George
Hudson, the son of a farmer, was born in Howsham, in
March 1800. After being educated at the local school, Hudson was apprenticed
at a drapers in York. Hudson impressed his
employers and eventually became a partner in the business.
In 1827 a distant relative left George Hudson
£30,000 in his will. Hudson decided to
use the money to buy shares in the North Midland
Railway. The venture was a success and in 1833 began plans to
form his own railway company to link York
with towns in the West Riding. After raising £446,000 the line
was completed on 29th May 1839.
Hudson's next enterprise was to invest in the Great North of England
Company so that they could complete their line to Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
To obtain permission from the House of Commons,
Hudson distributed over £3,000 in bribes. Hudson followed this
by forming the Midland Railway Company.
He now raised the sum of £5,000,000 to link the Midlands with
Scotland. To persuade people to invest in the company he personally
guaranteed the payment of a 6 per cent dividend.
As well as building railways, Hudson was active in politics. For many
years he was the leader of the Conservative
Party in York and he held a series of
political positions in the city including: councillor (1835) alderman
(1836) and lord mayor (1837). His substantial business interests in
Sunderland enabled him in the to be
elected as Conservative MP for the city in the 1845
General Election. His radical opponent, Colonel
Perronet Thompson, was one of the leaders of the Anti-Corn
Law League. In the House of Commons,
Hudson argued strongly against suggestions that the railway system
should come under government supervision.
The line from York to Newcastle-upon-Tyne
opened in 1844. Hudson's companies now controlled 1,016 miles of railway
track and he obtained the title, the Railway King. A survey in 1845
revealed that Hudson had £319,835 invested in railway shares.
Hudson continued to buy shares in railway companies. He purchased
a controlling interest in the Newcastle & North Shields Railway
and the Great North of England Railway. It was later revealed that
some of his share-dealings were not being entered in the company's
account books.
George Hudson became a close friend of George
Stephenson. They went into partnership together and opened coalmines,
ironworks and limestone quarries in the Chesterfield area. Stephenson
also agreed to join the board of the York &
North Midlands line in 1840. However, by 1845 he had grown suspicious
of Hudson's methods and resigned.
Hudson now developed a close friendship with the Duke
of Wellington. Hudson helped Wellington to make a great deal of
money by advising him on when to buy and sell railway shares. When
Wellington asked Hudson what he could do in return, he asked him to
visit his daughter at her expensive private school in Hampstead. Apparently,
the girls had been making fun at Hudson's social background, and he
wanted Wellington to visit her to increase her status in the school.
George Hudson also began using inside information to manipulate share
prices. In the short-term this made Hudson and his friends a great
deal of money. However, railway shares were now over-priced and towards
the end of 1847, their value began to fall dramatically. People who
had heavily invested in railway shares faced financial ruin. A great
deal of hostility was turned on the man who had persuaded them to
buy shares and Hudson was forced to resign as chairman of all the
railway companies under his control.
A committee of investigation was formed to look into Hudson's railway
companies and it soon became clear that in the past he had not told
potential buyers of shares, the truth about the real financial state
of his companies. The investigators also discovered that Hudson had
been paying bribes to MPs. Hudson had also sold shares he owned to
the Great North Railway at inflated prices and had sold land to Newcastle
& Berwick Railway that he did not own. George Hudson admitted
these offences and agreed to pay back the money he had swindled from
the shareholders.
Despite this admission of corruption, Hudson was able to remain as
MP for Sunderland until 1859. However,
he did not pay back the money he owed to shareholders and in July
1865, was imprisoned in York Castle for debt.
After friends had raised a substantial sum of money to pay
these debts, Hudson was released in October 1866. George
Hudson died on 14th December 1871.
(1)
George Stephenson, letter to Michael
Longbridge (22nd November, 1845)
Hudson
has become too great a man for me now. I am not at all satisfied at
the way the Newcastle and Berwick line has been carried on and I do
not intend to take any more active part in it. I have made Hudson
a rich man but he will very soon care for nobody except he can get
money by them. I make these observations in confidence to you.
(2)
In January 1846 The Standard newspaper praised the work of
George Hudson.
Two
hundred thousand well paid labourers, representing as heads of families,
nearly one million men, women and children, all feast through the
bold enterprise of one man. Let us hear what man or class of man ever
before did so much for the population of a country.
(3)
In 1848 The Times attacked the activities
of George Hudson.
It was a system without rules, without order, without even a definite
morality. Mr. Hudson, having a faculty for amalgamation, and being
so successful, found himself in the enjoyment of a great railway despotism,
in which he had to do everything out of his own head and among lesser
problems to discover the ethics of railway speculation and management.
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