Saddleworth Historicalsociety Bulletin
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Saddleworth Historical Society Bulletin Volume 49 Number 1 2019 Bulletin of the Saddleworth Historical Society Volume 49 Number 1 2019 The Development and Decline of Railways in the Saddleworth Area 1 David Wharton-Street and Alan Young Arthur Hirst’s Diary - Voyage on the ‘Corinthic’ from Greenfield, England to Kaiapoi, New Zealand, 1913 20 Addendum to Saddleworth Parish Registers 32 Mike Buckley Cover Illustration: London & North Western Railway Coat of Arms ©2019 Saddleworth Historical Society and individual contributors and creators of images. ii SHSB, VOL. 49, NO. 1, 2019 THE DEVELOPMENT AND DECLINE OF RAILWAYS IN THE SADDLEWORTH AREA David Wharton-Street and Alan Young1 BACKGROUND The most striking facet of both Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire during the industrialisation of the eighteenth century was the range of dynamic activities; mining, metal-working, chemicals and textiles; all of which required transportation. These multiple activities were not just neighbours but overlapped each other and interacted in the same location; the Saddleworth area being no exception. The Pennines natural barrier influenced the patterns of urban interactions. Initially, the majority of industrial traffic across the Pennines was carried most effectively on packhorse causeways built by township surveyors almost regardless of gradients, and wheeled vehicles mainly undertook only very localised journeys. The north-west had a long history of textile production from the 14th century, based mainly on wool and linen (fustians), and in Yorkshire, the woollen trade grew and flourished during the period 1500-1700. Initially practised as a domestic industry, the development of technolo- gy from the 1750s (the flying shuttle, spinning jenny and carding machine) combined with access to foreign raw materials and markets through the Mersey and Humber, resulted in an unprecedented increase of production within the textile industry and a move into purpose-built mills. PRE-RAILWAY TRANSPORT ACROSS THE PENNINES Turnpikes The old packhorse trails could not accommodate the significant increase in trans-Pennine traffic and it was the clothiers who put forward most of the Saddleworth turnpike proposals to Parliament. Their construction was accompanied by the emergence of Saddleworth’s villages and the growth of water mills along the River Tame and its tributaries. The turnpike roads added to the area’s importance. The route from Oldham to the county boundary at Austerlands was turnpiked after the granting of an Act in 1735. It was then joined c.1759 by the Wakefield and Austerlands Turnpike, which passed through Huddersfield. Other turnpikes followed, providing intercon- nectivity to this important inter-regional route. The most important of these was the Mumps to Standedge Turnpike with its various branches connecting large areas of Saddleworth to the trans-Pennine route. By the 1820s, passenger coaches were running daily from Huddersfield, Halifax and Leeds over the Pennines to Manchester. Goods wagons were also using these routes to travel between commercial centres. One of the coaches, called the Cornwallis, charged 12s inside and 8s outside for the journey from Manchester to Leeds and made the journey in about four hours. The advertisement for a post coach called The True Briton (Figure 1) boasts of a direct service between Manchester and York taking about 11 hours. Despite these improvements, the sheer volume and weight of traffic could not be conveyed effectively on Turnpike roads. 1 With particular thanks for the significant input and support from Peter Fox, Curator of the Saddleworth Museum. 1 RAILWAYS IN SADDLEWORTH Saddleworth Museum Archives Figure 1. Advertisement for coach service (1824) Canals In parallel with the growth of the turnpike network canals emerged as an important means of transporting heavy loads within the region and from the ports of Liverpool and Hull. Two challenges were faced by the canal builders: access to the Mersey and Humber, trans-Pennine construction. Of the three trans-Pennine routes, the first Act was in 1759 for construction of the Calder and Hebble Canal providing access from Todmorden to the Humber estuary; this was completed in 1770. However, it was not until the Act for the Rochdale Canal in 1776 (to build a canal from Todmorden to Manchester) and its completion in 1804 that the first route from the Mersey to the Humber was established. In 1831, Joseph Priestley stated that: ‘This canal is one of the main links in the chain of inland navigation between the east and west seas, being made for vessels of such a size as enables them to navigate in the tideway, and to pass between Liverpool and Hull without the expense of re-shipping their cargoes, thus affording great advantages to the populous towns of Manchester, 2 RAILWAYS IN SADDLEWORTH Rochdale, Halifax, Wakefield, and others on the banks of the intermediate rivers. The Baltic produce can be thus readily conveyed into Lancashire, and the manufactures of Lancashire in return exported through the ports of Goole and Hull, to Hamburg, Petersburgh, Lubeck, and other continental markets. The stone from Cromwell Bottom and its neighbourhood is hereby also conveyed to Rochdale and Manchester. These connections are likely to make it ultimately an undertaking of considerable profit to the proprietors.’2 An Act of 1770 approved the building of a second canal: the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which followed a circuitous route and was not completed until 1816. The third canal was opened as a result of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal Act of 1793. This canal would connect with the Calder & Hebble Canal. With a climb of 438ft (134 m) to its summit, it passed through a tunnel at Standedge before descending through Saddleworth and the Tame valley to the Ashton Canal. There were already many woollen, worsted and cotton mills along its route which promised ample trade. Construction began in 1794 and, despite multiple problems, the canal finally opened in 1811. Although it was moderately successful for a while, several factors made it much less profitable than its main rival, the Rochdale Canal: the Huddersfield Narrow Canal was limited to boats less than 7ft (2.1 m) wide; there were numerous locks; and the long Standedge Tunnel proved to be a bottleneck having no towpaths, the narrowboats having to be propelled through by professionally employed ‘leggers’ - a procedure known as ‘legging’. Although the Rochdale Canal had a similar number of locks, it was twice as wide and there was no long tunnel. Thus, by the mid-1820s the Pennines were crossed by multiple roads and canals. THE COMING OF THE RAILWAYS ACROSS THE PENNINES The first railway route across the Pennines was the Manchester & Leeds Railway (MLR). Incorporated by an Act of 4th July 1836, it followed a circuitous route from Manchester (Hunts Bank) via Rochdale and Todmorden and down the Calder Valley where it formed a connection at Normanton with the North Midland Railway into Leeds. The length of the line was 60½ miles in total. The line was opened throughout in 1841 including a junction with the Liverpool and Manchester Railway at Victoria station (called Hunts Bank). The railway became one of the constituents of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway (L&Y) on 9th July 1847. With seven through trains on weekdays, journey times between Manchester and Leeds averaged 3hrs 30 mins; with the fastest time being 3hrs 5mins. Journey times in the opposite direction were slightly quicker, with eight through trains on weekdays. The route paralleled the Rochdale and the Calder & Hebble canals and the railway company made specific efforts to attract freight on to rail with the facility, via the Selby & Leeds Railway and the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, to offer a through service from the Humber to Liverpool. Because of its width, the through canal was more successful than the Huddersfield Narrow Canal and had become the main highway of commerce between Lancashire and Yorkshire for transporting cotton, wool, coal, limestone, timber, salt and general merchandise. Between 1830 and 1832, the canal carried 539,081 tons per year, generating £40,123 in toll revenue. In 1839 this had risen to 875,436 tons, generating £62,712 in tolls. However, the opening of the Manchester & Leeds Railway in 1841 caused a significant drop in trade. The following year, £27,266 was earned and although a programme of toll reductions succeeded in restoring some trade, the income remained at a similar level for many years. 2 Joseph Priestley, Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways, of Great Britain, (1831), p. 543. 3 RAILWAYS IN SADDLEWORTH RAILWAY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE ASHTON AND OLDHAM AREAS The construction of the railways and their ownership by the various competing railway companies in Ashton-under-Lyne and Oldham had a profound effect on the development of the railway routes to and through the Saddleworth area. By 1846, it enabled the three main Railway Companies to be in a position to compete for the construction of the line from Stalybridge to Huddersfield and Leeds. Access to both Manchester (London Road) and Manchester (Victoria/Exchange) would, in due course, be available through Oldham, Ashton and Guide Bridge as well as Wales and the west of England via the Stockport connection. Sheffield & Manchester Railway Company (SA&MR) A meeting at the Eagle Inn on 19th February 1836 of a number of influential gentlemen produced a prospectus to advertise their intention to construct a railway line from Manchester to Sheffield. Within the prospectus it stated:- ‘it is intended that the station in Manchester shall be in or near Store Street, and thence the Railway will proceed via Gorton, Aston-under- Lyne (with a short branch to Stalybridge), Hyde and Glossop.’ The proposed 2¼ mile branch to Stalybridge, surveyed by Joseph Locke in 1836, diverged from the main route at Guide Bridge ‘where the route crossed the canal.’ The Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne & Manchester Railway (SA&MR) was incorporated on 5th May 1837, the section to Godley being opened on 17th May 1841.