
418, p.55</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[7] Williams, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The London and South Western Railway, Volume
2</i>, p.174</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[8] TNA, RAIL 1066/1692,
Sir D. Gooch to Wyndham S. Portal. 27 October 1875, p.48</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[9] TNA, RAIL 1066/1692,
Sir D. Gooch to the Hon. R.H. Dutton Bart. 26 August 1875, p.44</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[10] Williams, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The London and South Western Railway, Volume
2</i>, p.174-175</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[11] TNA, RAIL 1066/1692,
Parliamentary Bills and Minutes of Evidence, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[12] Williams, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The London and South Western Railway, Volume
2</i>, p.175</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[13] TNA, RAIL 1066/1692,
Archibald Scott’s evidence for Somerset and Dorset Railway Bill, Minute No.
378, p.42, 24 March 1876</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[14] Channon, Geoffrey, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Railways in Britain and the United States,
1830-1940: Studies in Economic and Business History</i>, (Aldershot, 2001),
p.107</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[15] TNA, RAIL 1066/1692,
Archibald Scott’s evidence for Somerset and Dorset Railway Bill, Minute No.
369, p.41, 24 March 1876</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[16] TNA, RAIL 1066/1692,
Wyndham S. Portal. To Sir D. Gooch, 4 September 1875, p.46</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[17] TNA, RAIL 1066/1692,
Archibald Scott’s evidence for Somerset and Dorset Railway Bill, Minute No.
375, p.42, 24 March 1876</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[18] John, ‘New,
disaggregated, British railway total factor productivity growth estimates, 1875
to 1912’, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Economic History Review</i>,
64 (2011), p.639</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[19] Channon, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Railways in Britain
and the United States,
1830-1940</i>, p.107</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[20] Hodgkins, David, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Second Railway King: The Life and Times
of Sir Edward Watkin</i> (Llandybie, 2002)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">, p.486</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[21] TNA, RAIL 262/16, Somerset and Dorset Joint
Line Committee, Meetings of Officers 1875-1884</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[22] Board of Trade,
Railway Returns for England
and Wales and Scotland and Ireland, 1875, p.58-62 and 1880,
p.50-54</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[23] Board of Trade,
Railway Returns for England
and Wales and Scotland and Ireland, 1880, p.52-56 and 1885,
p.52-56</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[24] Board of Trade,
Railway Returns for England
and Wales and Scotland and Ireland, 1875, p.62 and 1880, p.54</span></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-89403069004770785952012-04-29T13:27:00.001+01:002013-02-13T10:40:29.300+00:00Defining the Early British Station MasterLate Victorian and Edwardian Station Masters are perceived to have been highly respected individuals. They commanded the stations at which they were based, and were pillars of the community; respectable, authoritarian and honourable. However, in the case of station masters before 1870 these attributes are not necessarily applicable. Without established promotional trees, standardised rules and regulations, and with vetting procedures for new employees not being set in stone, Britain’s pioneer station masters were a very mixed bag, to say the least. <br />
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Firstly, the term ‘station master’ was not a universal one in the period, although it was certainly around. A London and South Western Railway rule book from 1845 called them ‘station clerks’, and in many cases this is what they were, simply clerks in charge of a station.[1] Indeed, the Great Northern Railway omitted the word ‘station’ altogether, calling officials in these positions ‘clerks-in-charge’ in 1856.[2] Nevertheless, it seems that other railways used ‘clerks-in-charge’ interchangeably with ‘station master’, as shown in the East Lancashire Railway’s 1856 rule book.[3] The most common alternative to ‘station master’ in the period was ‘station agent’, and the London and South Western Railway, after disposing of ‘station clerk’, retained this title right until the 1900 for all except those individuals administering large stations.[4] It was only in the 1860s that ‘station master’ became far more common and part of common parlance. </div>
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However, whatever early station masters were called, the individuals filling these posts came to the railways after being occupied in a vast array of other occupations. In my survey of the professions 400 London and North Western Railway workers between 1830 and 1860 had prior to being employed by the railway, thirty-nine of the sample were station masters or ‘agents’. Their previous occupations were diverse, including farmers, journeymen, sailors, civil servants, bookkeepers and porters. Seemingly, most sectors of the mid-Victorian economy were represented amongst the thirty-nine, and it suggests that it would not be wise to pigeonhole early station masters as having one or two types of employment background.[5]</div>
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However, it is unsurprising that with men from many backgrounds filling these posts, not all were well behaved. In 1858 George Reeves, Station Master at Lowdham Station on the Midland Railway, pleaded guilty to embezzling the company out of an unspecified amount. In passing sentence the judge stated that he Reeves had been placed in a position of ‘great confidence and trust,’ and while he showed remorse, he was sentenced to six months hard labour.[6] In 1861 the cash held at the London and South Western Railway’s Windsor Station was found to be deficient. While no officials were found to be at fault, it is odd the management would then ‘break up the staff’ throughout the line [7] and remove the Station Master, John Madigan, to Petersfield with a reduction of salary.[8] Lastly, in 1865 at the Usk Quarter Sessions, Alfred Brown, station master at Hengoed Station on the Rhymney Railway, was charged with indecently assaulting Mary Ann Griffiths in a railway carriage.[9]</div>
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Of course, the majority of station masters in the period were honourable and did their job satisfactorily. Indeed, most had to have favourable references to be appointed. The Great Northern Railway’s ‘General Instructions and Regulations for the executive department’ stated that ‘experienced clerks’, who I presume were frequently appointed as ‘clerks-in-charge’, were required to have references from their ‘last employer’ and ‘one from each of two housekeepers of an undoubted respectability.’[10] </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLwHjzePcUlkgPuKMXoDTGzGT6Wt50XsWthUIkpsCRmBom0v6ZJ9FIeL-zvDoJsoanyIVhDQNBtZieNpMcsaQOcHZb14ira2TPAkunAzCJOp7HIMM-W1fF-ZZoX0NIhsHBF-zn2Ydojri0/s1600/Freeman's+Journal+and+Daily+Commercial+Advertiser+%28Dublin,+Ireland%29,+Tuesday,+May+15,+1849.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLwHjzePcUlkgPuKMXoDTGzGT6Wt50XsWthUIkpsCRmBom0v6ZJ9FIeL-zvDoJsoanyIVhDQNBtZieNpMcsaQOcHZb14ira2TPAkunAzCJOp7HIMM-W1fF-ZZoX0NIhsHBF-zn2Ydojri0/s320/Freeman's+Journal+and+Daily+Commercial+Advertiser+%28Dublin,+Ireland%29,+Tuesday,+May+15,+1849.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Furthermore, after around the mid-1850s it was highly unlikely that an individual would be appointed directly as a station master, as railway companies increasingly preferred these posts to be filled by individuals who had risen through the ranks. Thus, by this time potentially poor station masters were usually weeded out before they reached that post. For example, William Mears was appointed directly as ‘agent’ on the opening of Winchfield Station on the London and South Western Railway in May 1840.[11] Yet his son, Francis, had a longer road into that position. He was appointed as an apprentice clerk at Dorchester 1851, finally becoming ‘agent’ at Dinton fifteen years later in 1866.[12] </div>
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Additionally, as the years passed the rules regulating station masters’ work grew in number and were increasingly formalised. The London and South Western Railway’s 1853 rule book dedicated only thirteen pages to instructing station masters,[13] and the East Lancashire Railway provided only eleven in 1856.[14] However, as the complexity of the railway network and density of train movements increased, the regulations for station masters mirrored this by becoming more detailed. For example, in 1858[15] and 1865[16] the London and South Western Railway produced abstracts of ‘instructions which have from time to time been issued to the Station agents’, which were forty-two and 102 pages long respectively. This was in addition to the nineteen dense pages of instructions in the company’s general rule book of 1864.[17] Therefore, because of companies’ tightening regulation of station master's activities, there was less scope for them to misbehave or commit crime. Indeed, from a brief survey of on-line nineteenth century newspapers, the cases where this was so seemingly decline after the 1850s.</div>
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Therefore, the story of the early Victorian station master is one of a mixed bag of individuals doing a job which was not the same at every location or within every company. However, it is also one where what station masters did quickly became standardised and routine within the promotional and organisational frameworks the railway companies established.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] London School of Economics Collection [LSE], HE1 (42) – 439, London and South Western Railway Rules to be observed by Enginemen and Firemen , 1845, p.iii-iv</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[2] Author’s Collection, Great Northern Railway, General Instructions and Regulations for the executive department’, p.94</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[3] LSE, HC1 (42) -41, Bye-laws, rules and regulations to be observed by the officers and men in the service of the East Lancashire Railway Company, Bury, October, 1854. p.51</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[4] The National Archives, RAIL 1135/276,Rules and Regulations General Instructions and Appendices to Working Timetables: General Instructions to Staff, Station Staff, 1908</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[5] The National Archives, RAIL 410/1805, Register of waged and salaried staff including station masters, agents, porters, policemen, pointsmen, signalmen, female cleaners, foremen, gatemen, shunters, clerks, breaksmen and lampmen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[6] <i>Nottinghamshire Guardian</i>, Thursday, January 07, 1858, p. 3</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[7] The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 411/217, Special Committee Minute Book, 11 January 1861</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[8] TNA, RAIL 411/492, Clerical staff character book No. 2, p.416</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[9] <i>The Leeds Mercury,</i> Saturday, January 7, 1865, </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[10] Author’s Collection, Great Northern Railway, General Instructions and Regulations for the executive department’, p.94</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[11] TNA, RAIL 411/491, Clerical staff character book No. 1, p.340</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[12] TNA, RAIL 411/491, Clerical staff character book No. 1, p.305</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[13] LSE, HE 3020 – L.84, Rules and Regulations for the guidance of the officers and servants of the London and South Western Railway, 1853, p.16-29m</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[14] LSE, HC1 (42) -41, Bye-laws, rules and regulations to be observed by the officers and men in the service of the East Lancashire Railway Company, Bury, October, 1854. p.51-61</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[15] TNA, RAIL 1035/269, Abstract of instructions which have from time to time been issued to the Station agents &c Previous to 1st May 1858</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[16] TNA, RAIL 1035/270, Abstract of instructions which have from time to time been issued to the Station agents &c Previous to 1st June 1865</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[17] Author’s Collection, Rules and Regulations for the guidance of the officers and servants of the London and South Western Railway, 1 August 1864, p.22-43</span></div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-44453310234547534052012-04-22T22:32:00.000+01:002012-04-26T13:25:05.968+01:00Archives, Artefacts, Amateurs and Academics - A Conference Report<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisF1ddAskzy0jNEr_yD1R4_k-mLzl82387A60T8l7HvmD-39nqAuedqXBVSKh_cgvzvKfc6oIohs0SpIDtLnymddCsXNXgsbyIrfKZiCZbGiVurWLVTZPyIYx9nht01tE_dChNFups9Cqn/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisF1ddAskzy0jNEr_yD1R4_k-mLzl82387A60T8l7HvmD-39nqAuedqXBVSKh_cgvzvKfc6oIohs0SpIDtLnymddCsXNXgsbyIrfKZiCZbGiVurWLVTZPyIYx9nht01tE_dChNFups9Cqn/s400/5.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Conference Centre's 'Sunken Lounge'</td></tr>
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To say that my time in Derby on Friday and Saturday was stimulating is a bit of an understatement. For those who don't follow my Twitter feed, on Friday and Saturday I attended the Archives, Artefacts, Amateurs and Academics workshop in Derby, jointly run by the <a href="http://www.hmrs.org.uk/index.php">Historical Model Railway Society</a> and <a href="http://www.businessarchivescouncil.org.uk/">Business Archives Council</a>. Firstly, I will hand over to Keith Harcourt, HMRS Academic Liaison Officer and conference co-organiser, who has very kindly provided me with this interesting summary on the origins, purpose and work of the HMRS:<br />
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The Historical Model Railway Society was founded in 1950 by historians and modellers concerned at the crude railway models on sale at that time. They set out to collect an archive of original drawings, photographs, working and public timetables plus other ephemera and historically accurate models as well having for reference The George Dow Library of railway books. The Drawings Collection holds over 160,000 historic drawings many of which have been of use in preservation work on Heritage Railways and in a vindication of the original purposes of the Society have been used by Bachmann in their making of current model trains. The photographic collection currently has 47,233 image listed on the website, but that is but the tip of the iceberg.<br />
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Significantly each year they also provide small, but often crucial, grants to a few PhD and Masters students who are working on the railways of the British Isles.<br />
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Their mission statement is interesting; it notes that the Historical Model Railway Society is an educational charity whose objectives are the study and recording of information concerning railways of the British Isles and the construction, operation, preservation and public exhibition of models depicting those railways.”[1] Simmons and Biddle[2] note that : “ The HMRS is the senior such society in Britain. The interests of individual members are cared for by stewards, each of whom specialises in a railway company or subject, and who act as a clearing house for information between members.” From my experience the Society has a refreshing attitude to railway history believing that it starts from today and trying to reflect that in their collections.<br />
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In 2005 the Society, having fund raised amongst its members for many years, opened its purpose built Museum and Study Centre on the Midland Railway at its Swanwick Junction Museum Site. The building is to full museum standards and a description of it, with directions can be found here: http://www.hmrs.org.uk/museumstudycentre/index.php At present the Centre only opens one day per week and on special Midland Railway open days, but as Margaret Garratt, the Secretary of the Society says, “If only we had more volunteers we could do so much more. More people to help would mean that we could open more often and, while the work of cataloguing has to be carefully done, we can teach people how we do it and so speed up the work.”<br />
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As the HMRS holds the entire Metropolitan Cammell Engineering Drawing collection as well as the Derby Works Collection (held on behalf of Derby Museums) and many private collections, some of the drawings are of foreign locomotives and rolling stock built in Britain and whilst these are not the prime purpose of the collection, they are carefully archived and listed too. Because the Society has an Academic Liaison Officer who gives papers at international conferences on transport and history of technology topics he is sometimes approached by people from other countries whose locomotives and rolling stock were built in the British Isles. The Society, via links to the Manchester Locomotive Society and the Newcomen Society, made through a delegate to this workshop, has recently been able to help Dr Tatsuhiko Suga, Executive Director of the East Japan Railway Culture Foundation locate the original drawings for Japan Railway Locomotive Number 1, built at the Vulcan Foundry in 1871, and the HMRS are now scouring the HMRS archives for drawings of the four carriages shipped with it which may well have been built by Metropolitan Cammell.<br />
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The conference brought together forty-four individuals from a range of organisations that all had one thing in common; they were interested in railways in one shape or another. For example, the meeting was attended by members of the Great Eastern Railway Society, The Railway and Canal Historical Society and The London and North Eastern Railway Society, to name but a few. Furthermore, various individuals from archival institutions attended, such as the National Archives, the Ballast Trust, The National Railway Museum and the Midland Collection Trust. Lastly there were academics such as Terry Gourvish, Kevin Tennent and little old me.<br />
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The goal of the workshop was, as the Business Archives Council's Website states, to:<br />
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'...prompt an awareness of what these various groups are doing, and to start a dialogue between the enthusiast and academic which may lead to co-operation in preserving and using collections, and furthering our understanding of the past and its relevance to the future.'<br />
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I not only believe that the workshop was successful was in starting this dialogue, but the ball has started rolling on something very important.<br />
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<tr style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Perhaps the only high speed point
indoors. Craig King, MD of TQ Catalis, (in Orange
Jacket) explains to delegates how it works</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Friday started at 2.30 with fascinating tour by Craig King of TQ Catalis, who provide training for signalling engineers in the conference centre. Indeed, where we were staying, <a href="http://www.thederbyconferencecentre.com/">The Derby Conference Centre</a>, was originally Britain's first purpose-built training centre for railway staff, and was opened in 1938 by the London Midland and Scottish Railway. Designed by William H. Hamlyn, the art-deco building is now Grade II listed.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC9ICBHqK_lWUqA8neU_8IJlNrUBZf022vKG0tJh7LX1uNZJ3pu-5iCpDGzNoc1nEH5_hacjZpuGIkDeI0wt2XymR3oQlQkGvm4-TWWfAlIQ61Uy36CT2Rqkb_79jeGzzmkX0MBMiV6vJQ/s1600/13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC9ICBHqK_lWUqA8neU_8IJlNrUBZf022vKG0tJh7LX1uNZJ3pu-5iCpDGzNoc1nEH5_hacjZpuGIkDeI0wt2XymR3oQlQkGvm4-TWWfAlIQ61Uy36CT2Rqkb_79jeGzzmkX0MBMiV6vJQ/s320/13.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Being shown round the TQ Catalis training centre</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On the first evening, the keynote speech was given by Professor Peter Stone OBE from the University of Newcastle. Professor Stone does not have any links with railways, but rather is an archaeologist. However, he brought with him considerable experience from a long career building links between academics and amateur organisations. He highlighted that when working towards a goal, individuals from many different interest groups can possess knowledge which, while generated for different purposes, may enrich each other's outlooks. Indeed, the dangers of one group or another taking a dominant role when trying to reach an objective were also underlined, as this may produce outcomes that others are dissatisfied with. This was a perfect start to the workshop, as a tone was set of the need for cooperation and collegial working between all those using and attempting to preserve railway archives.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH7KRxCAR3YfKeWZhmmw2jQmwRj_TR0NWBd1gNRFoEnrhvSMuZPWypir_Zhnzz5wUhyphenhyphenOs1WAKHbApHkOp_AzxotemU4On7uPXlfl0iPSKi_IE2S53sRgGuDGS_awi2JbW06bqbOeNGzBZ8/s1600/19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH7KRxCAR3YfKeWZhmmw2jQmwRj_TR0NWBd1gNRFoEnrhvSMuZPWypir_Zhnzz5wUhyphenhyphenOs1WAKHbApHkOp_AzxotemU4On7uPXlfl0iPSKi_IE2S53sRgGuDGS_awi2JbW06bqbOeNGzBZ8/s320/19.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Roy Edwards, Tim Proctor, Keith Harcourt and Prof. Peter Stone</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzLPQotgm-Y2f7h2skvpmlhWsGl2MDLXsNMKOLvfKpnJ9rxUoEnfR0lSc6YNiJSBvNlAmbQ-jI5bUEVlR63QXZ1v6vpMkUKL0JxIDRFsQcJbnyM5hN6gcqKbeqhlpxul_cPLN2mNEtICPH/s1600/Aq8WpvACMAEvJC3.jpg+large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzLPQotgm-Y2f7h2skvpmlhWsGl2MDLXsNMKOLvfKpnJ9rxUoEnfR0lSc6YNiJSBvNlAmbQ-jI5bUEVlR63QXZ1v6vpMkUKL0JxIDRFsQcJbnyM5hN6gcqKbeqhlpxul_cPLN2mNEtICPH/s320/Aq8WpvACMAEvJC3.jpg+large.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Roy Edwards Speaking</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We were then treated to a talk by Tim Proctor who is curator of the <a href="http://www.nrm.org.uk/">National Railway Museum's</a> archive. Tim talked about the way the archive operates, the challenges it faces given its restricted funding, and how it cooperates with organisations and volunteers to help catalogue and manage its collections. Furthermore, he highlighted that some people do not realise that the National Railway Museum's archive exists, and I felt that this was an important point. The question that stuck in my mind was how we disseminate knowledge among those interested in railways, historians from all relevant fields, and the general public, that railway archives exist? I think Tim also was responsible for the biggest laugh of the workshop, pointing out one plan in the NRM's archive from the Wolverton Railway Works for a combined folding writing desk and lavatory.<br />
<br />
The only negative point about the Derby Conference Centre was that I had to leave. The food we received that evening was exemplary, the décor was lovely and the bar comfortable. Therefore, with some delegates overcoming a few drinks from the night before, everyone rose early to catch the coach to Historical Model Railway Society's study centre, located in the grounds of the <a href="http://www.midlandrailwaycentre.co.uk/">Midland Railway Centre</a> at Butterley.<br />
<br />
After much inspection of the HMRS's model railways at the centre, which were, to say the least, impressive, four more talks were given. The first was by Dr. Valerie Johnson from <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/">The National Archives</a>, who talked on the nature of archives. She posited a number of questions, for example what is an archive? Who decides what is important? Can documents be objects? Can objects be documents? Indeed, items of interest that one group may find unimportant, may be vital to another. Therefore, this is where interested communities that have great knowledge of a subject can be useful in shaping what archives hold and how they are treated. Towards the end of her talk, Valerie mentioned a project that TNA had completed cataloguing all 7,328 railway accidents between 1853 and 1975. I had no idea about this project, and neither did a lot of people present. This emphasised another key issue for the workshop. How can researchers and archives holding railway material build links to understand better what each other is doing?<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRLEFTRQr2fUz1k84dGN2_Hljg0sKti52q6i1rSKpi9mxGPaXwZm-AIMlBPVHZcKCromSFk65ZbZ1UykgjR9xkA3caMT4Zq1r3ONKg5AKCxp94xIU1xsaZ9fk4zK0vN5ElnfKPZvOMsM9S/s1600/Entering+the+study+centre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRLEFTRQr2fUz1k84dGN2_Hljg0sKti52q6i1rSKpi9mxGPaXwZm-AIMlBPVHZcKCromSFk65ZbZ1UykgjR9xkA3caMT4Zq1r3ONKg5AKCxp94xIU1xsaZ9fk4zK0vN5ElnfKPZvOMsM9S/s320/Entering+the+study+centre.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kevin Tennent and I entering the HMRS Study Center</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Following this, Kiara King discussed the work of <a href="http://www.ballasttrust.org.uk/">The Ballast Trust</a>. For those of you who were not aware, the Ballast Trust is an organisations set up in 1987 by William Lind to assist with the rescue, sorting and cataloguing of business archives, particularly technical records, such as shipbuilding, railway and engineering plans, drawings and photographs. This talk highlighted how the trust used volunteers and interns to catalogue the archives they received. Furthermore, Kiara talked on how she had developed procedures for the processing of the collections that flowed through the Trust's hands, as well as the use of social media, such as Flikr and a blog to raise awareness of its work.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDzPX0uejOtqdaV-jge-X2L9eGWCmVlSnzKKDaJA-A7ub-ED-O-wgopEXo0-C0AgpbHvw397-icm5fvI0D7Ethu1UsSSf4w7fw5WzpLsBCjrGMYf_KVKn5i5pvXnGFmgvPG7rEl7wWO4xD/s1600/IMG00471-20120421-0949.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDzPX0uejOtqdaV-jge-X2L9eGWCmVlSnzKKDaJA-A7ub-ED-O-wgopEXo0-C0AgpbHvw397-icm5fvI0D7Ethu1UsSSf4w7fw5WzpLsBCjrGMYf_KVKn5i5pvXnGFmgvPG7rEl7wWO4xD/s320/IMG00471-20120421-0949.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside the HMRS Study Centre</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbIzoKXBtclfx5icRmfLHjl053CqY6ydTHye4s4j6PyxPQuqdRbX3gWmzcxw6LyJASCu0lmk6c_6fURd53NWFS0I2UXOcKA7eFO5593nGOHFuBUk850SysLk8b5fermny7IsTI-RroegmY/s1600/41.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbIzoKXBtclfx5icRmfLHjl053CqY6ydTHye4s4j6PyxPQuqdRbX3gWmzcxw6LyJASCu0lmk6c_6fURd53NWFS0I2UXOcKA7eFO5593nGOHFuBUk850SysLk8b5fermny7IsTI-RroegmY/s320/41.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paul Garratt speaking to the delegates</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Ivor Lewis, deputy-chair of the HMRS, then talked about the challenges faced in archiving documentation created by modern businesses. Almost all are in digital format, with many firms considering these the masters. Therefore, their preservation is a huge issue, especially as the role of 'secretary' within organisations has disappeared and individuals are now expected to manage their own files. According to Ivor, when computers first arrive on the scene, twenty to thirty years ago, document preservation was not greatly considered and the loss of records was seen by some as natural. Currently, while more people are becoming interested in preserving digital records, concerns regarding the histories of companies being lost through the 'delete' button remain. Indeed, in the railway context these concerns will apply to what Train Operating Companies will or will not preserve. He finished by suggesting that currently the archiving of digital records is up to well meaning and enthusiastic employees pursuing the issue.<br />
<br />
Our time at the study centre was finished with a talk by Paul Garratt, the Drawing Archivist there. He described how the drawings came to be at the centre, what state they were when they arrived and how they were then sorted and catalogued. Once again, the discussion mentioned how the HMRS had to work with groups to accurately identify what items are within the collection. Furthermore, he also posited questions regarding the future of the collection, for example how the study centre might archive rolling stock plans generated by Computer Aided Design.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkMlBIpoZ04LKOgjrOxiMYCsyaUJXo8qsfYohth1-AlhQH2aX8RNwGBLg6ki4S4tZ8xKXUmhz525PNSqKYYSRatGHw9Ry23sV_B0MPHpYHmHXrcombyXyjUsa5YUFmE89OuwV0z8Vykn2t/s1600/IMG_2284.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkMlBIpoZ04LKOgjrOxiMYCsyaUJXo8qsfYohth1-AlhQH2aX8RNwGBLg6ki4S4tZ8xKXUmhz525PNSqKYYSRatGHw9Ry23sV_B0MPHpYHmHXrcombyXyjUsa5YUFmE89OuwV0z8Vykn2t/s320/IMG_2284.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Princess Margaret Rose</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We then broke for lunch and I headed over to the Princess Royal Class Locomotive Trust and Museum, which is also on the site. A number of delegates were taken round by the curator, Kate Watts, and we were shown the Trust's museum and workshop. The presence of the trust complements Midland Railway centre perfectly, and it is lovely to see steam locomotives up close.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_sOgwuB4S5ND76e8kVrz_P4uMV9aLnrVOlJBcbEa_gpKD0H98fC9BMHo9gBMCYcMVHSTO_iqMM5vEQxg2xsvfP7Rma7h5jqSHZTF3XobnMGqSJ2TH_XyJptiMb0i1tglvqFaAVuIyaptZ/s1600/43.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_sOgwuB4S5ND76e8kVrz_P4uMV9aLnrVOlJBcbEa_gpKD0H98fC9BMHo9gBMCYcMVHSTO_iqMM5vEQxg2xsvfP7Rma7h5jqSHZTF3XobnMGqSJ2TH_XyJptiMb0i1tglvqFaAVuIyaptZ/s320/43.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Delegates being shown around the Midland Railway Study Centre</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Derby and the <a href="http://www.derby.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/museums-and-galleries/information-and-advice/">Silk Mill Museum</a> was where the second half of the day was held. Unfortunately, this clearly fascinating museum was mothballed by Derby City Council in April 2011 to save money. This is especially sad as the building was the world's first factory, having been established in 1717. Nevertheless, delegates were lucky enough to have a look around the first floor and we were then given a tour round the Midland Railway Study Centre, which is housed within. Its archive holds a highly impressive collection of Midland Railway documents, more than The National Archives. Consequently, it is a hugely valuable resource for those researching the railway. As part of the tour, we were also given access to the study centre's repository. As many of you are aware, I have an obsession with railway rule books (and I am always open to receiving digitised copies) and immediately on entering I went looking for them. I think torment is the correct word. I opened a cabinet and there, right before me, were boxes of rule and instruction books. I had to be dragged away. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCF9Y5dX4aYn4nEB1cGT8Z9ABMj7IjipurZx6lgQuNhsNcxZikGxZpetebmCAFVJeAj6wYsUJ_u-TosTpBujEvs_HBoPErDUtGJrVDFtaf2OXYXjcD5KDlOHuD_QobK5wYumoIbE_SaauH/s1600/25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCF9Y5dX4aYn4nEB1cGT8Z9ABMj7IjipurZx6lgQuNhsNcxZikGxZpetebmCAFVJeAj6wYsUJ_u-TosTpBujEvs_HBoPErDUtGJrVDFtaf2OXYXjcD5KDlOHuD_QobK5wYumoIbE_SaauH/s320/25.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rodger Shelly, Principal Keeper of Derby Silk Museum speaking</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The afternoon's lectures commenced with Roger Shelley, Principal Keeper of the museum, giving us a fascinating talk on what was held within the museum's collection and how it was managed. Given the museum's closure, he mentioned new initiatives to keep the museum engaging with the community. Indeed, it had recently it had improved over 300 Wikipedia articles relating to items within its collection and Derby's history. The case of the Silk Mill Museum posed some interesting questions to the audience about archival organisations' public engagement and how, when faced with financial restrictions, documents and artefacts can be made accessible the public. Furthermore, at the forefront of my mind were concerns as to how cash-strapped archives may treat families and individuals that come to them wishing to deposit collections of railway documents when their resources are limited.<br />
<br />
This topic was touched on by the next speaker, John Miles. John is Chairman of the <a href="http://www.rfbmidlandtrust.org.uk/">Midland Collection Trust</a>, which supervises a collection of 39,000 Midland Railway documents and artefacts which constitute the majority of those held in the Midland Railway Study Centre. These were formerly owned by Roy Burrows, and John spoke very informatively on how the trust to manage the collection was established, how it had been catalogued, and how it is currently maintained. John's most interesting anecdote was that in the gallery of Midland Railway items on the Trust's website, the most looked at were the chamber pots from the company's hotels. Ultimately, this talk focussed the audience's mind on the fact that many collections of railway items are in the hands of private collectors. Indeed, as many who have read some of my earlier posts will know, this is a matter that concerns me greatly. What happens to these collections when their owners pass on? How can we be sure they will be saved when their families, through no fault of their own, have no knowledge of their value? Lastly, how do we disseminate amongst the general public knowledge of where collections of railway artefacts and documents can be deposited?<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXV2SV2P6xeNk3o_viiNqUVErtxTQMyxR7nLSLPs574zZYp5LMg1EfZNR_CczSRvPCLN3FKUKGbCAV9q-A5owqfy0f2THeO-vIgPRLLlaH_mRm4BZeFq1zco-t5pUnefvp06GmydUsQKRq/s1600/26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXV2SV2P6xeNk3o_viiNqUVErtxTQMyxR7nLSLPs574zZYp5LMg1EfZNR_CczSRvPCLN3FKUKGbCAV9q-A5owqfy0f2THeO-vIgPRLLlaH_mRm4BZeFq1zco-t5pUnefvp06GmydUsQKRq/s320/26.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grahame Boyes of the Railway and Canal Historical Society Speaking</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Grahame Boyes and Keith Fenwick from the <a href="http://www.rchs.org.uk/trial/gwpf.php?wpage=home">Railway and Canal Historical Society</a> then demonstrated the '<a href="http://www.trap.org.uk/Index.html">Transport Archive Register</a>' (formerly the Tracking Railway Archives Project). This is a database of where archival material from railways and canals is stored around the country, and was begun in the early 2000s to complement other archival databases, such as the now defunct Access 2 Archives and the <a href="http://www.trap.org.uk/Index.html">National Register of Archives</a>. Researchers can search the database by railway or canal company, subject, industry, county, country or people, and then will be provided a link to the relevant web page. I was struck by the fact that if the railway community are going to come together to preserve and promote railway archives, then tools such as this, which are added to by the community, are going to be vital. We need hubs whereby information on railway archives can be found and pooled. Indeed, this may take the form of a website, yet there also may be a need for a central organising committee that can marshal such efforts.<br />
<br />
The last talk of the day was given by Joan Unwin, archivist at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_of_Cutlers_in_Hallamshire">Company of Cultlers</a> in Hallamshire. This company was established in 1624<span class="st"> to maintain the quality of Sheffield manufactured cutlery and steel products. She spoke of one particular accession into its archive of 1400 razors and the issues surrounding this, including the evident safety concerns regarding the storage of these potentially dangerous items. While donations of paper archives are trouble enough for archivists, the talk highlighted the what problems there are when archives take into stock physical items. In the context of railways this is potentially a huge problem, given that they were, and are, producers of items of all sorts. Indeed, the talk challenged the audience to think about what railway archives actually need to acquire, and whether every physical item needs to be kept.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCoDJ2rGatYrYOW-wJC5EbzGwI_8hVuK57wYv2sdB7AZ7sym6eIl-uaiqb0zlPGbIWED_oPKocLajZhcAh6uidmVvjsQvkOEJ0Ai81AmMzmBTUb1Md-16ib2jvHwbBJqsunTLKpXaz2szs/s1600/24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCoDJ2rGatYrYOW-wJC5EbzGwI_8hVuK57wYv2sdB7AZ7sym6eIl-uaiqb0zlPGbIWED_oPKocLajZhcAh6uidmVvjsQvkOEJ0Ai81AmMzmBTUb1Md-16ib2jvHwbBJqsunTLKpXaz2szs/s320/24.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roy Edwards and Keith Harcourt leading the round-table.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span class="st">The workshop ended with a round-table discussion where many of the ideas and questions highlighted in the two days were thrown around. While nothing concrete was decided on there and then, I think we have started a very large ball rolling. I am certain that in the next coming months the energy and enthusiasm that the speakers and delegates showed towards railway archives will produce many new ideas and initiatives to aid their promotion, use and preservation. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="st">I am looking forward to playing a large part in this and working with the many of the new friends I have made this weekend. Indeed, there is much work to be done; for myself, and a whole community of </span>amateurs and academics who love the railways.<span class="st" style="font-size: small;"> I want to finish off by saying a big thank you to the two organisers of the workshop, Keith Harcourt and Roy Edwards, for putting on such a wonderful event - it was truly fantastic and at the end of Saturday night, I was not happy to be leaving!<b> </b></span><br />
<br />
<span class="st" style="font-size: small;"><b>Many thanks to Keith Harcourt for many of the photos.</b></span><br />
<br />
<span class="st" style="font-size: x-small;"><b>------------ </b></span><br />
<br />
<span class="st" style="font-size: x-small;">[1] The Executive of the HMRS. Carried on page 2 of every copy of the Society’s Journal.<br />
[2] Simmons, J. & Biddle, G The Oxford Companion to Railway History. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1997) Page 205)</span>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-51375020460826413752012-04-08T12:38:00.001+01:002012-09-12T21:40:55.573+01:00'Titanic' and the London and South Western Railway - An Intimate RelationshipThe London and South Western Railway had an intimate
relationship with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titanic</i>, the ship
having sailed from the company’s Southampton Docks. However, the association
goes deeper than just a doomed ship sailing from a south coast port that
happened to be owned by a railway company. Rather, from its inception, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titanic</i> had been destined to sail from Southampton.
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The LSWR purchased the failing Southampton Dock Company
in 1892 and set about expanding the port to make the best use of its new acquisition.
<span style="color: black;">Between 1892 and 1910 the
company spent a total of </span>£3,063,644 on what was dryly referred to in its
accounts as ‘<span style="color: black;">New Plant, Graving Docks,
Warehouses and Various Improvements.’[1] This included new graving docks in
1895 and 1905, and new quays in 1898.[2] Consequently, the investment had the
effect the LSWR’s directors expected; it grew the port's trade. In 1892 421,611
tons had passed through the docks and, given most of this was carried by the LSWR,
it constituted 15.41 per cent of the company’s goods traffic. However, with
increasing numbers of steamship lines serving Southampton, the tonnage of goods
passing through the docks grew to 1,113,132 by 1908, 44.38 per
cent of the LSWR’s freight traffic.[3]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRVe0drwWAtXZ2nzUBVzNSxT9VVukCrV8Yl1jmeNlxmLl0eFj5RAYcDiZgQc_8VX3I2UcTZJqQbUOBAC4Ogcq9rUTrcfa9zdtVebJOs4-lsr2owui78xF2AWiJkphMdA19yMw1fWP4CQ-P/s1600/Adriatic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRVe0drwWAtXZ2nzUBVzNSxT9VVukCrV8Yl1jmeNlxmLl0eFj5RAYcDiZgQc_8VX3I2UcTZJqQbUOBAC4Ogcq9rUTrcfa9zdtVebJOs4-lsr2owui78xF2AWiJkphMdA19yMw1fWP4CQ-P/s400/Adriatic.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Adriatic</i> approaching Southampton</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black;">Indeed, by
1908 twenty-one companies were sailing from Southampton, including the Union-Castle
Line, Royal Mail Steam Packet services, the American Line and, not unexpectedly,
the White Star Line.[4] The White Star Line began its association with
Southampton in June 1907 when its New York express service transferred there
from Liverpool. On the 5<sup> </sup>June that year, a day <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Railway Magazine</i> labelled the docks’ ‘Red-Letter Day’, the White
Star steamer <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Adriatic</i> inaugurated the
weekly service.[5] Months later, the company was
claiming the move had been an ‘immediate success’, and on both inward and outward
journeys it was refusing customers.[6] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black;">Therefore, the White
Star Line’s decision to move its services to Southampton could be perceived as a rational one based
on its assessment of where it could garner the most trade. Yet, on the LSWR’s June
1907 ‘report and statement of accounts’ there appeared the name of a new director;
The Right Hon. Lord Pirrie,[7] who immediately joined the company’s ‘Docks and
Marine’ Committee.[8] Pirrie can be
easily describe as a ‘shipping magnate’, and when appointed to the LSWR’s board
he was a director of twelve other companies, nine of which were associated with sea-bound trade and commerce. Amongst these was his position as chairman of Harland and Wolff,
who built the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titanic</i> and its sister
ships, and his directorship of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Co, or White Star Line as
it was more commonly known.[8] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black;">Therefore,
it is not surprising that the White Star Line transferred to Southampton; nor
that in April 1907 Harland and Wolff opened a repairing depot at the docks to
service White Star Line ships (amongst others).[9] However, the accommodation
of Pirrie’s shipping interests by the LSWR did not stop there. In October 1907
the company began work on a new sixteen acre dock which, at the White Star Line’s request, was to be known as the ‘White
Star Dock’ (although other companies could use it). This was opened in early
1911 and on 14 June that year <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titanic’s</i>
sister ship, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Olympic</i>,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>sailed from there. Furthermore, when the
LSWR found out about plans for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Olympic </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titanic</i>, it extended its Trafalgar Dry Dock to accommodate them..[10] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black;">It shouldn’t be assumed that the LSWR acting as an arm of the White Star Line
by spending so much capital on the docks for it. The investments were mutually beneficial
for both businesses, and both greatly profited. Indeed, Pirrie’s presence on the
LSWR board was not to control its policies in his favour; rather, he acted as a
bridge between it and the White Star Line (and Harland and Wolff) so their strategies were coordinated.
Thus, Pirrie, the White Star Line and the LSWR should collectively held responsible for bringing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titanic </i>to
Southampton.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;">On the
morning of 10 April 1912, the day <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titanic</i>
sailed, two special boat trains are known to have left the LSWR’s Waterloo
terminus bound for the doomed vessel. Second and third class passengers, as well
as the first class passengers’ maids and valets, travelled on a 7.30 am train;
arriving dock-side two hours later. Later,
202 First class passengers departed Waterloo at 9.45am, arriving at 11.30 am,
only thirty minutes before the ship sailed.[11] </span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black;">Therefore,
the links between the LSWR and <i>Titanic </i>ran deep, and when the ship foundered on the 15 April it is no surprise the railways' board minuted the following:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;">‘Wreck of the White Star Liner <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titanic</i> – </span></b><span style="color: black;">The Chairman mentioned that, under his instructions,
a letter of sympathy had been sent to Messrs. Ismay, Imrie & Co. with
reference to the terrible disaster that had recently befell the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titanic</i> and upon his motion it was
resolved: “That a donation of £500 be given for the relief of the sufferers and
divided equally between the Mansion House fund which is being raised on the
behalf of the relatives of those persons, whether crew or passengers, who lost
their lives in this sad calamity and the Mayor or Southampton’s fund for the
relatives of the crew.”[12]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;">-------</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">[1] The
National Archives [TNA], RAIL 1110/283 and RAIL 1110/284, London & South
Western Railway – Reports and Accounts</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">[2] Faulkner,
J.N. and Williams, R.A., The LSWR in the Twentieth Century, (Newton Abbot,
1988), p.142</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">[3] <i>Railway Magazine</i>, April 1909, p.402-406</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">[4] <i>Railway Magazine</i>, April 1909, p.403</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">[5] <i>Railway Magazine</i>, March 1909, p.297</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">[6] <i>The Times</i>, Monday 26 August 1907, p.4</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">[7] TNA, RAIL
1110/284, London & South Western Railway – Reports and Accounts, Half year
ending June 1907</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">[8] <i>South Western Gazette</i>, June 1918, p.80</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">[9] <i>Directory of Directors</i>, (London, 1907)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">[10] Faulkner,
and Williams, the LSWR in the Twentieth Century, p.144</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">[11]
Bevan, Mike and Chivers, Colin ‘The Titanic Centenary’, <i>South Western Circular</i>, 15 (April 2012), p.470 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[12] TNA, RAIL 411/39, Court of Directors Minute Book, 19
April 1912</span></div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-46774245126111635132012-04-01T19:30:00.001+01:002012-04-01T20:15:34.270+01:00The Hours Victorian Railway Clerks Worked - 1856<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Being employed on the Victorian railway would always mean
long hours, as with most other jobs of the period. Kingsford argued that ‘in
the early years [of the railways] hours of work were extremely long and left a
bare minimum for sleep. There was no regular provision for Sunday relief or for
holidays and the working week was normally a seven day one.’[1] Amongst the
railway staff records on Ancestry.com, I came across a file that provided insight
into clerks and station master’s working day on the London, Brighton and South
Coast Railway in 1856. This contained questionnaires where they were asked a
range of questions, including how long in each day they toiled.[2]<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 357.75pt;">
Kingsford commented on this file in passing (although he
said erroneously that all the returns were filled in by Station Masters), and
argued that the seventy-six individuals in it worked an average of fourteen
hours a day.[3] I have not sampled every man’s hours of work, and have only surveyed
the first twenty-five returns, but I can
confidently say that this is a generalisation that hides considerable nuance
and variance in each individual’s employment circumstances. Nevertheless, the
average number of hours worked by the men in my sample came out at thirteen
hours, thirty-five minutes; close to Kingsford’s calculation. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The individual who worked the shortest hours was Mr
Brabrook, a clerk at New Cross Station, who most days worked a mere eight and a
half hours. However, he did work for ten hours forty-five minutes some weeks.
The individual who had the longest working day was Mr Beacon, a clerk at
Bridlington Station, who reported that he was at the station for sixteen hours,
twenty-five minutes per day - from 7.30am to 11.55pm. Thus, if I estimate he daily
had thirty minutes off for lunch, this would mean his working week was 112 hours,
25 minutes long. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
While Kingsford worked out the number of hours the men
were on duty was fourteen hours, it seems that the length of time people were
on duty varied considerably amongst the twenty-five men I looked at. The
results are as follows:</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAOd0eKtf2RVXQUe173eZH4q0ykRsT_w7Te3NxkdNtdRBsK8j289aTUrOUwsf9wf3JCyj8_qpBF90zsQcNx4yZa5f5mVxNLtTlCe9Mm-2AT03lba-SYR54hptEOqaEiIuAYt2vrETERBJt/s1600/Clerk+Hours+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAOd0eKtf2RVXQUe173eZH4q0ykRsT_w7Te3NxkdNtdRBsK8j289aTUrOUwsf9wf3JCyj8_qpBF90zsQcNx4yZa5f5mVxNLtTlCe9Mm-2AT03lba-SYR54hptEOqaEiIuAYt2vrETERBJt/s400/Clerk+Hours+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Clearly, the majority of those in the sample were working
between fourteen and fifteen hours. Yet, nine were working less than that
amount, while eight were working more. There are two possible explanations for
this variation. Firstly, it is quite conceivable that people worked more hours
because they were higher in the organisation, and, therefore, had greater
responsibility. Alternatively, because some individuals were at remote
locations, they may have had fewer colleagues to cover them and allow them time
off.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Firstly, I decided to examine the theory that those who
were higher in the organisation worked longer hours. Broadly speaking there
were three ‘ranks’ of employees represented amongst the twenty-five, junior
managers (superintendents), supervisory posts (Station Masters or Foremen) and
General Clerks (including one junior). The average number of hours worked for
each group of employees was as follows:-</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 168.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuDdW859ScXoe5n5-Y8YxZs9BbqJcvyrDLMu386AIRJwzQDI1QhllpLLNIdGXTlQvINX4k1lADjNagDXll42NXMfNMtS3aJunnLmwoQ-izCZbT6f7pMZiSTcAJSZwe_43oUbiKNrUwswiU/s1600/Clerk+Hours+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="103" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuDdW859ScXoe5n5-Y8YxZs9BbqJcvyrDLMu386AIRJwzQDI1QhllpLLNIdGXTlQvINX4k1lADjNagDXll42NXMfNMtS3aJunnLmwoQ-izCZbT6f7pMZiSTcAJSZwe_43oUbiKNrUwswiU/s400/Clerk+Hours+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 168.75pt;">
While the sample size is
small, and we have to be wary about making any firm conclusions from these
figures, what this table would suggest is that individuals’ working hours were
on average shorter before they went into supervisory posts. Yet, on being
promoted to a junior managerial position their hours improved. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 168.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 168.75pt;">
But what about the idea that
those individuals employed in the country worked longer days? Indeed, this was postulated
by Kingsford. The results were that the thirteen country workers in the sample were
on duty for an average of 14.01 hours per day, whereas for the twelve in the
town it was 12.96 hours. Therefore, this tentatively confirms the theory.
Lastly, I wanted to look at the two sets of statistics in combination, to see
whether all ranks worked more hours at country stations.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 168.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnLiTXAWjItpWwf5VyLzQuewe_xiM5Pr-P-tb4P2zIWHeWKifl-VBXg_UP1wTgLX6PsOZSY_JhT22CzmKuVNyVwEpId0G9uyg7LlFS4hclUtYGF8LMMJ4Z-iMgUatGaoz8dQ0p818j4f3p/s1600/Clerk+Hours+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="86" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnLiTXAWjItpWwf5VyLzQuewe_xiM5Pr-P-tb4P2zIWHeWKifl-VBXg_UP1wTgLX6PsOZSY_JhT22CzmKuVNyVwEpId0G9uyg7LlFS4hclUtYGF8LMMJ4Z-iMgUatGaoz8dQ0p818j4f3p/s400/Clerk+Hours+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 168.75pt;">
The results really show why I
need to expand the sample size to all seventy-six individuals in the file.
However, while no firm conclusions can be made regarding the supervisors or
Junior Managers, clearly, general clerks in the country worked more hours than
their counterparts in the town.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 168.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 168.75pt;">
Overall, while there are
problems with this brief survey given my sample size, it has presented some
interesting questions to be tackled in the future. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 168.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
------</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[1] Kingsford, P.W., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Victorian
Railwaymen</i>, (London, 1970), p.115</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[2] The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 414/767, Traffic
staff histories based on questionnaire and relating to staff appointed
1836-1854</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[3] Kingsford, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Victorian
Railwaymen</i>, p.117</div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-76893214600634744882012-03-25T11:16:00.000+01:002012-03-25T11:20:14.993+01:00The Social Backgrounds of Female Railway Clerks - 1875-1886Mid-way through last year, I looked at the first sixteen female
ledger clerks employed at the London and North Western Railway’s (L&NWR)
Birmingham Curzon Street goods station between 1874 and 1876. However, in the
course of my research I actually discovered the staff records of fifty-six
female clerks that the company appointed between 1874 and 1886 at eight
locations across the company’s network.
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
While I determined from the records these women’s rates
of pay, length of employment, promotional prospects and what their jobs
involved, I did not look at their family backgrounds. However, understanding individuals’
backgrounds is important, as they ultimately they determined their employment
prospects. Indeed, I have postulated elsewhere that these clerks were possibly
the daughters of railwaymen. Thus, I set out to test this theory. To determine
the women’s backgrounds, which in the Victorian period were essentially their
father’s occupations, I looked for the clerks in census records. Consequently, I
found the professions of eighteen of their fathers. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Firstly, my theory that the female clerks predominantly
came from railway families seems to be unfounded. Of the nineteen clerks only
five had fathers employed by the L&NWR (27.78%). For example, Margaret A. Peacock, who was
employed at Shrewsbury station on the 1 December 1876,[1] was the daughter of
Edward Peacock who made Station Master at Tattenhale Station in 1881.[2]
Furthermore, in that year William Redford, Goods Agent in Manchester,[3] was
father to both Elizabeth[4] and
Isabella[5] Redford, who were both clerks in Manchester Moss Street Goods
Station. Lastly, Mary Hannah Hassall, who was also appointed at Manchester Moss
Street in 1876,[6] had a brother, James, who was a Junior Clerk at the time,[7]
which may also have facilitated her entrance into the company. Thus, a
considerable, but not overwhelming, proportion of the women did have some link
with the railway.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Of the nineteen fathers, seven could be considered to
have been in some form of trade (38.89%). For example, Edith Gould, who joined
the Camden Goods Office in 1876,[8] was the daughter of James Gould, a
cheesemonger in St Pancras.[9] Additionally, James Harris was a Blacksmith
employing one man, [10] and was the
father of Martha and Mary Harris who were employed at Birmingham Curzon Street
in 1874 and 1876[11] respectively. The professions of the remaining four
fathers were a cabinet maker, someone simply listed as a ‘manufacturer,’ a cigar
and tobacco manufacturer and a master jeweller employing one boy. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Four (22.22%) of the fathers had positions in some form
of administration. Probably the highest ranked was Joseph Arlom, father of Emma
Arlom who was appointed at Manchester Moss Street Station in 1878[12], who was
an ‘Inspector of Police.’[13] The lowest ranked socially was Alfred Vigurs, who
by 1881 was a clerk at a lamp makers.[14] He was the father of Lizzie Vigurs,
who was appointed to the Birmingham Curzon Street office in 1875.[15] The
others fathers were working as Canal (or possibly Burial) Agent and a
Superintendent of a public baths. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Only two of the fathers (11.11%) had what can be
considered unskilled jobs. Frederick Hughes, the father of Martha Hughes, an
appointee at Birmingham in 1875[16], was a ‘spoon and fork filer.’[17] The
other was a Wheelhouseman in Manchester.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Therefore, it can be concluded that the vast majority of
the female clerks had fathers who were in professions that required skill or
education. Indeed, sixteen of the eighteen (88.89%) fathers would almost
certainly have provided comfortable households for their families including good
schooling for their children. Furthermore, the majority of the fathers were in
positions that Victorian society considered ‘respectable’, meaning their
daughters would have had a good chance of obtaining the positive references
that potential employers required. Lastly, while this brief piece of research
has shown that familial links to the railway were not necessarily required for
the women to become clerks on the L&NWR, it has shown that the basis of their
entry was identical to that for male clerks, in that the social class, public
standing and educational level of the father were hugely important factors.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
-----</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[1] The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 410/1837, Register
of salaried permanent officers in the Goods Department including clerks, goods
managers, inspectors, superintendents, time keepers, accountants, foremen,
agents, canvassers and collectors., p.1286</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[2] TNA, RG 11/3552, 1881 Census, Cheshire, Tattenhale, District
6, p.1</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[3] TNA, RG 11/3473, 1881 Census, Lancashire, Manchester,
Heaton Norris, District 12, p.16</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[4] TNA, RAIL 410/1841, Salaried Staff Register [No 2,
pages 2593-3088] - Miscellaneous departments. Includes staff employed in the
following departments: Goods, Cattle, Horse, Rolling Stock, Detective and
Canal. Includes station masters, inspectors, detectives and clerks, p.2634</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[5] TNA, RAIL 410/1843, Salaried staff register [No. 1,
pages 1089-1599] - Goods Department. Includes clerks, goods managers,
inspectors, superintendents, time keepers, accountants, foremen, agents,
canvassers, collectors, timber measurer, traffic solicitor and cartage, p.1338</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[6] TNA, RAIL 410/1837, Register of salaried permanent officers
in the Goods Departmentp.1215</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[7] TNA, RG 11/4003, 1881 Census, Lancashire, Manchester,
St George, District 19, p.71</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[8] TNA, RAIL 410/1837, Register of salaried permanent
officers in the Goods Department, p.1227</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[9] TNA, RG 11/176, London, St Pancras, Regents Park,
District 4, p.17</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[10] TNA, RG 11/2982, 1881 Census, Warwickshire,
Birmingham, St Martin, District 7, p.24</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[11] TNA, RAIL 410/1837, Register of salaried permanent
officers in the Goods Department, p.1207</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[12] TNA, RAIL 410/1841, Salaried Staff Register [No 2,
pages 2593-3088] - Miscellaneous departments, p.1338</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[13] TNA, RG 11/3940, 1881 Census, Lancashire, Moss Side,
District 81, p.59</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
[14] TNA, RG 11/2835, 1881 Census, Staffordshire,
Handsworth, District 20, p.26</div>
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[15] TNA, RAIL 410/1837, Register of salaried permanent
officers in the Goods Department, p.1207</div>
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[16] TNA, RAIL 410/1837, Register of salaried permanent
officers in the Goods Department, p.1207</div>
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[17] TNA, RG 11/3033, Warwickshire, Aston, Duddeston, District
41, p.19</div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471329571766916686.post-21484367978916836802012-03-18T12:10:00.003+00:002012-03-18T12:11:22.897+00:00An Early Railway Manager - A Perpetual FailureCornelius Stovin is not a familiar name in railway
history circles. To my surprise, he is not even well known amongst those who
study the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR), the company for which
he worked as its first Traffic Manager from 1839. My interest in him stems from
the fact he left the company suddenly in 1852 when it was found that his
accounts were seriously in disarray. However, no research has been done on
Stovin before he came to the railway, and, therefore, I resolved to find out more.
What was discovered was that Stovin was a perpetual failure.
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Cornelius Stovin was born in Birmingham in 1802 to John
and Elizabeth Stovin, and was christened at St’ Martins Church on 2 June. [1] According
to Chapman’s Birmingham Directory for 1801, John was a druggist who also
dispensed oil, soap, candles and glue at the Bullring.[2] He was obviously
considerably wealthy, as he was able to send Cornelius to Magdalen Hall at
Oxford University, which he entered on the 18 March 1820, aged nineteen.[3]On
graduation Cornelius moved into Mosley Street, Birmingham[4] and went into
business with John Heycott Jervis as brass founders. This would be Cornelius’
first failure in business, and for unknown reasons the partnership was
dissolved in August 1826.[5] </div>
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Yet, At some point before then he had met Jane Waddell,
who he married on 2 November 1824 at St Phillips Cathedral in the city.[6] Jane
was the daughter of William Waddell,[7] who
had taken over the ‘Hen and Chickens Inn’ at 130 New Street in 1802. While
keeping the inn he also established himself as a coach proprietor there[8] and turned
the business into one of the Midland’s most extensive coaching establishments
by the 1830s.[9] Clearly, John Stovin and William Waddell were friends, as
William named one of his sons John Stovin Waddell.[10] Thus, it is it is very
possible that some point after 1826 Cornelius joined Waddell’s growing business.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUfh0mVy947s04tJiJJcOcT5zi1BSBce53XXDVwBpWxkthg7UMckUH0z3f30RrxuxUAMwesJD1h1qWJzgFPS3mYGF4dTUlNvnmMDv6eJUtY67clsuvAWI_VNmeydMay2n0uokAaraLxPWX/s1600/Stovin+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUfh0mVy947s04tJiJJcOcT5zi1BSBce53XXDVwBpWxkthg7UMckUH0z3f30RrxuxUAMwesJD1h1qWJzgFPS3mYGF4dTUlNvnmMDv6eJUtY67clsuvAWI_VNmeydMay2n0uokAaraLxPWX/s400/Stovin+1.jpg" width="400" /></a>On the death of William in 1837[11] Jane, received £5000,
which would have passed to Cornelius because of wives’ property rights in the
period.[12] I am not one hundred per cent sure what happened next, however, my
best theory is that in late 1837 Cornelius set up a coaching business on his
own, probably using this money. [13] However, he did not inherit any of
William’s business directly, as most of it was taken over by his son, Thomas.[14]
Yet, he clearly had some use of the Hen and Chickens Inn site, as shown by the
following advert from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Liverpool
Mercury</i> on 7 December; ‘Royal Mails and Fast Post Coaches leave the above
Establishment (Hen and Chickens Coach Office, New Street Birmingham), to all
parts of the Kingdom, immediately upon the arrival of the different Railway
Trains.’ The advert was signed ‘Cornelius Stovin and Co. Proprietors.’[15] </div>
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For the second time in his life, Cornelius’ business was
unsuccessful, and he was declared bankrupt on the 26 February 1839. Indeed, one
of the petitioning creditors was John Stovin Waddell,[16] who by then was a
coach builder in his own right.[17] Stovin made a poor business decision by
setting up as a coach proprietor in Birmingham in 1837, as the railways arrived
there that year. On 4 July 1837 the
Grand Junction Railway between Birmingham and Liverpool opened[18] and on 17
September 1838 the London to Birmingham started operating.[19] Furthermore, the
Manchester and Birmingham Railway was under construction.[20] Therefore, given
I presume the main routes of the Birmingham coaching industry were to London,
Liverpool and Manchester, it is logical to suggest that in this period much
traffic was being lost to the railways, which would have hit Cornelius hard.</div>
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However, three days before Cornelius’ bankruptcy, the
London and Southampton Railway’s (later L&SWR) Traffic and General Purposes
committee minuted that ‘Mr Cornelius Stovin to be Superintendent of the Traffic
Department at salary not exceeding £250 a year.’[21] Stovin accepted the post on
the 28 February.[22] Later, in 1840, he was made the company’s Traffic
Manager.[23] It is quite possible he got the job through being in contact with an
influential L&SWR director, William Chaplin, who had also been in the coaching business previously.
Indeed, Stovin had the support of Chaplin throughout his at the L&SWR, and
this had allowed him to increase his power within the company, despite his
temper. </div>
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Yet, closer scrutiny of Stovin’s past may have avoided
the problems that occurred in March 1852. It is clear that Stovin kept the
Traffic Department’s accounts poorly. Like most railways of the period considerable
traffic was brought to it by independent carriers. The arrangement at the
L&SWR was that these carriers were allowed a rebate from the charges they
collected for carriage and credit was allowed for three months. However, in
August 1851 the directors’ attention was drawn to the poor state of these
accounts, particularly those of a West of England carrier named Ford. Ford owed
the company a considerable amount, and immediately after the directors
expressed their concern Stovin managed to reduce his outstanding debit to £5000.</div>
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But things were going sour for Stovin and his operations
were coming under more scrutiny. Thus, in early 1852 he took sick leave and
then absconded to the United States in March. Initially, the press reported
that there were ‘no known deficiencies affecting the railway company.’[24] However,
an investigation, which lasted until July, found that Stovin had been hiding a
shortage in the Traffic Department’s accounts of £2921 11s 8d. Chaplin offer to
pay Stovin’s return fare so that he could explain himself to the board. But the
ex-Traffic Manager stayed in New York.[25] Indeed, on the 19 May his wife Jane
and seven children arrived in by the ship <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">London
</i>to join him.[26] Finally, the whole family moved to Canada, where Stovin again
became a railway manager. </div>
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Stovin was clearly an unsuccessful businessman three
times over. Firstly, his foundry business failed in 1826, then the foray into
the stagecoach industry collapsed, and, lastly, he arranged the L&SWR
finances very poorly, costing the company money. Yet, he reached his lofty
position by receiving help from individuals who were much more astute businessmen
than he, for example William Waddell and William Chaplin. </div>
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Ultimately, the Stovin case raises some broader issues
surrounding the nature of early railway managers. This was an era when the idea
of the professional railway officer was far from established and the ‘Stovin
affair’ highlights that the early railways took into their ranks a mixed bag of
individuals that could not always be relied upon. However, Stovin was just one example
amongst thousands in the period, and more research needs to be done on the
backgrounds of other early railway managers to truly find out what their
experiences were before coming to the job.</div>
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-----</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] <a href="https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/J7Q8-458">https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/J7Q8-458</a></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[2] Chapman, T, <i>Chapman's
Birmingham Directory</i>, (Birmingham, 1801)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[3] Oxford University Alumni, 1715-1886, Volume VI, p.122</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[4]<i> Berrow's
Worcester Journal</i>, Thursday, November 18, 1824; Issue 6359</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[5] <i>The Observer,</i>
28 Aug 1826, p.1</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[6] <a href="https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NJHT-B2N">https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NJHT-B2N</a></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[7] <i>Berrow's
Worcester Journal</i>, Thursday, November 18, 1824; Issue 6359</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[8] Hanson, Harry, <i>This
Coaching Life</i>, (Manchester, 1983), p.149</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[9] Harman, Thomas T. and Showell, Walter, <i>Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham</i>,
(Birmingham, 2006), p.125</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[10] <a href="https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NV4T-D94">https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NV4T-D94</a></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[11] Death index Oct-Nov-Dec, 1837</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[12] The National Archives [TNA], PROB 11/1873, Will of
William Waddell, Innholder of Birmingham , Warwickshire, 24 February 1837</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[13]<i> Liverpool
Mercury etc</i>, Friday, December 7, 1838; Issue 1439</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[14] Hanson, <i>This
Coaching Life</i>, p.149</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[15] <i>Liverpool
Mercury etc</i>, Friday, December 7, 1838; Issue 1439</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[16] The law journal for the year 1832-1949: comprising
reports of cases in the courts of Chancery, King's Bench, Common Pleas,
Exchequer of Pleas, and Exchequer of Chamber…, p.13</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[17] 1835 Pigot's Directory for Warwickshire, Birmingham,
p.543</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[18] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Junction_Railway">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Junction_Railway</a></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[19] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_and_Birmingham_Railway">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_and_Birmingham_Railway</a></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[20] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_and_Birmingham_Railway">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_and_Birmingham_Railway</a></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[21] TNA, RAIL 412/3, Traffic and General Purposes, and
Traffic Police and Goods committees, 23 February 1839</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[22] TNA, RAIL 412/3, Traffic and General Purposes, and
Traffic Police and Goods committees, 2 March 1839</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[23] TNA, RAIL 412/1, Court of Directors Minute Book,
Minute No. 1307, 30 October 1840</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[24] <i>Reynolds's
Newspaper</i>, Sunday, April 18, 1852; Issue 88.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[25] Williams, R.A., <i>The
London and South Western Railway: Volume 1 – The Formative Years</i>, (Newton
Abbott, 1968), p.219-220</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[26] National Archives (US), New York Incoming Passenger
Lists, 1820-1957,</span></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01017077771376316618noreply@blogger.com1