Steam carriages on roads — Commission thereon — Steam omnibus — Railways — A nuisance — Railways started during the reign — Opening of the Greenwich Railway.

But the road was not monopolized by horseflesh. Steam was asserting itself, and many were the trials of steam carriages on the turnpike roads. In 1821 Mr. Julius Griffith invented, and Messrs. Bramah manufactured, a carriage, on which the engineer sat in front, and two directors or steersmen behind, in vehicles separated from the carriage, which swung easily on a variety of springs fastened into a strong connecting frame. The error of this invention lay in the boiler, which consisted of 114 tubes. These, unfortunately, would not always contain the water; and, when empty, they became so heated, that no force-pump could inject the water. In 1822, 1824, and 1825, Mr. David Gordon tried his hand on steam carriages and failed. In 1829 Sir James Anderson and Mr. James constructed one, under the patents obtained by the latter gentleman in 1824 and 1825, and are said to have worked the engine at a pressure of two hundred pounds each square inch of the piston. In 1827 Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney patented one, as did also Messrs. Hill and Burstall in 1828.

There was one running in August, 1830, belonging to Messrs. Summers and Co., which began its journey by bursting a pipe. This repaired, it utterly demoralized itself by running into a turnpike gatepost at Turnham Green, and had to be taken home. Anyhow they must have become fairly common, for we read in the Times, May 12, 1831—

Again, Times, June 7, 1831, quoting the Glasgow Chronicle, says—

"Mr. Gurney's[22] steam carriage was, on Wednesday night, blown to pieces by an explosion of the boiler. The catastrophe occurred in the square of the cavalry barracks, where the carriage was exhibiting. It had gone round the square several times, and stopped at one corner of it, where some people got out. Two boys, sons of Mr. Maclure, of the Port Eglinton Inn, at that time entered, and were about to be followed by two gentlemen, when the boiler burst with a tremendous explosion, and shattered the vehicle into numberless pieces. The two boys were very seriously injured in the face and other parts of the body, and they now lie in very precarious circumstances."

The road steam carriage was such a novelty, that people hardly knew what to make of it, so a Select Committee of the House of Commons upon it was appointed, who reported thereon to the House on October 12, 1831. The conclusion of the report was as follows:—

On August 20, 1832, we hear of a steam carriage, constructed by a Mr. Hancock, intending to make an experimental trip to Windsor, and coming to grief at Dachet. In November and December of the same year we learn that a steam carriage, constructed by Captain Macirone and Mr. Squire, was running about Paddington, and that "the jolting was not much greater than an ordinary stage coach." In the Times of April 25, 1833, we read of a

Captain Macirone's steam carriage was repeatedly noticed by the Press, and in 1834 there is an advertisement of a company to work Dr. Church's steam carriage; but all the schemes came to nought.

When William IV. came to the throne there were practically no railways for passenger traffic; and it was during his reign that nearly all the main lines in England were projected. I now marvel at their having attained so rapid a popularity, for the travelling was very uncomfortable. The idea of a stage coach was very difficult to get rid of, and the carriages were subdivided so as to represent it as much as possible—even their outsides were modelled, as far as could be, to look like a coach, and to this day a train is, in railway parlance, made up of so many coaches. The first class were padded and cushioned, but were very stuffy, having small windows; the second class were of plain painted wood, narrow seats, no room for one's legs, and very small windows; in the third class there were no seats, it was simply a cattle truck in which every one stood up, and as there was no roof, it was rather lively travelling in wet weather.

Railways were soon considered as a nuisance to the public, and on March 30th, at York, an action of Rex v. Pease and others was tried. It was an indictment for a nuisance against the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company, which was opened on September 27, 1825. By an Act of Parliament, passed in 1821, the defendants were authorized to form a railway from Darlington to Sunderland, and, by another Act passed in 1823, they were authorized to use locomotive engines thereon. The railway which, it was agreed, had been formed upon the line pointed out in the Act of Parliament, was opened for public use in 1825. Only one steam engine was at first used; but the number gradually increased till there were seven in operation. This increase had been rendered necessary by the increasing business on the railway.

For about a mile and three-quarters the railway runs in a parallel line with the high-road leading from Yarm to Stockton, the two roads being at an average distance from each other of fifty yards. The nuisance complained of was the fright and danger which the noise and the smoke of the steam engines occasioned to passengers on this part of the highway. A variety of witnesses proved that accidents frequently happened in consequence of horses taking fright at the steam engine. Counsel for the railway stated that he was willing to admit that his clients had been guilty of a nuisance, unless their conduct was justified by the Act of Parliament, according to the directions of which, the railway had been formed, and the steam engines used. He suggested, therefore, that the best mode would be for the jury to return a special verdict, finding the facts already proved, and also that the defendants had used the best engines they could procure, and availed themselves of every improvement offered. The counsel for the prosecution, after some deliberation, agreed to the proposal, and a nominal verdict of guilty was recorded. The first railway opened in this reign was in 1830, the Liverpool and Manchester, which melancholy event has already been noticed. In December, 1831, was opened that between Dundee and Newtyle. In 1833 the following railways were projected. The London and Bristol (G.W.R.), London and Southampton (L. & S.W.R.), London and Birmingham (L. &. N.W.R), London and Brighton, and London and Greenwich; in 1834 the Great Northern Railway; in 1835 the Eastern Counties Railway (G.E.R.), and the Commercial or Blackwall Railway. The other railways opened for traffic were the Leeds and Selby, September 22, 1834; Dublin and Kingdown on December 17, 1834; London and Greenwich, December 14, 1836, and Liverpool and Birmingham, July 4, 1837. Besides these there were many others projected, some of which came to nought. Take, for instance, one column of advertisements (p. 2, c. 5, Times, April 18, 1836)—South Western Railway, Padstow Breakwater, and Rock Delabole, Camelford, Callington, and Plymouth Railway, South London Union Railway, Bristol and Gloucestershire Railway, Margate and Ramsgate Railway, Ramsgate, Canterbury, Sandwich, Deal and Dover Railway, Gloucester and Hereford Railway, Harwich Railway, Westminster and Deptford Railway, and the Great Central Irish Railway.

In fact, the satire in John Bull of April 9, 1836, was not altogether undeserved—

"There is always a clown in a pantomime who knocks his head against a door, and tumbles on his nether end, and grins and distorts his limbs, and does, in short, a thousand feats to make the ridiculous performance more ridiculous still. In the pantomime of railroads, in which the tricks are innumerable, there is a clown, one so supereminently ridiculous, that if Grimaldi were still young and active enough to wear his blue tuft and wafer-dotted unmentionables, he would be jealous. The scheme to which we allude is one called by the sounding name of an International Railway—London, Paris, and Brussels, by Dover and Calais; and there are blanks left in the prospectus (and likely to be left) for the names of French patrons and Belgian patrons, and provincial directors, and all the rest of it; and the beginning of the suggestion is, that people are to go to Croydon in the first instance, as the shortest way to Belgium. Croydon seems an odd starting-point for Brussels; however, the prospectus infers that London has something to do with it; how much, we may venture to guess, by finding that the railroad communication with London is disavowed before the committee to whom the Bill is referred. As to Brussels and Paris, they will come, of course, when once the sea is crossed; but we must say that the Grimaldi railway, which renders it necessary to proceed by the old mode of travelling to Croydon in order to be steamed to Brussels, is very like paying a shilling to be rattled in an omnibus from London to a field in Bermondsey marsh, in order to climb up a flight of stairs to be rattled along the railroad at Deptford, at which place the traveller is suddenly ejected, his object being Greenwich (after which town the absurdity is delusively named), which it neither does, nor, thanks to the wisdom of Parliament, ever will reach; so that, what with the coloured hearse through the City, before you get to the starting-place in the bog, the climb upstairs, and the wearisome walk through the mud of the Lower Road to Greenwich, after you come down again, you would save exactly six pennies and three-quarters of an hour if you stepped into a fast-going coach at the Shoulder of Mutton or the Salopian at Charing Cross, and went slap bang to Greenwich itself, for the trifling charge of one shilling. This is absurd for a short affair and a matter of joke; but the railroad from Croydon to Brussels, for a serious concern and a long business, 'beats Bannagher,' as Mr. O'Connell says." The Greenwich Railway referred to was opened by the Lord Mayor and civic authorities, on December 14, 1836, but only as far as Deptford; and the whole affair seems to have been a muddle. The Times of December 15 says—

"On the arrival of the several trains at Deptford the occupants of the carriages were allowed to get out; but here the arrangements fell far short of what we expected, for no preparation was made for their return. Many who had got out in the hopes of being present at the presentation to the Lord Mayor, and others who wished to regale themselves at some of the neighbouring inns at Deptford, could not, from the density of the crowds below the railway, get out; and, on retracing their steps to the railway, they found it a work of still greater difficulty and danger to return to the carriages from which they had alighted. Many who had taken the precaution to notice the name of the engine which drew the train, and the number of the carriage which brought them down, got back in the line between two trains, but were told by the conductors that they could not return by that way without great risk, for that the trains would return immediately. In consequence of this, many persons who came down by the trains went on to Deptford, and thence to town by the coaches."