'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.

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]

This scepticism towards was expressed frequently by LSWR clerks in the company's staff magazine, The South Western Gazette, 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]

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.


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[1]Amdam, Rolv Petter, ‘Business Education’, in Jones, Geoffrey and Zeitlin, Robert (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Business History, (Oxford, 2007), p.586 
[2] South Western Gazette, September 1905, p.9 
[3] South Western Gazette, December 1909, p.10

Did the Management Ever Control Britain's 19th Century Railways?

Alfred Chandler

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]

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]

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.

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.

Richard Moon

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]

Archibald Scott

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]

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.

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]

Myles Fenton

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]

George Gibb

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.

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]

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.

Herbert Walker

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.

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?

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. 

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[1] Channon, Geoffrey, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940: Studies in Economic and Business History, (Aldershot, 2001), p.5

[2] Ward, James A., ‘Power and Accountability on the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1846-1878’, Business History Review, XLIX (1975), p.58

[3] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940, p.5

[4] Zunz, Oliver, Making America Corporate: 1870-1920, (Chicago, 1990), p.47

[5] Chandler, Alfred D., Scale and Scope: the Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism, (London, 1990) p.253

[6] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940, p.29

[7] Cain, P.J., ‘Railways 1870-1914: the maturity of the private system,’ in Freeman, Michael J. and Aldcroft, Derek H. (eds.) Transport in Victorian Britain, (Manchester, 1988), p.112

[8] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940, p.44

[9] Gourvish, T.R. Mark Huish and the London & North Western Railway, (Leicester, 1972), p.167-182

[10] Braine, Peter, The Railway Moon – A Man and His Railway: Sir Richard Moon and the L&NWR, (Taunton, 2012), p.477

[11] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940, p.44

[12] Barker, T.C., 'Lord Salisbury, Chairman of the Great Eastern Railway 1868-1872' in Marriner, S., Business and Businessmen: Studies in Business, Economic and Accounting History, (Liverpool, 1972)

[13] The South Western Gazette, December 1881, p.2

[14] Simmons, Jack, The Railway in England and Wales 1830-1914, (Leicester, 1978), p.247

[15] Gourvish, T.R., ‘The Performance of British Railway Management after 1860: The Railways of Watkin and Forbes’, Business History, 20 (1978), p.198

[16] Cain, P.J., ‘Railways 1870-1914: The maturity of the private system’, in Freeman, Michael J. and Aldcroft, Derek H. (eds.) Transport in Victorian Britain (Manchester, 1988), p.113

[17] Simmons, The Railway in England and Wales 1830-1914, p.247

[18] Simmons, The Railway in England and Wales 1830-1914, p.247

[19] Gourvish, ‘The performance of British railway management after 1860’, p.188-191

[20] Hodgkins, David, The Second Railway King: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Watkin, (Melton Priory, 2002), p.609

[21] Irving , R.J., The North Eastern Railway Company: An Economic History, 1870-1914,  (Leicester, 1976)  p.261-264

[22] Dow, Andrew, ‘Great Central Railway,’ The Oxford Companion to British Railway History, (1997, Oxford), p.191-192

[23] Burtt, Philip, Control on the Railways, (London, 1926), p.144-151

[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, Management and Organisational History, 6 (2011), p.398

[25] Klapper, C.F., Sir Herbert Walker’s Southern Railway, (London, 1973), p.33-76

[26] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940, p.187-188

[27] Pratt, Edwin A., British Railways and the Great War: Organisation, Efforts, Difficulties and Achievements – Vol. 1, (London, 1921), p.40-50

[28] Bonavia, The Organisation of British Railways, p.17-18

An Early Railway Manager - A Perpetual Failure

Cornelius 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.

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]

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.

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 The Liverpool Mercury 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]

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.

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.

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.

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 London to join him.[26] Finally, the whole family moved to Canada, where Stovin again became a railway manager.

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.

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.

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[1] https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/J7Q8-458

[2] Chapman, T, Chapman's Birmingham Directory, (Birmingham, 1801)

[3] Oxford University Alumni, 1715-1886, Volume VI, p.122

[4] Berrow's Worcester Journal, Thursday, November 18, 1824; Issue 6359

[5] The Observer, 28 Aug 1826, p.1

[6] https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NJHT-B2N

[7] Berrow's Worcester Journal, Thursday, November 18, 1824; Issue 6359

[8] Hanson, Harry, This Coaching Life, (Manchester, 1983), p.149

[9] Harman, Thomas T. and Showell, Walter, Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham, (Birmingham, 2006), p.125

[10] https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NV4T-D94

[11] Death index Oct-Nov-Dec, 1837

[12] The National Archives [TNA], PROB 11/1873, Will of William Waddell, Innholder of Birmingham , Warwickshire, 24 February 1837

[13] Liverpool Mercury etc, Friday, December 7, 1838; Issue 1439

[14] Hanson, This Coaching Life, p.149

[15] Liverpool Mercury etc, Friday, December 7, 1838; Issue 1439

[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

[17] 1835 Pigot's Directory for Warwickshire, Birmingham, p.543

[18] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Junction_Railway

[19] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_and_Birmingham_Railway

[20] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_and_Birmingham_Railway

[21] TNA, RAIL 412/3, Traffic and General Purposes, and Traffic Police and Goods committees, 23 February 1839

[22] TNA, RAIL 412/3, Traffic and General Purposes, and Traffic Police and Goods committees, 2 March 1839

[23] TNA, RAIL 412/1, Court of Directors Minute Book, Minute No. 1307, 30 October 1840

[24] Reynolds's Newspaper, Sunday, April 18, 1852; Issue 88.

[25] Williams, R.A., The London and South Western Railway: Volume 1 – The Formative Years, (Newton Abbott, 1968), p.219-220

[26] National Archives (US), New York Incoming Passenger Lists, 1820-1957,

Reducing Railway Industry Fragmentation in the early 1900s

Christian Wolmar has written frequently that one of the major causes of the railway industry's current woes, in terms of operational costs and passengers fares being too high, is the fragmentation of the industry. Britain's railways as they exist contain a myriad of private companies interacting with each other within a web of complex working arrangements, most of which force costs up. Indeed, it is accepted by most experts that separating the management of the trains from the tracks was a disaster.[1]

But fragmentation within the railway industry isn't a new issue and was addressed by railway managers in the early 1900s. In the late 1890s the railway industry's profits were depressed by a mix of poor management, competition, increasing material costs and the growth of high volume low-margin traffic (However, historians are divided on which of these factors played the biggest role). Indeed, in 1885 the industry's operating ratio, which is expenditure expressed as a proportion of revenue, stood at fifty-two per cent. By 1900 this had been driven up to sixty-two per cent.[2]

In response to their change in fortunes, railway companies attempted to reduce costs through numerous means in the first years of the 1900s;  more efficient track maintenance, better locomotive designs, new technologies and improved goods operation. Yet, despite these vigorous efforts to improve how they functioned, inter-company rivalry and duplicated services remained one of the most serious and costly issues for industry leaders. Between 1870 and 1900 the railway companies of Britain, of which there over a hundred, unsuccessfully sunk resources and capital into competing for market share on certain routes and at cities which were served by more than one company. For Example, the Great Western and London and South Western Railways had a protracted battle in the West of England, both in terms of the services they provided and through line building to gain territory. But such competition only served to depress profits, not improve them.

Therefore, late in the first decade of the twentieth century railway companies came together to promote economical working, eliminate competition, pool resources and ultimately reduce overheads. While outright mergers were actively resisted by government, as they would hand companies regional monopolies, railway directors and managers worked around this objection by forming 'working unions'. In late 1907 the Great Northern and Great Central Railways announced an alliance in which they pooled receipts and the management of all rolling stock, lines and works were placed under the remit of a joint committee. It was an arrangement akin to amalgamation, however, it just wasn't a legal union. 

Other companies soon followed suit. In June 1908 the London and North Western and Midland Railways produced a less comprehensive scheme, where all receipts, except those from coal and coke traffic, were pooled, competitive capital expenditure was ceased and cooperative and economical train operations were sought. Indeed, this had considerable success in reducing these two companies' operational expenses. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway joined the agreement in 1909. Furthermore, early in 1909 the Caledonian and North British Railways drew up a very similar agreement. Lastly, in August 1910, after nearly a year and a half of negotiation, the Great Western and London and South Western Railways came to terms. [3]

While the fragmentation of the modern railway industry is different in many ways to that which existed immediately after 1900, there is no doubt that in the period knowledgeable industry leaders felt a sensible way to reduce their railway's operational and capital costs was to cooperate. Indeed, the particular success of the London and North Western and Midland Railway in reducing these forms of expenditure through unification, is a testament to the idea that when it comes to railways, collaboration, not fragmentation, can be preferable.

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[1] Wolmar, Christian, "Fragmentation is the problem, not the solution", Christian Wolmar's Website, 19 May 2011

[2] Gourvish, Terry, Railways and the British Economy 1830-1914, (London, 1980), p.42

[3] Cain, P.J., 'Railway Combination and Government, 1900-1914', The Economic History Review, 4 (1972), p.633

'The Railway Company do not want it.' - The L&SWR's Purchase of the Southampton Docks

One of the biggest events in the London and South Western Railway’s (L&SWR) history was the company’s purchase of the Southampton Dock Company (SDC) in 1892. This was not just important for the company, in that it secured the company’s traffic flows, but it also turned Southampton into one of the world’s great trading ports by World War One.

Originally, in the 1830s the London and Southampton Railway (which would become the L&SWR) had been promoted with a docks portion attached to the plan. However, for various reasons, in 1835 the two projects were split into separate railway and dock companies, forcing each to become liable for their own profit and losses. Yet, throughout its history the L&SWR relied on the Dock Company for a large portion of its traffic. As Charles Scotter, the L&SWR’s General Manager, stated in 1892, the railway had ‘no interest in any other port’ and it was ‘entirely in the interest of the L&SWR to develop trade at the port.’[1]

However, by the mid-1880s the L&SWR was a successful company, despite internal management problems, while the SDC was losing money because of poor management. This was because it did not possess a deep water dock that could accommodate the newest and largest kinds of vessels, and its dock-side technology was antiquated. Scotter stated that in his opinion the Docks at Southampton were ‘twenty or thirty years behind nearly every other port in the country.’[2]

Thus, major shipping companies were removing their business from the docks. The L&SWR’s staff magazine, The South Western Gazette, reported in August 1882 that the Union Steam Ship Company had removed their services from the port and the L&SWR’s General Manager at the time, Archibald Scott, was negotiating with Peninsular and Oriental (P&O) for them to stay there. The Gazette reported that 'traffic...is rapidly and surely declining...' and '...dock companies were availing '...themselves of the dock accommodation which London [Docks] alone can supply...’[3]  This was problematic for the L&SWR. In the five years between 1881 and 1886 the tonnage of goods coming through the docks as a percentage of the total hauled on the L&SWR dropped from 16.92 per cent to 9.88 per cent. 

Ultimately, the SDC did not have the capital or capital raising ability to make the improvements to attract trade back to the port. Its declining profitability meant that the dividend it paid fell from £2.00 per ordinary share in 1881, to nothing in 1885.[4] This affected the level of capital that the dock company could attract and its Chairman, Steuart McNaughten, revealed in 1892 that the capital the company was authorised to raise totalled £2,037,547, but that £386,298 had not materialised. Thus, the L&SWR was faced with one its main sources of traffic rapidly heading towards ruin, with no hope of a revival of its fortunes without external help.[5]

Firstly, in 1886 the L&SWR lent a financial hand to the Dock Company. In 1885 the dock company and the Corporation of Southampton attempted to pass an act of parliament whereby the Corporation would lend the SDC £220,000 for a new deep water dock.'[6] This failed, and later that year the SDC made an agreement with the L&SWR which effectively turned it into a vassal state of the railway company. The L&SWR would raise a stock of £250,000 which would be subscribed to the SDC, and the money would be spent on a deep water dock and all necessary equipment. Additionally, four L&SWR directors would sit on the Dock Company’s board and all designs and works were to be approved by the L&SWR engineer. There would also be the option, for fairness sake, for the Great Western Railway to come in on the agreement within three years.[7]

The bill passed in May 1886[8] and the new “Empress Dock was opened on 26th July 1890 by Queen Victoria. However, it was without equipment of any sort and required £200,000 to £300,000 extra to make it fully functional.[9] Furthermore, the L&SWR’s investment had not improved the dock’s trade significantly.  In the seven years between 1886 and 1891 the goods coming through the Southampton Dock Company as a percentage of the total goods the hauled on the L&SWR had only marginally increased to 12.13 per cent. Indeed, this had fallen from a higher point of 13.89 per cent in 1889. Yet, by 1890 all the money agreed to have been spent, despite the L&SWR raising £50,000 extra in 1889. Furthermore, the SDC had been unable to raise any new capital through a second preference issue in 1891 of £84,000, of which only £34,265 was subscribed.[10]

Again facing ruin, the SDC’s proprietors acted. At an Annual General Meeting in February 1891 a motion passed that 'the directors be requested to open negotiations with the London and South Western Railway Company with a view to taking over the Docks.'[11] Yet, the L&SWR was clearly reluctant to do this. In 1891 the L&SWR’s Chairman, Dutton, wrote to the Dock Company stating, 'it should be distinctly understood that the Railway Company are not to be regarded as in any sense seeking to acquire the Docks...'[12] Furthermore, in 1892 at the Parliamentary enquiry into the L&SWR’s purchase, Scotter was asked if 'this was the sort of harbour which should be handed over to a railway company rather than be kept in the public interest?' His response was that 'The Railway Company do not want it.'[13]

Yet, the railway company had no option than to purchase the docks, save it from ruin and secure their traffic flows. Dutton’s letter to the SDC’s board stated that the L&SWR would acquire the docks 'in the belief that it would be an advantage to the Dock Company and to the trade generally of the town of Southampton.'[14] Yet, Scotter was more categorical about the reasons for the purchase. After his above response was asked 'then why do you take it [the docks]?'  He replied the acquisition was imperative 'because we see that the trade of the town and of the port will diminish unless we do.'[15]

The take-over of the Docks received Royal Assent in July 1892,[16] the transfer of control being active from the 21 October 1892.[17] Over the next eighteen years the L&SWR expended 26.96 per of its capital improving and expanding the docks, vastly increasing the trade flowing through them.[18] Indeed, the L&SWR’s purchase saved the docks and eventually turned Southampton into one of the nation’s great trading ports.

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[1] The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 1066/2735, Parliamentary Bills and Minutes of Evidence, etc., Southampton Docks, 1892, Mr Charles Scotter, 2 May 1892, p.104

[2] TNA, RAIL 1066/2735, Parliamentary Bills and Minutes of Evidence, etc., Southampton Docks, 1892, Mr Charles Scotter, 2 May 1892, No. 1004 p.107

[3] South Western Gazette, August 1882, pp.4-5

[4] TNA, RAIL 1066/2735, Parliamentary Bills and Minutes of Evidence, etc., Southampton Docks, 1892, Mr Steuart McNaughten, 28 April 1892, p.24

[5] TNA, RAIL 1066/2735, Parliamentary Bills and Minutes of Evidence, etc., Southampton Docks, 1892, Mr Steuart McNaughten, 28 April 1892, Nos.5 and 6 p.3

[6] TNA, RAIL 411/7, L&SWR Court of Directors Minute Book, 26 March 1885, Minute No.1675

[7] TNA, RAIL 411/211, L&SWR Special Committee Minute Book, 28 October 1885

[8] TNA, RAIL 411/7, L&SWR Court of Directors Minute Book, 13 May 1886, Minute No.1982

[9] TNA, RAIL 1066/2735, Parliamentary Bills and Minutes of Evidence, etc., Southampton Docks, 1892, Mr Steuart McNaughten, 28 April 1892, No.139, p.34

[10] TNA, RAIL 1066/2735, Parliamentary Bills and Minutes of Evidence, etc., Southampton Docks, 1892, Mr Steuart McNaughten, 28 April 1892, No.15 p.4

[11] TNA, RAIL 870/4, General Meetings of the Southampton Dock Company, 17 February 1891, p.114

[12] TNA, RAIL 870/22, Southampton Dock Company, Court of Directors, 1 October 1891, p.294

[13] TNA, RAIL 1066/2735, Parliamentary Bills and Minutes of Evidence, etc., Southampton Docks, 1892, Mr Charles Scotter, 2 May 1892, No. 1259 p.135

[14] TNA, RAIL 870/22, Southampton Dock Company, Court of Directors, 1 October 1891, p.294

[15] TNA, RAIL 1066/2735, Parliamentary Bills and Minutes of Evidence, etc., Southampton Docks, 1892, Mr Charles Scotter, 2 May 1892, No. 1260 p.135

[16] TNA, RAIL 411/8, L&SWR Court of Directors Minute Book, 7th July 1892, Minute No.1118

[17] Pannell, J.P.M, Old Southampton Shores, (Newton Abbot, 1967) p.127

[18] TNA, RAIL 1110/283/RAIL 1110/284, L&SWR Reports and Accounts, 1880-1923

TurnipRail 2 year Anniversary - The Best of the Second Year

What a couple of years it has been. As I write, my Turnip Rail website hosts 213 posts on a range of railway history topics. However, despite what I have produced, the past year, and especially the last six months, has not been one of the easiest periods in my life. In September I began suffering from anxiety, which has affected my ability to work and, I think, the quality of my output. I also broke my toe around the same time - which I'll only say was annoying. Gladly, both these problems are mostly resolved. Nevertheless, in the last couple of months I have gone through a process of a work restructure. Therefore, I have been made redundant and will have to re-interview for a job in the coming months. Consequently, combined with an increasing work-load from my PhD (which has until late September to be submitted) I have been reduced to doing a post a week.

Despite these things, I hope I have turned out posts which you have found entertaining and interesting. I have certainly enjoyed researching and writing them. So, in this anniversary post I have randomly chosen some of my favourites from the past year. 

1. “When Victorian Beer Trains Crash” – In some sense, this post from April explored the link between the railways and the brewing industry.  Indeed, I looked at some of the interesting ways that crashed beer trains were reported. I was unsurprised that the newspaper reports always seemed to have humorous remarks, this being the funniest:  “Alcohol can thus baffle her Majesty’s mail as well as her Majesty’s Government.”[1] However, what was particularly interesting was that the majority of the accidents I found befell Midland Railway trains coming from Burton. This was logical though, Burton being the centre of the Victorian brewing industry.

2. “The York Tap - A piece of railway heritage restored”– OK, this is another beer-related post, but in a different way. A trip to York in early December meant I had the pleasure of going into the York Tap, a pub sited on the York Station platform. In the post I described how the building the Tap inhabits was opened in 1907 as the station’s tea room, and its recent conversion to a pub restored the building to its former glory. I love the Tap and would recommend a visit to anyone.

3. “Unlocking the Early Railway Manager – Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4” (The link is to Part One) – Using three directories of railway officials from 1841, 1847 and 1848, these four articles sought to investigate the validity of a long-held belief that early railway managers were mainly ex-military men, as well as look at early managers generally. However, rather than presenting four finished pieces of research as I normally do in posts, I set out to describe how this investigation progressed over the period of a few weeks. The results were startling and should change the content of railway history books in the future. Firstly, I concluded that ‘the notion that military men were the driving force in early railway management is erroneous,’ given that they constituted a tiny proportion of all railway managers. Secondly, in 1848 the three great engineers of the period, Brunel, Locke and Stephenson, directly controlled  the engineering affairs of 28.81% of Britain’s railway companies. Yet, even more impressively, engineering matters for 59.13% of all Britain’s total railway mileage was under their collective charge. These are important findings and I would like to do much more work on this subject in the future.

4. “A New High-Speed Line, an Old Victorian Assumption?”– I got some interesting reactions to this post which simply highlighted something I observed. The building of Britain’s second high-speed line (HS2) was being promoted by its supporters as adding capacity to the railway network, as the number of passengers using the railways is predicted to massively grow in the future. I suggested that if you talked to any railway manager before 1900 they too would have said that traffic growth was inevitable. Yet, the expected growth didn’t occur, and after 1900 the number of passengers using the railways levelled off and then began falling. All I did was compare the two situations, observing that this part of railway history shows us that passenger traffic growth can be hard to predict. I will state this now, I did not post this because I necessarily oppose HS2; I posted it only as a consideration. I will not reveal my position on HS2, because I don't think getting political is what my blog is about.

5. “‘Crabbed, morose and irritable’ - One Liverpool Man's Complaints Against the L&NWR in 1867” – This was a post that discussed of six long letters that ‘A CONTRACTOR’ wrote to the Liverpool Mercury in 1867 complaining about the station facilities of the London and North Western Railway. The station that received the most criticism was at Huyton Quarry, which he argued ‘might be a station in Chancery, so out-of-elbows does it look, or belong to some bankrupt company, who could not afford a few pounds to put in a tolerably descent condition.’[2] Generally, these letters were just interesting insights into how the public felt about railway managers at the time and the services they received.

6. Lastly, I have done three posts this year about the first sixteen female clerks to be employed at the London and North Western Railway’s Birmingham Curzon Street Station between 1874 and 1876. The first in August looked at how the company’s decision was reported in the press. Indeed, the newspapers detailed the basic facts of their employment, for example, whose decision it was, the company’s attitude, their working environment and their pay. However, on Ancestry.co.uk releasing digitised railway staff records, I was able to look these women up and do some detailed statistical analysis of their employment. In two following posts (HERE and HERE) I examined the women’s ages, promotional prospects, length of employment and pay. Indeed, on this latter point I found that up until their eighth year they received the same pay as the men, at which point it was curtailed. This was a very interesting finding, showing that the newspapers at the time were wrong when they said that the employment female clerks was immediately going to reduce company costs.

Overall, I cannot say these were my absolute favourite posts, yet, they are definitely near the top. I strive hard in my blog to pass on entertaining and interesting pieces of railway history, things I find, and elements of my PhD. In return I have received a lot of love, complementary comments and warmth. I just want to thank all my readers so much for your support this year. My blog wouldn't have been a success without you all reading, re-tweeting and re-posting, and for that I am eternally grateful.

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[1] Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, Sunday, August 10, 1873; Issue 1603

[2] Liverpool Mercury, Tuesday, November 12, 1867; Issue 6175

From Railway Clerk to Railway Manager - Changes in the Route to Management 1840-1910

One of the questions that I ask in my PhD is how exactly did people get promoted into managerial positions within the London and South Western Railway’s (L&SWR) Traffic Department? This is important, as understanding who was making policy within the company allows me to better appreciate the factors behind the decisions the company made.

 

The vast majority of the company’s senior Traffic Department managers, which included Superintendents of the Line, Traffic Managers, District Superintendents, District Goods Superintendents and Wagon Masters, originated from the company’s primary labour market (PLM). This labour market consisted of the clerical staff and included office lads, junior clerks, telegraph clerks, clerks, station masters, chief clerks, inspectors, goods canvassers and goods agents. A ‘rough’ promotional tree in the department is shown. Furthermore, only a few of the department’s managers came from external sources or the secondary labour market (which encompassed all non-clerical posts).

Therefore, future manager’s careers was largely determined by the position they started in. Research on the position in which L&SWR’s Traffic Department managers started their railway careers is shown in the table below and the data is presented by the decade in which they joined the company.

Overall, only three of the seventy railway managers sampled started their careers on the secondary labour market (4.28%), two beginning as porters and one as a ticket inspector. Indeed, those who began their employment in clerical positions dominated.

However, one feature of the table that should be noted is that the proportion of future managers who started their L&SWR careers in positions higher in the hierarchy, for example clerk or chief clerk, diminished over the period. The proportion in the 1830s and 40s was 57.1%, while in the 1850s it was 83.3%. However, as the criteria to become a clerk became stricter, being increasingly restricted to school-leavers, these proportions declined, and only 40% of future managers joined the company in senior clerical positions in the 1860s. Therefore, by the1870s no future managers started in any position in the hierarchy above ‘Junior Clerk’, ‘Lad’ or ‘Messenger.’

The result of the policy of increasing restricting entrance into the PLM to school leavers was that as the railway industry matured the age most managers joined the company also declined through the decades. The table below shows the ages that seventy-one Traffic Department managers started their careers between 1850 and 1900. The data is sorted by the decade in which they joined the company.  

The future managers who had begun their L&SWR careers in the 1830s and 40s had a wide range of ages, with 46.7% joining the company when they were beyond their teenage years. But, because of the changes outlined above, the proportion joining above twenty years old diminished. In the 1850s it was 38.4% and in the 1860s 21.0%. Thereafter, all those who became middle or senior traffic managers on the L&SWR were in their teens when they joined the company.

The effect of these changes was that as the decades progressed, the length of time it took individuals to become middle or senior managers grew longer. The table below shows the average number of years that it took the managers to reach their first middle or senior management post. The data is collated according to the decade in which they reached that point.

While in some decades the sample sizes are small, and this would have affected the figures, there was a clear change in the 1880s. In the very early years of the L&SWR new middle or senior managers had on average only served the company for a short time.  While in the 1850s, 60s and 70s, individuals who were appointed to managerial posts had been employed for an average of between twelve and sixteen years. However, thereafter, all new middle or senior managers had been with the company above an average of twenty-five years.

Therefore, what the three sets of suggest is that there is a change in the starting position, starting age and length of career of new middle and senior managers around 1880. Before then managers could have begun their careers in fairly senior positions, above the age of twenty and would have gone into management after a short space of time. However, thereafter, new middle and senior managers had started their railway careers in their teens, usually in the position of junior clerk or lad, and had worked their way through the ranks of the company.

Therefore, the evidence shows that in the company’s early years, large numbers of people were appointed to more senior posts in the PLM, such as Clerk, Station Agent or Chief Clerk. This reflected the emergent nature of the industry and the fact that trained railway professionals were in short supply. Yet, as the company matured there were increasingly enough people being promoted up the hierarchy from below to fill any vacancies that appeared. Consequently, fewer people were appointed directly into higher positions. Consequently, after the 1870s the, only way to enter the company’s PLM, and have the chance of rising into management, was to join it out of school at the lowest point on the promotional ladder.

All data from company staff records, and the L&SWR’s Staff Magazine, ‘The South Western Gazette.’

"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

I was a Schoolboy, a Soldier, a Labourer. Recruitment in the Early Railway Industry - Part 2

In my last post I discussed research I have been doing on  professions that the earliest railway workers had before they joined the London and North Western Railway’s (L&NWR) Operating, Traffic and Coaching Department (to be hereon known as the Traffic Department) between 1837 and 1871. Previously, I looked at sixty-eight individuals (out of 400) who had been employed in the company’s Engineering Department before to coming to the Traffic Department. In this post I will start to focus on the remaining 332 men who, before coming to the L&NWR, were employed in jobs outside the company.

As stated, for ease of interpretation I have categorised the 400 workers into the following fourteen categories (Note, there is one slight modification from the table presented in the last post because an error was found.)

Firstly, only a very small proportion of the individuals, twenty-three out of the 400 (5.75%), had no prior employment before coming to the railway. This was reflected in their ages. The youngest of them were three boys of thirteen, two of which were appointed as Booking Clerks and another of which became an ‘assistant agent.’ The oldest individual in the sample was James Nicholson, the [Station] Agent at Bulkington, who was listed as being thirty-six.  Yet, because of his age and his position of responsibility it is highly implausible that he had done nothing before coming to the railway. Overall, apart from Nicholson and two other individuals, the rest were all under the age of eighteen.

However, more interesting conclusions can be made about changes in the L&NWR's recruitment processes. Only four of the individuals who had had no prior profession were recruited in the 1830s and 1840s (3.57% of the 121 individuals recruited in these years). Furthermore, only three of these men were engaged in the early 1850s (2.67% of 112 new employees). Thus, this leaves sixteen that were appointed between 1855 and 1860 (12.80% of 125 individuals). Clearly, in the railway's emergent years it was principally recruiting individuals who had experience of other industries. However, in the late-1850s did it start to recruit people straight out of school, and this is presumably when families’ decades-long associations with the railways began.

The positions that these individuals went into are also of interest. In this period only two went into the secondary labour market (with low weekly pay, low job security and few promotional prospects), becoming a policeman and pointsman. Indeed, the twenty remaining took up positions as agents, clerks and assistant agents (all clerical positions), and, thus, were in the primary labour market (with high job security, promotional prospects and good pay). Consequently, because only sixty-six of the individuals in the overall sample of 400 went into the primary labour market, the L&NWR’s Traffic Department evidently was recruiting a large number of school-leavers into clerical positions before 1860, possibly because of a skills shortage in the economy. But, importantly, this data also signals that by 1860 the distinction between the two labour markets, the jobs they encompassed and what sort of individuals went into them, were well-defined.

One of the most repeated stories about early railway managers was that their ranks were dominated by senior military men, as they were the only ones that had experience of administering large organisations. However, in four previous blogs (starting here) I have clearly showed the error of this assertion. Nevertheless, my interest in the transference of skills from the military to the early railways meant that I was on the look-out for soldiers and sailors when doing this study.

Of the 400 railway workers in my sample only twenty-eight (7.00%) had been in the military before being employed by the L&NWR. Six had been in the royal navy (two as Royal Marines), with twenty-two being ex-soldiers. All bar three of the individuals went into the secondary labour market. Indeed, it is no surprise that fourteen joined the railway police as presumably the discipline of military training made them suitable for this position. Additionally, eight others received manual positions where strength was required, three becoming porters and five taking up posts as pointsmen.

As for when the individuals were appointed, it seems that there was a consistent stream of soldiers and sailors moving from the military to the railway between 1837 and 1860. Indeed, of those employees who joined in the late-1830s, ex-military men made up 9.09% of these. This increased to 11.1% in the early-1840s, but decreased to 7.14% in the early 1850s. However, thereafter the proportion rose again to 9.80% in 1860. In the early-1840s there was seemingly an anomalous result as only 1.59% of the sixty-three new railway workers appointed in the period had been in the army or navy. The reason for this anomaly is unknown.

The profession that most of those in the sample were engaged in before coming to the Traffic Department was that of ‘labourer’ (apart from those who had worked in the Engineering Department). Anyone who has used the census’ will testify how ambiguous this job description is. Indeed, only in six cases out of the sixty-two ex-labourers was more information available (one carter, one collier, two quarraymen and two warehousemen). Unsurprisingly, all the ex-labourers went into the secondary labour market and the positions that they were appointed to in the greatest numbers were as porters (17), pointsmen (19) and policemen (8). Additionally, they also obtained positions as foremen, gatemen, greaser and shaklers (whatever they were) or signalmen. Therefore, the majority of ex-labourers went from strenuous positions to strenuous positions. However, it is quite possible that the railways paid better than their previous employers.

Of more interest is that the proportion of new Traffic Department staff that had been labourers declined over the period. Between 1837 and 1839 they constituted 27.2% of all those appointed. Yet, in the early-1840s this dropped to 18.5%, in the late-1840s the proportion was 15.8%, in the early 1850s it rose slightly to 16.1%, but declined again in the late-1850s to 14.4%. Lastly, in 1860 they constituted only 9.8% of all new staff.

This suggests that changes occurred in the national economy, as well as within the railway companies. Firstly, it would appear that the simple description of ‘labourer’ was becoming less common as time progressed, possibly as new trades were started, new inventions were created and the economy diversified in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Furthermore, and as will be shown in the next post, the reducing number of ex-labourers, who would have had only poor education at best, suggests that the L&NWR was increasing looking to recruit into secondary labour market men with better schooling or even better backgrounds. Only an investigation of the company's files have the potential to prove this.

Overall, this post has revealed that between 1837 and 1860 the L&NWR’s Traffic Department refined who it wished to recruit into its ranks. In the 1830s the new company was recruiting a far higher proportion of poorly educated individuals whose experiences were limited to labouring work. Indeed, school leavers did not feature highly.  Yet, by 1860 most positions that new railway workers were appointed to were highly dependent on their prior experiences and education, as well as being defined by the strict parameters of the company’s primary and secondary labour markets. Thus, it is clear that between 1837 and 1860 the norms of railway employment of the later nineteenth century were developed. In the last post of this series this will be demonstrated further.

What Do You Want Your Railway to Do? - The L&SWR and the Need for a Corporate Vision

Some observers of the Britain’s railway system argue that current problem with the industry is that no one asks what Britain’s railways are for. Indeed, this lack of purpose harms the ability of the industry’s component players to work together, plan long-term or deliver a railway that is truly serving the people of this country. However, this is not simply a modern problem, and railway managers in the past also failed to define what their businesses were trying to do. Indeed, the case of the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) shows how the application of a corporate vision can take a business from failure to success.

Scott

The first General Manager of the L&SWR was Archibald Scott. Scott had been the company’s Traffic Manager since 1852 and was made General Manager in 1870. For fourteen years he held this position within the company, retiring at the end of 1884.

Under Scott his very fixed ideas about how railways should be managed shaped company policy. He believed that because the railways’ had a monopoly on inland transportation, traffic and revenue would increase unabated. Consequently, to keep costs down and profits high improvements to train services, infrastructure and rolling stock were only sought from the Traffic Committee and Board when really necessary. Indeed, he believed that with no competition on many routes, it did not matter if the customers were unhappy as they would to use the railway anyway.  Thus, train services, stations and carriages were left in such a poor state during Scott’s administration that Punch nick-named the company’s management the ‘Wags of Waterloo.’

However, after 1870 these policies caused the company’s profit margin to be the smallest of the all Britain’s fourteen largest railways. This was because every potential improvement was looked at on a case-by-case basis with the minimisation of cost being the only factor in the decision. Thus, there was no joined-up thinking about overall company strategy and problems were simply solved in the short-term. Furthermore, no thought was given to growing the business beyond the traffics the company already served. Ultimately, this meant that while in the short-term costs were kept down, in the long term the company did not have an established trajectory, forcing up overall costs.

Scotter

Charles Scotter became the company’s General Manager in 1885 and rapidly set about turning the company’s fortunes around by bringing a vision and direction to the company’s policies. On his retirement in 1897 the Railway Magazine (RM) wrote that he was keen that ‘the line should live down any unfavourable reputation which it might have earned, and he found that the policy of giving the best possible facilities to the travelling public was the one at which at the same time, yielded to proprietors the highest dividend.’

The majority of Scotter’s reforms related to reversing the policies of Scott in the Traffic Department through improving the company’s services. Scotter did not, however, simply expand services uniformly and judged carefully where it would be advantageous to improve provision. To do this he engaged with the public and business people within the company’s territory, listening to their requests, even if they could not always be satisfied. Thus, the company’s train services, rolling stock and infrastructure improved in line with the public’s needs and beyond. No longer did the railway dictate to the customers what services they received, rather, the customers now had input on them. Thus, RM stated that Scotter had ‘led the proprietors step-by-step into fresh fields of traffic.’

Overall, Scotter’s tenure at the L&SWR was a success. RM stated, ‘there is no instance on record in this country where such striking results have been produced by a railway manager as those which have, within the short period of twelve years, attended the policy pursued by Sir Charles Scotter.’ Indeed, the company’s profit margin aligned with the average of the top fifteen companies and its share price rose from 118d per hundred shares in 1885 to 224d per hundred in 1897.[1]

Conclusion

Therefore, this case study shows why it is important for businesses to have corporate goals. Scott’s simplistic ad hoc approach to management, of simply minimising cost, delivered poor company profitability and an even poorer public image. However, Scotter’s arrival and the application of a corporate vision brought the L&SWR good profitability and wide praise. Indeed, this suggests that those in charge of Britain’s railways in the 21^st century really do need to ask the question of what the railway is for, so that they can ascertain where they want their industry to be in twenty or thirty years’ time. Such a step would allow everyone employed in the industry to be working towards the same goals, improve industry efficiency and deliver the British travelling public better value for money.

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[1] Railway Magazine, November 1897, p.385