We continue Tarquin O’Flaherty’s discussion of George Stephenson, Trains and the industrial revolution and their impact on the politics of the day.  (You can find the previous 19 pieces by searching ‘Trains’ in the ‘Search’ box, right.) 

As in the past there was huge opposition to the railway, particularly from those who owned coaches, canal barges and operated turnpikes (toll roads).  Good livings were being made, especially on those roads in and out of London which had only recently been improved by the ‘macadam’ process.  This process involved creating road surfaces from stones of carefully graded sizes and then forming a camber to help the rain run off the surface.  This process, known as a ‘McAdam’ surface, was invented by Scotsman John McAdam.  Adding tar to this process to make a ‘tarmacadam’ surface would not happen until 1902 when it was patented by a man called Hooley.  This development also gave us the word ‘tarmac’

The enabling bill passed through the Commons with little difficulty because of the show stopping performance of young Robert Stephenson.  With none of the George Stephenson hesitation or vagueness, young Robert had all of the facts, answered all of the questions, and the bill was passed at the first attempt.  The House of Lords, just for the hell of it, held the whole process up for a further year.  The Bill was finally passed by both houses in 1833.

Landowners, dukes, earls and knights of the realm, held out against the railway ‘monstrosity’ until the bribes became, in themselves, acceptably monstrous.  It was estimated that buying off objectors might cost a quarter of a million.  In fact it cost just under a million, (many millions of pounds in today’s terms)

It took four years before a triumphal arch was raised over the entrance to London’s Euston Station on the north west, Camden Town side of town.  Twenty thousand navvies were involved in this extraordinary enterprise whom investors were shocked to discover were a well fed and randy, disgracefully amoral, fiercely hardworking, indispensable body of men.  The railways would never have been built without an endless stream of navvies.  Navvies realised this very early on and took full advantage.

As mentioned earlier, the new generation of younger engineers were in the ascendancy. George Stephenson, although still taking an active part in the day to day work on the London line, increasingly deferred to his son Robert.  It was Robert who largely planned and executed the great majority of the work on the Birmingham-London railway.