When Victorian railways conspired against Christmas

One 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.^[1] 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.^[2]

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.’^[3] 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.’^[4]

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.^[5]

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.

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:

Gentlemen

   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.

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.

   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.

   We are yours respectfully… ^[6]

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.’^[7] 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. ^[8]

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.

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[1] Jack Simmons, ‘South Western v. Great Western: railway competition in Devon and Cornwall’, The Journal of Transport History, 4 (1959), 27-34

[2] Jack Simmons, The Victorian Railway, (London, 1991), p.83; Jack Simmons, The Railway in England and Wales, 1830-1914, (Leicester, 1978), p.84-85

[3] P.J. Cain, ‘Railways 1870-1914: the maturity of the private system’, in, Michael J. Freeman and Derek H. Aldcroft, Transport in Victorian Britain, (Manchester, 1988), pp.115

[4] David Turner, ‘Managing the “Royal Road”: The London & South Western Railway 1870-1911’, (Unpublished PhD Thesis. University of York, 2013)

[5] Oswald S. Nock, The Railway Race to the North, (London, 1958), p.120-121

[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

[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

[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

Counting customers - railway traffic before Christmas in the 1800s

There 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^nd; 11,588 were supposed to run yesterday and 18,968 are due to run today.^[1] Most Train Operating Companies have not supplement their regular scheduled services,^[3] Chiltern being the only one.^[2] Thus, with largely regular Saturday and Sunday timetables in operation on the 22^nd and 23^rd 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.

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. 

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.^[4] 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.   

However, as we are currently told passenger numbers in this country continue to grow, it would be interesting 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. ^[5]

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, as I related in a blog post last year, 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:

1848 - 12,000 [6]

1849 - 15,000 [7]

1850 - 10,000 [8]

1851 - Inward and Outward: 40,000 (figures for the week before Christmas) [9]

1852 - 12,000

1853 - 12,500 [10]

1864 - 17,000 [11]

Therefore, by digging into 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.

Much thanks must go to Tom Cairns for the data he provided on current train operations.

A Very Merry Christmas

My other Christmas posts are as follows:

'Pretty Festoons of Holly Leaves Are Displayed' - The Decoration of Railway Stations Before 1900

"Christmas fare from the provinces" - Euston Station and the Distribution of Festive Goods in the 1840s

"An EXTRA TRAIN will leave Shoreditch" - Trains on Christmas Day before 1900
A Victorian 'Railway' Christmas - Parcels, Pastimes, Profit and Poetry

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[1] Data kindly provided by Tom Cairns http://realtimetrains.co.uk and Twitter: @swlines

[2] http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/seasonal/Christmas_2012/index_custom.html

[3] http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/seasonal/Christmas_2012/index_custom.html

[4] Morning Post - Friday 27 December 1895

[5] Data kindly provided by Tom Cairns http://realtimetrains.co.uk and Twitter: @swlines

[6] The Morning Post, Tuesday, December 26, 1848

[7] Daily News, Wednesday, December 26, 1849, Issue 1119

[8] The Era, Sunday, December 29, 1850

[9] The Standard, Saturday, December 27, 1851, p.1

[10] The Essex Standard, and General Advertiser for the Eastern Counties, Wednesday, December 28, 1853

[11] Jackson's Oxford Journal, Saturday, January 9, 1864

'Pretty Festoons of Holly Leaves Are Displayed' - The Decoration of Railway Stations Before 1900

In 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 Reading Mercury in January 1887 that 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.^[1]

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 South Western Gazette, reported that the standard of decorations at suburban stations was ‘quite up to the standard of past years’.^[2] The Whitstable Times and Hearne Bay Herald 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.’^[3] Furthermore, in 1887 the adornments at the LSWR’s Totton, Redbridge and Lyndhurst Road Stations were described by the Hampshire Advertiser as being ‘very effective, reflecting credit on those who carried out the work.’^[4]

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.^[5] Furthermore, the copious adornments at the LSWR’s Sunningdale Station in 1886 were described in full, as follows:

‘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.’^[6]

Additionally, the Gazette recorded that the parcels office staff at Richmond station in 1887 had…:

“…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.’^[7]

Staff at Norbiton in 1884 and Camberley in 1885^[8] did things a little differently; lighting their booking offices and waiting rooms with Chinese lanterns. The Gazette recorded how at Norbiton ‘The effect at night is exceedingly pretty, and reflects great credit upon the designers.’^[9]

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.^[10] As 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.^[11]

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.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY READERS 

My other Christmas posts are as follows:

"Christmas fare from the provinces" - Euston Station and the Distribution of Festive Goods in the 1840s

"An EXTRA TRAIN will leave Shoreditch" - Trains on Christmas Day before 1900

A Victorian 'Railway' Christmas - Parcels, Pastimes, Profit and Poetry

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[1] Reading Mercury, Saturday 01 January 1887

[2] The South Western Gazette, January 1888, p.8

[3] Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald, Saturday 01 January 1881

[4] Hampshire Advertiser, Saturday 31 December 1887

[5] Surrey Mirror, Saturday 22 December 1888

[6] Reading Mercury, Saturday 01 January 1887

[7] The South Western Gazette, January 1888, p.11

[8] Reading Mercury, Saturday 02 January 1886

[9] The South Western Gazette, January 1884, p.2

[10] Surrey Mirror, Saturday 22 December 1888

[11] The Ipswich Journal, Saturday 16 January 1875

"An EXTRA TRAIN will leave Shoreditch" - Trains on Christmas Day before 1900

Last year around this time, I showed how Christmas was celebrated on the London and South Western Railway before 1900 (HERE). However, one thing stuck in my mind, namely, that the railways still operated on Christmas Day. Therefore, this year I conducted a bit of research to discover more about these services. Unsurprisingly, I found that the increasing importance of Christmas throughout the nineteenth century affected how many trains were run on Christmas Day.

In the 1830s and early 1840s it seems that the railway companies did not make any special arrangements for Christmas Day and ran regular weekday services. An advert printed on 22 December 1837 for the Grand Junction Railway’s forthcoming services between Birmingham and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway contained not one word about the coming festivities.[1] Indeed, adverts printed in the week before Christmas for trains on the London and Greenwich Railway[2] and  the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1838,[3], as well as on the Birmingham and Derby Railway in 1839[4], also mention no special passenger train arrangements on Christmas Day. Furthermore, an Eastern Counties Railway advert from the 22 December 1843 clearly announced that ‘On Christmas day the trains will run the same as on week days.’[5] Lastly, shown on the left is an example a Great Western Railway advert published on 19 December 1840 which has no mention of Christmas.[6]

The reason that trains continued to run as normal on Christmas Day in this period was, I presume, because it was only significantly observed by the upper and middle classes and for many people it simply a normal day. Nevertheless, 1843 was a year when the increasing popularity of Christmas amongst all the population was becoming evident. In that year the first Christmas card appeared [7] and on the 17 December Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was published, a text which helped to revive interest in forgotten Christmas traditions [8].

Therefore, around this time railway companies began offering special rates to passengers in the festive period. In 1844 the Preston and Wyre Railway offered, in bold capital letters, ‘CHRISTMAS CHEAP TRAINS’. Between Christmas Day and New Year passengers travelling by the 8.30 am train from Preston to any station on the company’s network could return with the same ticket by any train. Furthermore, on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day anyone booking to Preston on either of the two morning trains, could also return the same day on the same ticket.[9] In 1845 the GWR reduced the cost of all return tickets by a third on Christmas Day.[10] Lastly, the Midland Railway allowed passengers who purchased first or second class day tickets between the 24^th and 26^th December to return on any of those days or on the 27^th and 28^th.[11] Consequently, throughout the Victorian period offers of this nature were provided by most companies in the festive season.

However, the GWR’s 1845 advert included words which indicated that further changes in Christmas services were afoot. The reduced fares were allowed, ‘reckoning Christmas Day as a Sunday.’ [12] Indeed, while in the GWR’s case they offered the special Sunday fares on Christmas day, seemingly it wasn’t long until many companies began running Sunday timetables on that day also. Evidence has been found of this being advertised by the London and South Western Railway in 1846,[13] the GWR in 1849,[14] the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1854[15] and the Chester and Birkenhead Railway in 1857. Indeed, by the 1860s the running of Sunday services on Christmas Day seemed to be the norm across the railway industry.

However, unlike at present, Sunday timetables were not simply a slightly reduced version of the weekday one and the number of trains running was small compared with the rest of the week. The Chester and Birkenhead’s December 1857 timetable shows ten up and eleven down trains between Liverpool and Chester on a weekday. However, only four up and three down were provided on a Sunday. The GWR’s timetable for services between London and Chester shows five up and six down on a weekday, but only one each way on a Sunday.[16] Furthermore, as Sunday trains were not greatly profitable, railway managers gradually reduced the number of lines that had them as the nineteenth century progressed. Thus, in 1847 only 2.6% of Britain’s railway network had no Sunday services, yet by 1861 the figure was 5.7%, in 1871 it was 18.9% and by 1887 it was 20.1%.[17] Only in Scotland did religious feeling play a role in stopping Sunday services, and by 1914 over 60% of the network had no trains.[18]

Therefore, because the Sunday timetables operating on Christmas Day would have been unable to convey all who wanted to travel in the festive season, especially given its increasing popularity, from the 1850s the railways ran extra services in the three or four days before the 25 December. Indeed, this seems to have become an industry norm. An issue of The Standard from 22 December 1863 shows the following railways were advertising additional services in this period:

Crystal Palace

Great Eastern

Great Western

London and North Western

London and South Western

London, Brighton and South Coast

London, Chatham and Dover

North London

South Eastern[19]

Special trains on Christmas Day have been hard to find before the 1860s, and thereafter they were few in number in each year. An Eastern Counties’ Railway advert from 1844 stated that on Christmas day ‘an EXTRA TRAIN will leave Shoreditch Station to Brentwood at a Quarter before Ten o’clock A.M. calling at all the intermediate stations.’[20] However, this seems an anomaly for the period.

After 1860, special Christmas Day services provided were seemingly operating on long-distance routes only. In 1860 the South Eastern Railway put on a special train between London and Canterbury at 8.30am, returning in the evening. The Eastern Counties Railway ran a special train to Norwich leaving at 9.50 am. [21] In 1890 the London and South Western Railway put on a special train at 8.50am for Basingstoke, Salisbury and Exeter, as well as another for Southampton, Portsmouth, Salisbury Bournemouth and Lymington. Both trains called at principal intermediate stations along the way. In the same year the ‘London and North Western Railway’s timetable had ‘several important additions’[22] and in 1895 the company ran a special train from Euston at 6.15 am stopping at all major stations between there and Glasgow.[23] Lastly, In 1899 the South Eastern Railway offered ‘several extra trains.’[24] Ultimately, the total number special Christmas Day trains each year is unknown, however, it is clear they were not numerous.

Overall, during the Victorian period the number of trains railway companies provided on Christmas Day diminished. Immediately after the industry’s birth companies ran full weekday timetables on 25 December. However, in the 1840s sparse Sunday timetables were adopted, which themselves provided a diminishing number of services as the decades passed.  Thus, this adoption of Sunday timetables began the long decline of the Christmas Day passenger train, the last of which was run in 1981.[25]

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[1] Liverpool Mercury etc, Friday, December 22, 1837

[2] The Examiner, Sunday, December 23, 1838

[3] The Morning Chronicle, Saturday, December 22, 1838

[4] The Derby Mercury, Wednesday, December 18, 1839

[5] The Essex Standard, and General Advertiser for the Eastern Counties, Friday, December 22, 1843

[6] The Bristol Mercury, Saturday, December 19, 1840

[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_card

[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol

[9] The Preston Chronicle etc, Saturday, December 21, 1844

[10] The Morning Chronicle, Monday, December 22, 1845

[11] The Derby Mercury, Wednesday, December 23, 1846

[12] The Morning Chronicle, Monday, December 22, 1845

[13] Hampshire Advertiser & Salisbury Guardian, Saturday, December 05, 1846, pg.1

[14] John Bull, Saturday, December 08, 1849, p. 765, Issue 1,513

[15] The Morning Chronicle, Tuesday, December 12, 1854, Issue 27445

[16] Wrexham and Denbighshire Advertiser, and Cheshire, Shropshire, Flintshire, and North Wales Register, Saturday, December 12, 1857, Issue 202

[17] Simmons, Jack, The Victorian Railway, (London, 1991), p.286

[18] Simmons, Jack, ‘Sunday Services’, The Oxford Companion to British Railway History, (Oxford, 1997), p.486

[19] The Standard, Tuesday, December 22, 1863, pg. 1, Issue 12282

[20] The Essex Standard, and General Advertiser for the Eastern Counties, Friday, December 22, 1843

[21] The Standard, Saturday, December 22, 1860, p.1

[22] The County Gentleman- Sporting Gazette, Agricultural Journal, and The Man about Town, Saturday, December 13, 1890, pg. 1759

[23] Speaker, No.12 (1895, December 21), p.682

[24] Outlook, Vol. 4, No.98 (1899, December 16), p.633

[25] The Times, Thursday, Dec 16, 1982, pg. 26, Issue 61416

"Christmas fare from the provinces" - Euston Station and the Distribution of Festive Goods in the 1840s

Given that in the nineteenth century the railways were the main way of transporting anything long distances, it is unsurprising that the festive season was their busiest period of the year. Indeed, the railways carried everything the people of Britain needed for their Christmas festivities, not to mention the people themselves. For this reason some newspapers seemed obsessed with what traffic was carried, how it was carried and its volume, and their reports provide an insight into the level of activity occurring on Britain’s railways in the week before Christmas Day. Receiving particular attention in the late 1840s and early 1850s was the delivery arrangements at the Euston terminus of Britain’s largest railway company, the London and North Western Railway (L&NWR).

The Morning Post of Monday 26 December 1848 reported that ‘yesterday [Christmas Day] and during Sunday, the termini of the various metropolitan termini presented an unusual scene of bustle and activity in consequence of the extraordinary influx of Christmas fare from the provinces.’ The Post stated that the volume of incoming traffic at Euston was so large that on the arrival platform a temporary tarpaulin shed had been constructed in to which goods were unloaded before distribution. It was eighteen feet high and fifty foot long, and at one point before Christmas it had been full. Nevertheless, because the distribution system worked perfectly confusion was avoided.[1]

A year later, the Daily News printed a more detailed account of the distribution arrangements at Euston between the 22 December and the morning of the twenty-fifth. The General Manager of the company, Captain Mark Huish, and Mr Brooks, the company’s Traffic Superintendent,[2] had made special arrangements with the company’s delivery agents, Messrs Chaplain and Horne, to expedite the deliveries as quickly as possible. Once again, there was a tent on the arrival platform. However, in 1849 it was larger than a year before, being twenty foot high and sixty foot long. From the Daily News' article we also learn that it was lit by gas lamps to allow unloading operations to continue at night.

Trains arrived day and night alongside the tent and their contents of ‘barrels of oysters, baskets of fish, fruit game and other Christmas presents’  were unloaded into the tent by fifty or sixty porters. The loads were then handed to the Chaplain and Horne's agents who, with the help of ‘sorters’, arranged the parcels into large compartments on the station wall. These compartments were each labelled with the districts of London that the consignments were being sent to. Some of which were as follows: ‘the City, Strand, Squares over the water, Islington, East End, Finsbury, West-end, Kingsland, Clerkenwell.’

At each compartment two and three omnibuses stood being loaded with parcels and packages being checked by the L&NWR’s clerks. They were loaded carefully and securely, and that efficient loading was achieved not just by ‘laying the packages across,’ but also by ‘suspending turkeys and pigs outside.’ Some were estimated to hold 200 packages and were so piled up that they were as the second floors of houses. Thus, the paper commented that on leaving the station they ‘attracted no small attention.’ Overall, there were thirty or forty omnibuses and when all were filled to capacity they departed ‘without delay.’

Of course, with so many goods passing through this may have offered an opportunity to criminals to pilfer, and to prevent such loss the company’s policemen were present the entire time.

The operation was highly efficient. On Sunday 23 December the majority of the trains carrying mail and goods for London began arriving at 4.30am, and by 9am all their contents had been despatched into the city. However, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day mornings it took until 10am to clear the incoming traffic.[3] Further evidence of efficiency was recorded in 1853 when only two consignments out of 40,000 were found to have lost their labels.[4] But, additionally, the effectiveness of the operation is so impressive when considering the number of parcels and packages entering Euston Station in the three days up to and including the morning of Christmas Day. The estimates reported were as follows:-

1848 - 12,000 [5]

1849 - 15,000 [6]

1850 - 10,000 [7]

1851 - Inward and Outward: 40,000 (figures for the week before Christmas) [8]

1852 - 12,000

1853 - 12,500 [9]

1864 - 17,000 [10]

Clearly, with just the use of paper and ink, the L&NWR organised the unloading and delivery of consignments with a speed and efficiency that puts some modern delivery services to shame. Ultimately, this enabled London’s residents to have a very, merry Christmas.

Read last year's Christmas post HERE

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[1] The Morning Post, Tuesday, December 26, 1848

[2] Interestingly, no trace of a ‘Mr Brooks’ can be found in Terry Gourvish’s book Mark Huish and the London and North Western Railway, (Leicester, 1972)

[3] Daily News, Wednesday, December 26, 1849, Issue 1119

[4] The Standard, Saturday, December 27, 1851, p.1

[5] The Morning Post, Tuesday, December 26, 1848

[6] Daily News, Wednesday, December 26, 1849, Issue 1119

[7] The Era, Sunday, December 29, 1850

[8] The Standard, Saturday, December 27, 1851, p.1

[9] The Essex Standard, and General Advertiser for the Eastern Counties, Wednesday, December 28, 1853

[10] Jackson's Oxford Journal, Saturday, January 9, 1864

A Victorian 'Railway' Christmas - Parcels, Pastimes, Profit and Poetry

Christmas on the late Victorian railway has not, to my knowledge, been covered at all in the literature. As the railways were the main way to move goods and supplies around in the period, naturally, the festive season was one of the busiest times of year for the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR). 

Clearly, a lot of traffic carried by the company in the weeks before Christmas Day was of a ‘Christmassy’ nature. In January 1888 it was noted that between the 17th and 24th December 1887 the Nine Elms Goods depot handled 6,595 tons of ‘foreign poultry traffic,’ which exceeded over 500 tons in weight.[1] Not unsurprisingly, figures provided by the Gazette show that overall there was a massive growth in goods and passenger traffic on the network in the week before Christmas. In the week ending 16th December 1883 traffic earned the L&SWR £41,356. Yet, in the week ending 23rd December 1883 the company earned £55,979, a 35.6% increase. Lastly, Sam Fay, a clerk at Kingston Station between 1876 and 1882,[2] noted in his diary that in the week before Christmas Day 1880 the traffic was ‘very heavy.’[3]

Within this massive growth of traffic parcels formed a very large part of stations’ work. In the week before Christmas day in 1888, Richmond Station staff received and delivered a staggering 2010 parcels and an extra delivery man had to be employed. [4] Nine years earlier, on Christmas Day 1879, Sam Fay wrote in his diary, ‘Have had to work duced hard this week with the parcels work.’[5] Such was the volume of parcels work, that a clerk at Richmond, W. Morris, wrote a poem in honour of the service which was ‘cleverly reproduced on cut card board, and enframed with variegated holly.’ The poem was as follows:-

May every parcel sent from here
Contain a hearty Chris’mas cheer;
And my those parcels we deliver
Enclose a gift from a cheerful giver;
And lastly, those that we transfer
Contain a wish for a bright new year.[6]

 

Because of the increased traffic in the Christmas season, many extra trains were timetabled and advertisements in newspapers show that these ‘specials’ were run throughout the Christmas period.[7] Additionally, by the 1880s and 90s ‘going to the races’ was a key Bank Holiday activity for many. The L&SWR served many race courses such as Sandown Park, Hurst Park, Kempton Park and Ascot. Thus, the South Western Gazette, the company’s staff magazine, reported in January 1895 that on the Christmas Bank holiday 1894 (presumably Boxing Day) the company put on twelve special trains for the Kempton races.[8]

This growth of traffic meant that while most of the year L&SWR employees would have worked between eight and ten hour days, during the Christmas period many stayed later into the evening to cope with the rush of business. Many were also obliged to work on Christmas Day as many services still operated. A passenger timetable from 1868 states that on ‘Christmas Day the trains on all lines will run as on Sundays, with additional trains as shown on bills which will hereafter be issued.’[9] Furthermore, extra ‘special’ trains on Christmas Day were advertised in the 1880s.[10] Lastly, instructions sent to staff in December 1914 detailing ‘Special arrangements’ for the delivery of parcels traffic on Christmas Day, suggest that throughout the late Victorian period stations were still well staffed on the day.[11] 

What proportion of the staff actually had the whole day off is unclear. However, I suspect most had part off at least. Sam Fay recorded his Christmas Day activities between 1878 and 1881. On Christmas Day 1878 he wrote, ‘On Duty in the Morning, Skating in Bushy Park with Walter in the afternoon, had a convivial in the evening.’[12] A year later he ‘Dined at Mr Farebrother’s.’[13] Lastly, in 1880 Fay had all of Christmas Day off and spent it at his future wife's (Trottie) home.[14]

Presumably, because most L&SWR employees spent so much of the festive season in the workplace, much was done to celebrate there. Stations decorations ranged from what we would consider traditional fare, to the more unusual. The January 1884 edition of the SWG recorded that:-

‘The Christmas decorations of suburban stations are quite up to the standard of past years; Norbiton, as usual, being foremost with an almost endless supply of wreaths, &c., a novelty in the shape of many Chinese lanthorns being added this year. The effect at night is exceedingly pretty, and reflects great credit upon the designers. The Teddington staff have also expended much labour upon their station with capital result.’[15]

Further, the Gazette stated in January 1888 that at Richmond Station the parcels office staff had:

“…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.’[16]

Another way that the staff expressed the Christmas cheer was through competitions. In 1888 at Wimborne station ‘Messrs A.J. Webb, W. Perkins, A Webb and G.Brake’ ran a prize draw, presumably for local residents. The Gazette noted that ordinarily they were able to give out 100 prizes, but such was the success of the Christmas 1887 draw that they were able to give out 120 in 1888. The bounty they awarded would seem familiar to us, including ‘Turkeys and Geese, tobacco and cigars with various edibles and viands plentifully besprinkled.’[17]

 

It seems that poetry was another way railway employees expressed their feelings over the Christmas period. Charles Marshall, an author of poems that appeared frequently in the Gazette, wrote one which showed, firstly, the patriarchal nature of Victorian society, but also expressed some of the unhappiness that railway workers and their families felt about the fact that the railways were still operating on Christmas Day. It was called ‘The Railway Guard On Christmas Eve’:

She sat beside the cottage fire
Their only offspring in her knee:
He prattled as an infant should,
And seem’d quite full of childish glee.
Yet years stole down the mother’s cheeks –
Tears a wife devoted only feels:
Tears welling from the heart of hearts,
And deep affection firmly seals.

She praye’d for him who she had wed
On Christmas day two years before.
But now was on his engine track
A hundred miles away—or more
A night so fierce is seldom known;
The pelting storm grew still more wild;
While he, with true heroic breast,
Thought of his duty, wife and child.

O’er moss and brake, by glen and glade,
The train with swiftest speed was borne;
The engine driver long’d to be
At home before it was Christmas morn.
His breast with love and hope was fill’d
He heeded little of the storm;
But as he sped on his way
His thoughts were growing still more warm.

His wife at home still vigil kept,
The babe asleep upon her knee;
She listen’d as each foot-fall pass’d
And wish’d that each one might be he
Arriv’d at last, the journey done:
The storm subsided, stars shone bright,
And soon from ev’ry hallowed fane
There burst a merry peal that night.

Then homeward soon he made his way,
And gently tapp’d the window pane;
The bolt’d door was open’d wide,
His wife was in his arms again.
Their wedding day had once more dawn’d,
They kissed their little darling boy;
Then pray’d through coming years that they
Might health and happiness enjoy.[18]

Yet, it should be noted that in the poem the wife’s unhappiness primarily stems from the fact that it was her wedding anniversary the day after, and not that her husband may be working on Christmas Day. Thus, taking this fact into account, and looking back on what has been learnt about Christmas on the L&SWR, it is evident that Christmas Day was not as special for the late Victorians as it is for us. This said, the Victorian period is when much of Christmas as we know it evolved, and there is evidence here of how many of the yuletide traditions that we have today can be traced to that time. Furthermore, I have perhaps also shed some light on how the railways facilitated these traditions’ development, by taking them to all parts of the nation.

Lastly, all there is to say is a very Merry Christmas to all my readers!

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[1] TNA, ZPER 11/7, The South Western Gazette, Jan 1888, p.8

[2] TNA, RAIL 411/492, Clerical staff character book No. 2, p.711

[3] Bill Fay Collection, Sam Fay Diary, 25^th December 1880

[4] TNA, ZPER 11/7, The South Western Gazette, Jan 1888, p.11

[5] Bill Fay Collection, Sam Fay Diary, 25^th December 1879

[6] TNA, ZPER 11/7, The South Western Gazette, Jan 1888, p.11

[7] ‘The Country Gent: A Sporting Gazette and Agricultural Journal.’ December 19^th 1885, p.1616

[8] The National Archives [TNA], ZPER 11/11, The South Western Gazette, Jan 1895, p.8

[9] South Western Circle Collection [SWC], Passenger Timetable, December 1868, p2

[10] ‘The Country Gent: A Sporting Gazette and Agricultural Journal.’ December 19^th 1885, p.1616

[11] SWC, Christmas Parcels Traffic: Special Notice

[12] Bill Fay Collection [BFC], Sam Fay Diary, 25^th December 1878

[13] BFC, Sam Fay Diary, 25^th December 1879

[14] BFC, Sam Fay Diary, 25^th December 1880

[15] TNA, ZPER 11/3, The South Western Gazette, Jan 1884, p.2

[16] TNA, ZPER 11/7, The South Western Gazette, Jan 1888, p.11

[17] TNA, ZPER 11/7, The South Western Gazette, Feb 1888, p.2

[18] Marshall, Charles, South Western Gazette, January 1888, p.6