_EARLY HISTORY OF THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY._
A.D. 1833--1835. ÆTATIS 27--30.
SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF RAILWAYS IN ENGLAND PRIOR TO 1833--THE
STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON--THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER--THE LONDON
AND BIRMINGHAM--PROPOSED RAILWAY BETWEEN LONDON AND BRISTOL--MR.
BRUNEL APPOINTED ENGINEER, MARCH 7, 1833--SURVEY OF THE
LINE--UNSUCCESSFUL APPLICATION TO PARLIAMENT IN 1834--SUCCESSFUL
APPLICATION IN 1835--REMINISCENCES OF MR. BRUNEL,
1833-1835--EXTRACT FROM MR. BRUNEL’S DIARY, WRITTEN AT THE CLOSE OF
1835.
Before entering upon the history of the Great Western and the other
railways of which Mr. Brunel was the engineer, it may be useful to give
a brief sketch of the development of the railway system, previous to the
period when he first became engaged in works of this description.
The first railway in England designed for the conveyance of general
merchandise and passengers, was the Stockton and Darlington. An Act of
Parliament authorising the construction of this line was passed in 1821.
In 1823, a further Act was obtained, in which a clause was inserted, at
the request of Mr. George Stephenson, then the engineer of the company,
taking power to work the railway by locomotive engines, and to employ
them for the haulage of passengers. This railway, which consisted of a
single line with four sidings in the mile, was opened for traffic on
September 27, 1825. Its success led at once to the promotion of similar
works in other parts of the country.
Next in order must be noticed the celebrated railway between Liverpool
and Manchester. A project for constructing a line of railway between
these important towns was discussed as early as the year 1822; but a
company for carrying it out was not formed till two years later. In
1825, the directors applied to Parliament for an Act; and after a long
contest before a committee of the House of Commons, the preamble
approving of the construction of the railway was carried by a majority
of one. The Bill was, however, withdrawn, as the first two clauses
empowering the company to make the line, and to acquire land for that
purpose, were lost.[38] In the following year the Act was obtained, and
the works were commenced under the direction of Mr. George Stephenson.
The line was opened for traffic on September 15, 1830.
In 1824, Mr. George Stephenson wrote a report on a proposed line
connecting Liverpool and Birmingham. Surveys were made, and plans
deposited; but the Bill was thrown out on standing orders. A similar
fate attended the introduction of a Bill in 1826. In 1830, a new line
was surveyed by Mr. Joseph Locke and Mr. Rastrick, under the direction
of Mr. George Stephenson. The Act was obtained in 1833, and the railway,
which was called the Grand Junction, and is now a part of the London and
North-Western system, was constructed by Mr. Locke.[39]
In 1830, surveys were commenced by Mr. Robert Stephenson for a line
between London and Birmingham, and a Bill was introduced into Parliament
in 1832. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway had now been opened for
some time, and the promoters of the Birmingham line had the advantage of
being able to give in evidence the results of the working of the earlier
undertaking. Those results, it is said, were such as to startle most of
those who heard them. It was shown that a speed had been attained double
that of the fastest stage-coach, that the cost of travelling had been
diminished by one half, and that out of 700,000 persons carried since
the opening of the railway, only one had met with a fatal accident. The
amount of travelling between Liverpool and Manchester had increased
four-fold, and the value of the shares of the railway had risen one
hundred per cent. Similar evidence was given as to the results of the
working of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, and the promoters
endeavoured to prove that advantages at least as great would arise from
the construction of a railway between Birmingham and London. They were
successful in the House of Commons; but, they failed to convince the
Upper House that the benefits which such a railway would confer on the
country traversed by it were sufficient to entitle its promoters to
receive for it the sanction of the legislature. The Bill was again
introduced in the following session (1833); and, strange to relate, it
passed both Houses almost without opposition.[40]
* * * * *
Meanwhile, the principal merchants of Bristol, who had in 1825 made an
attempt to get up a railway company, were urged forward, both by the
inadequacy of their communications with the metropolis, and by the
success of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, to make another effort.
In the autumn of 1832 a committee was formed of members of the
corporation, and other public bodies of the city of Bristol, to carry
out the project of a railway to London.
The first step taken by the committee was the appointment of an engineer
to make the preliminary surveys, and to prepare an estimate of the cost
of the undertaking.
Among the candidates for the post was Mr. Brunel. He was well known in
Bristol as the engineer of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, and of the
works for the improvement of the Floating Harbour. He had made many
friends among the leading citizens, and they used their best exertions
to procure his election; but there were several other candidates in the
field who had great local interest, and the contest was a close one.
While the issue was yet undecided, an unexpected difficulty arose. Some
members of the committee resolved to select their engineer by means of a
competition among the candidates, as to which of them would provide the
lowest estimate. Upon this being announced, Mr. Brunel declared that he
must withdraw his name, as he could not consent to become a party to so
objectionable a proceeding. ‘You are holding out,’ he wrote to the
committee, ‘a premium to the man who will make you the most flattering
promises. It is quite obvious that the man who has either least
reputation at stake, or who has most to gain by temporary success, and
least to lose by the consequences of disappointment, must be the winner
in such a race.’ Happily, this plan was abandoned; Mr. Brunel obtained a
majority of votes, and was appointed engineer on March 7, 1833.
He commenced the survey without delay; and in addition to his strictly
professional duties, he assisted in forming a committee in London, and
took a leading part in the consultations which were held upon various
important matters connected with the general interests of the
undertaking.
A hasty survey of the country between London and Bristol occupied him
till the middle of June; and as soon as it was completed, and the course
of the line settled on, preparations were made for placing the scheme
before the public.
The first public meeting was held on July 30, 1833. Mr. Brunel thus
refers to it in his diary:--‘Got through it very tolerably, which I
consider great things. I hate public meetings: it is playing with a
tiger, and all you can hope is, that you may not get scratched, or
worse.’ The result, however, seems to have been successful, and in a
month’s time a company was formally constituted, and the parliamentary
survey commenced.
Mr. Brunel organised a staff of assistants, at that time rather a
difficult task, and set them to work on various parts of the line. His
own duty of superintendence severely taxed his great powers of work. He
spent several weeks travelling from place to place by night, and riding
about the country by day, directing his assistants, and endeavouring,
very frequently without success, to conciliate the landowners on whose
property he proposed to trespass.
His diary of this date shows that when he halted at an inn for the
night, but little time was spent in rest, and that often he sat up
writing letters and reports until it was almost time for his horse to
come round to take him on the day’s work. ‘Between ourselves,’ he wrote
to Mr. Hammond, his assistant, ‘it is harder work than I like. I am
rarely much under twenty hours a day at it.’
A great portion of this labour was for the time thrown away, for as
November 30 drew near, it became evident that subscriptions were not
coming in to the extent which would enable the directors to lodge a Bill
for the whole line in the session of 1834.
The directors therefore determined to apply to Parliament for powers to
make a railway from London to Reading, and from Bath to Bristol, ‘as a
means of facilitating the ultimate establishment of a railway between
London and Bristol;’ postponing till a future session their application
for an Act to enable them to complete the undertaking by making the line
from Reading to Bath.
The Bill was introduced into the House of Commons, and on March 10, Lord
Granville Somerset moved that it be read a second time. This motion was
seconded by the Earl of Kerry, and supported by several influential
members, amongst whom were Mr. Labouchere (the late Lord Taunton) and
Mr. Daniel O’Connell.
The second reading was carried by a majority of ninety in a House of 274
members.
The Bill was then referred to a committee which met on April 16, Lord
Granville Somerset being in the chair. Evidence was called to prove the
advantages of the railway to the agricultural and trading community of
the country through which it would pass, even if only the two proposed
divisions of the line were constructed.
The traffic in merchandise between Bristol and London was at this time
principally carried on by means of water carriage, consisting, first of
the river Avon navigation from Bristol to Bath, next of the Kennet and
Avon Canal from Bath to Reading, and lastly of the river Thames from
Reading to London. The evidence went to show that the distance between
London and Reading, which by railway would be thirty-six miles, amounted
by the river to nearly eighty; that the delays and impediments arising
from drought, flood, and frosts on the rivers, were such as sometimes to
detain barges for several weeks; and that so great were the consequent
uncertainties and inconveniences of this navigation, that goods which
came as far as Reading by the canal, were frequently sent thence to
London by road, although at a great increase of expense. Even under the
most advantageous circumstances, goods could not be conveyed from
Reading to London in less than three days, or in less than a day by the
river Avon from Bath to Bristol. It was therefore contended, that to
form a railway which should supersede, or at all events come in aid of,
the worst portions of the navigation between London and Bristol, would
be an important public benefit.[41] The various advantages of the
measure were most fully discussed in an investigation which lasted
during fifty-seven days. Against the Bill was arrayed every class of
opponent that a private Bill could possibly encounter. Those interested
in the canals, rivers, and stage-coaches, opposed it from the fear of
competition; the inhabitants of Windsor opposed it, because the railway
did not run so near to the town as they wished; the corporation of
Maidenhead opposed it, because they thought that all the traffic which
paid toll on their bridge over the Thames would be diverted to the
railway; landowners and farmers near town opposed it, because they
feared it would bring produce to London from a distance, as cheap as
that supplied by themselves.
There was another very formidable class of opponents to the Bill,
consisting of landed proprietors and owners of houses in the immediate
neighbourhood of London.
Many engineers were called by these several opponents, to show that a
more advantageous line of railway might have been selected; but, upon
sifting the merits of the various new lines proposed, it became apparent
that the one chosen by Mr. Brunel was the best. Indeed, although some
trifling deviations of his line were suggested, the opposing engineers
admitted that in all essential features the railway had been most
skilfully laid out. It was generally agreed that the line through the
valley of the Thames, and thence in a direction north of the Marlborough
Downs, was the only proper course for a railway between Bristol and
London, as the levels were much better, and communication could be made
with much greater ease with the northern and South Wales districts, than
if the route to the south of the Marlborough Downs had been selected.
The plans proposed for entering London raised great opposition. In this
respect public feeling has greatly changed, for now no railway is
thought complete which has not a terminus in the heart of London; and it
is considered an advantage for houses to be within easy reach of a
railway station; but in 1834 such a neighbour was looked upon with
horror and dismay--a nuisance to be, if possible, absolutely prohibited.
When Mr. Brunel commenced the survey for the London terminus, he had
some idea of bringing the railway in on the south side of the Thames;
but this was abandoned, as it was found to involve very heavy works, and
the line proposed in the first Bill was made to terminate on the north
side of the river at Vauxhall Bridge. It was to have been carried on a
viaduct 24 feet high, with a parapet 6 feet 6 inches high, to prevent
the passengers looking into the windows of the neighbouring houses.
The owners of the land through which this part of the line would pass
were influential members of the Upper House, and therefore the directors
thought it useless to brave their opposition; accordingly, on the
thirteenth day of the hearing, they abandoned the last two miles of the
viaduct, and proposed to stop at the ‘Hoop and Toy,’ a public-house
near the site of the South Kensington Station of the Metropolitan
Railway.
But although the opposition of some of the landowners was conciliated by
this concession, that portion of the line through Brompton which had not
been abandoned was attacked with unabated energy. The residents in
Brompton opposed the Bill from the apprehension that the railway would
interfere with their quiet and seclusion; Brompton being at that time
considered, at any rate by one of the counsel for the opposition, ‘the
most famous of any place in the neighbourhood of London for the
salubrity of its air, and calculated for retired residences.’ They could
not, indeed, be blamed for indulging in these apprehensions, if they
really believed in their counsel’s statement that ‘streams of fire would
proceed from the locomotive engines.’
Others objected to the viaduct itself as being an undertaking of so
colossal a nature as hardly to be practicable; and the supposed increase
of traffic and consequent obstruction in Piccadilly and other leading
thoroughfares brought down upon the promoters the opposition of the
Commissioners of Metropolitan Roads.
All these objections were made the ground of much argument in committee,
and doubtless had great influence over the minds of those who voted
against the Bill.
The engineering evidence occupied, as might be expected, the greater
part of the forty-two days during which witnesses were examined before
the committee, and of these forty-two days no less than eleven were
taken up by the cross-examination of Mr. Brunel. So protracted a
cross-examination has probably never been heard in any court or
committee-room. One of those present thus describes it:--
‘The committee-room was crowded with landowners and others interested
in the success or defeat of the Bill, and eager to hear Brunel’s
evidence. His knowledge of the country surveyed by him was marvellously
great, and the explanations he gave of his plans, and the answers he
returned to questions suggested by Dr. Lardner, showed a profound
acquaintance with the principles of mechanics. He was rapid in thought,
clear in his language, and never said too much, or lost his presence of
mind. I do not remember ever having enjoyed so great an intellectual
treat as that of listening to Brunel’s examination, and I was told at
the time that George Stephenson and many others were much struck by the
ability and knowledge shown by him.’
In his evidence, Mr. George Stephenson stated that he did not know any
existing line so good as that proposed by Mr. Brunel. ‘I can imagine (he
said) a better line, but I do not know of one so good.’[42]
At length, on the fifty-fourth day of the sittings of the committee, Mr.
Harrison, K.C., rose to reply on behalf of the promoters, and on the
conclusion of his address the Bill was passed.
In the House of Lords the second reading was moved by Lord Wharncliffe.
It was opposed, and on a division being taken, the motion was lost by a
majority of seventeen (30 content and 47 non-content). The Bill was
therefore thrown out.
The directors, undaunted by their defeat, lost no time in making
preparations for bringing a Bill before Parliament in the session of
1835, with such improvements as the experience of the past campaign
suggested to them. Taking into consideration the various grounds on
which opposition had been raised to the plans they had proposed for
entering London through the Brompton district, they opened negotiations
with the London and Birmingham Railway Company, and arrangements were
concluded by which the traffic of the Great Western Railway was to be
carried upon the London and Birmingham line for the first four miles out
of London, the junction being made a little to the west of the Kensal
Green Cemetery.
They had also during the autumn raised money enough to enable them to
apply to Parliament for powers to construct the whole of the line from
London to Bristol. They thus escaped all the sarcastic observations
which had been made upon the scheme of 1834, of which it had been said,
that it would be a head and a tail without a body, and neither ‘Great’
nor ‘Western,’ nor even a ‘railway’ at all, but ‘a gross deception, a
trick, and a fraud upon the public, in name, in title, and in
substance!’
On March 9, the earliest day allowed by the standing orders, the Bill
was read a second time and committed. A division being taken on the
motion for committal, there appeared in favour of the motion 160, and
against it none but the tellers.
Shortly after its first meeting, the committee, of which Mr. Charles
Russell, then member for Reading, was chairman, came to the resolution
that, inasmuch as the evidence given in the previous year as to the
public advantages of a Bristol railway had been referred to them by
order of the House, they needed no further evidence on that subject.
Counsel were therefore directed to confine their case as much as
possible to the merits of the line proposed.
Evidence was called by the opponents chiefly with a view to show the
advantages of a proposed line from Basing to Bath, and the inexpediency
of granting an entirely new line of 115 miles in length to the Great
Western Railway Company, which involved the construction of a ‘monstrous
and extraordinary,’ ‘most dangerous and impracticable, tunnel’ at Box,
and this, when 44 miles of railway in a western direction--viz. as far
as Basingstoke, had already been sanctioned by the legislature in the
Southampton Railway Act, passed in the previous session. The promoters
of the Bill contended that the levels of the Basing and Bath line were
not so good as those proposed for their own, and that the Great Western
Railway would approach almost every town of importance situated on the
proposed Basing and Bath line, by means of short branches; whilst at the
same time it presented the great advantage of being capable of easy
extension to Gloucester and Wales, and to Oxford, an object wholly
unattainable by the other line. In reply to these assertions, the
opponents maintained that although the levels of the Basing and Bath
Railway presented greater inclinations than those of the Great Western,
yet that they were so balanced as that the rises and falls compensated
one for another, so as to render the line practically level. The
enunciation of this theory called forth a remark by the chairman that
according to this principle the Highlands of Scotland would be as good
as any other place for the construction of a railway.
The preamble was voted proved, and the Bill passed the House of Commons
without further opposition, and on May 27 was read a first time in the
Lords. On June 10, the second reading was carried after a sharp debate,
the numbers being 46 contents, and 34 non-contents.
Lord Wharncliffe was chairman of the committee.[43] The proceedings
began by an opposition on the standing orders, which, after much
skirmishing, were voted to have been complied with. The promoters,
however, judged from the nature of the first day’s proceedings, that
they had to expect a contest of no inconsiderable duration; and the
result proved their anticipations to have been correct. For forty days
the battle was fought with a degree of earnestness and vigour on both
sides, almost unequalled in any similar proceedings.
The committee soon came to the same decision as the House of Commons,
that, with regard to the advisability of a Bristol railway, they were
satisfied, and needed no further evidence. The case became then one of
mere comparison between the relative merits of the two lines proposed.
The case in support of the Bill occupied eighteen days, and was closed
with a speech by the Hon. John Talbot.
Mr. Serjeant Merewether, whom the opponents had chosen as their leader
in the House of Lords, was then heard on their behalf, and occupied no
less than four days in the delivery of his speech, in which certainly no
argument that ingenuity could devise was omitted to strengthen his case.
There was hardly any conceivable injury which, according to the learned
serjeant’s notions, the Great Western Railway would not inflict. It was
said that the Thames would be choked up for want of traffic, the
drainage of the country destroyed, and Windsor Castle left unsupplied
with water. As for Eton College it would be absolutely and entirely
ruined: London would pour forth the most abandoned of its inhabitants to
come down by the railway and pollute the minds of the scholars, whilst
the boys themselves would take advantage of the short interval of their
play hours to run up to town, mix in all the dissipation of London life,
and return before their absence could be discovered. Moreover, while the
beauty of the country and the retirement of private dwellings would be
destroyed, the interests of the public would be far more effectually
served by the adoption of the Basing and Bath line, and a line from the
London and Birmingham Railway to Gloucester. This was in fact the point
at issue, and on this the result of the contest depended. The promoters
of the Bill had called, in support of their line, in addition to Mr.
Brunel, who being engineer to the company might be considered an
interested witness, Mr. Locke, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Price, Mr. George
Stephenson, and Mr. Vignoles. They expressed their unqualified
approbation of the line chosen by Mr. Brunel, and of the estimates he
had prepared.
The preamble was proved, and after an unsuccessful opposition the Bill
was read a third time, on August 27. The Royal Assent was given on the
last day of that month.[44]
* * * * *
During this contest Mr. Brunel made among his fellow-labourers many deep
and lasting friendships. One of the most intimate of these friends, Mr.
St. George Burke, Q.C., has, in compliance with a request made to him,
furnished the following reminiscences of his intercourse with Mr.
Brunel during the progress of the Bill through Parliament.
March 9, 1869.
‘My dear Isambard,--You wish me to supply you with reminiscences of
my old associations with your father, in order that, in your
biography of him, you may present a true picture of those features
of his character which so endeared him to his most intimate
friends.
‘For many years it was my good fortune to enjoy his friendship, and
many of the pleasantest hours of my life were due to it.
‘For a period of nearly three years, viz. during the contest for
the Great Western Railway Bill, I think that seldom a day passed
without our meeting, whether for purposes of business or pleasure,
both of which his buoyant spirits enabled him to combine in a
manner which I have seldom seen equalled.
‘It would be wearisome to detail the many incidents which occurred
illustrative of the singularly facile manner in which, in the midst
of the heaviest and most responsible labours, he could enter into
the most boyish pranks and fun, without in the least distracting
his attention from the matter of business in which he was engaged;
but all who knew him as I did could bear testimony to this
characteristic of his disposition.
‘I believe that a more joyous nature, combined with the highest
intellectual faculties, was never created, and I love to think of
him in the character of the ever gay and kind-hearted friend of my
early years, rather than in the more serious professional aspect
under which your pages will, no doubt, rightly depict him.
‘In 1833 your father and I occupied chambers facing each other in
Parliament Street, and as my duties involved the superintendence,
as Parliamentary agent, of the compliance with all the Standing
Orders of Parliament, and very frequent interviews and negotiations
with the landowners on the line, we were of necessity constantly
thrown together. To facilitate our intercourse, it occurred to your
father to carry a string across Parliament Street, from his
chambers to mine, to be there connected with a bell, by which he
could either call me to the window to receive his telegraphic
signals, or, more frequently, to wake me up in the morning when we
had occasion to go into the country together, which, it is needless
to observe, was of frequent occurrence; and great was the
astonishment of the neighbours at this device, the object of which
they were unable to comprehend.
‘I believe that at that time he scarcely ever went to bed, though I
never remember to have seen him tired or out of spirits. He was a
very constant smoker, and would take his nap in an arm-chair, very
frequently with a cigar in his mouth; and if we were to start out
of town at five or six o’clock in the morning, it was his frequent
practice to rouse me out of bed about three, by means of the bell,
when I would invariably find him up and dressed, and in great glee
at the fun of having curtailed my slumbers by two or three hours
more than necessary.
‘No one would have supposed that during the night he had been
poring over plans and estimates, and engrossed in serious labours,
which to most men would have proved destructive of their energies
during the following day; but I never saw him otherwise than full
of gaiety, and apparently as ready for work as though he had been
sleeping through the night.
‘In those days we had not the advantage of railways, and were
obliged to adopt the slower, though perhaps not less agreeable,
mode of travelling with post-horses. Your father had a britzska,
so arranged as to carry his plans and engineering instruments,
besides some creature comforts, never forgetting the inevitable
cigar-case among them; and we would start by daybreak, or sometimes
earlier, on our country excursions, which still live in my
remembrance as some of the pleasantest I have ever enjoyed; though
I think I may safely say that, pleasurable as they were, we never
lost sight of the business in which we were engaged, and for which
our excursions were undertaken.
‘I have never known a man who, possessing courage which to many
would appear almost like rashness, was less disposed to trust to
chance or to throw away any opportunity of attaining his object
than was your father. I doubt not that this quality will be fully
exemplified in the details which you will have received of his
engineering experiments; but I speak of him also in the character
of a diplomatist, in which he was as wary and cautious as any man I
ever knew.
‘We canvassed many landowners together, and I had plenty of
opportunities of judging of his skill and caution in our
discussions with them, though we had many a good laugh afterwards
at the arguments which had been addressed to us as to the inutility
and impolicy of the scheme in which we were engaged, and the utter
ruin it would be sure to entail on its promoters, as well as on the
country affected by it.
‘I frequently accompanied him to the west of England, and into
Gloucestershire and South Wales, when public meetings were held in
support of the measures in which he was engaged, and I had occasion
to observe the enormous popularity which he everywhere enjoyed. The
moment he rose to address a meeting he was received with loud
cheers, and he never failed to elicit applause at the end of his
address, which was distinguished as much by simplicity of language
and modesty of pretension as by accurate knowledge of his subject.
Yours very truly,
ST. GEORGE BURKE.
Isambard Brunel, Esq.’
The following is an extract from Mr. Brunel’s diary, written at the end
of the year 1835:--
53 Parliament Street, December 26.
What a blank in my journal [_the last entry is dated January
1834_], and during the most eventful part of my life. When last I
wrote in this book I was just emerging from obscurity. I had been
toiling most unprofitably at numerous things, unprofitably, at
least, at the moment. The railway was certainly being thought of,
but still very uncertain. What a change. The railway now is in
progress. I am thus engineer to the finest work in England. A
handsome salary, on excellent terms with my directors, and all
going smoothly. But what a fight we have had, and how near defeat,
and what a ruinous defeat it would have been. It is like looking
back upon a fearful pass; but we have succeeded.
And it is not this alone, but everything I have been engaged in has
been successful. Clifton bridge--my first child, my darling, is
actually going on: recommenced work last Monday--glorious!! [_Here
follows a list of the undertakings on which he was then engaged._]
I think this forms a pretty list of real sound professional work,
unsought for on my part, that is, given to me fairly by the
respective parties--all, except the Wear Docks, resulting from the
Clifton bridge, which I fought hard for, and gained only by
persevering struggles.... And this at the age of twenty-nine. I
really can hardly believe it, when I think of it. I am just leaving
53 Parliament Street, where I may say I have made my fortune, or,
rather, the foundation of it, and I have taken 18 Duke Street.