Before entering upon any description of the new life that awaited me in Glasgow, I will briefly allude to the principal events connected with the Midland and with railways generally which took place during the first five years of my railway career.
Closely associated with many of these events was Mr. James Allport, the Midland general manager, one of the foremost and ablest of the early railway pioneers, regarding whom it is fit and proper a few words should be said. Strangely enough I never saw him until nearly two years after I entered the Midland service, and this was on the occasion of a visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to Derby. We clerks were allowed good positions on the station platform to witness the arrival of their Royal Highnesses by their special train from London. Mr. Allport accompanied them along the platform to the carriages outside the station. Probably the chairman and directors of the company were also present, but our eyes were not for them. Directors were to us junior clerks, remote personalities, mythical beings dwelling on Olympian heights.
Sir James Allport
It was a great thing to see the future King and Queen of England, and our loyalty and enthusiasm knew no bounds. They were young and charming, and beloved by the people; but, hero worshipper as I was, our great general manager was to me even more than royalty. I little thought, as I looked on Mr. Allport then, that, twenty years later, I should appear beforehim to give evidence concerning Irish railways, when he was chairman of an important Royal Commission.
The great abilities which enable a man to win and hold such a position as his fired my fancy. I look at men and men’s affairs with different eyes now; but Mr. Allport was a great personality, and youthful enthusiasm might well be excused for placing him on a high pedestal. He was tall and handsome, with well-shaped head, broad brow, large clear keen eyes, firm well-formed mouth, strong nose and chin, possessed of an abundant head of hair, not close cropped in the style of to-day, but full and wavy, and what one never sees now, a handsome natural curl along the centre of the head with a parting on each side. This suited him well, and added to his distinctive individuality. When I entered the Midland service he was fifty-six years of age and in the plenitude of his power, for those were days when the company was forcing its way north and south and widely extending its territory. He was the animating spirit of all the company’s enterprises. No opposition, no difficulties ever daunted him. His nature was bold and fitted to command, and to him is due, in a large degree, the proud position the Midland holds to-day. It was not until late in life, 1884 I think, when he had reached the age of seventy-two, that his great qualities were accorded public recognition. He then received the honour of knighthood but had retired from active service and become a director of his company.
There was another personality that loomed large, in those years, on the Midland—Samuel Swarbrick, the accountant. His world was finance, and in it he was a master. So great was his skill that the Great Eastern Railway Company, which, financially, was in a parlous condition and their dividendnil, in 1866 took him from the Midland and made him their general manager, at, in those days, a princely salary. Their confidence was fully justified; his skill brought the company, if not to absolute prosperity, at least to a dividend-paying condition, and laid the foundation of the position that company now occupies.
His reputation as a man of figures stood as I have just said very high, but, whilst I was at Derby, and before he moved to the Great Eastern, he was prominent also as the happy possessor of the best coloured meerschaum pipes in the county, and this, in those days, was no small distinction. Buta man does not achieve greatness by his own unaided efforts. Others, his subordinates, help him to climb the ladder. It was so with Mr. Swarbrick. There was a tall policeman in the service of the company, the possessor of a fine figure, and a splendid long sandy-coloured beard. His primary duty was to air himself at the front entrance of the station arrayed in a fine uniform and tall silk hat, and this duty he conscientiously performed. Secondarily, his occupation was to start the colouring of new meerschaums for Mr. Swarbrick. Non-meerschaum smokers may not know what a delicate task this is, but once well begun the rest is comparatively easy. The tall policeman was an artist at the work; but it nearly brought him to a tragic end, as I will relate.
Outside Derby station was a ticket platform at which all incoming trains stopped for the collection of tickets. This platform was on a bridge that crossed the river. One Saturday night our fine policeman was airing himself on this platform, colouring a handsome new meerschaum for Mr. Swarbrick. It was a windy night and a sudden gust blew his tall hat into the river, and after it unfortunately dropped the meerschaum. Hat and pipe both! Without a moment’s hesitation in plunged the policeman to the rescue; but the river was deep and he an indifferent swimmer. The night was dark and he was not brought to land till life had nearly left him. He recovered, but lost his sight and became blind for the rest of his life. Mr. Swarbrick provided for him, I believe, by setting him up in a small public house, where, I am told, despite his loss of sight, he ended his days not unhappily.
In 1867, compared with 1851, the Midland had made giant strides. It worked a thousand miles of railway against five hundred; its capital had doubled and reached thirty-two millions, about one-fourth of what it is to-day; its revenue had risen from about a million to over a million and a half; and the dividend was five and a half compared with two and five-eighths per cent.
The opening of the Midland route to Saint Pancras; the projection of the Settle and Carlisle line; the introduction of Pullman cars, parlour saloons, sleeping and dining cars; the adoption of gas and electricity for the lighting of carriages; the running of third-class carriages by all trains; theabolition of second-class and reduction of first-class fares; and the establishment of superannuation funds were amongst the most striking events in the railway world during this period.
On the first day of October, 1868, the first passenger train ran into Saint Pancras station, and the Midland competition for London traffic now began in earnest, and from that time onward helped to develop those magnificent rival passenger train services between the Metropolis and England’s busy centres and between England and Scotland and Ireland, which, for luxury, speed and comfort, stand pre-eminent. Prior to this, the Midland access to London had been by the exercise of running powers over the Great Northern Railway from Hitchin to King’s Cross. The Great Northern, reluctant to lose the Midland, and fearing their rivalry, had, a few years previously, offered them running powers in perpetuity. “No,” said Mr. Allport, “it is impossible that you can reconcile the interests of these two great companies on the same railway; we are always onlysecond-best.” Second-best certainly never suited the ambitious policy of the Midland, and so the offer was rejected, and their line to London made. It was at that time thought that the Midland headquarters would be removed from Derby to London, and I remember how excited the clerical staff and their wives and sweethearts were at the prospect. The idea was seriously considered but, for various reasons, abandoned.
The Settle and Carlisle line, perhaps the greatest achievement of the Midland, was not completed until sometime after I left their service. It was opened in the year 1875. In 1866 they obtained the Act for its construction. For some years their eyes had been as eagerly turned towards Scotland as the eyes of Scotchmen had ever been towards England, and for the same reason—the hope of gain. The Midland had hitherto been excluded from any proper share of the Scotch traffic, but now having secured the right to extend their system to Carlisle, they hoped to join forces with their allies, the Glasgow and South-Western, and secure a fair share of it. But “there’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip,” and in 1869 in a fit of timidity—a weakness most unusual with them—they nearly lost this valuable right. The year 1867 was a time of great financial anxiety; the Midland was weighted with heavy expenditure on their London extension, thenecessity for further capital became clamant, the shareholders were seized with alarm, and a shareholders’ consultative committee was appointed, with the result that, in 1869, the company, badgered and worried beyond endurance, actually applied to Parliament for power to abandon the Settle and Carlisle line, and for authority to enter into an agreement with the London and North-Western for access over that company’s railway to Carlisle. That power and authority, however, Parliament,in its wisdom, refused to give.
The financial clouds, as all clouds do, after a time dispersed; the outlook grew brighter, the Midland made the line, and it was opened, as I have said, throughout to Carlisle in 1875.
In the autumn of 1872 Mr. Allport visited the United States and was greatly impressed with the Pullman cars. On his return he introduced them on the Midland, both the parlour car and the sleeper. About the same time the London and North-Western also commenced the running of sleeping cars to Scotland and to Holyhead. To which company belongs the credit of being first in the field with this most desirable additional accommodation for the comfort of passengers I am not prepared to say; perhaps honors were easy.
But the greatest innovation of the time were the running by the Midland of third-class carriages by all trains; and the abolition of second-class carriages and fares, accompanied by a reduction of the first-class fares. The first event took place in 1872, but the latter not till 1875. The first was a democratic step indeed, and aroused great excitement. Williams, in his bookThe Midland Railway, wrote, “On the last day of March, 1872, we remarked to a friend: ‘To-morrow morning the Midland will be the most popular railway in England.’ Nor did we incur much risk by our prediction. For on that day the Board had decided that on and after the first of April, they would run third-class carriages by all trains; the wires had flashed the tidings to the newspapers, the bills were in the hands of the printers, and on the following morning the Directors woke to find themselves famous.” At a later period, Mr. Allport said, if there was one part of his public life on which he looked back with more satisfaction than another it was the time when this boon was conferred on third-class passengers.
When we contemplate present conditions of third-class travel it is hardto realise what they were before this change took place; slow speed, delays and discomfort; bare boards; hard seats; shunting of third-class trains into sidings and waiting there for other trains, sometimes even goods trains, to pass. Mr. Allport might well be proud of the part he played.
Another matter which concerned, not so much the public as the welfare of the clerical staff of the railways, was the establishment of Superannuation Funds; yet the public was interested too, for the interests of the railway service and the general community are closely interwoven. Up till now station masters and clerks had struggled on without prospect of any provision for their old age. Their pay was barely sufficient to enable them to maintain a respectable position in life and afforded no margin for providing for the future.
At last, the principal railway companies, with the consent of their shareholders, and with Parliamentary sanction, established Superannuation Funds, which ever since have brought comfort and security to their officers and clerical staff, and have proved of benefit to the companies themselves. A pension encourages earlier retirement from work, quickens promotion, and vitalises the whole service. On nearly all railways retirement is optional at sixty and compulsory at sixty-five.
The London and North-Western was the first company to adopt the system of superannuation, the London and South-Western second, the Great Western came third, the Midland fourth, and other companies followed in their wake.
In 1873 the Railway Clearing House obtained Parliamentary power to form a fund for its staff, with permission to railway companies not large enough to successfully run funds of their own, and also to the Irish Railway Clearing House, to become partners in this fund. The Irish Clearing House took advantage of this, as also have many railway companies, and practically the whole of the clerical service throughout the United Kingdom can to-day look forward to the benefits of superannuation.
On the last day of December, in the year 1872, between seven and eight o’clock in the evening, I arrived at Glasgow by the Caledonian train from Carlisle, and was met at Buchanan Street Station by my good friend Tom.
After supper we repaired to the streets to see the crowds that congregate onHogmanhay, to make acquaintance with the mysteries of “first-footin’,” and to join in ushering in the “guid new year.” It was a stirring time, for Scotchmen encounter theirHogmanhaywith ardentspirits. They are as keen in their pleasures as in their work. Compare for instance their country dances with ours. As Keats, in his letters from Scotland says, “it is about the same as leisurely stirring a cup o’ tea and beating up a batter pudding.” The public houses and bars were driving a lively trade, but “Forbes Mackenzie” was in force, and come eleven o’clock, though it were a hundredHogmanhays, they all had to close. We met some new-made friends of Tom’s and joined in their conviviality. I was the dark complexioned man of the party, and as a “first-footer” in great request. We did not go home till morning, and reached there a little hilarious ourselves, but it was our firstHogmanhayand may be forgiven.
Dear reader, did you ever lie in aconcealed bed? It is a Scottish device cunningly contrived to murder sleep. At least so Tom and I found it. It was my fate to sleep, to lie I should say, in one for several weeks. Its purpose is to economise space, and like Goldsmith’s chest of drawers, it is“contrived a double debt to pay,” a sleeping room by night, a sitting room by day.
Whilst Glasgow is a city offlatsits people are resourceful and energetic. Keen and canny, they drive a close bargain but, scrupulous and conscientious, fulfil it faithfully. Proud of their city and its progress, its industries and manufactures, its civic importance, they are a little disdainful perhaps, perhaps a little jealous, of their beautiful elder sister, Edinburgh. Glasgow is the Belfast of Scotland!
Self-contained houses are the exception and are limited to the well-to-do. The flat, in most cases, means a restricted number of apartments, insufficient bedroom accommodation, and theconcealed bedis Glasgow’s way of solving the difficulty.
Tom and I did not take kindly to our hole in the wall, and soon found other lodgings where space was not so circumscribed, and where we could sleep in an open bed in an open room.
Our new quarters were a great success; a ground-floor flat with a fine front door; a large well-furnished sitting room with two windows looking out on to the street, and an equally large double-bedded room at the back of the sitting room. Our landlady, a kind, motherly, canny Scotchwoman, looked after us well and favoured us with many a bit of good advice: “You must be guid laddies, and tak care o’ the bawbees; you maun na eat butchers’ meat twice the week; tak plenty o’ parritch and dinna be extravagant.” Economy with the good old soul was a cardinal virtue, waste a deadly sin. I fear she was often shocked at our easy Saxon ways, though Tom and I thought ourselves models of thrift.
Once, it was on a Sunday, Tom and I, with a party of friends, had had a very long walk, a regular pedestrian excursion, thirty miles, there or thereabouts, to use a Scotticism, and poor Tom was quite knocked up and confined to bed for several days. Our good old landlady was greatly shocked; a strict Sabbatarian, she knew it was a punishment for “breakin’ the Sabbath; why had na ye gane to the kirk like guid laddies?” We modestly reminded her that we always did go, excepting of course on this particular Sunday. “Then whit business had ye to stay awa on ony Sabbath?” We had nothing to say in answer to this. The dear old creaturewas really shocked at our backsliding; but she nursed Tom very tenderly all the same.
When the sultry heat of summer came we found Glasgow very trying, and though sorry to leave our good landlady, moved into the country, to Cambuslang, a village some four miles from the city, which was then becoming a favourite residential resort.
At Cambuslang I made the acquaintance and became the friend ofCynicus, the humorous artist whose satirical sketches have, for many years, been well-known and well sold in England, in Scotland and in Ireland too. He was then a youth of about twenty. Longing to see the world and without the necessary means, he emulated Goldsmith, made a prolonged tour in France and Italy supporting himself not by his flute nor by disputations, but by his brush and palette. For a few weeks at a time he worked in towns or cities, sold what he painted, and then, with purse replenished, wandered on. He and I were living “doon the watter,” at Dunoon, on the Clyde, one summer month. A Fancy Dress Bazaar was on at the time. The first evening we went to it, and he, unobserved, made furtive sketches of the most prominent people and the prettiest girls. We both sat up all that night, he working at and finishing the sketches. Next morning by the first boat and first train, we took them to Glasgow, had six hundred lithographic copies struck off; back post-haste to Dunoon; in the evening to the Bazaar, and sold the copies at threepence each. It was an immense success; we could have disposed of twice the number; every pretty girl’s admirer wanted a copy of her picture, and the portraits of the presiding “meenister” and of the good-looking unmarried curate were eagerly purchased by fond mammas and adoring daughters. We had our fun, and cleared besides a profit of nearly four pounds sterling. This financialcoupwould not have come off so well but for the warm-hearted co-operation of our railway printers, McCorquodale and Coy. They, good people, entered into our exploit with a will, did their part well, and made little if any profit, generously leaving that toCynicusand myself.
To his mother, like many another clever son,Cynicusowed his talent. She was a woman of great intellectual endowment, with highly cultivated literary tastes. Her memory was remarkable and her conversational powersvery great. She read much and thought deeply. In a modest way her parlour, which attracted many young people of literary and artistic leanings, recalled theSalonsof France of a century ago. She entertained charmingly with tea and cakes and delightful talk. Of strong, firm, decided character, she might, perhaps, have been thought a little deficient in womanly gentleness had not genuine kindness of heart, motherly feeling, and a happy humour lent a softness to her features and imparted to them a particular charm. She exercised an authority over her household which inspired respect and contrasted strikingly with the easy-going parental ways of to-day. There were other sons and there were daughters also, all more or less gifted, butCynicuswas the genius of the family—its bright particular star.
The various lodgings of my bachelor days was never quite of the conventional sort. The Cambuslang quarters certainly were not. The house was large and old-fashioned. Originally it had been two smallish houses: the two front doors still remained side by side, but only one was used. The rooms on the ground floor were small, the original building composed of one storey only, but another had been added of quite spacious dimensions. We had two excellent, large well-furnished rooms upstairs. The landlady was an interesting character and so was her husband. She was Irish, he Scotch; she about seventy years of age, he under fifty; she ruddy, healthy, hearty, good-looking; he, pale, nervous, shy, retiring. But on the last Thursday of each month he was quite another man. On that day he went to Glasgow to collect the rents of some small houses he owned; and generally came home rather “fou” and hilarious, when the old lady would take him in hand, and put him to bed.
They had an only child, a son, a grown up man, an uncouth ill-looking ungainly fellow, who did no work, smoked and loafed about, but was the idol of his mother. He resembled neither parent in the least, and, except that such vagaries of nature are not unknown, it might have been supposed that some cuckoo had visited the parental nest.
A gaunt, hard-featured domestic completed this interesting family, and she was uncommon too. By no means young, what Balzac calls “a woman of canonical age,” she resembled Père Grandet’s tall Nanon. Like Nanon, she had been the devoted servant of the family for nearly a quarter of a century,and like her, had no interest outside that of her master and mistress. She was always working, rarely went out, spoke little, but ministered to the wants of Tom and myself, and waited on us with unremitting attention.
Despite all drawbacks, however, they were fine lodgings. The old lady was a wonderful cook and had all the liberality of her race.
New Year’s Day, the great Scotch holiday, Tom and I spent in Edinburgh, and returned much impressed with its stately beauty.
The next morning I entered upon my work at St. Rollox, where the stores department of the Caledonian Railway is situated. The head of the department was styled Stores Superintendent. I thought him the most impressive looking man I had ever seen. He overpowered me; in his presence I never felt at ease. He was a big man, and looked bigger than he was; good-looking too; ruddy, portly, well-dressed and formal. An embodiment of commercial energy and dignity. In his face gravity, keenness, and good health were blended. Soon after I joined his staff he left the Caledonian to become General Manager of Young’s Paraffin Oil Company, and subsequently its Managing Director. Success, I believe, always attended him. No position could lose any of its importance in his hands. When he left St. Rollox a great blank was felt; he filled so large a space. He has lately gone to his rest full of years and honors.
I fear he never liked me, nor had any great opinion of my abilities. This was not to be wondered at, for I am sure I did not display any excessive zeal for the work on which I was then employed, and which I found monotonous and uninteresting.
He confided to his chief clerk, who was my friend, that one day he had seen me, in business hours, in the city, smoking a cigarette and looking at the girls, and was sure I would never do much good. He had very strict business notions. I confessed to the cigarette, but not to the graver charge. It was a wholesome tonic, however, and pulled me up. I wanted to get on in life; ambition was stirring within me; and I formed some good resolutions which, as time went on, I kept more or less faithfully.
At St. Rollox one’s daily lunch was a matter of some difficulty. It was a district of factories, and the only restaurants were the Great Western Cooking Depots, where one could get a steak and bread and cheese forfivepence, but the rooms and tables and accessories were, to say the least, unappetising. Hunger had to be satisfied, however, and I had to swallow my pride and my five-pennyworth. I varied this occasionally by bringing with me my own sandwiches and eating them seated on a tombstone in Sighthill cemetery, which was less than a quarter of a mile distant from the stores department.
My work, as I have said, was monotonous enough: writing letters from dictation, an occupation which gave but little exercise to one’s faculties. I obtained some variation by occasionally taking a turn through the various stores and getting into touch with the practical men in charge. They were always very civil and ready to talk of their business, and so I learned something of the nature, quality, uses and cost of many things necessary to the working of a railway, which I afterwards found very useful. Occasionally also I visited the laboratory, in which an analytical chemist was regularly engaged.
The event which, in my short service of two years with the Caledonian, seemed to me of the greatest moment, was that, after six months or so, I became a taxpayer! This was an event indeed. In the offices at Derby it was only, as a rule, middle-aged or old men who attained this proud distinction; and here was I, not yet twenty-two, with my salary raised to £100 a year, paying income tax at the rate ofthreepencein the pound on forty pounds, for an abatement of sixty pounds was allowed. Until I got used to the novelty I was as proud as Lucifer.
The office in which I now worked had no Apollos, no literary geniuses, no Long Jacks, no boy benedicts, such as adorned our desks at Derby, but it rejoiced in onerara avis, who came a few months after and left a few months before me. He was a middle-aged, aristocratic, kind, good-hearted, unbusinesslike man, and was brother to a baronet. He professed a knowledge of medicine and brought a bottle, a bolus or a plaster, whichever he deemed best, whenever any of us complained of cold or cough, of headache or backache or any ailment whatever. When he left we all received from him a parting gift. Mine was a handsome, expensive, red-felt chest protector. I wore it constantly for a year or two and, for aught I know, it may be that by its protecting influence against the rigour of Glasgow winters,the bituminous atmosphere of St. Rollox and the smoke-charged fogs of the city, I am alive and well to-day. Who can tell? It is certain that I then had a bad cough nearly always; and this I am sure was what decided the form of his parting gift to me.
It was about this time that I attended my first public dinner and made my first speech in public. Several days before the event I was told that, being in the Volunteer Force, I had been placed on the toast list to reply for the Army, Navy and Volunteers. It was a railway dinner, for the purpose of celebrating the departure to England, on promotion, of the chief clerk in the Midland Railway Company’s Scottish Agency Office. The dinner was largely attended. The idea of having to speak filled me with trepidation. But to my great surprise I acquitted myself with credit. Once on my legs I found that nervousness left me, words came freely and I even enjoyed the novel experience. To suddenly discover oneself proficient where failure had been feared increases self esteem and adds to the sum of happiness. At this dinner I also made my first acquaintance with that “Great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race,” theHaggis, which deserves the pre-eminence it enjoys.
One night, towards the end of December, in 1874, when skating by moonlight, not far from Cambuslang, I chanced to meet a young friend, a clerk in the Glasgow and South-Western Railway, who, like myself, was enjoying the pleasures of the ice. Tom was not with me, for he, poor fellow! was not well enough to be out o’ nights in winter. My young friend gave me, with great eagerness, a rare piece of news. Mr. Johnstone, the Glasgow and South-Western general manager, was retiring and Mr. Wainwright was to succeed him! Well, that did not excite me, and I wondered at his earnestness; but more was to follow. Mr. Wainwright, as general manager, required a principal clerk and there was, it seemed, no one in the place quite suitable. He must be good at correspondence, and expert at shorthand. I was, my young friend said, the very man; I must apply. Mr. Wainwright was English, so was I; I came from the Midland, and the Midland and the Glasgow and South-Western were hand and glove. How lucky we had met; he had not thought of me till this very moment. It was fate. Would I write tonight? By this time I was as eager as himself. No more skating for me that night. I hurried home, Tom and I composed a careful and judiciousletter. I posted it in Her Majesty’s pillar box hard by; went to bed, but was too excited to sleep. An answer soon came, and an interview with Mr. Wainwright followed. I received the appointment, at a salary of £120 a year to begin with; and in the early days of the new year, two years after my first appearance in Scotland, entered upon my duties, not at Saint Enoch Station, where the headquarters of the Glasgow and South-Western now are, but at Bridge Street Station on the south side of the river, where the office staff of the company was then accommodated.
Such unromantic literature as Acts of Parliament had not, it may be supposed, up to this, formed part of my mental pabulum. I knew that an Act was a necessary preliminary to the construction of a railway, and this was all I knew concerning the relations between the railways and the State. Whilst a little learning may be a dangerous thing, in my new situation, I soon discovered that a general manager’s clerk would be the better of possessing some knowledge of the numerous Acts of Parliament that affected railway companies. Almost daily questions arose in which such knowledge was useful; so I determined to become acquainted with them, and in my leisure hours made as profound a study as I could of that compilation which, in railway offices was then in general use—Bigg’s General Railway Acts. I found the formidable looking volume more readable than I had imagined and less difficult to understand than I had expected.
Governments have ever kept a watchful eye on railway companies. Up to 1875, the year at which we have now arrived, no less than 112 general Acts of Parliament affecting railways had been placed on the Statute Book of the realm. They were applicable to all railways alike, and in addition to and independent of the special Acts which each company must obtain for itself, first for its incorporation and construction, and afterwards for extensions of its system, for the raising of capital, and for various other purposes.
Many of the general Acts have been framed upon the recommendationsof various Select Committees and Royal and Vice-Regal Commissions, which have been appointed from time to time since railways began. From 1835 down to the present year of 1918 some score or more of these Committees and Commissions have gravely sat and issued their more or less wise and weighty reports.
What are these numerous Acts of Parliament and what are their objects, scope, and intentions?
Whilst neither time nor space admit of detailed exposition, not to speak of the patience of my readers, a few observations upon some of the principal enactments may not be inapposite or uninteresting.
Pride of place belongs to theCarriers’ Actof 1830, passed in the reign of William IV., five years after the first public railway (the Stockton and Darlington) was opened. This Act, although in it the wordrailwaydoes not appear, is an important Act to railway companies, and possesses the singular and uncommon merit of having been framed for theprotectionof Common Carriers. It is intituled “An Act for the more effectual Protection of Mail Contractors, Stage Coach Proprietors, and other Common Carriers for Hire, against the Loss or Injury to Parcels or Packages delivered to them for Conveyance or Custody, the Value and Contents of which shall not be Declared to them by the Owners thereof.” The draughtsman of this dignified little Act it is clear was greatly addicted tocapitals. Probably he thought they heightened effect, much as Charles Lamb spelt plum pudding with ab—“plumb pudding,” because, he said, “it reads fatter and more suetty.” At the time this Act came into being, railways in the eye of Parliament were public highways, upon which you or I, if we paid the prescribed tolls, could convey our traffic, our vehicles, or ourselves. In the years 1838-1840 many of the companies obtained powers enabling them to act as public carriers; and in 1840 questions having arisen in Parliament as to the rights of the public in this respect the subject was referred to a Select Committee of the House of Commons. The Committee’s report disposed of the view which, until then, Parliament had held, and expressed the opinion that the right of persons to run their own engines and carriages was a dead letter for the good reason, amongst others, that it was necessary for railway trains to be run and controlled by and under one complete undivided authority.
After theCarriers’ Act, which applied to all carriers as well as to railways, the first general railway Act of importance was theRailways (Conveyance of Mails) Actof 1838. This Act enabled the Postmaster-General to require railway companies to convey mails by all trains and to provide sorting carriages when necessary, the Royal Arms to be painted on such carriages, and in 1844, under theRailway Regulation Act, it was further enacted that the Postmaster-General could require, for the conveyance of mails, that trains should be run at any rate of speed,certified to be safe, but not to exceed 27 miles an hour!
As I have said, the Select Committee of 1840 reported against the right of the public to run their own engines and carriages on railways. They made recommendations which led to the passing of theRailway Regulation Actof that year, and in that Act powers were, for the first time, conferred upon the Board of Trade in connection with railways. It was the beginning of that authority, which since has greatly grown, but which the Board of Trade have in the main exercised with an impartiality, which public authorities do not always display. The Act empowered the Board, before any new railway was opened, to require notice from the railway company. This power was repealed by an Act of 1842, and larger powers granted in its place, including the right to compel the inspection of such railways before being opened for traffic. The Act of 1840 also required the companies, under penalty, to furnish to the Board of Trade returns of traffic, as well as of all accidents attended with personal injury; and to submit their bye-laws for certification.
Of therailway maniaperiod I have spoken in a previous chapter. For a time enormous success attended some of the lines. Amongst others the Liverpool and Manchester and the Stockton and Darlington enjoyed mouth watering dividends; the former ten, the latter fifteen per cent.! Said the Government to themselves, “’Tis time we saw to this,” and accordingly they passed theRailway Regulation Actof 1844. This Act provided that if at any time, after twenty-one years, the dividend of any railway should exceed ten per cent., the Treasury might revise the rates and fares so as to reduce the profits to not more than ten per cent. This expectation of high dividends, I need hardly say, has not been realised, and the Act in this respect has been a dead letter. The Act also conferred an option on the Treasury to acquirefuture railways at twenty-five years purchase of the annual profits; or, if such profits were less than ten per cent., the price was to be left to arbitration.
It is interesting now, when, owing to the war, the railways of the land are under temporary Government control, and their future all uncertain, to remember that, on the Statute Book to-day, there is an Act which provides for State purchase of the railways of the country. Whether a solution of the difficulty will be found in State purchase or in State control it is hard to say, but it is clear that some solution of the problem will become imperative when the war is ended and normal conditions return. Justice and reason demand it.
In the year 1845 three long Acts of Parliament came into force; theCompanies Clauses, theLands Clausesand theRailway Clauses Acts. Between them they contained no less than 483 sections. Each Act was a consolidating measure. The first contained provisions usually inserted in Acts for the constitution of public companies, the second the same in regard to the taking of land compulsorily, and the third consolidated in one general statute provisions usually introduced into Acts of Parliament authorising the construction of railways.
TheRailway Clauses Actauthorised railway companies to use locomotive engines, carriages and wagons; to carry passengers and goods, and to make reasonable charges not exceeding the tolls authorised by their special Acts. Since then the whole of the trade of transit by rail has been conducted by the companies owning the lines.
The gauge of railways in Great Britain was not fixed upon any scientific principle. At first it followed the width of the coal tram-roads in the north of England, which was adopted simply on account of its practical convenience (five feet being the usual width of the gates through which the “way-leaves” led) and so four feet eight and a-half inches became the ordinary gauge, but in the early days it was by no means the universal gauge. Five feet was chosen for the Eastern Counties Railway; seven feet for the Great Western and five feet six was used in Scotland. The Ulster Company in Ireland made twenty-five miles of the line from Belfast to Dublin on a gauge of six feet two, while the Drogheda Company, which set out from Dublin to meet the Ulster line, adopted five feet two. When theUlster Company complained of this, the Irish Board of Works, it is said, admitted that it was a little awkward, but added that, as it was not likely the intervening part would ever be made, it did not much matter. The subject was, I believe, in Ireland referred to a General Pasley, who consulted the authorities (who were many) throughout the kingdom. He ultimately solved the question by adding up the various gauges the authorities favoured, and recommended the mean, which was five feet three inches; and so, for Ireland, five feet three became the standard gauge.
“The battle of the gauges,” as it was styled at the time, was lively and spirited. Eventually it was decided by Parliament, which in the year 1846 passed theRailway Regulation (Gauge) Act. This Act ordained that in Great Britain all future railways were to be constructed on a gauge of four feet eight and a-half inches, and in Ireland of five feet three inches, excepting only certain extensions of the broad gauge Great Western Railway.
Up to this time no action at common law was maintainable against a person who by his wrongful act, neglect or default caused the immediate death of another person, and an Act (known asLord Campbell’s Act), “for compensating the Families of Persons Killed by Accidents,” became law. This enactment was due principally to the railway accidents that occurred. They were relatively more numerous than they are now, for the many modern appliances for ensuring safety had not then been introduced. The Act provided that compensation would be for the benefit of wife, husband, parent and child of the person whose death shall have been caused. The Act did not apply to Scotland. Perhaps it was because the laws of the two countries differed more then than now, and the life of the railways in Scotland was young, England being well ahead. Probably England thought she was doing enough when she legislated for herself by passing this Act. It must be observed, however, that the Act applies to Ireland as well as England.
In the year 1854 Parliament considered thatregulationswere necessary to further control the companies and passed an important statute, theRailway and Canal Traffic Act. Known, for short, in railway parlance, as “the Act of ’54,” its main provisions dealt with:—
Reasonable facilities for receiving and forwarding trafficThe subject of undue preference, which was forbiddenRailways forming part of continuous lines to receive and forward through traffic without obstructionThe liability of railway companies for loss of, or damage to, goods or animals
Reasonable facilities for receiving and forwarding trafficThe subject of undue preference, which was forbiddenRailways forming part of continuous lines to receive and forward through traffic without obstructionThe liability of railway companies for loss of, or damage to, goods or animals
and it preserved to railway companies theprotectionof theCarriers’ Act, to which I have referred.
The Select Committees of 1858 and 1863 sat on the subject of the great length of time and the immense cost which railway promotion in those days entailed, when Bills were fiercely contested, and protracted struggles before Parliamentary Committees took place. Two Acts resulted from their deliberations: theRailway Companies’ Powers Act, 1864, and theRailway Construction Facilities Actof the same year. These Acts empowered railway companies to enter into agreements with each other in regard to maintenance, management, running over or use of each others lines or property and for joint ownership of stations. They also enabled powers to be obtained from the Board of Trade to construct a railway without a special Act of Parliament, subject to the conditions that all the landowners concerned agreed to part with the requisite land, and that no objection was raised by any other railway or canal company. Little use has ever been made of this well-intentioned enactment. Landowners have rarely been disposed to accept terms which the companies thought fair; and rival railways, in the days gone by, dearly loved a fight.
By theCompanies Clauses Consolidation Actof 1845 railway companies were required to keep full and true accounts of receipts and expenditure, but it was not until the year 1868 that Parliament placed upon the companies an obligation to keep their accounts in a prescribed form. This form was scheduled to theRegulation of Railways Act, 1868. It provides for half-yearly accounts, and is the form which has been familiar to shareholders for many years. This Act (1868) also ordained that smoking compartments be provided on all trains, for all classes, on all railways, except on the railway of the Metropolitan Company. Up to then the railway smoker had to obtain the consent of his fellow passengers in the same compartment before he could light up, or brave their displeasure; and many were the altercations that ensued. The Act also imposed penalties on railways who providedtrains for attending prize fights, which was hard on companies of sporting instincts. A clause provided for means of communication between passengers and the servants of the company in charge of trains running twenty miles without stopping; and another clause gave the companies power to cut down trees adjoining their line which might be dangerous. Prior to 1868, although railways had then existed for three and forty years, the accounts of one company could not usefully be compared with those of another, for scarcely any two companies made up their accounts in the same way. Variety may be charming, but uniformity has its advantages.
The Board of Trade, in 1871, was endowed with further powers. By theRegulation of Railways Actof that year, they were given additional rights of inspection; authority to enquire into accidents, and further powers in regard to the opening of additional lines of railway, stations or junctions. And by this statute the companies were required to furnish the Board of Trade with elaborate statistical documents, annually, in a form prescribed in a schedule to the Act.
The only other important Act down to the year 1875 is theRegulation of Railways Actof 1873. This Act was passed for the purpose of making “better provision for carrying into effect theRailway and Canal Traffic Actof 1854, and for other purposes connected therewith.” In 1872 a Joint Committee of both Houses sat and, following upon their report, this Act was passed. It established a new tribunal, to be called theRailway and Canal Commission, to consist of three Commissioners, of whom—one was to be experienced in the law, one in railway business, and it also authorised the appointment of not more than twoassistantCommissioners. As to thethird Commissioner, no mention was made of qualifications. This tribunal, though styled aCommission, conducted its work as if it were a court; and a regularly constituted court in time it became. By theRailway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, the section in the Act of 1873 appointing the Commission was repealed and a new Commission established consisting of two appointed and threeex officioCommissioners, such Commission to be “a Court of Record, and have an official seal, which shall be judicially noticed.” One of the Commissioners must be experienced in railway business; and of the threeex officioCommissioners, one was to be nominated for England, one forScotland and one for Ireland, and in each case such Commissioner was to be a Judge of the High Court of the land. Under the Act of 1873, the chief functions of the Commissioners were: To hear and decide upon complaints from the public in regard to undue preference, or to refusal of facilities; to hear and determine questions of through rates; and to settle differences between two railway companies or between a railway company and a canal company, upon the application of either party to the difference. The Act of 1888 continued these and included some further powers.
In my humble opinion the Railway Commissioners have done much useful work and done it well. For more than forty years I have read most if not all the cases they have dealt with. On several occasions I have been engaged in proceedings before them, and not always on the winning side.
January, 1875, was a momentous time for me. In the second week of that month I commenced my new duties at Glasgow and bade farewell for ever to the tall stool and “the dry drudgery of the desk’s dead wood.” Before me opened a pleasing prospect of attractive and interesting work, brightened by the beams of youthful hope and awakened ambition. I was now chief clerk to a general manager. Was it to be wondered at that I felt proud and elated if also a little scared as to how I should get on.
Mr. Wainwright assumed the office of general manager on the first day of the year. I sayoffice, but in fact a general manager’s office scarcely existed. His predecessor, Mr. Johnstone, a capable but in some respects a singular man, performed his managerial duties without an office staff, wrote all his own letters, and not only wrote them but first carefully drafted them out in a hand minute almost as Jonathan Swift’s. A strenuous worker, Mr. Johnstone, like most men who have no hobby, did not long survive his retirement from active business life.
Mr. Wainwright, who, like myself, was born in Sheffield, was twenty-three years my senior. His early railway life was passed in the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (now the Great Central), of which the redoubtable Mr. (afterwards Sir) Edward Watkin was then the lively general manager.
A different man to his predecessor was Mr. Wainwright. Unlike Mr.Johnstone he was modern and progressive.Henever scorned delights or loved, for their own sake, laborious days; pleasure to him was as welcome as sunshine; and work he made a pleasure.
As I have said, no general manager’sofficeexisted. Of systematic managerial supervision there was none. What was to be done? Something certainly, and soon. Mr. Wainwright concurred in a suggestion I made that I should visit Derby, see the general manager’s office of the Midland there, and learn how it was conducted. This I did. E. W. Wells, a principal clerk in that office, who was married to my cousin, showed and told me everything. I returned laden with knowledge which I embodied in a report and my recommendations were adopted. Several clerks were appointed and the general manager’s office, of which I was chief clerk, soon became efficient.
Wells afterwards became Assistant General Manager of the Midland, and Frank Tatlow, my cousin and brother of Wells’ wife, is now its General Manager, in succession to Sir Guy Granet. I am not a little proud that the attainments of one who bears the name of Tatlow, and is so nearly related to myself, have enabled him to reach the topmost post on a railway such as the Midland Railway of England. He commenced as a junior clerk in the General Manager’s office and worked his way step by step to that eminent position. No adventitious circumstances helped him on.
I became fond of railway work, which it seems to me for interest and variety holds a high place among all the occupations by which man, who was born to labour, may earn his daily bread. My duties were certainly arduous but intensely interesting. The correspondence with other railway companies regarding agreements, joint line working, Parliamentary matters, and many other important subjects, conducted as it required to be, with skill, care and precision, was for me a liberal education. The fierce rivalry which, in those days, raged in Scotland for competitive traffic culminated often in disputes which could only be settled by the intervention of the general managers, and these brought much exciting work into the office. Again, the close and intimate relations between the Midland and the Glasgow and South-Western involved interesting communications, meetings and discussions, and the keeping of certain special accounts which it fell to me to supervise.
The Midland and the Glasgow and South-Western alliance was regarded by the West Coast Companies (the London and North-Western and the Caledonian) with much disfavour. In their eyes it was an attack upon their hen roost, and it certainly resulted in the loss to them of a large share of through traffic between England and Scotland which the West Coast route had previously had all to itself. To carry on the competition successfully necessitated a large expenditure of capital by the Glasgow and South-Western, and the Midland, of course, had to help in this. The original cost of Saint Enoch Station for instance was nearly one and three-quarter millions sterling, and a considerable outlay was also necessary for goods stations and other accommodation. There was in those days much doing between the general managers’ offices of the Midland and Glasgow and South-Western companies, and it was all delightfully new and novel to me.
A Committee of Directors of the two companies, called theMidland and Glasgow and South-Western Joint Committee, was established. This committee, with the two general managers, met periodically either at Derby, London, Carlisle or Glasgow. Mr. Wainwright acted as secretary and I kept the minute book and papers relating to the business of the committee.
Pullman cars had been introduced on the Midland and were run on the through trains between Saint Pancras and Saint Enoch. The cars were the property of Mr. Pullman, but the Midland kept them in repair, the Glasgow and South-Western relieving them of a proportion of the cost corresponding to the mileage run over their line. Mr. Pullman received as his remuneration the extra fare paid by the passengers—three shillings each for drawing-room cars and five shillings each for sleeping cars. Other through carriages on these trains were jointly owned by the two companies. The interesting accounts connected with these arrangements were supervised by me. I commenced work with Mr. Wainwright on a Monday. The following Saturday afternoon, before leaving the office, to my great surprise and delight, he presented me with a first-class station to station pass over the railway. With what pride I showed it to Tom that evening! Six months later my salary was increased, and the pleasant fact was announced to me by my kindly chief, coupled with the expression of a wish that he and I might long work together.
On the Scottish railways the financial half-years ended, not in June and December, as in other parts of the United Kingdom, but at the end of July and January. This was for the better equalisation of receipts, taking a month from the fat half-year to the lean, and giving, in exchange, a month from the lean to the fat. Soon after the first-half-year was concluded and the accounts published, which was in the month of September (my first September with the Glasgow and South-Western), Mr. Wainwright handed to me a large sheet of closely printed figures, giving a detailed analysis and comparison of the accounts of five of the principal English and the three principal Scottish railways in columnar form, with a request that I should take out the figures and compile for printing a similar statement for the past half-year, from the accounts of the eight companies. I trembled inwardly for I had never yet looked at a railway account, but I took them home, and, as in the case of the Acts of Parliament, found them simpler than I thought; and, with less trouble than I expected, succeeded in accomplishing the task.
Mr. Wainwright was himself a skilful statistician and tested everything he could by the cold logic of figures. I was soon surprised to find that I too had a taste for statistics and acquired some skill in their compilation. Up to this I had always imagined that I disliked everything in the shape of arithmetic. At school I was certainly never fond of it, and since school my acquaintance with figures had been little more than the adding up of long columns in huge books at the half-yearly stocktaking in the stores department at St. Rollox, a thing I detested, and which invariably gave me a headache. Well pleased was Mr. Wainwright to see that statistics took my fancy. As general manager he had not much time himself to devote to them, but the office was now well manned and we were able to establish, and keep up, tables, statistics and returns concerning matters of railway working in a way which I have not seen surpassed. These statistics were of much practical use when considering questions of economy and other matters from day to day.
My first year as general manager’s clerk was, I have always thought, the most important in my railway life. Certainly in that year I learned much and acquired from my chief business habits which have stood me in good stead since. Mr. Wainwright was a man of no ordinary nature, as all whoknew him will admit. He was a pattern of punctuality and promptitude, never spared himself in doing a thing well and expected the same thoroughness in others, though he would make allowance for want of capacity, but not for indolence or carelessness. Straightforwardness, honesty and rectitude marked all he did. His word was his bond. His disposition was to trust those around him, and his generous confidence was usually justified. High-minded and possessing a keen sense of honor himself, he had an instinctive aversion to anything mean or low in others. A man of great liberality and generous to a fault he often found it hard to say no, but when obliged to adopt that attitude it was done with a tact and courtesy which left no sting. In all business matters he required a rigid economy though never at the expense of efficiency.
Intellectually he stood high, as I had ample opportunity of judging, but if asked what were his most striking qualities I should saygoodnessand a charm of manner which eludes description, but irresistibly attracted all who met him. In appearance he was tall and portly, and his bearing, carriage and presence were gentlemanly and refined. He was of fair complexion, was possessed of a delightful smile, and had side whiskers (turning white) continued in the old-fashioned way under the chin, and yet he was so bright and debonair that he never looked old-fashioned. Like myself he was a great lover of Dickens, and I think his most prized possession was a small bookcase which had belonged to Dickens’ study and which he purchased at the sale atGad’s Hill. His directors esteemed him highly, and the officers of the company were all sincerely attached to him. In his room he held almost daily conferences. Correspondence formed but a small part in his method of dealing with departments. He believed in the value ofviva vocediscussion, and discouraged all unnecessary inter-departmental correspondence. In this he was right I am sure. The daily conferences were cheerful and pleasant, for he had the delightful faculty of “mixing business with pleasure and wisdom with mirth.” I consider that I was singularly fortunate at this period of my life in finding myself placed in close and intimate association with such a man as Mr. Wainwright, in enjoying his confidence as I did, and in being afforded the opportunity of benefiting by his kind precepts and fine example.
W. J. Wainwright
In Glasgow there was a weekly paper of much humour and spirit calledThe Bailie. With each issue it published an article on some prominent man of the day under the title ofMen You Know, accompanied by a portrait of the person selected. It is the GlasgowPunch. It was established in 1873,and “Ma Conscience!” is its motto. It still, I am glad to hear, runs an honorable and profitable course, which its merits well deserve. In its issue of September 13th, 1882, Mr. Wainwright wasThe Man You Know, and, at the request of the Editor, I wrote the article upon him. In it are some words which, penned when I was with him daily, and his influence was strong upon me, are, perhaps, more true and faithful than any I could at this distance of time write, and so I will quote them here, and with them conclude this chapter.
“He (The Man You Know) is one upon whom responsibility rests gracefully and lightly, who accomplishes great things without apparent effort, and whose personal influence smoothes the daily friction of official life. He rules with a gentler sway than many who are accustomed to other methods of command would believe possible. He believes in Emerson’s maxim that if you deal nobly with men they will act nobly, and his habit towards everyone around him, and its success, lends force to the genial truth of the American philosopher.”
The 27th day of September, 1875, was the Jubilee of the British Railway System. It was celebrated by a banquet given by the North-Eastern Railway Company at Darlington, for the Stockton and Darlington section of the North-Eastern was, as I have mentioned before, the first public railway. A thousand guests were invited. No building in Darlington could accommodate such a number, and a great marquee, large enough to dine a thousand people, was obtained from London. My chief attended the banquet and I remained at home to hear the news when he returned. Dan Godfrey’s band was there, and Dan Godfrey himself composed some music for the occasion. Themenuwas long, elaborate and imposing; equalled only by thetoast list, which contained no less than sixteen separate toasts. It was a Gargantuan feast befitting a great occasion. Could we men of to-day have done it justice and sat it and the toast list out, I wonder. It took place over forty years ago, when the endurance of the race was, perhaps, greater than now; or why do we now shorten our banquets and shirk the bottle?
The Stockton and Darlington Railway is 54 miles long, and its authorised capital was £102,000—a modest sum indeed, under £2,000 per mile, less than half the outlay for land alone of the North Midland line and not one twenty-fifth of the average cost of British railways as they stand to-day, which is some £57,000 per mile. The railway owed its origin to George Stephenson and to Edward Pease, the wealthy Quaker and manufacturer of Darlington,both burly men, strong in mind as body. The first rail was laid, with much ceremony, near the town of Stockton, on the 23rd of May, 1822, amid great opposition culminating in acts of personal violence, for the early railways, from interests that feared their rivalry, and often from sheer blind ignorance itself, had bitter antagonism to contend with.
The day brought an immense concourse of people to Darlington, all bent on seeing the novel spectacle of a train of carriages and wagons filled with passengers and goods, drawn along arailwayby asteamengine. At eight o’clock in the morning the train started with its load—22 vehicles—hauled by Stephenson’s “Locomotion,” driven by Stephenson himself. “Such was its velocity that in some parts of the journey the speed was frequently 12 miles an hour.” The number of passengers reached 450, and the goods and merchandise amounted to 90 tons—a great accomplishment, and George Stephenson and Edward Pease were proud men that day.
Seven years from this present time will witness theCentenaryof the railway system. How shall we celebrateit? Will railway proprietor, railway director and railway manager on that occasion be animated with the gladness, the pride and the hope that brightened the Jubilee Banquet? Who can tell? The future of railways is all uncertain.
A word or two regarding the railway system of Scotland may not be inappropriate.
Scotland has eightworkingrailway companies, England and Wales 104, and Ireland 28. These include light railways, but are exclusive of all railways, light or ordinary, that are worked not by themselves but by other companies. Scotland has exhibited her usual good sense, her canny, thrifty way, by keeping the number ofoperatingrailway companies within such moderate bounds. Ireland does not show so well, and England relatively is almost as bad as Ireland, yet England might well have shown the path of prudence to her poorer sister by greater adventure herself in the sensible domain of railway amalgamation. Much undeserved censure has been heaped upon the Irish lines; sins have been assumed from which they are free, and their virtues have ever been ignored. John Bright once said that “Railways have rendered more service and received less gratitude than any institution in the land.” This is certainly true of Ireland, for nothing hasever conferred such benefit upon that country as its railways, and nothing, except perhaps the Government, has received so much abuse. On this I shall have more to say when I reach the period of the Vice-Regal Commission on Irish Railways, appointed in 1906.
The average number of milesoperatedper working railway company in Scotland compared with England and Wales and Ireland, are:—