Railways in the British Isles, 1607-1829

By Brian Mills      

 

Published in print (with additional illustrations) in the Journal of the International Bond & Share Society, September 1996

Copyright ã International Bond & Share Society 2001

 

Modern railways were fathered by the mining industry and born out of the canal industry. Railways originated underground. Mine owners then extended their private lines overground, downstream towards their markets. There they were later met by the new public railway lines of the canal owners, who were extending their transport system upstream to serve their mining customers.

 

Private Railways

Railways are believed first to have operated in Germany’s Harz mines and the Austrian Tirol in the 12th century. Amongst the earliest pictorial evidence is an illustration in Johan Haselberg’s ‘Der Ursprung gemeynner…’ about 1519. Other mid-16th century prints show mine railways in Alsace and Transsylvania. Readily available is an English translation of Georgius Agricola’s ‘De Re Metallica’ of 1556 (a standard mining work for 200 years), which shows Bavarian wagons and track. The wagons were of wood, and hauled by men on wooden tracks underground and in the immediate vicinity of the mine workings. Austrian miners are known to have introduced such railway technology to the English Lake District’s mines in the 1560s.


The first extensive system of above-ground railways in the world is believed to have been in England, near Nottingham ; documentary evidence exists from 1607. The wagons and the rails were still wooden ; probably one wagon per horse ; the technical innovation was the flanged wheel. The new system was adopted also in Durham and Northumberland and was well established there by 1649. In 1728 there were some 50 miles of main railway line on the south bank of the River Tyne and at least as much again in branch lines and north of the river. The world’s oldest surviving railway bridge, the Causey stone arch, was built in 1727 and stands at Tanfield in County Durham, though now disused. The wooden railway with horse-drawn wagons became known overseas as ‘der englischer Kohlenweg’, ‘la voie anglaise’.

 

With increasing loads, the wear on the wooden tracks was considerable. Plates of cast iron were fixed on the wooden rails from the 1760s, and in the 1780s these iron-capped rails were developed into wholly iron rails, in short lengths, about one meter, which were nailed into stone blocks. The flange was on the rail or ‘plate’ instead of the wheel. By the 1790s iron rails were becoming the norm and about the same time, cast iron ‘edge rails’ were introduced for flanged wheels.

 

Public companies

An essential element in the development of a national transport system – canals or railways – was the idea of an Act of Parliament to authorise compulsory land purchase for the public benefit. Previously, wayleaves or land purchases had to be laboriously negotiated with every owner of the land through which the canal or railway was to pass. The first such Act for a railway was in 1758, but this was for a private colliery railway. From 1776 Parliamentary Acts for some canal companies included provision for railways linked to the canals. In 1793 the Derby Canal Company included in the title of its Act the words ‘for making Railways from such Canal to several Collieries’ ; this wording is printed on the Company’s share certificate, making this the world’s oldest known railway share. Called the Little Eaton, the railway opened in 1795 and continued as a horse railway until its closure in 1908.

 

The locomotive

Soon, around 1802-1804, the world’s first railway locomotive was put on tracks in South Wales by Richard Trevithick, but it was not put into commercial service because of the damage its weight and power did to the cast iron track. The first usable wrought iron rails were delivered around 1810. Further development was slow. Many engineers believed that a locomotive running with smooth wheels on a smooth track would be unable to pull more than its own weight. For this reason around 1811 John Blenkinsop with Matthew Murray tried cogged rack rails with some success, and the first published picture of a locomotive (1812) shows such an engine. Others tried teeth driving along a chain, and even propulsion by mechanical legs (William Brunton’s invention, which apparently worked).


In 1814 William Hedley at the Wylam Colliery on the River Tyne near Newcastle produced ‘Puffing Billy’, a locomotive which proved that smooth wheels could grip on smooth track. In the same year George Stephenson, pump engineer at Killingworth Colliery, also on Tyneside, built ‘Blucher’, a gear-driven locomotive on similar principles to ‘Puffing Billy’. But while Hedley was content to limit his activities to his colliery, Stephenson pushed his ideas forward for wider acceptance. Between 1815 and 1825 he produced another 15 or so locomotives, of improved designs, mostly for collieries (but including one for the Kilmarnock & Troon Railway Company in Scotland), some of which continued in service for 50  years. The greatest number, five, went to the Hetton Colliery’s railway, worked in part by locomotives and in part by fixed steam engines hauling trains on cables. This privately-owned 7-mile railway opened in 1822 and was to be Stephenson’s working model for the Stockton & Darlington Railway.

 

Public horse railways

During the 20 years it took to develop the locomotive and the track to carry it, entrepreneurs contineued to build horse railways. Some 25 such railway companies received Parliamentary Acts in the period 1800-1824. One of the earliest was the Croydon Merstham & Godstone Iron Rail Way Company (‘iron’ meaning iron track, not iron-carrying), authorised by an Act of 1803 for the conveyance of stone, manure and farm produce between Surrey and London. It was unusual at that time in having no financial connections with canals. Half of the early public railway companies were in the mining area of South Wales and the English/Welsh borders. Five such are shown amongst the nine companies in Table 1.

 

Table 1. Some early public railway companies

 

Company                                 County     Date of Act  Initial share capital  Oldest share known  Opened   Loco’s used

Derby_Canal/

Little_Eaton_RW                    Derby       1793           £ 60,000                            1793                    1795            -

Croydon Merstham &              Surrey      1803            £ 60,000                             1804                    1805            -

    Godstone Iron RW              

Oystermouth RW or                Glamorgan 1804           £8,000                                1808                    1806            1877

    Tram-Road

Severn & Wye

 RW&Canal                             Gloucester 1809            £35, 000                             1811                    1812            1850s

Bullo Pill RW*                         Gloucester 1809              ?                                       1826                    1812            1860s

Monmouth RW                        Monmouth 1810           £22,000                              1811                    1812            -

Hay RW                                   Brecon     1811            £50,000                              1811                    1816            -

Stockton &

 Darlington RW                       Durham        1823           £74,300                            1823                    1826            1825

Monkland &

 Kirkintilloch RW                    Lanark         1824           £32,000                            1830                    1826            1831

 

*reconstructed as the Forest of Dean RW in 1826.

 

The Oystermouth company opened its railway in 1806, and in 1807 it became the first in the world to run a regular passenger service ; it converted to steam locomotives in 1877, then to electric traction in 1929, continuing independently, as the Swansea & Mumbles Railway, until it closed in 1960. The Monmouth and the Hay railways fell into disuse after 40 or 50 years but the Bullo Pill (Forest of Dean) and the Severn & Wye converted to locomotives in the 1850s and 1860s respectively, and were absorbed into larger companies.

 

At the peak, British horse railways operated some 1,500 route miles. Before the viability of the locomotive was proven, several proposals were put forward for a national horse railway network. Some of the companies were projected as part of such a system : for example, the Croydon, Merstham & Godstone was seen as part of a possible London to Portsmouth line (about 70 miles).

The Stockton & Darlington

The beginning of the railway age is sometimes dated from the opening of the Stockton & Darlington in 1825. In fact the S&D was a transitional system and can more appropriately be considered the high point of the 18th century mineral railway. Under its first (1821) Act indeed, the S&D was intended to be a horse railway, with fixed steam engines for the steepest inclines. There was only a single track with passing points. The 1823 S&D Act authorised locomotives for both freight and passengers, but in fact the passenger trains were hauled by horses until 1833.

 

After 1825

An immediate effect of the opening of the Stockton & Darlington was a boom in railway company formations. 18 railways were enacted by Parliament in the two years 1825-26 and 11 more in 1827-29, and almost all of them were built. But the acceptance of locomotives was slow and the majority of these companies were horse railways, as were some others that were approved even after the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester in 1830. Examples of these ‘late’ horse railways are given in Table 2.

 

Table 2. Some late horse railways -

 

Company                 County                    Date of Act Init.share capital  Oldest share known  Opened   Loco’s used

Hereford RW           Hereford                  1826            £23,200               1829                        1829        1860s

Limerick & Water-

ford_RW                 Limerick                   1826            £600,000             1827                        -               -                                                 

 Clarence RW          Durham                    1828            £100,000             1833                        1833        1838

Newcastle &

 Carlisle RW             Northumberld           1829            £300,000             1830                        1835        1835

Whitby &

 Pickering RW          Yorkshire                1833          £80,000                1833                        1835        1846

Durham &

 Sunderland RW      Durham                    1834           £102,000              1834                        1836        1847 ?    

 

The Hereford Railway was a late entrant into the horse railway system on the English/Welsh borders ; it converted to locomotives in the 1860s and was merged into a larger company. The Limerick & Waterford was the only public railway authorised in Ireland before 1831, but it was not built. The others listed are in North East England. The Clarence was unusual in being named after a person, the Duke of Clarence (who became King William IV). The Newcastle & Carlisle was designed as a horse railway and was one of only two English railways prohibited from using locomotives by its Act of Parliament ; it managed to have the prohibition removed a few weeks after opening. Its fine vellum share certificate of 1830 shows a horse-drawn train but this was changed to a locomotive on later issues. The Whitby & Pickering (the other railway prohibited from using locomotives) used horses for more than ten years ; it is now a preserved line, the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. The Durham & Sunderland was operated throughout its length by fixed steam engines, but used horses during the early period owing to engineering problems with the cable system.


George Stephenson was a publicist and a promoter as well as an engineeer. His achievement with the Stockton & Darlington was to generate enthusiasm for railways. On the opening day on September 27 1825, he demonstrated to the public, to parliamentarians and to investors that locomotive traction was feasible for both freight and passenger traffic. His demonstration of a truly modern railway was yet to come : the Liverpool & Manchester in 1830.

 

Reference : Hielscher U, The Emergence of the Railway in Britain, pub. IBSS 2001

 

 

Copyright ã INTERNATIONAL BOND & SHARE SOCIETY 2001

 

This text is copyright protected. If you wish to use on the web or in print – for any purpose whatsoever – any part of this text or any of the illustrations, you must obtain prior written permission from the editor of the International Bond & Share Society (editor@scripophily.org) and give written notification to the Centrum Voor Scriptophilie (e.boone@glo.be). Infraction is not only morally totally reprehensible towards the authors and publishers who invested much effort and time in their research and writing, it will also be legally pursued.