BUILDING THE FIRST STREET-RAILWAYS IN ENGLAND
1858
In '58, when I visited Philadelphia on business of Queen Maria Cristina,
of Spain, I observed the network of street-railways in that city, which
then, perhaps, had the most perfect system of surface transportation in
the world. I was struck with the idea of the great convenience these
railways must be to business men and to all workers, and wondered why
London, with so many more persons, had never had recourse to the
street-railway. At that time there was not an inch of "tramway," or
street-railway, in Great Britain, or anywhere outside of New York and
Philadelphia. I stored the idea up in my mind, intending to utilize it
some day, when I returned to England.
Before undertaking the work of constructing street-railways in England,
I was called upon to do a little financiering for my father-in-law,
Colonel George T. M. Davis. Colonel Davis came to me in London and
wished me to assist in organizing the Adirondack Railway in upper New
York. He had been introduced to Hamilton and Waddell, who had a grant
from the New York legislature of 600,000 acres in the Adirondacks; but
nothing could be done at that time. Later, in '64, I organized the
Adirondack road, and met General Rosecrans and Cheney, of Little Falls,
at the Astor House, for the purpose of building the railway. I
subscribed $20,000 for myself and $20,000 for my wife, and got a large
sum from my friends. A large party of us went in carriages from the
United States Hotel, Saratoga, through the country along the proposed
route to Lucerne. George Augustus Sala, who was visiting this country at
the time, was with us, also Dr. T. C. Durant, president of the Credit
Mobilier, and J. S. T. Stranahan, of Brooklyn. This was the beginning of
the Adirondack road, of which Colonel Davis was the president when he
died in '88. My plan was to build the road through the entire forest to
Ogdensburg, but it was never carried out. This was four decades before
the millionaire colonists began flocking in there, the Huntingtons,
Astors, Webbs, Rockefellers, Woodruffs, Durants, et al.
My first efforts in introducing street-railways in England were made in
Liverpool. I chose this city because I had been long associated with it
and because, as it was the leading seaport of the world, I had a false
idea that it was progressive. But I was soon set right as to this
estimate of Liverpool. I recalled, in the hour of discouragement, the
great difficulty I had had years before, in '50, in getting the
municipal government to permit us to have lights and fire on the docks
at night, in order to facilitate the handling of the very traffic that
was the basis of the city's prosperity. Now, when I proposed the laying
of a street-railway, I found the leading men of the city just as narrow
and just as hopelessly behind the times as they had been in the matter
of improving shipping facilities. They would not consider the
proposition at all.
But this did not stop my efforts nor dampen my ardor. I felt that the
plan would succeed somewhere in England, and I began to look about to
see where the best chances of success might be found. All through the
year '58 and into '59 I was at work upon my original plan. I had made
every possible arrangement for the immediate construction of a railway,
if I could only get some municipality to grant the necessary permission.
Finally, it occurred to me that the man I wanted was John Laird, the
progressive and energetic ship-builder, the man who afterward built the
Alabama and other Confederate craft, and who was at the time chairman of
the Commissioners of Birkenhead, just across the Mersey opposite
Liverpool. Surely, thought I, here is a man with enterprise enough to
appreciate this thing, which means so much for the working people and
all business men. So I went to Mr. Laird, and after a long conference
with him, I made a formal request to the Commissioners for permission to
construct a surface railway, or "tramway," as it is called in England.
My proposition was to lay a track four miles long, running out to the
Birkenhead Park. I offered to lay the road at my own expense, to pave a
certain proportion of the streets through which the line passed, and to
charge fares lower than those then charged by the omnibuses. If the line
did not then satisfy the city authorities, I was to remove it at my own
expense and to place all the streets affected in as good order as when
the road was begun.
I found Mr. Laird as liberal-minded as I had expected, and with his
influence, the Board of Commissioners consented to let me make the
experiment. I went to work at once, and the road was pushed through with
great despatch. I felt that it ought to get into operation before the
'buses and other transportation companies stirred up too much
opposition. As soon as the working people found how comfortable and
cheap the new mode of conveyance was, I felt sure they would stand up
for it so strongly as to defeat the efforts of the omnibus men to tear
up the line.
The "tramway" proved a success from the start, and became as popular as
I had expected. It was crowded with passengers at all hours of the day.
The road is there to-day; and I learned a curious thing in connection
with the line only recently. Twelve years ago the cashier of the
restaurant in the Mills Hotel No. 1, Mr. Bryan, was the manager of the
street-railway I had built in Birkenhead forty-two years ago.
Another incident of this period I should record here. I invited to
Birkenhead most of the leading journalists and writers of London, having
in view, of course, an intended invasion of the great metropolis. While
these men were together I suggested the organization of a literary club,
and this suggestion was the germ from which grew the Savage Club of
London. My speech at the opening of the first street-railway in the Old
World will appear in my forthcoming book of speeches.
As soon as I had completed my work in Birkenhead, I went to London, and
opened a campaign for "tramways" in that metropolis of 4,000,000 people.
It was a complex business from the first, and I had to make a study of
the government and the conditions, and, above all, of the prejudices of
citizens. The first step was to apply to every parish, for the parish
there is our ward, and something more, for it has a far greater measure
of home rule. Each parish had to grant permission for any tramway that
was to invade its ancient and sacred precincts.
The greatest difficulty was the one I had most dreaded from the
start--the opposition of the 'bus men. There are, or were at that time,
6,000 omnibuses in the streets of London, and in every one of the
drivers, and in every one who was interested in the profits of the
business, my tramway project had an unrelenting foe. I found that the
influence of these men was tremendous, because they reached the masses
of the people in a way that I could never hope to do. Their efforts were
unremitting. They worked upon the different parish governments, upon the
people at large, upon the municipal government, and upon Parliament
itself. I believe they had sufficient influence to have carried the war
even into the cabinet and to the throne.
However, as I shall soon relate, the opposition of the 'buses did not
prove to be as terrible in the end as I had feared. The heaviest blows
came from a higher source. The "people," in England, as elsewhere, seem
very powerful at first, in the beginnings of all enterprises. To oppose
them would seem to be inviting destruction. But in the end it is found
that the real power is lodged elsewhere, and whenever this real power
wants a thing done, the "people" do not exist. The fiction that they do
exist disappears at once in the clear atmosphere of "exigency."
The first of these real powers that I had to attack was the Metropolitan
Board of Aldermen. I appeared before the board with a carefully prepared
model of the tramways I proposed. It was a sort of public hearing, and
I was very closely questioned about the plans of operating the road, the
effect its presence in the narrow streets would have in interfering with
traffic, the danger of accidents, and so on. There was present a noble
lord who, I saw, was fighting desperately against the project. He eyed
me closely and made sharp interrogations. When he wished to be
particularly effective, as is the manner of Englishmen of his class, he
would drop his monocle, then readjust it carefully, with many writhings
and twistings of his eyebrows, and, when the single glass was properly
adjusted, half close the other eye and concentrate the full blaze of the
monocle upon his victim. If the victim survives this, so much the worse
for him, for he will then be subjected to a long drawl and to "hems" and
"haws" that would shatter the composure of a Philadelphia lawyer.
We soon took up the problem of laying the tramway up Ludgate Hill, where
the street is exceedingly narrow. His lordship fixed me with his
glittering monocle. I saw from which direction the firing would come.
After readjusting his monocle, so as to get the range better, he said:
"May I--ah--ask a question, Mr.--ah--Train?" When an Englishman wants to
be sarcastic, and ironical, and cutting, he finds the means readiest to
his mind in a pretended forgetting of your name.
"That is what I am here for, my lord," I replied, as graciously as
possible.
"You know, of course, how very narrow is Ludgate Hill. Suppose that when
I go down to the Mansion House in my carriage, one of my horses should
slip on your d--d rail, and break his leg--would you pay for the horse?"
This produced a sensation, for the English love a lord even more than we
plain Americans do. As soon as the stir had ceased, I replied, in a
voice that carried to the ends of the hall:
"My lord, if you could convince me that your d--d old horse would not
have fallen if the rail had not been there, I certainly should pay for
it." This retort caught the audience so happily that the tide swept
around my way, to the discomfiture of the noble lord. The hearing
resulted in my obtaining permission to lay a tramway from the Marble
Arch at Oxford Street and from Hyde Park to Bayswater, a distance of one
or two miles.
I soon built other lines, also: one from Victoria Station to Westminster
Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, and another from Westminster Bridge
to Kennington Gate on the way to Clapham. These were constructed on my
patent of a half-inch flange.
The omnibuses, defeated in this part of the fighting, resorted to
peculiar but effective tactics. As soon as I laid a portion of my
tracks--which was done upon the same terms under which I had put down
the line in Birkenhead--the 'bus drivers tried in every possible way to
wreck their vehicles on the rails. They would drive across again and
again and take the rails in the most reckless way, in order to catch and
twist their wheels. They were very often successful, and there were many
accidents of this sort. The excitement increased greatly with every foot
of track laid down. But the people, as in Birkenhead, were tremendously
in favor of the tramway. It was such a convenience to them that they
sided with me in the fight. The 'bus drivers and companies and the
aristocracy were against me--the one because my trams interfered with
their business, the other because they owned their private conveyances,
and did not like to drive across the rails. I dressed conductors and
drivers in the uniform of volunteers, to which many soldiers objected.
In the meanwhile the cars were crowded with passengers at all hours,
there being throughout the day a rush such as is seen in New York only
in what we call the "rush hours."
In all this excitement and press of travel, accidents were, of course,
unavoidable. I dreaded one, as I felt it would be the crucial point. It
might turn against me the popular feeling, now so strongly setting in my
direction, for the "mob" (so called) of London is fully as excitable and
as ungovernable as the "mob" of Paris, and its prejudices are more
deeply intrenched. Finally, the dreaded accident came. A boy was
killed, and I was arrested for manslaughter.
In order to appease public feeling, I paid the expenses of the boy's
funeral, and did everything that could possibly be done to pay, in a
material way, for his death. The accident was entirely unavoidable, and
the tramway was not responsible for it, but there was a great deal of
feeling, chiefly due to the agitation of the 'bus drivers. Sir John
Villiers Shelley, member of Parliament, a relative of the poet, who was
chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works and the representative of
the omnibus people, led the fight against me. We had a terrific
struggle. The bill to authorize the tramways had gone to Parliament, and
this was now defeated by a few votes. I had six of the ablest lawyers of
England to represent me (through Baxter, Rose & Norton, solicitors), but
the influence of the 'bus men, aided by the sentiment in certain
quarters against me on account of my speeches in favor of the American
Union, was too strong for me, and I had to abandon the fight in London.
I then went to the Potteries in Staffordshire, and there, after renewing
the same kind of fighting that I had had in London, in every new town I
undertook to lay railways in, I succeeded in building seven miles of
track through the crockery-making country. Those tracks are there
to-day.
My failure in London, which was to have been expected, must be set off
by these successes in Birkenhead and in Staffordshire. I am entitled to
the credit of laying the first street-railways in England, having to
overcome the most formidable of all the enemies of progress--British
prejudice. I afterward went to Darlington, where Stephenson had built
his first railway, from Stockton to Darlington, in '29, the year of my
birth, and I constructed a tramway there to connect the two steam
railways through that town.
My life, therefore, spans the entire railway building of the world. The
first railway was built the year I was born, and since that time, in a
space of seventy-three years, more than 200,000 miles of railway have
been constructed in the United States alone. In much of this great work
I have had some share. I suggested the railway that connects Melbourne
with its port, and mapped out the present railway system in Australia
thirty-nine years ago; I organized the line that connects the Eastern
States with the great Middle West--the Atlantic and Great Western
Railway; and I organized and built the first railway that pierced the
great American desert, and brought the Atlantic and Pacific coasts into
close touch and led to the development of the far West.
I may mention here, also, that I built a street-railway in Geneva,
Switzerland, which is still in use; and one in Copenhagen, which proved
that there was at least something sound in "the state of Denmark."
Other railways, as in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, suggested by me,
have been changed from horse to trolley lines. I also suggested the road
in Bombay, India, which was the first railway in all Asia, now extended.
It may be of interest to record that when I began building
street-railways, I sent to the United States and got the plans of the
Philadelphia roads and of the New York Third Avenue line. It was
therefore upon the models of American roads that these foreign railways
were constructed.
It is sometimes said that it is remarkable that little is known of my
connection with these great enterprises--for they were great, and
epoch-making. But my achievements in England, in the pioneer work of
building street-railways, is a matter of recorded history. An account of
my work there will be found in a book by Dr. Albert Shaw, editor of the
Review of Reviews, Municipal Government in Great Britain, as well as in
other books that deal with the industrial life of the period.