The
Stockton & Darlington line opened
in 1825 successfully reduced the cost of transporting coal from 18s.
to 8s. 6d. a ton. It soon became clear that large profits could be
made by building railways. A group of businessmen led by James
Sandars recruited George Stephenson
to build them a railway. The main objective was to reduce the costs
of transporting raw materials and finished goods between Manchester,
the centre of the textile industry and Liverpool,
the most important port in the north of England.
The proposed Liverpool & Manchester Railway was a serious economic
threat to the Bridgewater Canal. that
was making a fortune by shipping goods between Liverpool and Manchester.
In 1825 shares in the company, originally purchased at £70, were
selling at £1,250 and paying an annual dividend of £35.
The Marquis of Stafford, who became the principal owner of the canal
after the death of the Duke of Bridgewater,
was making an annual profit of £100,000 from the venture, and
unstandably led the fight against the planned railway. Turnpike Trusts,
coach companies and farmers also voiced their opposition.
After the House of Commons rejected Stephenson's
proposed route, James Sandars recruited
a company run by George Rennie to carry
out a new survey and were invited by the company to build it. However,
they refused to work with George Stephenson,
who they did not consider was a real engineer, and they lost the contract.
After several years of debate, Parliament gave permission for the
Manchester & Liverpool Railway to
be built in 1826. George Stephenson
was faced with a large number of serious engineering problems. This
included crossing the unstable peat bog of Chat
Moss, a nine-arched viaduct across the Sankey
Valley and a two-mile long rock cutting at Olive
Mount.
The Liverpool & Manchester railway was 31 miles long and consisted
of a double line of rails of the fish-bellied type and laid on stone
or timber sleepers. Passenger trains started at the Crown Street Station
in Liverpool and after passing Moorish
Arch at Edge Hill terminated at Water Street in Manchester.
The directors of the Liverpool
& Manchester company were unsure whether to use locomotives or
stationary engines on their line. To help them reach a decision, it
was decided to hold a competition where the winning locomotive would
be awarded £500. The idea being that if the locomotive was good
enough, it would be the one used on the new railway.
The competition was held at Rainhill
during October 1829. Each competing locomotive had to haul a load
of three times its own weight at a speed of at least 10 mph. The locomotives
had to run twenty times up and down the track at Rainhill which made
the distance roughly equivalent to a return trip between Liverpool
and Manchester. Afraid that heavy locomotives
would break the rails, only machines that weighed less than six tons
could compete in the competition. Ten locomotives were originally
entered for the Rainhill Trials but only
five turned up and two of these were withdrawn because of mechanical
problems. Sans Pareil and Novelty
did well but it was the Rocket,
produced by George and his son, Robert
Stephenson, that won the competition.
The Liverpool & Manchester railway was opened on 15th September,
1830. The prime minister, the Duke of Wellington,
and a large number of important people attended the opening ceremony
that included a procession of eight locomotives, including the Northumbrian,
the Rocket, the North
Star and the Phoenix.
After the group of special visitors were given a ride on the Northumbrian,
William Huskisson, one of Liverpool's
MPs crossed from his own carriage to speak to the Duke
of Wellington. Warnings were shouted when people realised that
the Rocket, driven by Joseph
Locke, was about to pass the Northumbrian.
Huskisson was unable to escape and was knocked down by the Rocket.
The locomotive badly mangled one of his legs. A doctor attempted to
stem the bleeding and George Stephenson
used the Northumbrian to take
him for further treatment. Despite these attempts to save him, Huskisson
died later that day.
With large crowds assembled along the line between Liverpool and Manchester
it was decided to continue with the procession. However, when the
Northumbrian entered Manchester
the passenger carriages were pelted with stones by weavers,
who remembered the Duke of Wellington's involvement in the Peterloo
Massacre and his strong opposition to the the proposed 1832
Reform Act.
The Liverpool & Manchester railway was a great success. In 1831
the company transported 445,047 passengers. Receipts were £155,702
with profits of £71,098. By 1844 receipts had reached £258,892
with profits of £136,688. During this period shareholders were
regularly paid out an annual dividend of £10 for every £100
invested.
Entrance to Water Street Station, Manchester
(1)
William James, letter to Joseph
Sandars (September, 1822).
At
Manchester the subject of the railway encourages all men's thoughts.
The canal companies are alive to the danger. I am the object of their
persecution and hate; they would immolate me if they could.
(2)
On 25th April, 1825, George Stephenson gave evidence to the House
of Commons committee looking into the proposed Liverpool
& Manchester Railway. Edward Alderson, the counsel employed
by those opposing the railway, severely criticised the evidence given
by Stephenson.
This
railway is the most absurd scheme that ever entered into the head
of a man to conceive. Mr. Stephenson never had a plan - I do not believe
he is capable of making one. He is either ignorant or something else
which I will not mention. His is a mind perpetually fluctuating between
opposite difficulties; he neither knows whether he is to make bridges
over roads or rivers, or of one size or another; or to make embankments,
or cuttings, or inclined planes, or in what way the thing is to be
carried into effect. When you put a question to him upon a difficult
point, he resorts to two or three hypothesis, and never comes to a
decided conclusion. Is Mr. Stephenson to be the person upon whose
faith this Committee is to pass this Bill involving property to the
extent of £400,000/£500,000 when he is so ignorant of his
profession as to propose to build a bridge not sufficient to carry
off the flood water of the river or to permit any of the vessels to
pass which of necessity must pass under it.
(3)
George Stephenson wrote to Michael
Longridge about how the canal companies were trying to stop the building
of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.
Lord
Derby, Lord Sefton and Bradshaw the great Canal Proprietor, whose
grounds we go through with the projected railway, have been trying
to stop us. The ground is lockaded on every side to prevent us getting
on with the survey. Bradshaw fires guns to prevent the surveyors coming
in the dark. Lord Sefton says he will have a hundred men against us.
The company thinks these great men have no right to stop a survey.
(4)
The Quarterly Review supported
the building of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway but warned
against the dangers of allowing locomotives to travel too fast (March,
1825)
What
can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives
travelling twice as fast as stagecoaches! We trust that Parliament
will, in all railways it may sanction, limit the speed to eight or
nine miles an hour.
(5)
In 1824 the Liverpool & Manchester Railroad Company published
a prospectus that invited people to invest in the company.
The
total quantity of goods passing between Liverpool and Manchester is
estimated to be 1,000 tons per day. The average length of time taken
by canal is 36 hours. The average charge has been 15s a ton. By the
projected railroad, the transit of goods between Liverpool and Manchester
will be four of five hours, and the charge to the merchant reduced
by at least one-third.
(6)
Henry Booth, Account of the Liverpool
and Manchester Railway (1830).
Perhaps
the most striking result produced by the completion of this railway,
is the sudden change which has been effected in our ideas of time
and space. What was quick is now slow; what was distant is now near.
(7)
Fanny Kemble, a leading actress, was invited
to attend the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
The most intense curiosity and excitement prevailed, and though the
weather was uncertain, enormous masses of densely packed people lined
the road, shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by
them. We travelled at 35 miles an hour (swifter than a bird flies).
When I closed my eyes this sensation of flying was quite delightful.
I had been unluckily separated from my mother in the first distribution
of places, but by an exchange of seats which she was enabled to make
she rejoined me when I was at the height of my ecstasy, which was
considerably damped by finding that she was frightened to death, and
intent upon nothing but devising means of escaping from a situation
which appeared to her to threaten with instant annihilation herself
and all her travelling companions.
When we neared Manchester the sky grew cloudy and dark, and it began
to rain. The vast concourse of people who had assembled to witness
the triumphant arrival of the successful travellers was of the lowest
orders of mechanics and artisans, among whom great distress and a
dangerous spirit of discontent with the government at that time prevailed.
Groans and hisses greeted the carriage, full of influential personages,
in which the Duke of Wellington sat.
High above the grim and grimy crowd of scowling faces a loom had been
erected, at which sat a tattered, starved-looking weaver, evidently
set there as a representative man, to protest against the triumph
of machinery and the gain and glory which the wealthy Liverpool and
Manchester men were likely to derive from it.
(8)
Lady Wilton was in the Duke of Wellington's carriage when William
Huskisson had his accident. She later told Fanny
Kemble what happened.
The engine had stopped to take a supply of water, and several of the
gentlemen in the directors' carriage had jumped out to look about
them. Lord Wilton, Count Batthyany, Count Matuscenitz and Mr. Huskisson
among the rest were standing talking in the middle of the road, when
and engine on the other line, which was parading up and down merely
to show its speed, was seen coming down upon them like lightening.
The most active of those in peril sprang back into their seats; Lord
Wilton saved his life only by rushing behind the Duke's carriage,
and Count Matuscenitz had but just leaped into it, with the engine
all but touching his heels as he did so; while poor Mr. Huskisson,
less active from the effects of age and ill-health, bewildered, too,
by the frantic cries of "Stop the engine! Clear the track!"
that resounded on all sides, completely lost his head, looked helplessly
to the right and left, and was instantaneously prostrated by the fatal
machine, which dashed down like a thunderbolt upon him, and passed
over his leg, smashing and mangling it in the most horrible way.
(9)
The Observer (19th September
1830)
The great
national work was opened to the public on Wednesday last, with all
the ceremonies befitting such an important occasion. The Duke of Wellington,
Mr. Huskisson, Sir R. Peel, Prince Esterhazy, and Mr. Holmes were
guests of the Committee, together with almost every person of consideration
in the neighbouring counties. The project of establishing a correspondence
by railway between two of the most populous and important towns in
the kingdom, was not started till 1824, when a Mr. James proposed
it. The rate of travelling is spoken of as being likely to average
about sixteen or eighteen miles an hour.
Several of
the passengers of the Northumbrian got out to walk on the railway,
and among them was Mr. Huskisson. He was discoursing with Mr. J. Sanders,
one of the principal originators and promoters of the railroad, when
the Rocket engine came slowly up, and as the engineer had been for
some time checking its velocity, so silently that it was almost upon
the group before they observed it. In the hurry of the moment all
attempted to get out of the way. Mr Huskisson hesitated, staggered
a little, as if not knowing what to do, then attempted again to get
into the carriage. As he took hold of the door to do this, but the
motion threw him off balance, and before he could recover he was thrown
down directly in the path of the Rocket. Mrs. Huskisson, who, along
with several other ladies, witnessed the accident, uttered a shriek
of agony, which none who heard will ever forget.
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