"The Nottingham Evening Post"
Tuesday, 30th May, 1939
"Nottingham's First Railway"
CENTENARY OF OPENING
SCHEME THAT WENT WRONG
THE GREAT DAY
One hundred years ago, on May 30th, 1839, the Midland Counties Railway was opened between Nottingham and Derby.
This first appearance of Nottingham on the railway map came by chance.
The City has shown foresight in pioneering many innovations and developments, but in the early years of the railway era consciousness of the potential value of railways to Nottingham was slow in stirring, even though a citizen, Thomas GRAY, as early as 1820 had published a strong plea for railways.
The material basis of this apathy was the happy geographical situation of the old town.
Coal - the need that spurred many railway enterprises - was being won within easy carting distance, and even if roads became difficult for heavy traffic in the winter, the Cromford and Nottingham canals had been a highway for a busy traffic in minerals and goods since the last years of the eighteenth century.
The inland trade was matched by the traffic on the Trent, which brought in timber, grain and a hundred other imported commodities from Gainsborough and Hull. Few towns were as well served with goods transport facilities in the pre-railway era.
As for the passenger traffic, there were packet boats on the Trent and Soar, while at all hours of the day and night the yards of the Maypole and White Lion inns bustled with arrivals and departures to and from all the points of the compass by post chaise and mail coach. Who could grumble at communications of such quality?
It was because Leicester was so much less happily placed that the railway came to Nottingham in 1839.
Nottingham's first Railway Station, depicted in this engraving, was ceremoniously opened on May 30th, 1839.
The story goes back to 1775, when Leicester's chronic complaint about the dearness of coal and uncertainty of its delivery by cart from the Charnwood Forest coalfield, or by the tricky navigation of the Erewash and Soar from the Notts. and Derbyshire pits, spurred the promotion of canal enterprises.
CANAL RIVALRY
In 1776 the Loughborough Canal Company was formed to canalise the Soar from Loughborough down to the Trent. In the next year the Erewash Canal Company undertook to improve the navigation from the Trent to Langley Mill. Similar works between Leicester and Loughborough completed the navigation from the Notts. and Derbyshire coalfield to Leicester. The price of coal in Leicester came down with a run.
This happy state of affairs was black disaster to the Charnwood Forest coal-owners, who could not cart at a competitive price. Their reply was the Charnwood Forest canal, opened in 1794. For five years they held their own in the Leicester market. Then the canal burst and was judged irreparable.
No mention of Nottingham yet. Trade was still flowing easily over her navigations. The inn yards still bustled.
For a third of a century the Erewash Valley enjoyed the free run of the Leicester coal market. Then the Leicestershire coal-field struck a shrewd blow. The Leicester and Swannington railway was opening in 1832, and the northern suppliers' advantage was lost.
Now for the first time Nottinghamshire thoughts turned seriously to railways. A month after the opening of the Swannington line a meeting of coal-owners was convened at the Sun Inn, Eastwood, which on that account has been called the birthplace of the Midland Railway.
But the railway there and then planned was very different from the railway that was made in pursuance of the chain of events that was set in motion.
SUN INN PROJECT
A single-line railway from Pinxton to Leicester was the project. But the Notts. and Derbyshire coal-owners could not raise enough capital.
Antedating modern jargon to 1832, Liverpool was a railway-minded city. So thither went the promoters to raise the wind. The Liverpudlians, ever averse to buying a pig in a poke, came down to examine the proposition.
"This coal line of yours," said the Liverpool party in effect, "is all very well, but it's too parochial. Railways are going to spread all over the country, and local lines must be planned to link up nationally. You must join this line of yours with Derby to get further outlets, and extend it southward from Leicester to Rugby. And while you are about it you must run a spur to Nottingham."
That was how Nottingham entered the scheme of railways. Speedily a Nottingham committee was formed. The first prospectus of the Midland Counties Railway optimistically estimated a clear annual return of 20 per cent. on the proposed capital of £600,000.
Of course, the canal companies opposed the Bill. That was to be expected. But somebody had incautiously mentioned the idea of going further north than Pinxton - to Clay Cross or Chesterfield, where the North Midland railway was entrenched. That brought the North Midland out in full hostility.
A LOST CAUSE
The alliance would have wrecked the Bill had not the Liverpool party - to the indignation of the coal-owners who had originated the whole enterprise - insisted on dropping the Pinxton line. The Sun Inn meeting had lost control of its Frankenstein monster, which had stumped away right out of the Erewash Valley for the city lights of Nottingham and Derby.
And that was how the railway came to Nottingham.
As an engineering job the Midland Counties Railway was simple. Its tracks merely had to be laid along the flat valleys of the Trent, Derwent and Soar. Yet six and a half years elapsed between the first planning and the opening.
The main reason for his delay was George STEPHENSON. Not that the genius actively obstructed the project, but he was the prime mover in the making of the North Midland line from Derby through Chesterfield to Leeds, and the North Midland's suspicions of the intentions of the promoters of the Midland Counties were strong enough to rule out the engagement of George or his son Robert as engineer of the latter railway.
There were competent engineers besides the STEPHENSONS, but none had their breadth of experience of railway problems and - even more important - none could attract capital as readily. William JESSOP, constructor of canals and colliery tramways, was appointed to make the original survey in 1832.
Before the project was placed open to public subscription in November, 1833, George RENNIE, son of the designer of Waterloo Bridge, was commissioned to re-survey JESSOP's route, and both engineers' names appear on the original prospectus. As magnets for money they were not very effective; two Parliamentary years were lost, and in August, 1835, they were superseded by Charles VIGNOLES. There was more delay while the promoters flirted with a proposal to make the line from Leicester through Northampton instead of Rugby, but the proposed alteration was rejected, and at last in August, 1837, Parliament sanctioned full steam ahead.
Meanwhile, the Midland Counties Railway Company had held its first annual meeting at Loughborough. There was a proposal to establish the railway workshops in Nottingham, but the burgesses were disinclined to part with more of the Meadows, so both offices and carriage works were set up in Leicester. But from the first the locomotive shops of all three companies that used Derby station were concentrated near that station, foreshadowing the merger of 1844 which brought the Midland Railway into being. Following that amalgamation all the locomotive, carriage and wagon departments were brought together at Derby, the geographical centre and administrative headquarters of the combined system.
So the Midland Counties Railway was built and equipped. The original locomotives were four-wheelers by Bury, of Liverpool. A woodcut illustrating the rolling-stock appears in "The Nottingham and Derby Railway Companion" for November, 1839.
It shows locomotive and tender, a first-class coach with roof, windows and doors, a second-class coach with roof and benches but no doors or glass, and wagons for luggage horned cattle and sheep. The third-class passenger accommodation is left to the imagination. It was quite evidently not expected that third-class travel would be common, for tickets of that grade were issued only at the two ends of the line.
There were two sorts of people in and around Nottingham on May 30th, 1839; those who had "tickets of admission, bearing the arms of the company, most splendidly emblazoned in gold," and those who had not. The former, attired for ceremony, were conscious of their distinction; the latter were frankly envious.
The new railway omnibus, the British Queen, resplendent in fresh paint and gilt, had made no small stir in the town as it rolled out of the yard of the White Lion in Clumber-street and made its round of the hostelries to take up invited guests and carry them in glory to the railway station, which was on the west side of Carrington-street.
ALMOST INCOMPARABLE
There the guests had presented their tickets at the grand entrance. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the bells of St. Mary's pealed across the Meadows, while within the station "the company were enlivened with the most beautiful martial and other airs performed by the almost incomparable brass band of the 5th Dragoon Guards, stationed in this town."
The strain of caution showed by "almost" did not serve the scribe for the whole of that happy day.
All Nottingham was there to see the train puff away to Derby with its fashionable load, and by and by to come back again to the strains of "See the conquering hero comes," the said hero being presumably the locomotive "Arial."
Meanwhile, Mrs. WARD, of the George the Fourth Inn, had been preparing a cold collation. It was a stand-up luncheon but evidently an enjoyable one, for the commentators' enthusiam increased progressively, and a whole lot of speech-making seemed to be positively enjoyed by the company. No doubt it was a pleasure to stand after going to Derby and back on wooden benches.
Within a week of the adjectival exuberance of the grand opening day the local newspapers were looking the gift horse very critically in the mouth. "The railway charges are considerably too high," one of them bluntly declared.
The railway age had arrived in Nottingham.
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