No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Railroads and the Changing Face of Britain, 1825–1901
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
Abstract
This article goes beyond the usual easy generalization that the coming of the railroad brought profound economic and social changes. Here a broad panorama is revealed, but with specific features in sharp focus, These features include the conflicting impact of the railroads on local craftsmen and tradesmen; the initial stimulus to extreme concentration and then to dispersion of population; the influence upon industrial decentralization; the changing railroad attitude toward passenger traffic; the rise of dormitory suburbs and their conversion into integrated communities; the social implications of the new mode of conveyance; the significance in labor reform of the railroads as large employers. Students of American transportation will find much of interest in this British pattern and in the method by which it is set forth.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1956
References
1 Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, chap. LV (written in 1846).
2 Clapham, J. H., “Work and Wages,” in Early Victorian England, I (Cambridge University Press, 1951), 20.Google Scholar
3 Lardner, D., Railway Economy (London: Taylor, Walton and Maberly, 1850), p. 18.Google Scholar
4 The penny post was introduced by Sir Rowland Hill in 1840. The telegraph was first developed for railroad purposes: the earliest practical installation in Great Britain was that on the London and Blackwall Railway in 1838. Traveling salesmen increased greatly towards the end of the century from 35,478 in 1881, to 44,055 in 1891, and to 64,322 in 1901. Cf. Census of England and Wales, 1901 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1904), General Report, p. 97; Appendix A, pp. 258–59.
5 “We are all living from hand to mouth: the consumer, the retailer, the middleman and the manufacturer all expect … to telegraph or telephone for a thing today and get it delivered tomorrow … and you can get as a matter of fact pretty well everywhere, with the exception of extreme Scotland, your traffic that is sent away today delivered tomorrow.” (First Report of the Royal Commission on Canals, 1906 [London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1906], Minutes, p. 81, evidence of Sir Sam Fay.)
6 Graham, P. A., The Rural Exodus (London: Methuen, 1892), p. 31.Google Scholar
7 Ibid., p. 76.
8 “In nine cases out of ten I found that a London paper called the Weekly Budget was far and away the most popular with country folk,” wrote Anderson Graham of his travels through Norfolk in the eighties; (ibid., p. 90). The railroad newsstand soon made its appearance on station platforms: “At the railroad station we saw a small edition of Twice Told Tales,” was a remark made by Nathaniel Hawthorne when he visited Chester in August, 1854. “And,” he added, “the shilling edition of The Scarlet Letter and Seven Gables are at all the bookstalls.” (Hawthorne, Nathaniel, Our and The Old Home English Notebooks, I [Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin, 1902], 517.Google Scholar These were written during his four years in Great Britain as consul at Liverpool from 1853 to 1857 and were first published in 1870.)
9 The trains carrying the Scotsman and the Leader left Edinburgh at 4:00 a.m. and by breakfast time the parliamentary debates of the previous night were being discussed throughout Scotland. Similar facilities enabled the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail to go to press in London long after midnight and yet remain what, with the aid of regional editions, they are today — truly national dailies. Their answer to growing provincial competition was the 5:00 a.m. newspaper trains which left Paddington, Euston, and King's Cross for the West and North.
10 Newspaper agents and newsstand attendants numbered 5,515 in 1881, 9,798 in 1891, and 16,074 in 1901. (Census of 1901, General Report, pp. 264–65.)
11 Ogle, W., The Alleged Depopulation of the Rural Districts of England (in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, LII, London: Edward Stanford, 1889), 226.Google Scholar
12 The progress of the insurance business in the later decades of the century was phenomenal. Between 1891 and 1901 insurance employees increased by 79.4 per cent, and of the total employed in the latter year 61 per cent were agents. Agents were not separated from officials and clerks in the census classification until 1901. The male employees totaled 14,821 in 1881, 30,858 in 1891, and 55,013 in 1901 (of whom just under 34,000 were agents). (Census of 1901, General Report, p. 97; Appendix A, p. 258.) Cf. also: Ashby, J. and King, B., Statistics of Some Midland Villages (in the Economic Journal, III, London: Macmillan, 1893), 196, 202.Google Scholar
13 Hawthorne, Our Old Home, I, 264; II, 126, 332.
14 Report of the Royal Commission on Railway Termini in the Metropolis (London: T. R. Harrison, 1846), pp. 5, 6.
15 In the parish of All Hallows, London Wall, the decrease in population of 241 between 1831 and 1841 was attributed to “improvements and consequent demolition of a number of houses.” In the same decade the number of dwelling houses in the parish of St. Gregory-by-St. Paul declined by 42 “owing, in many instances, to several houses having been thrown into one for warehouses and shops.” In the City there were 3,934 inhabited houses and 6,254 uninhabited houses in 1901; but 5,813 — or all but 441 — of the latter were “in occupation”; that is, they were in use for business purposes. (Census of Great Britain, 1841 [London: H. M. S. O., 1843], Enumeration Abstract, Part I, England and Wales, pp. 180–81; Census of 1901: County of London, p. 30.)
16 Stepney, Southwark, Bermondsey, Poplar and Deptford were all increasing their populations in 1891 and several of them were still doing so in 1901. (Census of 1901, General Report, pp. 30, 31.)
17 At the beginning of the century the North London district of Hampstead had a population of 4,343 or just under two persons per acre. Until mid-century the rise in population was not impressive. Thereafter, however, railroad facilities expedited its development — particularly those services provided by the North London and Metropolitan and Midland Railways. Hampstead represents the typical dormitory suburb of the time. It included the residential districts of Swiss Cottage, Primrose Hill, St. John's Wood and Chalk Farm, as well as part of Kilburn and Cricklewood. Between 1861 and 1871 its population rose by 59 per cent and in the next decade by 69 per cent. By 1901 the total was 81,942 where it had been 11,986 in 1851.
South of the Thames the boroughs of Fulham, Wandsworth, Lewisham, Greenwich, Woolwich and Hammersmith showed similar characteristics. (Price Williams, R., The Population of London, 1801–81 [in Journal of the Statistical Society, XLVIII, London, 1885], 360, 374, 377, 378, 394–95Google Scholar; Census of England and Wales, 1891 [London: H. M. S. O., 1893], II, 13; Census of 1901, County of London, pp. 28, 36, 37.)
18 Census of 1891, General Report, pp. 12–13.
19 Manchester provided the only example of a decreasing population in a large city during the decade 1871–81. This was “in consequence probably of the conversion of dwelling houses into warehouses and offices,” said the census report. But dwelling houses cannot be converted into offices unless they are first vacated by the tenants. The sequel to the decline in Manchester was obviously provided by the adjoining town of Salford, which in the same decade recorded an increase in population of no less than 41.2 per cent. It had assumed the role of a Manchester suburb. (Census of 1901, General Report, pp. 27–29.)
20 Census of 1891, General Report, p. 7.
21 It was appointed as a direct result of sustained demand for legislation which followed a general fall in prices. Hitherto the Government had been reluctant to touch railway rates at all. For geographical reasons — sea transport, for example, could compete with rail in serving many of the industrial areas — the rate structure had always been complex. In addition, even the biggest companies never accumulated profits spectacular enough to invite the criticism that they were abusing their local monopolies. (Select Committee on Railway Amalgamations, 1872: Report [London: H. M. S. O., 1872], p. xix.)
22 Census of Great Britain, 1851 (London: H. M. S. O., 1852), Population Tables, Vol. I, Section 2, General Report, p. eclxxxviii; Census of England and Wales, 1861, Population Tables, II (London: H. M. S. O., 1863), 146–47; Census of Enghnd and Wales, 1881, III (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1883), 72. Further comparison in 1891 and 1901 is prevented by changes made in the boundaries of the registration districts.
23 Census of Enghnd and Wales, 1901: County of Kent (London: H. M. S. O., 1902), Summary, p. vi.
24 Census of 1841, Occupations of the People; Part I, England and Wales, p. 108; Census of 1901, County of London, pp. 96–97, 148–49.
25 The other four were Hampstead (39.6 per cent), Stoke Newington (35.3), Kensington (33.6) and Lewisham (31.2). Wandsworth showed a percentage increase of 28.3. (Welton, T. A., A Study of Some Portions of the Census of London for 1901 [in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, LXV, London, 1902], 449.)Google Scholar
26 Between 1881 and 1891 the increases were: dealers in food and dairy produce, 46,668 to 67,087; fruit and vegetable dealers, 29,614 to 53,627; gardeners and flower and seed merchants, 148,285 to 216,165. At the same time agricultural workers decreased from 847,954 to 595,702. Over the 50 years 1851 to 1901, male farm workers over 10 years of age decreased by 42 per cent and the females by 91 per cent. (Census of 1901, General Report, pp. 104, 105, 259, 268.)
27 Census of 1891, General Report, p. 44. In 1880 a commentator noted that “changes in the acreage of corn crops in all counties of England showed a uniform decrease without exception, while the percentage of the entire area returned as cultivated showed a universal increase.” (Craigie, P. G., On Ten Years' Statistics of British Agriculture, 1870–79 [in Journal of the Statistical Society, XLIII, London, 1880], 308–11.Google Scholar
28 Census of 1881, III, 58, 192, 241, 108, 296 respectively; Census of 1891, III, 50, 197, 242, 117, 303 respectively.
29 Graham, The Rural Exodus, pp. 147–52; the Great Eastern Railroad was always noted for the freight services it provided in the agricultural districts of East Anglia. Cf. Haggard, Henry Rider, Rural England, I (London: Longmans, 1902), 450.Google Scholar
30 Granville, A. B., The Spas of England (1841), I, xlivGoogle Scholar (quoted by Pimlott, J. A. R., The Englishman's Holiday [London: Faber, 1947], 75).Google Scholar
31 Graves, C. L., Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, I (4 vols.; London: Cassell, 1921–1922), 67.Google Scholar
32 Coast resorts increased by 314 per cent and manufacturing towns by 224 per cent. (Census of 1851, Vol. I, Part 1, Report, p. xlix.)
33 Cook visited the United States in the winter of 1865–66, traveled 10,000 miles and made arrangements for trips over 4,000 miles of railroads at a rate of 2¢ a mile. The following summer 60 Britishers made the tour. Cf. Rae, W. F., The Business of Travel (London: Cook, 1891).Google Scholar
34 Brighton Beach, July 22, 1824 (Oil sketch on paper by John Constable, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London); To Brighton and Back for Three-and-Six (Oil painting by Charles Rossiter, 1859, in the Birmingham [England] Museum and Art Gallery); Punch and Judy Show on Ramsgate Sands (Colored engraving by W. McConnell, 1865, from All About Ramsgate and Broadstairs, reproduced in Marsden's, C.The English at the Seaside, London: Collins, 1947).Google Scholar
35 When “Punctuality Parkes” became chairman of the latter company he cured one of its traditional vices — which it had inherited from its ancestor, the Eastern Counties — by drilling his staff into the belief that “time tables are not intended to be works of fiction, but of fact.” In 1892 the London County Council's report on workmen's trains gave pride of place to the Great Eastern while criticizing the poor service of the London and Northwestern. North London workmen, it was reported, had to be awakened at 3:30 a.m. so that they could walk the half-dozen miles to the nearest station where there was a train to take them into the city.
36 Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, IX (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1893), 135, 145; XVIII, 1,692. In 1897–98 the London County Council collected statistics from 23 trade unions and societies as to how many of their members used the early workers' trains. On the London, Chatham and Dover Railway alone no fewer than 7,348 people were traveling daily between their homes in the suburban Sydenham-Wandsworth-Bromley-Blackheath area and London. The inward trains ran between 5:30 and 7:30 a.m. and the figures take no account of the later business office traffic. (London Statistics, 1897–98, VIII [London County Council, 1899], 350.)
37 There is a radical difference between an “underground” or subway system (as used in New York and latterly in Chicago and Toronto) and the London “tubes.” In the former the line is carried in brick or concrete-lined tunnels as near the surface as possible, often running for short distances in daylight and in most cases having stations practically on the surface. The steel-lined tubes are deep down, several escalators being necessary to reach them. The use of electricity for railroad traction dates back to Traill's electrification of the Giant's Causeway line in Northern Ireland in 1883. Siemens pioneered the idea in Berlin about the same time.
38 Space precludes discussion of the social impact of the railroad construction gangs on rural Britain in the earlier years. The gangs were the subject of a Parliamentary investigation as early as 1846. Cf. Report from the Select Committee on Railway Laborers (London: House of Commons, 1846).
39 Graves, Mr. Punch's History, II, 74.
40 Report from the Select Committee on Railway Servants (Hours of Labor), (London: H. M. S. O., 1891), Evidence, pp. 11, 16, 154.
41 Graves, Mr. Punch's History, II, 75.