CHAPTER XIII.

Progress of Invention.—Public Roads.—Steam.—Duke of Bridgewater.—Canals.—Railroads.—Thomas Gray, their Pioneer.—His Difficulties.—Proposals for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.—Monopoly of the Canals.—Parliamentary Inquiry.—Extraordinary Opinions of Witnesses.—The Claims of Thomas Gray.—Value of Canal Property.

It is not unworthy of remark, that many of the greatest efforts of intellect are within the scope of the writer; as most of those works which have from time to time benefited the world, both socially and physically, have been assisted by the money power of England. Nor will the inquirer be backward in comparing the singular difficulties with which all inventions requiring great capital contended in the last century, with the remarkable facility which marks their progress in the present, if they fairly promise, as most grand inventions do, to interest the entire community, and pay ten per cent.

The annals of invention have ever been those of opposition; and the history of locomotion has been singularly illustrative of this. The journey from city to city, and from county to county, was once painfully slow. It is a subject of ridicule in the present day. A great feature with novelists, a few years ago, was to represent the incidents of a long inland journey. The memory of the reader will at once recur to “Tom Jones,” to “Humphrey Clinker,” and to the humorous scene drawn by the modern master of fiction in the opening chapter of “The Antiquary,” as some illustration of the liabilities of the traveller.

It is easier to ridicule than to reason, and safer to prophesy defeat than to predict success. The minds of the mass generally depreciate that which is beyond them; some fancy that they elevate themselves by lowering others; while the many, who bigotedly view all change as evil, doggedly refuse to acknowledge the good till they reap the fruit; and it is probable that the loudest grumbler in the railway-carriage of the present day was the loudest declaimer against locomotives a quarter of a century ago.

When the turnpikes were extended from the metropolis to the country, many of the counties petitioned Parliament against so heinous an attempt upon vested rights. The rustic gentleman grew eloquent upon the subject of rendering London accessible, and drew pictures of desolation, in which the grass was to grow in the streets, in which rents were to be reduced, cultivation was to be lowered, and the producer ruined. The toll-bars of the newly-made roads in the eighteenth century were torn to the ground, and the blood of a prejudiced people was shed in their defence. The first “flying coaches,” though six days were employed to do that which is now done in six hours, were met with invectives. It was said that they would be fatal to the breed of horses and the art of horsemanship;that saddlers and spurriers would be ruined; that the inns would be abandoned; and, above all, the Thames, as the great nursery of our seamen, would be destroyed. The post, that grand social benefit, was denounced, in Charles II.’s reign, as a Popish contrivance; and the first attempt to light the streets—an attempt which only made darkness visible—was vehemently attacked.

When the Margate steamboat, with its six hours’ journey, superseded the Margate hoy, which occupied almost as many days, the coach proprietors, under the idea that Margate was their peculiar property, and its visitors their particular prey, petitioned Parliament to support the coaches, at the expense of the steamers. A century and a half since, it was thought a great effort to run a coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow in three days; it is now done in one hour; and, only a century since, it occupied thirty-six hours in doing that which is now accomplished in four. Although this tediousness of transit was partially owing to what were by courtesy called roads, it must be remembered that then, as now, there were the prejudices of the people with which to contend; and, perfectly content with the existing state of things, the country gentlemen were most strenuous in their objections to the introduction of stage-coaches, on the plea that their wives would lose their domestic habits through travelling too frequently, and cease to be worthy housewives to the squirarchy of England.[5]

The floor of the House of Commons was covered with memorials from inkeepers and petitions from postboys. They merely indicated the selfishness of the memorialists, tired the patience of the senators, and wasted the time of the nation. But petitions in favor of “no progress” were not the only mode of opposition. When the Lea was made navigable, the farmers became furious, broke down the banks, and injured the river. Still, with the progress of the nation, the roads continued to improve. Transit became easier, more rapid, and cheaper; and just as the world was congratulating itself on the perfection of its highways, a new plan was proposed.

It soon became public, that a strange, eccentric nobleman, known as the Duke of Bridgewater, had a queer crotchet in his head to create a water-carriage, by cutting canals. It began also to be rumored, that this same eccentric Duke, seriously determined to finish what he had commenced, had reduced his personal expenses to £400 per annum, and given up the remainder of his rental to carry out his project. The many had no hesitation in declaring him insane; but his Grace scarcely thought of their opinions as he proceeded with his task; and the remarkable firmness of the Duke of Bridgewater, aided by the great mind of John Brindley, his architect, produced an effect which has already survived the pecuniary results at which he aimed. It is impossible in the present volume to do justice to the resolute character of the Duke, or tothe obstacles overcome by the skill of Mr. Brindley. Stupendous mounds of earth were removed, which seemed to demand Titanic power; supplies of water were procured sufficient to exhaust mountain springs and mountain rivulets; aqueducts were built far above the surface of the river, rivalling those which conveyed water to the Eternal City from the mountain recesses.

At last the prejudices of the ignorant multitude were uprooted, and the scientific few delighted. They who had gone to scoff remained to praise; and an engineer, who had sneeringly said they had heard of castles in the air, but now they were to see them realized, began to wonder as much at his own opposition as at the simple grandeur of the work he had derided. The chief business of the Duke’s agent was to ride about the country, borrowing money on the promissory notes of his Grace, whose bond for £500 was refused in the city, where great purposes are little regarded unless they promise a great percentage.

In five years the attempt was crowned with success, and the effect upon commerce became manifest. Liverpool received the manufactures of Manchester at a cheaper rate, and Manchester was supplied with goods from places hitherto comparatively inaccessible. The neighbouring woods and vales were visited by the pale denizen of the factory on the day of rest; and passengers were enabled to travel along that canal which they owed to the patient endurance and undeviating firmness of Francis, Duke of Bridgewater, and to the singular ability of his unrivalled architect, to both of whom personal comfort and public praise were nothing in comparison with the achievement of a great idea.

But a new power was in progress, which was to realize all the visions of a day-dreamer, and almost to annihilate both time and space. The progress and development of railways is one of the most interesting features in locomotion. About 1646, a Mr. Beaumont was ruined in attempting to convey coals in carriages of a novel construction. The necessity of some improvement in the conveyance of this article was, therefore, thus early recognized. Thirty years afterwards, a saving of thirty per cent. was effected by some tram-roads near Newcastle; and as information spread, and the great dogma thattime is moneybegan to be appreciated, further improvements were made. The wooden roller of the wagon was changed for an iron wheel with cast-iron rails. Plenty of claimants were found for this imperfect alteration, although soon after it was necessary to adopt a rail fixed a few inches above the ground. The next improvement was that which detached the horse, and made him follow the wagon; and when the road was constructed with two inclines, so that a descending train of loaded coal might draw up an empty one, it was thought that all which human ingenuity could effect had been achieved; and at this point it is probable the rail would have remained, but for the great discovery of steam-power, and its application to practical purposes. About 1760, coeval with the introduction of iron rails, Watt entertained the idea of employing steam as a moving power; but the design was abandoned; nor was it till 1802 that the attention of engineers was devoted to locomotive engines on railroads; when a patentwas taken out, and the principle tested with success at Merthyr Tydvil.[6]

The name of Thomas Gray in connection with railroads ranks at present among the many whose ideas were derided by the very men who afterwards adopted them. From an early period he formed the opinion that railways would become the principal mode of transit. It was his thought by day; it was his dream by night. He talked of it until his friends voted him an intolerable bore. He wrote of it until the reviewers deemed him mad. Coaches, canals, and steamboats were, in his mind, useless. His wisdom and far ken shadowed forth the path which the purse of others consummated; and, while the projector died steeped to the lips in poverty, the speculators realized great profits. His conversation was of a world which his companions could not comprehend. To appropriate the idea of Mr. Macaulay, there were fools then as there are fools now; fools who laughed at the railway as they had laughed at the canals; fools who thought they evinced their wisdom by doubting what they could not understand. For years his mind was absorbed by these dreams; and there was something magnificent in all his projects. He talked of enormous fortunes realized; of coaches annihilated; of one great general line;—and he was laughed at. He went to Brussels; and when a canal was proposed, he again advocated railways. At last he put his thoughts into form; wrote “Observations on a Railroad for the Whole of Europe”; and was ridiculed; the work being suppressed, lest men should call him mad. In 1820, however, he published a book which he called, “A general Iron Railway, or Land Steam Conveyance,” which attracted great notice. There was something so pertinacious in the man, and something so simple in his scheme, that, though it became the custom to laugh at him, his book went through many editions. When from Belgium he came to England, true to his theme, he went among the Manchester capitalists. The men who passed their lives among, and owed their fortunes to the marvels of machinery, were not yet equal to this. They listened graciously, and with a smile, something akin to pity, dismissed him as an incorrigible visionary. But opposition was vain; nor was Thomas Gray the man to be easily laughed down. He continued his labors, he continued to talk, to memorialize, to petition, to fill the pages of magazines, until the public mind was wearied and worried.

The first result of Gray’s great scheme was with the capital of those men who had previously derided him. The men of Manchester found they were paying too much for the cost of conveyance, and availed themselves of the idea they formerly denounced. A railway was projected between Liverpool and Manchester, and then commenced that ignorant opposition, of which one of the blue books contains such pregnant proof.By this it appears clearly that the transit between Liverpool and Manchester had long been insufficient. It was stated in evidence, that places were bespoke for goods, like places at a theatre. “It is not your turn yet,” was a common reply, if extraordinary energy were required; and it was clearly proved that the monopolizers would only send as much cotton as they chose, arbitrarily fixing the quantity at thirty bags a week. The fifty-five miles by canal occupied as long as the distance to New York. The boats were too few to convey the goods; and on one canal the proprietors received for their yearly dividend the amount of their original investment. In vain were the agents importuned to render conveyance more rapid and less expensive. The monopoly remained with the owner of the canal, who, blinded by a long course of success, could not see that, with the increase of business, an increased communication must be opened; and it is singular that, when the railroad was first contemplated, and its promoters applied to the agent to take some shares, an answer worthy of an autocratic government rather than a commercial age was given, of “all or none.” The shrewd merchants of the North chose the latter alternative.

The difficulties, therefore, with which the new invention had to contend, were legion; and the Parliamentary inquiry, already alluded to, produced one of the most remarkable blue books ever published. A few extracts from the folio will evince the extraordinary ideas entertained on the subject, the extraordinary ignorance evinced by men regarded as scientific, and the yet more extraordinary prejudice which marked the progress of opinion on railway transit. It is, however, right to say, that the friends and foes of the proposed scheme were equally unscrupulous in their endeavours to forward their interests, as levels were taken without permission, strawberry-beds destroyed, cornfields trodden down, and surveys taken by night, at the risk of life and limb. On the other hand, guns were discharged at the intruders; the land was watched incessantly; and the enthusiasm of the great engineer of the line narrowly escaped being cooled in a horsepond.

The objections urged by the opponents of the railway were worthy their cause. It was contended by them that canal conveyance was quicker; that the smoke of the engines would injure the plantations of gentlemen’s houses; and one witness, more imaginative than perceptive, described the locomotives as “terrible things,” although, on further questioning, he admitted he had never seen one. It was boldly declared, that a gale of wind would stop the progress of the carriage; that there would be no more practical advantage in a railway than in a canal; that Mr. Stephenson was totally devoid of common sense; that the plan was erroneous, impracticable, and unjust; and that the tendency of the railway would be to increase the price of carriage. It was declared to be based on fraud and folly; that balloons and rockets were as feasible, and that the whole line would be under water for two and three weeks in succession.

“It is quite idle and absurd,” said one, “to say the present scheme can ever be carried into execution, under any circumstances, or in any way.” “Whenever,” said another, with the authority of an oracle, “Providence in Lancashire is pleased to send rain or a little mizzlingweather, expeditious it cannot be.” A third gave it as his opinion, that no engine could go in the night-time, “because,” he added, more Scripturally than soundly, “the night-time is a period when no man can work!”

It was said that no one would live near a spot passed by the engines, that no houses would let near a station; and that all property on the line would be frightfully deteriorated. Not content, however, with proving the impracticability of the plan, the most frivolous causes were adduced to show why this, the grandest national project ever brought forward, a project which has changed the face and features of the land, the commerce of the country, and the social habits of the rural population, should not be allowed to pass.

The public services of a railroad were put in competition with the annoyance which an individual would receive from the smoke of the engines coming within 250 yards of his house; and it was pathetically asked, “Can any thing compensate for this?” Gentlemen objected because it would injure their prospects, and land-owners because it would injure their pockets! Pictures of ancient family residences destroyed by the smoke were vividly drawn. The claims of unprotected females and reverend gentlemen were strongly urged; and pathetic representations were given of families, who had lived for centuries in their ancestral home, leaving the dwelling-place of their youth, and going to another part of the town.

“Mr. Stephenson,” it was boldly declared, “is totally devoid of common sense. He makes schemes without seeing the difficulties.” “Upon this shuffling evidence, we are called to pass the bill.” “It is impossible to hold this changing Proteus in any knot whatsoever.” “It is the greatest draught upon human credulity ever heard of.”

“There is nothing,” said one, “but long sedgy grass to prevent the train from sinking into the shades of eternal night.” “They cannot go so fast as the canal,” said another. A third appealed to the pocket. “If this bill succeeds, by the time railroads are set going, the poor, gulled subscribers will have lost all their money; and, instead of locomotive engines, they must have recourse to horses or asses, not meaning to say which.” Those whose interests would be affected decided that “locomotives could not succeed”; and numberless were the sneers at the idea of engines galloping as fast as five miles an hour. One sapient gentleman thought the trains might go at four miles and a half in fine weather, but not more than two and a half in wet.

“When we set out with the original prospectus,” was the remark of the counsel, “we were to gallop I know not at what rate. I believe it was twelve miles an hour, with the aid of a devil in the form of a locomotive sitting as postilion on the fore-horse, and an honorable member sitting behind him to stir up the fire, and keep it up at full speed. I will show they cannot go six. I may be able to show we shall keep up with him by the canal.” “Thus, Sir, I prove that locomotive engines cannot move at more than four miles and a quarter an hour; and I show the scheme is bottomed on deception and fallacy.”

Turnpike trusts were to be ruined, and therefore railroads were not to be forwarded; and it was deemed unanswerable to say that the canalinterests would be hurt by the rail. Though it was proved by others that more money had been offered for land if the line passed through than if it did not, it was of no importance in the eyes of those who, blinded by selfishness, refused to be convinced. The war-cry on one side was the venerable “vested rights”; on the other, “progress.”

Men prosily and pathetically talked of tempting Providence by travelling at the rate of twelve miles an hour. The fine breed of English horses would be deteriorated, and our cavalry be worsted at the first onset. The prosperity of a great community was said to be involved in the contest; and the question whether a few miles of railway would peril the welfare of the kingdom, was openly discussed. Stable-boys joined in the contest, and urged the greatness of their claim; the porters proved how important a class would be sacrificed to so unimportant an end; and the clergy, alarmed lest the rustic should neglect the Sunday sermon to see the passing train, added to the number of petitions. A million horses were to be thrown out of service, and eight millions of oat-growing acres to be abandoned. Gentlemen with neither sense nor science wrote treatises to demonstrate the danger of travelling more than ten miles an hour, and, at the same time, left on record their want of sympathy with crack-brained speculators.

But if the opponents were thus bitter in their attack upon the new scheme, they were equally ingenious in their defence of the canal. It was described as never subject to drought; the frost never stopped it; the sun never lowered it; accidents never happened on it. Its friends were also hardy enough to contend, that a saving of nine miles an hour was not sufficient to justify the attempt; and “therefore,” added one who supported this argument, “I do protest against the despotism of the Exchange at Liverpool striding across the land of this country.” The reply to all these objections is in the fact that some thousands of miles are now open to the public.

The Manchester and Liverpool Railway succeeded; but no reward was conferred upon Thomas Gray. Other railways followed, and were successful; but no notice was taken of Thomas Gray. The great railway mania came; but Thomas Gray was nothing in the eyes of excited speculators, greedy of gain. An endeavour was made by some of the friends of Gray to win for him the public sympathy; and the poor, old, broken-hearted man, when he respectfully begged for a situation on one of those railways which he had so greatly forwarded, was refused.

“The claim of Gray,” said theWestminster Review, “is, that he found the railway and the locomotive in the condition of mere miners’ tools, dragged them to light, and proclaimed them as the means of universal progress. He published a practical plan, in 1820, which was scoffed at on all hands; but in 1830 was made a fact by George Stephenson, though in 1829 it was almost considered a certain thing that the haulage on the Liverpool and Manchester would either be performed by horse-power or by stationary engines.”

The truth of these assertions has never been called in question. The railway press has generally recognized it. Public subscriptions for the public benefactor were proposed. A petition in his favor was forwardedto the House of Commons. But Thomas Gray was poor, and without influence; and has added another name to those who have benefited and been buffeted by mankind. Neglected by the directors of the great works he had pioneered into existence; neglected by the state, whose profits from railway stamps and railway duties are mainly owing to him; neglected by the great mass of men, who avail themselves of the conveyance which once they derided; the “railway pioneer,” that title which to the last he so dearly loved, died steeped to his lips in poverty, while the speculators reaped large gains.

It is a curious circumstance in financial history, that Lord Francis Egerton, the representative of the great canal projector, received shares which produced a clear profit of more than £100,000, to prevent his opposition in the House of Peers; although it is a most suggestive fact, that, with the increase of railway travelling, canal property has absolutely improved. The following is the price of shares in 1824:—

FOOTNOTES:[5]The road to Paddington, now known as the New Road, was hotly contested by the Duke of Bedford, on account of the dust it would create, and the view it would abridge. Walpole wrote, that the Duke was never in town to feel the dust, and was too short-sighted to see the prospect.[6]The attempt of Mr. Ogle to run locomotives on the public roads must have cost him many thousands; and nothing but the same popular prejudice which attempted to prove that engines on railroads would send horses mad with fright, prevented this great attempt from becoming general. The reader must remember the grave shaking of heads which met Mr. Ogle’s cherished design, as similar heads have always been shaking at novel propositions.

[5]The road to Paddington, now known as the New Road, was hotly contested by the Duke of Bedford, on account of the dust it would create, and the view it would abridge. Walpole wrote, that the Duke was never in town to feel the dust, and was too short-sighted to see the prospect.

[6]The attempt of Mr. Ogle to run locomotives on the public roads must have cost him many thousands; and nothing but the same popular prejudice which attempted to prove that engines on railroads would send horses mad with fright, prevented this great attempt from becoming general. The reader must remember the grave shaking of heads which met Mr. Ogle’s cherished design, as similar heads have always been shaking at novel propositions.

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