A History of The Great Western Railway Being the Story of The Broad Gauge - George Augustus Sekon

THE merchants of Bristol, ever in the van of improvement , and always ready to adopt any new measure that would enlarge their commerce, were among the earliest of those who clearly saw the great advantages to be derived from railway communication with other parts of the country, and especially with London; the usual method of transit for goods between the two places at that time being the Avon and Thames at either end, and the round-about system of canals connecting at Bath with the Avon, and at Reading with the Thames. This water communication provided only a very costly and very tedious mode of transit, liable to be stopped by the drought of summer and the frost of winter, so that for want of a quicker and cheaper connection between Bristol and London, the manufacturers and merchants of the former place found themselves shut out of many of the most important markets for their merchandise.

As early as 1825, the merchants of Bristol had tried to form a company to construct a railway to London, but at that time the general public knew nothing of steam in connection with railways, so that no support could be obtained, and the proposal was dropped; but in the autumn of 1832 a committee was formed which determined to proceed with the matter, and an engineer was advertised for.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was advised to apply for the appointment, and told he was likely to obtain it, as he was known and popular at Bristol in connection with his attempt to construct a suspension bridge over the Avon at Clifton, but which had been temporarily abandoned for lack of funds. He was also told that the committee would appoint as engineer, the person who guaranteed to construct the line for the least amount of money.

His answer to this was, “You are holding out a premium' to the man who will make you the most flattering promise, and it is quite obvious that the man who has either the least reputation at stake, or who has most to gain by temporary success, and least to lose by the consequences of disappointment, must be the winner in such a race.”

Despite this fearless expression of his views, he was appointed Engineer March 7th, 1833, and at once commenced the survey of the country between London and Bristol. After going over the several districts through which the line might have been constructed, he chose the course now occupied by the Great Western Railway, and having finished his surveys in June , no time was lost by the Committee, for on July 30th, 1833. the Mayor of Bristol called a public meeting of the inhabitants, and it was then resolved to form a company to construct a railway from Bristol to London.

A local Board of Directors was formed, the Corporation, Dock Company and Society of Merchant Venturers ·each having official representatives on the Board in addition to the several general merchants and gentlemen elected Directors at the meeting. A somewhat similar Board of Directors was chosen in London, and preparations were at once made to prepare a Bill for the next session of Parliament.

The prospectus first issued asked for a capital of £3,000,000 to be subscribed, this was to build the sections of the railway from London to Reading, and from Bath to Bristol. The Company was duly constituted a month after the issue of the prospectus. Mr. Brunel was exceedingly busy during all this time till late in the year preparing the necessary plans to deposit in Parliament. The Bill ' to construct a railway from London to Reading, and from Bath to Bristol, as a means of facilitating the ultimate establishment of a railway between London and Bristol,' was introduced in the House of Commons on 10th March 1834. At first the line was proposed to the viaduct crossing Piccadil1y.

The second reading was carried by 184 votes to 90, and on April 10th, the Bill went before the Committee, of which Lord Granville Somerset was chairman.

On the 13th day of the sitting of the Committee, the Railway Company abandoned the idea of a terminus at Vauxhall, and instead p'roposed to locate it at South Kensington near the '”Hoop and Toy” Public House. This gave up that part of the line that passed through Chelsea, and by this concession the Directors would have saved £80,141 in construction, and also hoped to prevent the opposition of the noblemen who owned the property between Brompton and Vauxhall, but without effect, for the counsel who appeared for the Brompton property owners, objected to the nuisance caused by a railway being allowed at Brompton, which he described as “the most famous of any place in the neighbourhood of London for the salubrity of its air, and calculated for retired residences.”

It was proved in evidence that three days at the very least, and under the most favourable circumstances, were required to convey goods from Reading to London (80 miles) by river, and one day under the best auspices, from Bristol to Bath.

The times the railway undertook to perform the journey from London to h. m. Distance Slough was 0.45 18½ miles Reading was 1.25 36 miles Oxfordwas 2.30 63½ miles Swindon was 3 0 77¼ miles Bath was 4. 10 108 miles Bristol was 4.35 118½ miles On the London and Birmingham, the trains took, to ' Watford 17½ miles 59 minutes; Leighton, 40¾ miles 2 hours 17min Blisworth, 62¾ miles, 3 hours 32min Crick, 75¼ miles, 4 hours 11min Hampton 100½ miles, 5 hours 35min Birmingham 112¼ miles, 6 hours 14 min .

The London and Birmingham Railway only obtained their Act of Incorporation on 6th May 1833, so that, when less than 12 months after, another railway proposed to travel 6 miles more in 1 hour 39 minutes less time, it appeared to the public, whose idea of express travelling was limited to a mail coach at 10 miles an hour, that such a speed was utterly impossible of accomplishment, and when Mr. Brunel, in giving his evidence, stated that he hoped to go by steam at the rate of 100 miles an hour, the incredulous laughter and the shouts of derision were appalling.

Mr. Brunel was examined for eleven days, and the landowners and others who were interested in the success or non-success of the measure during this time crowded the committee-room day by day. A person who was present thus describes Mr. Brunel's manner during this searching inquiry. “His knowledge of the country surveyed by him was marvellously great, and the explanations he gave of his plans, and the answers he returned to questions suggested by Dr Lardner showed a practical acquaintance with the principles of mechanics. He was rapid in thought, clear in language, and never said too much, or lost his presence of mind. I do not remember having enjoyed so great an intellectual treat as that of listening to Brunel's examination, and I was told at the time that George Stephenson and many others were much struck by the ability and knowledge shown by him.”

In 1834 a certain wiseacre - Cort by name- possessed sufficient conceit to publish a work, which he called Railway Imposition Detected, in which occurs the following specimen of his far-seeing wisdom, or, candidly speaking, of his utter foolishness. “The Great Western, though probably it may reach as far as Bath from Bristol, after having, like a mole, explored its way through tunnels long and deep, the shareholders who travel by it will be so heartily sick, what with foul air, smoke and sulphur, that the very mention of a railway will be worse

than ipecacuanha, especially when the only prospect they can find the least cheering in the midst of all this derangement of their stomachs will be a granite tramway actually in operation alongside of their own dose of ipecacuanha, ready to follow up the black draft, so as to get rid of every particle of obstruction with which the bottoms of their pockets may otherwise be afflicted.”

All the principal engineers of the time, including George Stephenson, were called in support of the scheme, the engineering evidence being forty-two days before the Committee. The principal points relied upon for the opposition were, the impossibility of constructing the Box Tunnel, and the fragmentary nature of the proposal before Parliament – it was described as neither “Great” nor “Western” nor even a “railway,” “but a head and a tail of a concern, 72 miles apart, which would never be joinedby a body.” The authorities of Eton College and the University of Oxford were among the most vehement of the opposition , indeed, after the Bill was thrown out, the Marquis of Chandos presided over a public meeting at Salt Hill, Slough, to commemorate the defeat of the measure. On the fifty-fourth day Mr. Harrison, K.C., commenced his speech in reply for the promoters, and on the fifty-seventh day the Committee passed the Bill. It was then introduced into the House of Lords, and the second reading was moved by Lord Wharncliffe, when 30 contents and 47 non-contents voted, and consequently the Bill was lost, £30,000 having been spent upon the parliamentary proceedings. In this Bill, the gauge was to be 4 feet 8½· inches.

The Directors were not daunted by their non-success, and they at once commenced to prepare a new scheme for the next parliamentary session. The South Kensington Terminus was abandoned, and in its place, it was proposed to join the London and Birmingham line at Kensal Green, and use the 4 miles of that line thence to Euston, which was to be a joint station. The capital was reduced to two and a half millions, with borrowing powers to the extent of £833,333, and as the last Bill, in consequence of only part of the line being proposed to be constructed, as described as “no railway at all, but 'a gross deception, a trick and a fraud upon the public, in name, in title, and in substance,” upon this occasion the promoters undertook to construct the whole of the line. The second reading took place on March 9th, 1835 (the earliest allowable date, according to the standing orders). One hundred and sixty members voted in favour of the second reading, and only the tellers on the other side.

Mr. C. Russell was appointed the Chairman of Committee, and a resolution was passed that no evidence was required as to the public advantage of the railway, so that the only evidence the opponents of the measure were able to bring forward was as to the bad course adopted for the railway. The Box Tunnel bogie was trotted out again and made the most of, and another route, from Basingstoke to Bath, was described as the best one possible for the railway, as such a line would avoid “the monstrous and extraordinary, most dangerous and impracticable tunnel at Box” but without avail, for the Bill passed the Commons again, and on May 27th was read the first time in the House of Lords. The second reading was on June 10th, the voting being 46 contents and 34 noncontents. The Bill then came before the Lords' Committee, who heard the evidence in favour of it for eighteen days. Sergeant Mereweather, who was leading counsel for the opposition, made a speech which lasted for four days in opening the opponents' case, but despite this , the Bill passed safely through the Committee stage, was read a third time on August 27th, and received the Royal Assent August 31st, 1835. The official title of the Act being 5 and 6 Wm. IV. cap. 107. The preamble of which commences:- “Whereas the making of a railway from Bristol to join the London and Birmingham Railway near London, and also branches to Trowbridge and Bradford in the county of Wilts, would ·be of great public advantage, not only by opening an additional, certain and expeditious communication between the cities and towns aforesaid, but also by improving the existing communication between the Metropolis and the western districts of England, the South of Ireland and Wales, and whence” etc.

No mention of the gauge was made in the Bill, Mr. Brunel purposely having omitted that item. The Provost and Fellows of Eton College obtained the insertion of a clause forbidding the erection of a station at Slough, and also requiring the Railway Company to provide policemen to patrol the line for a certain distance each side of Slough to prevent the Eton boys from straying

on the line, and so possibly being run over by the trains, but the Great Western Railway was not deterred by this clause. Railway directors are as well able (and generally much better able) to drive the proverbial coach and four through an act of parliament as ordinary mortals).

The Act said they were not to build a station at Slough. Very well, then, they did not do so, but the Act did not enact that the trains were not to stop at Slough, so, for offices, two rooms were hired in a public house adjoining the railway at Slough. And from the very first opening of the line the trains stopped there and put down and took up passengers, who were doubtless a little inconvenienced by having no platform to alight on, or depart from, but they were able to go to and from Slough nevertheless.

This quick-wittedness of the Great Western Railway made the Eton College officials furious, and, on the 2nd June 1838, they applied for an injunction in Chancery against the railway for breaking their Act of Incorporation in stopping at Slough, but the legal arguments of the railway counsel soon made it clear to the judge, that the Act had been observed and duly abided by, and the application of the College was refused. The authorities of the Oxford University also obtained the insertion in the Bill of a clause by which the station at Oxford was to be erected at a spot as distant as possible from the Colleges.

Thus, was the inauguration of the most colossal railway of our empire established by the law makers of nearly sixty years ago, adding a profitless burden of £89,436, 13s. 3d. to the capital of the Company* But every magnum opus must be established lex terra.

The original capital did not suffice to construct the line, so in 1839 an Act was obtained for raising £1,250,000 stock, and £416,000 by way of loan, in addition to the amount already authorised.

* The amount of money expended in obtaining the Act of Incorporation.

A disused Victorian railway signal on a Devon station platform sold at auction for more than £11k above its asking price. The imposing Grade II listed, three floor, rectangular brick and glass fronted signal box, is on Platform 2 at the busy Great Western Railways Torre Station in Torquay.

Inside, all of the original equipment remains in place, including the signalman's armchair.

There was frenzied bidding by rail enthusiasts anxious to get their hands on the iconic structure from the golden age of rail. More than five people drove up the price with 41 bids. It was listed with a guide price of £54,000 and was sold by Paul Fosh Auctions for £65,750.

The top floor of the property is still equipped with all its rows of signal levers and a signalman's armchair. The equipment remains in situ but is no longer in operation. The signal room has a cast iron, pot-bellied, coal fed stove dating from the age of steam, wood panelling and high ceilings and is flooded with light from the panoramic windows.

The box dates back to when the railway station opened in 1848. The station is still in use. Planning permission for conversion of the signal box into a holiday home has previously been obtained for the property but this has now lapsed.

The accommodation comprises three floors. Previous plans envisaged creating a snug ground floor living area, first floor bedroom with en-suite and the third floor, having an open plan dining room and kitchen. Initial work has already started converting the building.

Torre railway station, which has two platforms in use, is a suburban station on the Riviera Line in Torquay, Devon. The railway station is 219 miles from London Paddington.

The station is managed by Great Western Railway but is not staffed. The railway station with its ornate main buildings and intricate designed passenger footbridge was designated a world heritage site in January 1975.