ISSN 0033 8834

VOLUME 33 Pt. 3 No. 174 November 1999 RAILWAY & CANAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY A company (No 922300) limited by guarantee and registered in England as a charity (No 256047) Local Group Secretaries London G. C. Bird, 44 Ravensmede Way, London W4 1TF North West G. Leach, 5 Tabley Close. Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 ONP North East D. B. Slater, 8 Granger Avenue, Acomb, York YO2 5LF West Midlands R. M. Shill, 100 Frederick Road, Stechford, Birimingham B33 8AE East Midlands (acting) B M Dobbie, 72 Moor Lane, Bramcote, Beeston, Nottingham NG9 3FH South West (acting) A. Richardson, 25 Boscombe Crescent, Downend, Bristol B516 6GR

Co-ordinators of Special Interest Groups Tramroads P.R. Reynolds, 87 Gabalfa Road, Sketty, Swansea SA2 8ND Road Transport P. L. Scowcroft, 8 Rowan Mount, Doncaster, South Yorkshire DN2 5PJ Waterways History Research (including. Docks & Shipping) Vacant: Enquiries to J. Boughey, 14 Ripon Road, Wallasey, Merseyside L45 6TR Railway Chronology D. R. Steggles, 8 Buckerell Avenue, Exeter EX2 4RA Air Transport Group N. Wood, 'The Poplars', Barnstone Road, Langar, Nottingham NG13 9HH All copy for the March 2000 Journal should be with the Editor by 5 November 1999 and must conform to the Society's style-sheet. The Editor will supply potential contributors with a copy on receipt of a 81k" x 6" stamped and addressed envelope. Original typescripts and other 'copy', maps, diagrams and photos, of published articles will not be returned unless requested by Contributors. Whilst copyright in the Journal as a whole is vested in the Railway & Canal Historical Society, copyright in the individual articles belongs to their respective authors, and no article may be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission in writing of author and publisher. Views expressed in any article, review, or item of correspondence in the Journal of the Railway & Canal Historical Society are not necessarily those of the Editor or of the Society. Published by the Railway & Canal Historical Society (Registered Office: 77 Main Street, Cross Hills, via Keighley, West Yorkshire BD20 OJJ). The Society is registered as a charity (no 256047). THE RAILWAY & CANAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY Founded 1954 Incorporated 1967

PRESIDENT: Dr S L Bragg

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JOURNAL OF THE RAILWAY & CANAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY VOLUME 33 Pt. 3 No. 174 NOVEMBER 1999

Contents

.. 126 THE CLINKER LECTURE: CHARLES HADFIELD AND WATERWAYS HISTORY J Boughey. .. 126 PRIVATE MOTORING, 1870-1890 R. W. Kidner. .. 136 RAILWAYS AND INN SIGNS P L. Scowcroft .. 138 L.T.C. ROLT (1910-1974) J. Boughey .. 140 HIGH SUMMER IN THE LOWTHER HILLS M. Buck.. .. .. 150 THE RCHS PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION .. .. 152 CORRESPONDENCE .. .. 153 BOOK REVIEWS .. .. 155 BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR 1998 .. .. 165

125 Obituary: Charles Philip Weaver 1908 - 1999

Philip Weaver died on 12 May 1999, four days after his 91st birthday.

He was a very early member of the Society, having been persuaded to join by his friend, Charles Hadfield. He served as Treasurer of the Society for three years and contributed several articles to the Journal. Together with his son, Rodney Weaver, also a member of the Society, he wrote Steam on Canals, which was published by David and Charles in 1983. His interest in canals began early. He lived near the in the Colne valley, south of Rickmansworth and often walked along the towpath, becoming familiar with the commercial craft on the canal. Later, he went to Bath and became interested in the neglected Kennet and Avon Canal, particularly the Crofton and Claverton pumping stations.

In 1951, he bought a boat, Betty, a 20 foot traditional cabin cruiser powered by a Morris petrol engine. He refitted the boat and kept it at Hatton on the Grand Union Canal near Warwick.

Three years later, in 1954, he was approached to assist in the preparation of tour notes for a trip organised by the RCHS over the main line of the Birmingham Canal Navigations. This was in the very early years of the Society and it was on this trip that he met Charles Hadfield, who became a life long friend, persuaded him to join the RCHS and asked for his help in researching the canals around Birmingham. In retirement, he acted as historical and technical consultant to Malcolm Braine and Nicholas Bostock in their restoration of the steam President.

Charles Hadfield and the Writing of Waterways History: Past and Future BY JOSEPH BOUGHEY This article is based upon the Clinker Memorial Lecture, delivered in September 1998; it has a similar structure to the Lecture, but does not repeat every point made then. There has already been a semi-memorial issue of the Journal for Charles Hadfield, and I have written an extensive study of his work, so I do not attempt to return over ground covered elsewhere, although some overlap is inevitable. Instead, I explore some possible futures for waterways history, basing this partly on an examination of Charles Hadfield's involvement in its past growth and development. I should stress two features of this essay. Firstly, the views expressed herein are mine, not Charles', who rarely expressed opinions on his chosen field; and secondly, when I comment on the lacunae and limitations of waterways history research, I make no reference to the failings of any individual or, indeed, this Society.

PART 1- THE PAST

A beginning — what sort of historian? What sort of history did Charles Hadfield write? I might have unequivocally asked what

126 sort of historian Charles was, had it not been for an odd encounter with one of his relatives at his funeral in August 1996. After I had delivered an appreciation of Charles' work in the church, this person approached me with an assertion like this:- 'You said he was an historian, but he wasn't an historian. My daughter is an historian; she's been trained in historical method.' It was difficult to respond at the time, although academic historians who had known Charles' work later refuted this sentiment. Nevertheless, Charles privately expressed the view that he seemed to be regarded as some sort of "fact-collector" amongst some academic historians whom he had encountered. Perhaps this reflected the tendency for some professional historians to regard those who are interested in transport history as automatically outside their own ranks; part, possibly, of that boundary-setting and boundary maintenance which mars so much academic work. It might be more appropriate to describe most of us, and Charles too, as investigators of history rather than historians; indeed, if definitions are sought, it might be better to describe ourselves as transport people rather than historians. This is not a pejorative label; although there are important exceptions, one could fairly assert that many professional historians have contributed little, if anything to the field of transport history literature. Charles did begin with what was then a recently developed field of economic history, and his first waterways publications were in an academic journal, the Economic History Review, but he quickly moved towards a field in which he had a special expertise - publishing. He himself suggested a specialised and somewhat limited function for the historian:

'In our enthusiasm for what we have discovered, we often go further than we thought and appoint ourselves historians...Historians have to create the past - let us say the canal age - so that if William Jessop or William Praed of the Grand Junction Canal could be brought back to life, either would recognise the historian's effort as a reasonably accurate picture of what was in fact going on in his own time1.'

Curiously, Charles did not comment on whether he counted his own work as that of this kind of 'historian', but his main contribution was to waterways literature rather than to the wider field of history-writing.

Waterways literature Charles did not claim to be the founder of modern waterways literature, attributing this to L T C Rolt, whose Narrow Boat, published in 1944, may be considered the key text. Narrow Boat was not a work of history in any sense, but it inspired attention to a hitherto little-known world of historical interest. It also led directly to the formation of the Inland Waterways Association, and generated and maintained considerable interest in the exploration of inland waterways. Tom Rolt could not be described as an historian at this point2, but this and other work made him a significant literary figure in waterways publishing; Charles, while no literary figure, was to be the most prolific and influential writer of historical works. It should be stressed that in the late 1930s and early 1940s, when Charles' interest in canals was growing, there was almost no living literature of waterways. Charles amassed a large collection of books in wartime, but entirely from secondhand bookshops; very little was in print, and what could be gleaned about waterways

127 appeared to belong resolutely in archives3. After he joined the Oxford University Press in 1936, he acquired the Press's canal books, only two of which dealt with history. One, an academic study of the Middlesex Canal in Massachusetts, he dismissed as dull, but another contemporary academic study proved to be much more influential. River Navigation in England, published in 1936, was a study by the economic historian T S Willan, which provided a new interpretation of the significance of river navigations prior to the canal age. Significantly for Charles, Willan attempted to deal with the history of all navigations in England and , providing much empirical material and a context into which Charles' further researches could be set; this work was the main inspiration behind his later attempts to set down detailed histories of individual canals. While Willan, however, continued with somewhat arcane work in the field of economic history, Charles would help to develop a wide literature of waterways, and would also play a part in determining their future.

Against this very limited literature of the 1930s should be set the sum of Charles' own achievements over the next 50 years. By 1977 he had written, or fostered the writing of, a detailed history of every canal and most navigable rivers in the British Isles, and by 1993 he had helped to re-establish the reputation of the canal engineer William Jessop, and laid down a path-breaking synthesis of world canal history, along with a host of minor popular works. None of this could be envisaged in the 1940s, although neither could the considerable interest in canals, railways or industrial archaeology (the latter not even yet named) in the postwar period. It is a moot point as to whether the general development of transport history and industrial archaeology would have proceeded without a small group of influential individuals, but literature is one clear area is one area in which specific individuals can exert significant influence. Charles partly determined the framework of emphases within which the study of waterways history would proceed, but he also directly influenced many others who followed his lead.

Encouraging a generation Charles had one very significant impact on this Society - without him, this would have been founded as a Railway History Society, had he not suggested to Charles Clinker, whom he had met in the early 1950s, that its scope be enlarged to include canal history. It may be that the subsequent enlargement of its scope, to include road and air transport, owes much to this initiative; certainly Charles supported its expansion to cover all transport history. Charles effectively co-led the RCHS with Charles Clinker at first, and used it less to publish his own research than as a means of encouraging others to carry out their own investigations. In a period when the gap between generations was perhaps greater than today, many youthful members of the new Society found Charles personally welcoming and encouraging, when other figures (perhaps inevitably) were more distant. This practical encouragement was accelerated after Charles co-founded the publishing firm of David & Charles in 1960; from this base he fostered a range of authors, and encouraged others whose work might never have come to fruition. For the Canals of the British Isles series, for instance, he recruited Dr Alan McCutcheon, an early industrial archaeologist, and Dr Jean Lindsay, whose background was economic history, to write the North of Ireland and Scotland volumes respectively. Although Charles' role in David & Charles was reduced after 1964 he remained as editor of this and the significant Inland Waterways Histories series. This produced a large number of detailed studies of 128 individual waterways between 1965 and 1979, beginning with Paul Vine's London's Lost Route to the Sea, upon which he had worked since the early 1950s. Before collapsing markets brought to an end David & Charles' more adventurous publishing innovations, Charles had fostered the growth of series in Industrial Archaeology, and the launching of journals like Transport History and Industrial Archaeology. In one case, he encouraged one of the Society's founders, Bertram Baxter, to produce Stone Blocks and Iron Rails, a pioneering study of tramroads whose text Charles largely wrote himself. Charles thus contributed to the publication of the work of a generation, and one mark of his contribution is indicated by the limited amount of rigorous work which has appeared since the 1970s. His assistance and encouragement was personal, lending files of his notes to many enquirers, and depositing the British Isles collection at the British Library of Economic and Political Science so that others might use it. His surviving post- 1976 files show that even the most trivial query would receive a reply.

Approaches and methods

The approaches which Charles adopted towards research, and the presentation of its results, proved influential. Some of this was direct, in that he edited many works for David & Charles, but much was indirect, in the example which it set. His general approach featured a surprisingly enduring uniformity. When I was researching Canal Man and More, I expected to find a gradual evolution in his approach to research, but instead discovered that between his schoolboy researches in 1925-6 and his final work of 1993, this had scarcely varied.

The interwar period was one in which much fanciful and inaccurate "history" had appeared, much of it not based on any attributed sources. Charles shared with Charles Clinker a major stress on accuracy, and only rarely has this aspect of his work been faulted. One account for which further research has exposed inaccuracies is that of the Caldon Canal, where his speculation as to the opening date proved wrong, and where he described a line for a section which later research proved had never existed. He attributed the latter error to his reliance on written records and a failure to inspect the site. He did visit most of the waterways whose history he researched, astonishingly without the aid of a car, although at a time when railway services were more extensive. The purpose of his visits was not to record details for posterity, but to familiarise himself with their general appearance and topography.

From the outset, Charles placed strong reliance upon primary sources, beginning with original Grand Western Canal papers, all he could work with at first. He later used secondary sources to set the scene, but rarely relied upon them. Today his own works and those he encouraged provide essential secondary sources, but in the 1940s there were few accurate works. The primary sources with which he began included contemporary pamphlets and papers, newspaper files and the records of canal and railway companies. For the latter, Charles' researches began at the right time, for one incidental consequence of nationalisation was the passing of transport company records into public hands. Charles would become the first ticket-holder at British Transport Historical Records (henceforth BTHR) in 1951, but before then began with records sent to him privately to a parcels office in Bishops Bridge Road. Until 1962 he had one major advantage denied to many other researchers: he lived in London, very

129 close to BTHR at Porchester Road, although he carried out much research before the benefits and challenges of photocopiers and microfilm emerged. Charles was a competent and careful craftsman in writing, producing mainly works of reference. He stressed that from the outset all research should envisage its completion in written form, and he built up his account of each waterway in stages, adding what was clearly known, and exposing problems which further research would need to resolve.

Emphases and omissions

So much for the essentials of Charles' achievement. But what did his work emphasise, and what did that leave him to omit? While, like Clinker, he stressed accuracy, unlike Clinker he was interested in wider issues. For instance, in The Canals of Southern England found space to sketch a general regional history of transport - something which he hoped to pursue on a general level for David & Charles4. For British canal history, Charles concentrated mainly on what he termed the "Canal Age", between 1760 and 1840, when canals were dominant, and for which the available primary sources proved most fruitful. He did investigate other periods, but tended merely to sketch the period since 1948. The latter omission was partly because of his own involvement in events; he consciously left this for "historians yet unknowns". His accounts may be described as company histories, canal by canal, without much emphasis on the history of carriers or traffic. One complaint from an economic historian was that he did not explore waterways as the embodiment of capital, and the returns thereon6. These remarks do not apply to his work for World Canals, in which his account was carried through to the 1980s, and which could not be constructed from primary sources or company histories.

Other omissions can be briefly listed. His fieldwork. as already stressed, did not attempt to do more than illustrate, for him, what was explored on paper in archives, although he did write guidebooks which were based on his own visits. He had no background in engineering, and, in describing engineering works, "stuck to the hardware" (in his terms), rather than the development of engineering ideas and knowledge. Personalities eluded him, except in his discussion of Jessop and Telford, which some found disappointing. Finally, he did not view the purpose of historical investigation as the drawing of any conclusions about the present, and saw his work as the relaying of objective information - although he did have strong opinions on both the contemporary and historical position of waterways.

PART 2 - SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE FUTURE Charles' achievements should not blind us to the possibilities of future research and writing, based in part on work which he omitted; I discuss some lines for future work below.

Archives and Further Work Charles' own archives, in London and in the World Canals collection at Ellesmere Port, include much detailed material which was not fully used in his books, which could be followed up and further used. For instance, most of his British canals files include details of shareholdings and committee memberships, along with financial details,

130 which require further investigation. They also provide a digest of canal company minutes which could reduce the need to consult the originals, providing a much more accessible resource for cross-sectional studies covering a number of waterways. One relatively under-utilised source is newspaper files, for which the long reading time and tedium involved inhibits much research. Charles paid a number of people to search various newspapers, such as Aris' Birmingham Gazette, and much of the summarised and classified material which this has yielded could assist new research. Since Charles' researches ended, further records have come to light, which might illuminate some of Charles' work and his conclusions. Some idea of the records which Charles himself uncovered is given by his discovery of records of the Suffolk and Essex Stour in a timber yard in 1948: "'Old records?...A pause, then he led us forth through a haze of sawdust to seek George, who led us to a large tin trunk deep in sawdust, in which, George assured us, old papers were kept. But how to open it? More cogitation and enquiries suggested Bill, who arrived with a huge key. Some oil, and it indeed opened the trunk. My eyes goggled. It was full of old papers and right on top were 18th century leather-bound books, clearly minute books, labelled 'River Stour Navigation', oldest on top7.' These records are now in the Essex Record Office. It is unlikely that records of this originality and calibre will be discovered, but some may arise from private sources, for which perceptions of the value of historical records may be improving. An example, from Charles' own experience, lies with the Trent & Mersey Canal and its tributaries, whose main records were systematically destroyed in the late 1940s, leaving primary evidence scanty. Charles spent much time in the early 1960s writing to solicitors in the Stoke area, one of which proved to have some papers on one of its tributaries, the Newcastle-under-Lyme Junction Canal: 'I myself once penetrated to the muniment room of Knight & Sons. They assured me they had no canal records, but grumpily escorted me down. Facing me as I entered the door was a tin box with Newcastle-under-Lyme Junction Canal Co printed on it. They were most annoyed, but allowed me to make extracts from the minute books. 8' Since this time, further Trent & Mersey materials have appeared, including estates papers in West Yorkshire and a series of Agreements, now in the Boat Museum at Ellesmere Port. Many other materials would supplement the accounts provided in the British Isles and Inland Waterways Histories series, and result, not in embellishment, but in updating these with modern sources. One whole category which was not available during Charles' main period of research is that of postwar records, of the British Transport Commission, and now Board. Until 1967 the 50 year rule operated, so that even the interwar period was largely inaccessible, but records up to the 1960s are now available in the Public Record Office and elsewhere.

Waterways not Oust) canals — enlarging Willan

New work can involve not new sources but new subjects; one inspiration is provided by

131 work in Charles' own life. In order to encourage the development of modern freight waterways, Charles founded the Inland Shipping Group in 1971. One of its unintended achievements was to focus interest upon waterways which fell well outside the limits of the industrial revolution canals, those owned by British Waterways and whose records were in BTHR. With few exceptions, most freight is now carried on large tidal waterways, like the lower Trent, which were barely covered in the British Isles volumes. While their history since 1970 is reasonably well known, their history prior to that is not, and there are many other waterways - mainly rivers - which carried freight, but whose history has not been charted. For instance, apart from Gordon Biddle's coverage in The Canals of North West England, the history of lake transport has not been investigated in details. The use of tidal navigations would also merit investigation. For example, in North Wales the Dee, Clwyd, Conwy, Dwyryd and Dovey have all been used for freight carrying, but only for the Dwyryd has a history has been produced. Their history is connected, at least in part, with that of coastal shipping, another area which Charles suggested would merit investigation on a regional basis10. This leads on to the history of navigation by inland rivers in the long period before the development of canals, an area initially summarised in Willan's work (for English rivers only). Charles did carry out work in this area in the 1940s, but tended to sketch his coverage in the British Isles series from secondary sources. There have been scattered studies which have revised aspects of Willan's work, but none which has enlarged it as a whole. This would involve work on sources very different and distant from those in BTER, and much closer to the interpretation of mediaeval documentation and the weighing of archeological evidence. One waterway which would merit a large-scale study is the most important navigation of its time - the unimproved Severn". Further work might focus upon the interpretation of Willan's work. This did not set out to trace the history of river navigation in England, but to assess the role played by river transport in the national economy. More recent work has suggested that road transport played a larger part then has been supposed, and there is scope to assess the relative importance of road and waterways transport before the Canal Age. This could extend to early tramroad history, upon which much work has been carried out, but not work aiming to assess the regional or national significance of early tramroads. Finally, the significance of coastal shipping could be considered. The varied range of evidence here might well inspire considerable debate.

The twentieth century and the Second Canal Age Charles tended to limit his attention away to the twentieth century for British canal history, but not for World Canals. For the latter, his work could be updated to reflect developments since 1984, and new knowledge - sometimes including newly discovered waterways, revealed through the much greater public interest in waterways outside the British Isles. For British canal history, much more material is now available about the interwar and postwar periods than was available up to the 1970s. While controversy still informs some interpretations of that period, these controversies no longer really hold salience for the present, so that a cold assessment of the past position can no longer be viewed as detrimental to the future of waterways. Such studies could extend back to the period leading up to the twentieth century, when the waterways were increasingly affected by railway competition.

132 This is often pictured as a period of decline, but more than just a chronicle of decline can be envisaged; the attempts at modernisation made, in diverse ways, by the Grand Union company, by the Aire & Calder, and later by British Waterways, should be analysed. The failure of attempts to modernise Britain's waterways on a regional scale, and the precise reasons why these did not proceed need to be assessed, including considerations of the railway interest alongside detailed explanations of policy formation and the varied influences on policy. Comparative studies with some countries in continental Europe where both railways and waterways lay in a different relationship to the state, could suggest some explanations - and some distinctions and contrasts. The postwar period has featured the growth of the leisure use of canals, with the interwar period as its precursor. For some, this may be regarded as merely an appendix to a history which has otherwise effectively ended. For Charles, however, the revival of waterways for leisure use, often with a greater density of boating use than they had during the Canal Age, had drawn them into a "Second Canal Age", which, he felt, was as important as the earlier period when waterways were first developed. One source for this history is Charles' own work and his own papers covering his involvement in postwar waterways politics. That on the founding of the Inland Waterways Association in 1946, the trouble within it in the early 19-Os, and Charles' membership of the first British Waterways Board between 1963 and 1966, has been partly covered in my recent study, but there are many other developments to be considered. One advantage is that there are still many people available whose testimony can be sought, and much field evidence which can raise and resolve queries. Clinker placed no credence upon what is now termed oral history, and Charles tended to mistrust it, but, carefully handled, oral history can illuminate areas which are not reflected in written records. Unlike older written sources, it is possible to question some of those who were involved as to what may lie behind written records, and a somewhat different kind of history may result. It should be stressed that there are divergent interpretations of postwar waterways history, perhaps partly because of continuing links with those people who were directly involved. Charles himself sought to discourage publication of one account, and towards the end of his life felt that it was important to establish accurate records of this period: as he, somewhat avidly, put it: 'it's important to get down on paper what really happened before the fictional history writers get started.12' However, he did not seem to consider the possibility of assessment, not only of the quality of evidence, but of the explanations which might be evoked by that evidence.

Other histories and interpretation Charles began in the field of economic history, and it may be that those in the field of waterways history could learn from studies in more general fields of history - political, social, economic, legal, industrial and technological history, along with broader transport history. For instance, how did developments in the national economy affect the development of waterways, and just how significant was the growth of the canal

133 system to general industrial development in particular regions? International comparisons might well assist explanation here.

Waterways historians can perhaps learn also from the approaches, methods and philosophies of other types of historian. These are also diverse, with debates over their respective validity; without always seeing their approach as best, waterways investigators might usefully learn from them.

This leads to the question of interpretation. The scholarship of Willan and his predecessors in the Manchester School of economic history has been criticised as 'Not analysing, not using economics, not posing economic questions, not demanding to know how long, how much, or how representative: but tracing.13 ' (My italics). These strictures apply with even greater force to much of transport history, and indeed to much of Charles' work. Most work has concentrated on tracing - on making maps without considering what those maps might reveal, or how they might be used. This does have a logic, in that work has centred round the investigation of unexplored sources, but the completion of Charles' work has perhaps marked the moment for explanation to move towards centre stage. This may involve skills which will not be obvious to those in waterways history, many of whom are self-taught. This would include the understanding of such fields as politics, technology and psychology. I will conclude by considering the relation between Charles' work and two of these - politics and psychology. When I wrote of Charles, that 'Sigmund Freud...need not have existed for all he understood about psychology'14, I was surprised not to receive one or two angry responses from readers. Charles' last major work, Thomas Telford's Temptation, centred round the possibility that Telford had suppressed evidence of William Jessop's critical involvement in the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and elsewhere. This has been criticised on the grounds that the evidence of the "temptation" is only circumstantial, but it could also be criticised on the basis that Charles' grasp of the possible psychological motives for Telford's apparent behaviour is doubtful. Where personalities were influential, and enough evidence of their personal lives is available, a closer understanding of psychology would permit more informed speculation as to their motives. An example would be the early history of the Inland Waterways Association, for which the understanding of the motives and modus operandi of its self-proclaimed founder, Robert Aickman, would be an important supplement to the more objective and factual record. To fully comprehend a small organisation like the IWA from within, there would need to be an understanding of individual personalities as well as the external determinants of the organisations' work. Charles was himself involved in politics, both at a political party level and intra- organisational and policy levels. The study of political science is based only partly upon factual and empirical investigations; interpretation plays an important part. The best studies relate developments in policy to the broad contexts which partly determine the details of policies, and in turn to the forces which partly determine that context. To explain the retention of the majority of waterways for leisure in the postwar period, for instance, it would be possible (and valuable as an initial study) to trace and describe events and developments. Most waterways historians would stop at this stage. However, to understand why these developments took place would require a general analysis of the general development of policies around lesiure, from the changing planning system,

134 through to the professional development of recreation provision, and policies towards tourism; these would need to be set within general economic change, such as developments in working hours and holidays, levels of disposable income and patterns of consumption of leisure commodities, and patterns of provision. This would develop explanations a long distance from Charles' initial focus, but could represent a valuable way forward. To conclude, I do not intend to denigrate any of Charles' considerable achievements; in many ways, those of us who attempt to study waterways history inhabit a world which he created. It would be inappropriate, however, to merely celebrate his achievements and to suggest (as some people have to me) that there is no further work on waterways history to be carried out. On the contrary, Charles' legacy is a foundation upon which new developments in waterways history can be pursued.

1 Quoted in Charles Hadiield: Canal Man and More, p.127.

2 I am currently (April 1999) carrying out research into L T C Rolt's work as a waterways historian.

3 Much later, Charles would be instrumental in securing the republication, by David & Charles, of many nineteenth and early twentieth century texts whose production would appear an eccentricity until the late 1960s.

4 In later volumes, he omitted any general transport history on the grounds of space. His plans for a 4 volume general history of transport dates back to the early 1960s, but foundered when his partner, David St. John Thomas, proved unenthusiastic.

5 Charles Hadfield, Canals of the West Midlands, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1966, p.12 6 The complainant, T S Willan, did not perhaps appreciate the difficulties of publishing, in 1961, a book dealing with the economic success or failure of obscure transport ventures.

7 Quoted in Canal Man and More, p. 18 8 Quoted in ibid., p.55 9 Since the lecture, much of the history of Scottish lochs has been covered by P J G Ransom, Scotland's Inland Waterways, NMS Publishing Ltd, Edinburgh, 1999.

10 Charles did not commit this suggestion to print, but did make it at the RCHS dinner in his honour at Gloucester in May 1988. 11 I am aware that much work has been carried out on the Severn, but a synthesis has yet to appear. 12 Quoted in Canal Man and More, p.123.

13 Quoted in ibid, p.8

14 Joseph Boughey, 'Obituary: Ellis Charles Raymond Hadfield', RHS Journal, Vol 32 Pt 7, No 169, March 1998, p.493.

135 Private Motoring 1870 - 1890 BY R W KIDNER

The two decades between 1870 and 1890 saw the lowest point of private motoring in the UK over the past 150 years. Up to the end of the 'sixties there had always been some innovating mechanical vehicles on the road, and the participation by the Dukes of Sutherland, Stafford and Caithness, as well as other respected car-owners, gave motoring a social cachet. However, the development of traction engines from 1860 had caused the passing of the first Road Traffic Act in 1865, and the harsh implementation of this by some magistrates began to drive cars off the road. Legislators pretended that cars frightened horses, but in fact witnesses at the time refuted thisl. There was one case where a passing car caused a cart driver to fall off, while his horses were unperturbed. The real reason for the Law's action was a dislike of change and the vast influence of those with financial interests in horses and horse transport. Several cars were still on the road after 1870. Probably one or more of the six built by Isaac Watt Bouton, also those of private inventors L J Todd, J H Knight and G Prew, who published some details of a drive from Birmingham to Gloucester2 showing a cost in fuel and tolls of 1d per mile. His gearing from the crankshaft was 5 to 1, which probably gave a speed of some 10 mph. In 1871 Messrs Catley & Ayres of York displayed a light cat at the annual Show there. The Tangye Brothers in Birmingham planned to produce cars, and placed a full specification in their 1875 Catalogue3. T Cooke & Sons of York built several cars, one of which4 was purchased by Richard N Greville of Glastonbury and is still running today. An interesting feature is that the wheels are built up from solid wood segments; spoked driving wheels sometimes failed. The inventor R E B Crompton had a car called 'Blue Belle' which he took to India in 1870 when he was appointed to run the Government Road Trains there, using rubber-tyred fast steam tractors. It came back to the UK and was in the Motor Museum in London in 1912.

J G Inshaw of Nechells splashed out with a car in 18825 which could carry ten at a pinch, with three-speed gears. Although prominently labelled 'Steam Fire Engine' the police were not fooled and in the end he took it off the road. A smaller machine was a one-seater built by the postman at Craigievar in Scotland; this was later taken over by Lord Sempill at the castle there and is still run occasionally. Electric propulsion was available, but the weight of batteries told against it; nevertheless Magnus Volk in 1889 built a four-seat car at Brighton driven by a 1hp Immisch motor, which he is said to have sold to the Sultan of Turkey. Only a few years later almost all motor cabs in Paris, London, Berlin and New York were electric, though displaced by petrol in London; but for many years only electric cabs were' allowed to enter Hyde Park. The persecution of motorists at the time is well evidenced by the case of Sir Thomas Parkin in 1881. He had applied a small meths-heated engine to a wheel of his tricycle, which he said was capable of 10 mph. He was arrested for exceeding 2 mph and for not having three attendants, under the second Road Traffic Act. He was fined one shilling but appealed; it went to the Lords, and Lord Coleridge threw out the appeal, concluding

136 that Sir Thomas was driving a locomotive. In other countries there was less legislation and more experimentation. Siegfried Marcus in Vienna built his second car to run on what was later called petrol in 1875. In Germany both Gottleib Daimler and Carl Benz had petrol cars on the road by 1885. In France M Delamare Debouteville built a car running on coal gas at a pressure of 1421bs. He also patented the carburetter in 1884. The firms of Panhard et Levassor and Peugeot both took Daimler patents, and the latter had a car on the road by 1890. The Comte de Dion, Leon Bolide and Serpollet were still building steam cars and did not convert to petrol until after 1890. In general France had a lead of some ten years over Britain in private motoring, resulting in French words such as garage, chauffeur, tonneau and others entering the English language. As the 'nineties began, althougn the Act liberating motorists was still six years away, the police were taking a more lenient view, and some privately-produced internal combustion cars began to appear; however they were not taken up by manufacturers. Only Lanchester, Wolseley and Arrol-Johnson managed to get a British car on to British roads before the end of the century.

J G Inshaw's car in Birmingham in the early 'eighties, lettered 'steam fire engine' to fool the police. The lad at the rear was called the chauffeur, French for stoker.

Notes 1. Richard Tangye, The Rise of a Great Industry (Routledge, 1905). 2. English Mechanics, 17 June 1870. 3. Reprinted in Model Engineer, 13 April 1944.

137 4. Described and illustrated in The Engineer, 24 April 1896 p421.

5. Described and illustrated in The Engineer, 1 November 1895 p434.

Railways and Inn Signs BY PHILIP L SCOWCROFT

Inn signs are fascinating, partly for their often intrinsic artistic value, but principally for their reflection of history, local and national. Signs and names associated with transportation are among the most fascinating1. Here we look at those to do with railways. Railways created a major change in the life of this country when they came on the scene in the first half of the 19th Century. From the start inns were associated with them. Some acted as booking offices, as they had done so often for stage coaches. The George & Dragon at Yarm staged a promoters' meeting of the Stockton & Darlingtom Railway. In due course many served railway travellers, the companies building their own hotels. It was not long before Railway inns, so styled, began to appear and we still have plenty of these around. There are Railway Hotels at Ross-on-Wye and Bury St Edmunds, Railway Taverns at Watford and Selsley (Glos.), a Railway Inn at Guyhirne, Cambridgeshire and a Railway Arms at Theydon Bois. These have a variety of interesting and often attractive signs, even if these are not always appropriate to their locations. In South Yorkshire alone there are Railway Inns or Hotels at Wombwell (two, in fact), Darton, Askern, Bentley, Royston and several in Sheffield and Station Hotels at Blaxton, Darfield, Rossington, Thurnscoe, Parkgate, Sheffield, Bawtry, Dodworth, Silkstone, Treeton, Kiveton Park, Shireoaks and Conisbrough. In 1861 Conisbrough, a smallish place, had both a Railway Inn and a Railway Hotel. In most of these cases the railway, or station, is no more. Again, while the sign of the Railway Inn at Newton Abbot in South Devon aptly has a painting of the Torbay Express, that at Blandford (Dorset) has Puffing Billy, hundreds of miles away from its home territory in County Durham. The similarly signed Railway Inn at Ross-on-Wye is scarcely nearer Puffing Billy's home territory. Many pubs are called 'Railway ----'. Thus we have a Railway Arch at Weymouth, a Railway Bell at Folkestone and New Barnet, a Railway Bridge at Burton-on-Trent, a Railway Carriers at Southsea, a Railway Junction at Hitchin, a Railway Posting at Newport Pagnell, a Railway Telegraph at Thornton Heath (Surrey), a Railway Train at Kidderminster, even a Railway and Naturalist at Prestwich, near Manchester, this latter being a conflation of two competing features. This group also commemorates various railway servants like the Railway Engineer (London NW7), the Railway Guard at Epsom and the Railway Steamer at Shefford, Beds. The latter is not a ship, as we might think, but a railway horse! A Railway Terminus at Bridport recalls that that Dorset port once had a Great Western Railway branch line. There is a Railroad (a term used in Britain in the early days, but latterly largely confied to America) at Bristol. Sevenoaks has a Railway and Bicycle. Doncaster's The Sidings is not far from the marshalling yards on the Doncaster Carr and there is also a Sidings at Brinsworth (Rotherham). Now for locomotives. there are a few 'general' ones: an Engine and Tender at St Neots,

138 a Locomotive at Ashford, a town which built many locomotives in its time, and an Iron Horse near Swindon, whose sign shows a confrontation between a locomotive and a horse from coaching days. Morning Star ( and elsewhere) and North Star (Chessington, Surrey and elsewhere) celebrate early GWR engines, Evening Star (Colchester and Dorking) the last steam loco built for British Railways. The Puffing Billy is at Killingworth and also at Exton in Devon, these examples being in addition to the signs we noticed previously. The Royal Scot is at Carlisle, appropriately enough, the Mallard equally appropriately in Doncaster (and also at Little Bytham, the scene of its historic exploit, Stevenage and Worksop); the Silver Bullet, at Finsbury Park on the Great Northern line, celebrates another early LNER streamliner. The Flying Scotsman, again appropriately enough, is in Great Northern Railway territory at Retford (but also appears elsewhere). Some of these may refer to the train service rather than the engine; other inns called after services include the Golden Arrow (Folkestone) the Scarborough Flyer, in Scarborough itself whose sign depicts an A4 loco in Garter Blue livery (Mallard has been seen in Scarborough hauling specials in recent times) and a Pullman Inn in Essex. The Brighton Belle, at Winsford in Cheshire, was originally dubbed simply the Railway Hotel, but when a Pullman coach from the Brighton train was converted into a restaurant attached to the pub the name was changed.

Individual railway companies are also remembered. I have not found examples for all the major pre-Grouping railways and have yet to discover for instance a Lancashire & Yorkshire, a London & South Western and a London Brighton & South Coast (the latter two are rather long!). The Great Western does particularly well, with pubs at Yeovil, London W2 and, its sign displaying a painting of North Star, Warwick. The Great Northern has a tavern in London N8, near King's Cross, and also at St Albans, remembering a GN line extended from Hatfield in 1868 (I recall staying at another Great Northern, in Stamford, in 1950). There is a Great Central at Leicester, reasonably enough, and even a M S & L [Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire, the GC's previous designation] at Manchester. There are Midland Railway inns at St Albans, Masborough (Rotherham) and Killamarsh, also in South Yorkshire, and the Midland Spinner at Warmley (Bristol) may relate to the Johnson 'single' (it was originally called Midland Railway). The Caledonian is present at Carlisle and other places (though the Darlington inn of this name displays a sign with a GWR 'King), being almost ever-present north of the Border though not always is the Caledonian Railway intended. Nor is the Premier Line forgotten; there is a North Western at St Albans and at New Mills, while one of the LNWR's main original constituents, the Grand Junction, is appropriately at Crewe. The London, Chatham & Dover Railway (London SW11) is one of England's longest pub names. The South Eastern at Tonbridge, has a sign bearing the SE&CR coat of arms. There is a North Eastern at Spennymoor, County Durham, a town which also has a Station Hotel and a Railway. Inn, and another at Goole. Southport boasts a Cheshire Lines; the Great Eastern, at Lowestoft, signifies the railway company, though often this sign refers to Brunel's ship; and the Somerset & Dorset Tavern is appropriately located at Burnham-on-Sea. Nor are smaller railways forgotten. The Light RailWay Inn at Hulme End in Staffordshire keeps green the memory of the Leek and Manifold, closed over sixty years ago, while the Selsey Tram, with its evocative sign, is to be found in West Sussex, near the Tram's one-time stamping ground. The Vale of Rheidol Inn at Aberystwyth, opposite the VRR terminal, bears a sign of a nicely represented VRR loco in a short-lived ochre livery from BR days. A Narrow Gauge is found at both Neath and Merthyr but as both towns' railways are, or were, standard gauge, the name may relate to one-time colliery railways. 139 One or two railway personalities are commemorated, Brunel perhaps most of all, with a Brunel at Saltash and elsewhere, an Isambard Brunel, also a Great Engineer at Bristol (Brunel — who else in Bristol? — was the Great Engineer) and, rather more incongruously, a Brunel Arms at Crewe. What would Francis Webb have said? There is a Thomas Cook at Leicester, appropriately, and, equally appropriately, the George Hudson is to be found in York. Alas there is no Gresley Inn in Doncaster, nor, as far as I know, anywhere else. One or two features of railway history are recalled, early (like the Atmospheric Railway at Starcross, scene of Brunet's experiments in the 1840s) and much later: the many Silent Whistles and perhaps also the Ghost Train (Porton, near Swindon) allude to the swingeing Beeching closures. The many Station Hotels with no surviving nearby station may also be put in point again here. The Lamp and Whistle at Penzance personify two articles of equipment for a railway guard. The one-time Plant at Doncaster recalled the commonly used appellation of the GNR's railway works in that town, used indeed even before the works were built there — there is also a Plant Inn at nearby Mexborough. Not always are the signs illustrating the name accurate. The Editor tells me from her own local knowledge that the name of the Dore Junction (no longer a pub), near to that junction south of Sheffield, bore a representation of a Midland 4-4-0, but painted green (!) and we have already noted the egregious error at the Caledonian in Darlington. But many of the signs are at least cheerful and enhance the street scene. A small proportion of the pubs with 'railway' names genuinely recall aspects of railway history and also in a place approximating to what is appropriate. It is a pity that many one-time 'railway' inns have lost their railway designations but pub name changes have been with us for centuries.

NOTES 1. I have written papers on Aviation, Road Transport and Docks & Shipping inn names for those Special Interest Groups of the R&CHS.

L T C Rolt (1910-1974): Waterways Historian? BY JOSEPH BOUGHEY This article has been written to commemorate L T C Rolt, who died 25 years ago, and to appraise part of his work relating to waterways history. Tom Rolt left behind three volumes of autobiography, numerous publications, and a wealth of practical involvement in transport. transport history, engineering biography and industrial archaeology; my assertion, in Charles Hadfield: Canal Man and More that he (along with Charles Hadfield and others) was one of the twentieth century's most significant figures in these fields has yet to be challenged. I examine here only a small part of this legacy: his writings on waterways prior to 1951, when his practical involvement with waterways ceased. My discussions focus on questions about what sort of history Tom Rolt researched and wrote, and on what was it based. Tom Rolt's reputation is, at least in part, that of an historian of waterways. It is perhaps surprising, therefore, to read in the final volume of his autobiography (published only in 1992) that Red for Danger (1955) was "the first book I had tackled which entailed

140 research" and that his later Brunel biography involved much "detective work"1. This seems to confirm Charles Hadfield's assertion that Tom Rolt, although a close friend, was not really an historian of waterways, and that he rarely had time to carry out formal research. I will suggest that this was the case for much of Tom's earliest writings, and that their continuing value lies elsewhere. Nevertheless, he did carry out extensive research in ways which did not aspire to the models of research and writing to which many transport historians conform.

A Sense of the Past

Tom Rolt seems to have developed an acute feeling for the historical from an early age. In 1971 he wrote that "the Edwardian world into which I was born appears as remote and fantastic as some half- remembered dream"2 and his sense of the past is illustrated by a childhood memory of one Christmas Eve in Chester: Our way took us down Watergate Street. This was a narrow cobbled road flanked by even narrower pavements and shadowed by the over-sailing timbered gables of the houses. Because both street and pavements were thickly carpeted by new- fallen snow, we climbed the stone steps to the shelter of the row. Unlike the more frequented rows with their gay shop fronts, Watergate Row was a dim, mysterious place after dark, lit only by infrequent flickering gas lamps. It was inhabited - as it doubtless had been since the Middle Ages - by small craftsmen, coopers, tinsmiths and the like. The windows of their workshops were shuttered now, though some showed chinks of light and there were sounds of unknown activity within. Occasionally the mouth of a narrow alley, dark as midnight and leading who knows where, opened up between them... Attempting to formulate at this distance in time I would say that what I perceived then was an embodiment of the continuing life of an ancient city, labyrinthine, dark, mysterious yet not sinister but intensely human.3 An antiquarian might stress that this part of Chester was, in fact, largely a Victorian reconstruction rather than a mediaeval survival, and that most of these shops were then, as they are now, antique shops4. This passage, nevertheless, illustrated how he was to perceive the historic built environment: rather than pursue enumeration, measurement and assessment through documentation, he relied on impressions and intuition, sometimes acute, sometimes (as it would turn out) inaccurate. He expressed a profound sense of prospective loss, perceiving continuities with an historical world whose survivals are glimpsed, but fragile and fleeting; he was to extend this into concern about the impact of industrialisation on the loss of craft, which he viewed as more in tune with the natural world. His interest in craft would develop into a strong practical bent which would lead him to empathise more with history oriented around practical observation and deduction than theoretical work oriented round written documentation. Perhaps this reflected a reaction to his own social position, from an upper class family of rentiers, much of whose world was diminished by financial ruin in the early 1920s5.

Tom Rolt did not translate this early historical sense into an interest in waterways history until the late 1930s. While he must have encountered the Shropshire Union Canal on childhood holidays in Chester, his later memories centred round steam trains and trams. A longer involvement with canals began at the age of 19, when his uncle, Kyrie Willans, acquired and converted the former Shropshire Union narrow boat,

141 Cressy. He joined Willans on a number of cruises in 1929-31. but although he became "head over heels in love" with canals, he was primarily interested in their practical working rather than their history.6 During part of his youth he lived opposite the (already) disused Newcastle-under-Lyme Canal, and explored much of the Potteries, but seems then to have been interested more in general transport and in industries rather than waterways. A major influence derived from his acquisition of Samuel Smiles' Lives of the Engineers around 1932; Smiles, who perhaps over-stressed the significance of engineers and the role of transport in the industrial revolution. opened up an interest in history and engineering which he had not encountered in his formal education7.

Narrow Boat

At the end of the 1930s, he renewed his acquaintance with Cressy when he acquired it for further conversion as his travelling home. His account of his initial journey over canals in lowland England on Cressy produced his first book, Narrow Boat, written in 1939-40. This would prove to be the twentieth century's most influential book about British inland waterways, helping to inspire and develop much public interest in the contemporary waterways scene. However, it was not a history, although it was one which dealt, at times intensely, with a historical subject. Tom was aware that much of what he explored was in danger of disappearing, and Narrow Boat was thus a consciously created record.

Sources for Narrow Boat did not involve the kind of notes which an historian or travel writer might be expected to keep. The extant log of Cressy contains few details of evidence of canal history, although it records many observations on churches and villages en route - then perhaps more conventional subjects of non-professional history. There is little evidence that he systematically explored canal history on the ground or in conversation, or consulted more than his very small library of books. He "saw interesting photographs of the Foxton inclined lift" on a visit to the nearby inn, but did not follow this up with a close inspection of the inclined plane site (then only dismantled 13 years before). On August 26 1939 he talked with a Stafford & Worcester Canal -keeper - "a most amusing old man" - and later with the lock-keeper at Stone who recalled Cressy from the early 1930s. At Bedworth on the , he met a retired boatman aged 79 (and thus born in 1860) who "had been over fifty years on the canal and 'buried three wives different parts o' the country-. He noted his quaint phrasing such as 'unloading them boats was billy-bally work', but no details of traffic or working methods. These people must have possessed much historical anecdotal knowledge. but little of this found its way into the log or Narrow Boats.

While this might diminish their future value as records of conversations and events which would present insights today, Tom Rolt's intention in both was not to collect historical material, but to distill his experience into literary form. His approach to historical writing relied heavily on the sifting of (acute) memories, in a manner which he partly described later: As the work of adding fact to fact goes on, so the writer must constantly sift the inchoate mass of material so acquired until a pattern of order either emerges or is by him imposed upon it. It is at this juncture, when the shape of the book becomes clear in his mind, that the author can afford to stop research and start writing.

142 Without this vision of order, research into any subject can easily become obsessional, the pursuit of facts never ending, and the projected master work either never written or unreadable9.

He did not keep detailed historical records for future reference; Narrow Boat was intended to stand as the record. As he did not envisage a growing interest in waterways or waterways history after its publication, it was not conceived as a contribution to a developing field of literature. Its somewhat arcadian nature made it in some way both a late example of the country books of the 1930s (illustrated in this style at his publisher's insistence), and a forerunner of his second book, High Horse Riderless, within which he propounded his views of industrial society10.

Worcestershire and The Inland Waterways of England Publication of Narrow Boat was delayed until the end of 1944, after many rejections by publishers. By then Tom was working on a general study of Worcestershire for the publisher Robert Hale's County Books series. Long out of print and superseded by a later volume in this series, this book was more significant than its title would suggest, and in many ways linked his earlier perceptions to more detailed researches which would foster an interest in industrial archaeology. Tom had the advantage that Cressy was moored at the time at Tardebigge in Worcestershire, a base from which he would visit a range of historical places and meet local historians such as H R Hodgkinson, the restorer of Harvington Hall, who proved to be a significant influence". His wartime work as an inspector for the Ministry of Supply involved much travel by road; he explored en route places such as Kidderminster and Stourbridge, as well as Coalbrookdale and lronbridge which (then largely uncelebrated) bore much surviving evidence of the early industrial revolution 12. His explorations included canals, and surviving correspondence provides some impressions of his investigations into the Canal, along with their limitations'13. He began work on Worcestershire in early 1945, and came across references to a "Kington and " in R C Gaut's 1939 history of Worcestershire agriculture, from which much of Worcestershire's historical coverage was drawn14. While Cressy was moored at Sharpness during much of June and July 1945, he visited part of this canal's remains by road. In the Newnham area he found that "In places the bed had practically disappeared but for most of its length it was intact, with over bridges, a short tunnel, and a fine stone aqueduct over the River Rea."15 Alerted by Charles Hadfield to the possibility that work on this uncompleted canal might have extended towards the Severn at Stourport, he visited Stourport by boat to find no trace there. Then he revisited by road on 12 August: We passed the sites of three locks (one with lock house) and then came to what had obviously been a wharf complete with a large brick house and stabling. A hundred yards further on there was an obvious 'winding hole', while a disused track (which might once have been a tramroad to judge from the careful grading) led away in the direction of the pits.'16 These assumptions would prove largely accurate. Charles Hadfield had advised him that there was a tunnel at Southnet; one "old local" told Tom that the west end of Southnet Tunnel had been blocked up many years before, but he found the east end (open to this

143 day) himself. Over the long tunnel at Pensax, which had been planned, Tom concluded that "Local information is scanty and contradictory." 17, and he recorded in Worcestershire that "the canal ended ingloriously at the foot of rising ground on Southnet Farm near Mamble where all the efforts of the engineers to complete the 3,000-yard Pensax tunnel through the crumbling cornstone failed."18 This somewhat romantic picture has been dispelled by Richard Dean's recent research, which has shown that the limited work which was carried out on the tunnel ceased for financial reasons19. For the rest of the canal, Tom also noted, inaccurately, that "I am told that it is possible to trace it all the way to Kington."2° His enquiries, for a book whose coverage of waterways was only peripheral, did not result in factually accurate waterways history. His widow has emphasised how Tom's marked affinity with craftsmen, with whom he would converse for lengthy periods, reflecting his practical abilities and understanding; this lies in sharp contrast to the reliance of many historians upon the use and interpretation of documents. Tom' s work thus involved greater accuracy and interest when he recorded contemporary work rather than expounded details about the distant past that went beyond the relating of personal experience. During wartime Cressy was moored for over four years close to the Worcester & Birmingham Canal workshops at Tardebigge. Worcestershire noted the drowning of at least three leggers in Tardebigge Tunnel in 1842, but drew closer to history in his portrait of Mr Insull the blacksmith, who may often be seen framed in the entrance to his smithy- his bare forearms resting on the lower portion of the half-door. Burly, deep-chested, heavily moustached, he is the archetype of a blacksmith, though now he is ageing and rather deaf. Master of his own domain he shares more closely in the different activities of the yard, for, besides shoeing the boat-horses, he forges guard irons and spikes for the boats, and ironwork for the lockgates. It may be that before so many years have passed by, the forge will be cold and weeds grow long in the yard. Therefore it is well that there should be some record of these men.21 This reflects the theme running through Narrow Boat, recording, through contemporary description, a world destined to disappear. It would also run through The Inland Waterways of England, essentially a portrait of the historical rather a general history, which would draw on Tom's continuing reading of waterways-related literature.

One inadvertent consequence of the founding of the Inland Waterways Association by Tom Rolt, Robert Aickman and Charles Hadfield in 1946 was that much material of historical interest was brought together in the Association's growing library. Much of this was loaned from Charles Hadfield's large collection, which he had largely acquired in wartime; before this Charles had lent Tom books like Priestley and Phillips. Tom Rolt was able to consult these along with his own acquisitions, such as Brian Waters' Severn Tide (1947). In addition, letters of appreciation of Narrow Boat had included some minor historical materials, and Tom had made new contacts like the engineer Charles Hadlow of the Grand Union Canal Company, who would much later become the first curator of the Waterways Museum at Stoke Bruerne.22 In 1947 Tom sought publicity for the new Association through a travelling exhibition, which included the collection of a range of historical items. The interest which this generated led Tom's then publisher to propose "a general popular book about canals and canal working as distinct from a personal book about a canal journey of the

144 NARROW BOAT type." Tom stressed that this would not be a history: "I dont [sic] propose to go into history in detail but only to give a broad survey in the first two chapters."23

Most of this new book was written during 1948; in January he sought a copy of Willan's River Navigation in England, which he needed for an "early historical chapter" on rivers (the other would cover canals).24 One major source (not now well known) for both historical chapters was De Salis' A Chronology of Inland Navigation, along with the same author's better known Bradshaw's Canals. Most of the book was a contemporary portrait of waterways which supplemented the more arcadian coverage of Narrow Boat. The strong emphasis on the Grand Union Canal and the Midlands canals reflects his contact with Hadlow, and with George and Sonia Smith, boatpeople who were early IWA members; the tales of hauntings repeated in Chapter VII on The Boatman come from one of many meetings with them, on 18 October 1946.25 Much was based on observations from several journeys, the last an IWA campaigning voyage in autumn 1948 through waterways in northern England, very shortly before the manuscript was completed at the end of October. After publication in 1950, The Inland Waterways of England would be influential, but some of its coverage of history would prove contestable. For instance, he sought to explain the origins of boatpeople and narrow boat decoration, but in the absence of hard evidence, stressed that "it is only possible to advance very tentative theories"26. He suggested that this lay with gypsies who camped on Trafford Moss, near the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal who would have assisted in its construction and afterwards lived on narrow boats. His evidence was the similarity in layout and decoration of boat cabins and Romany vans, and the numbers of boatpeople with Romany names whom he had encountered, partly corroborated by "several old boaters whose memories went back to the 1870's"27. Later work, based on deductions from documentation, has comprehensively countered this thesis28. Here, intuition and empathetic conversations failed to reveal what had happened well outside reported or living memory. The same chapter illustrates further evidence from Banbury boatpeople, who "had all, until recent years, been master-men owning their own boats, and they have told me many tales of the hardships they have suffered. Tonnage rates were sometimes so low that they had to work far into the night to earn a bare livelihood. In a hard winter they might be frozen in for weeks and be forced to live on their precious "docking money" set aside for the repair of their boats."29 This is, as is much that the book describes, vivid, but undocumented, formed from anecdotal evidence which would not conform to current practices in oral history. Reading it as factual history, general conclusions might be drawn from specific instances; in this case from the somewhat unusual self- employed "Number Ones" of the . However, the passage which immediately precedes that above states Tom Rolt's purpose: I am merely concerned to record a surviving fragment of an older England before it vanishes utterly; and to point out that for all its faults it possessed certain precious qualities.

The book does succeed in providing such a record, factually flawed though it might be, but one which draws on extensive personal knowledge, from his own lived experience, and from observations of people who evidently trusted him. In this sense it approaches the kind of recording (without the tape recorder) of rural life carried out by the late

145 George Ewart Evans, or even the informal insights derived from participant-observation by social scientists since the 1960s; added to this is an imaginative vision3°.

Ireland and the Thames Two slighter, less historical, books in the 1940s covered further journeys, providing travelogues with some historical backing. The first narrated a voyage, similar to that in Narrow Boat, over the waterways of the south of Ireland, about which even less was then known than about waterways in Britain. During the voyage in summer 1946, he tried to gather as much historical detail as possible; with the possibility that others might follow, he included distance tables for the major waterways. He complained in July 1946 that information "seems impossible to obtain except by personal experience even in Ireland."31, but by the journey's end much had been gathered, "though it was hard work."32 Charles Hadfield provided much assistance; lengthy quotations from Trollope and Charles Lever came from books in his collection. While no log has survived, extensive visits to towns and villages, and to large houses, were again recorded and described in detail. Unlike Narrow Boat, Tom recorded details of traffics and conversations with boatmen; the principal one involving history was that with a former Royal Canal boatman at Jamestown, who recounted tales of accidents in the cutting at Clonsilla which later research would prove accurate.33 The book was much less arcadian and factual than Narrow Boat, but this was based on a single trip rather than upon long acquaintance and absorption. It included a portrait of what later seemed to be one of the last trips through the Royal Canal, over which he later commented that "I feel a kind of mournful satisfaction in having recorded for posterity, at the eleventh hour, what is was really like to voyage through this lost waterway."34 The Thames from Mouth to Source was a very much more slight work, which has disappeared amid the mass of popular books about the Thames. Originally to be entitled The Thames in Colour, the text was commissioned to accompany a collection of colour prints of paintings. Tom did, however, consult historical works such as Smiles and Willan, and after he completed a trip in Cressy up the Thames from Brentford to Inglesham and Oxford in summer 1950, borrowed Charles Hadfield's copy of F S Thacker's The Thames Highway: Locks and Weirs. He leant heavily on Thacker's accounts of remains at various sites in 1920; for example, his discussion of Sandford Lock on Page 55 summarised Thacker's much greater detail35.

Some Conclusions Tom Rolt's practical involvement with waterways ended in 1951, after which his interests in railway preservation, industrial archaeology and engineering biography deepened. He would return to the study of waterways, but mainly in the context of engineering biography and industrial archaeology; bar his final study, From Sea to Sea (1973). By then a number of authors, led by Charles Hadfield, had researched the history of most inland waterways in the British Isles, at least up to the 1940s. Much of this work on history came from sources very different from those which Tom Rolt consulted.. Tom's work was completed before British Transport Historical Records opened; even if he had time to investigate them, there were few company records which he could have readily consulted. It may appear more surprising, however, that he did not

146 consult more conventional works of social and economic history such as that by Townsend Warner36. However, he did not consult social, economic and industrial history so much as more literary accounts like Smiles' works, or more practical contemporary works such as De Salis, Bradshaw, Phillips, and Priestley. This is not to suggest that he did not admire the painstaking factual work fostered (for instance) by members of this Society, but he did not seek to emulate it37. What is the legacy of this early work? In practical terms, Narrow Boat and Green and Silver inspired contemporary interest in inland waterways in England and Ireland; while The Inland Waterways of England fostered some interest in waterways history; the other two books were short-lived. The significant legacy for today lies partly in what Tom Rolt recorded of a world which has now vanished, rather than in his portrayal of history which could not be discerned from oral evidence or study of the built environment. Today we might regret that he did not keep systematic records, so that a wealth of unpublished materials could now be examined and further analysed, but this would be to misunderstand his purpose and to ignore the singular vision which linked together his observations.

Tom's work expressed empathy with a whole way of life which has now disappeared, in a deeply subjective manner. There is much of Tom Rolt and his perspectives in his early books, and this makes it unlikely that they could be superseded. This might jar with those who expect the study of history to produce objective accounts based on accurate data, with the author a shadowy figure. While this is a valid approach, there is a strong case to be made for the subjective, for the same reasons that art can sometimes communicate what scientific accounts cannot. His best work communicates experience of an (otherwise) irrevocably lost world, and while his mysticism can cloud and colour his observations, his work can be interpreted from alternative perspectives. In The Inland Waterways of England (in particular), there is much surmise and intuition whose insights could well be followed up by more data-based research.

I have elsewhere drawn the distinction between three kinds of interest in waterways history: "academic", "enthusiast" and "professional"38. The latter may be defined as those who work with waterways, as against enthusiasts who work elsewhere. In many ways, Tom Rolt's interest was close to the professional: he lived on waterways between 1939 and 1951, and knew waterways and those who worked on them on an everyday basis. To make systematic notes and to pursue enquiries, as an academic or enthusiast historian might, would be unusual in these circumstances. Tom Rolt' s involvement meant that he could absorb much directly and write from a broad working knowledge. Such writings might lack the rigour and breadth of academic work or the painstakingly- obtained details of the best enthusiast work, but they have the benefit of authenticity. In addition, Tom's literary gifts could be brought to bear on aspects of the historical which have since largely vanished rather than be expended on the analysis of documentary materials preserved in archives39.

This suggests a final legacy, though one expressed in words with which Tom might disagree: the importance of fieldwork and oral history. As his work on the Leominster and Cressy's log illustrate, he did not carry out the kind of systematic studies which might be expected today, but the fruits of his long-term observation of the historic built environment and conversations were distilled and expounded, along with secondary written sources, in The Inland Waterways of England. This kind of preservation of disappearing worlds, and appreciation of historic structures, presents a challenge for those of us who perceive today' s inland waterways in transition, with physical evidence 147 and much witness to their past disappearing or ignored. To record, not just to extract data or colour an otherwise monochrome factual account, but to attempt to grasp what can be recovered of disappearing worlds, sometimes from unwitting or unwilling subjects, presents a challenge to most of us, in all branches of transport history. Tom Rolt realised that formal written records, despite their authority and longevity, provide only a fragmentary form of survival. To record what we can of today's inland waterways, in the field and in conversation, is to realise part of his legacy.

Notes and References I have benefited greatly from a number of conversations with Tom's widow, Sonia, who has provided access to private papers. All conclusions about Tom Rolt in this article are, however, mine.

1 L T C Rolt, Landscape with Figures, Alan Sutton, Stroud, 1992, p.129 and 135 2 L T C Rolt, Landscape with Machines, Allen Lane, London, 1971, p.7

3 ibid., p.31-2

4 Kelly's Directory of Cheshire, 1914 edition, indicates this for Watergate Street. 5 Landscape with Machines, p.43 6 ibid., p. 113. He would later stress that his uncle was his mentor in practical engineering: see L T C Rolt, The History of the History of Engineering, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, Vol XLII, 1969-70, p. 153

7 ibid., p.152-4. He admits in Landscape with Machines (p. 168) that he rarely read at all until he acquired Smiles, but this oriented him towards practical experience.

8 Unpublished log of Cressy, 3rd, 26th and 27th August 1939, and 29th November 1939. These encounters were almost certainly reflected in discussions in The Inland Waterways of England.

9 Landscape with Figures, p. 141 10 He himself commented on the "arcadian" aspect of Narrow Boat; High Horse Riderless (1947) was later claimed by one wing of the Green movement, and re- published by Green Books in 1988. 11 This point has been stressed to me by Sonia Rolt in recent conversation.

12 The latter are in Shropshire, but would feature in later work. 13 In an earlier draft I referred to this as "fieldwork", but this later term would refer to the assiduous recording with notebook, measurement and photographs, rather than his approach, which relied on intuition and impressions.

14 Gaut was a significant source for Worcestershire; with interests rooted in field studies and in natural history, he was not really an historian.

15 Letter to Charles Hadfield, July 4th 1945 16 Letter to Charles Hadfield, August 14 1945 148 17 ibid.

18 Worcestershire, Robert Hale, London, 1949, p.101

19 Richard Dean, The Unfinished Leominster Canal, Journal of the RCHS, Vol. 32 Pt. 2 No. 164, July 1996, p. 82-7

20 Worcestershire, p. 192. His observation is, of course, based on inaccurate hearsay, which lends weight to Charles Clinker's later view that the word of the oldest inhabitant would almost always mislead. Only very limited work was carried out on the section west of Leominster.

21 ibid., p.124. Mr Insull died in 1962. 22 Letter to Charles Hadfield, May 2 1947

23 Letter to Charles Hadfield, 21 December 1947 24 PRO30/82/4, Letter to Robert Aickman, 23 January 1948

25 ibid., letters to Robert Aickman, 19 and 22 October 1946. The Smiths did not travel through Harecastle Tunnel on the Trent & Mersey Canal, so the "several old boaters" (p.189) who claimed to have seen a celebrated ghost there must have been recorded elsewhere.

26 The Inland Waterways of England, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1950, p.174 27 ibid., p.177. He also observed affinities between gypsies and boatpeople in a canalside pub in Banbury, on a memorable evening recounted in the same chapter.

28 Notably by Harry Hanson, The Canal Boatmen 1760-1914, Manchester University Press, Manchester? 1975, Chapter 1

29 The Inland Waterways of England, p. 185

30 See, for instance, George Ewart Evans, Spoken History, Faber and Faber, London, 1987. This analogy should not be taken too far, although it noteworthy that Evans like Tom, began by writing fiction, and his work had distinct literary influences. 31 PRO30/82/4, letter from Tom Rolt to Robert Aickman, 25 July 1946 32 Letter to Charles Hadfield, 1 September 1946 33 Green and Silver, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1949. p.113. Later research included V T H and D R Delany, The Canals of the South of Ireland, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1966.

34 Green and Silver, second impression, 1968, p.iii. The "last" trip over the whole route, recounted in Ruth Delany, Ireland's Royal Canal, Lilliput Press, Dublin. was in 1955, but restoration of most of this canal was well advanced by 1999. 35 F S Thacker, The Thames Highway: Locks and Weirs, reprinted by David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1968, p.134-8

36 George Townsend Warner, Landmarks in English Industrial History, Blackie & Son, London, 3rd edition, 1930.

149 37 See, for instance, his review of Charles Hadfield's The Canals of South Wales and the Border in the Journal, Vol. 6 No. 6, November 1960, p. 117-87 in which he praises both the book and the work of the RCHS. Another example lies in his reviews of The Canals of Scotland and The Kennet & Avon Canal, in The Countryman, Vol. 71 No. 1, Autumn 19687 p.I60

38 Joseph Boughey, Charles Hadfield - Canal Man and More, Sutton Publishing Ltd, Stroud, 1998.

39 I have not dealt here with Tom's extraordinary attempt at historical fiction, Winterstoke, Constable, London, 1954, which included, in its portrait of change in an industrial town from the eighteenth century to 1950, an account of a fictional canal. It is significant, however, that this drew its inspiration a combination of his earliest, unpublished work, the novel Strange Vista (1932), and his developing view of industrialisation from his observations since. Tom's place as a literary figure and his literary influences cannot be discussed here, but his intense vision was expressed in Winterstoke. Unfortunately, this proved to be a disaster in publishing terms.

High Summer in the Lowther Hills BY M B BUCK Almost sixty years ago the Leadhills and Wanlockhead Railway closed, as the mines were exhausted, and it must have seemed that the area was in terminal decline. A glance at the map shows the context, a tract cf hilly moorland in Southern Scotland, some 40 miles South of Glasgow, about halfway towards Carlisle. Yet these days Glasgow commuters have settled in the two mining villages, and there are signs of affluence. Once more Station Road, Leadhills, lives up to its name. This time the railway is a different concern - not an industrial route, but a cross between a preservation line and a tourist attraction. Instead of being standard gauge, it is 2'0", and the destination is, not the Euston-Glasgow main line at Elvanfoot, but the neighbouring village of Wanlockhead, "the highest village in Scotland," at 1531 feet above sea level. At its summit the line reaches 1498 feet, even higher than the Drumuichdar Summit on the Perth to Inverness line; it is in fact the highest adhesion line in Great Britain. What possessed the original builders of the railway to construct it (all seven miles, with a prevailing gradient of 1in 43)? Equally, what impelled the present activists in their endeavours? The answer to the first question was mineral deposits (lead and some forty other items), but the answer to the second is more complex.

The present team saw clearly both a challenge and an opportunity; the trackbed was firm and unimpaired, but the tasks ahead were exacting. When they started work in 1986, there was no shelter on the exposed hillside site, except in members' cars. Now there s a large prefabricated shed, housing a number of diesel locos, the company's equipment and some of the rolling stock. The station comprises a single platform and the body of a goods van, which, unlocked, serves as a booking office and shop. The complex of sidings includes storage for a ballast train, and a spur to the East for a hundred yards or so to the end of the line. Beyond the trackbed extends down towards Elvanfoot on the main line, through some splendidly rugged hills. Unfortunately, a bridge across the main road and the former graceful viaduct at Risping Cleugh have both been 150 demolished, the latter in December, 1991. For some years it had been subject to a preservation order, but official policy changed, and the viaduct was eventually blown up. However, some of the bricks have been used to construct the signal box at Leadhills Station. The route to the West goes through the ruins of the old leadmines, smelters and outbuildings, now mainly heaps of stone and slate, littered across the moorland. The single track gradually climbs, passing two level crossings and approaches a long cutting. A considerable way up the cutting is the temporary terminus at Glengonnar platform, just short of the county border between Lanarkshire and Dumfriesshire. A fence marks the boundary, for it divides the estates of the Hope family to the East from those of the Duke of Buccleuch to the West. The aim is to extend the line this autumn, beyond the fence into Wanlockhead, in Dumfriesshire. A large pile of rails is stored beside the station car park at Leadhills, and it is planned to place the same in to low loading trucks, for haulage up the line to Glengonnar, with a view to laying the extension into Wanlockhead. There is a complication, for at the boundary fence the landowners have required the construction of both a gate and a cattle grid, so as to prevent the sheep and other livestock from straying on to each other's land. Beyond that gateway there are two farm tracks over the route, so requiring the construction of two level crossings.

The new station at Wanlockhead will not be as far West as the original site, but it will have the merit of linking together by rail the two villages, which have been described as "God's Treasure House in Scotland." Wanlockhead has a mining museum, open to members of the public, and it is possible to go and pan for gold nearby. Historically gold has been found (23.8 carats), and the Scottish Regalia were made from locally obtained gold. The late Queen Mary, as Princess May of Teck, in the 1890's was presented with a gold ring made from the same source. Even a ton of lead aggregate has a silver content of between 7 and 8 ounces, and for some years there was a special refinery used to extract the silver.

The local councils and other public agencies all welcome and support the idea of the railway to foster tourism, but obtaining funds is another matter. One substantial grant approved in principle, has failed to materialise, so yet another problem has to be tackled, Marketing also needs attention, the first weekend in August, 1998, showed what could be achieved, for the total number of passengers conveyed in 10 return journeys on each day was 540. The highlight was the appearance of steam power on the line, Peter Pan, kindly lent by the Leighton Buzzard Railway. The following weekend, without the appearance of Peter Pan, the 60 h.p. diesel, Clyde*, carried 113 passengers in strong, warm sunshine. One of the Railway's members has bought in Belgium a narrow gauge Orenstein & Koppel steam locomotive (dating from 1913), and it is now stored at Leadhills. However, it will need a great deal of attention before it is in working order. In the meantime the pride of the line is the recently restored Nith, a 68 h.p. 4 cylinder diesel, built in 1956 for the National Coal Board and used in West Yorkshire. In another connection entirely, the chairman of a national professional body replied to an annual conference debate, contemplating an array of difficulties: "Yes, we've got problems, but that's why we're here." The words seem apt for the supporters of the Leadhills and Wanlockhead Railway.

*= A 6 cylinder diesel, built in 1975 for the National Coal Board and used in Tyne & Wear.

151 N.B.: The source of much of the information is "The Leadhills And Wanlockhead Railway," published by Alastair Ireland in 1990 and revised in 1996, and his contribution is gratefully acknowledged.

From the RCHS Photgraphic Collection No. 10

Print JGS6/13/2 What is presumably a Great Western Railway station. This print is from one of Jeffrey Spence's albums, and there is no indication of the date of the photograph, the location nor the purpose of the trip. It would appear to be a 'special' at a closed station on a little used branch line. If you can identify the location or provide information about the view, please contact Stephen Duffell, Hillcroft, Ford, Shrewsbury, SY5 9LZ, or telephone 01743 851154 (weekends), or 01625 514828 (office hours), e-mail [email protected].

From the R&CHS Photographic Collections Print JGS287 (Reproduced on page 27 of March 1999 Journal)

The station is Lewes (LB&SCR) in Sussex, and the photograph was taken half way down the main relief platform (platforms 1 and 2) looking towards Haywards Heath with the West signal box visible between the bridge supports. In the background is the Newhaven boat train, about to run through on the down main line (on the other side of the platform that the photographer is standing on). The train is hauled by an Fl 4-4-0 and an H1 4-4-2. The tracks running from the train in the background, under the road bridge and to the right of the picket fence were the goods relief lines. The main relief line (that to the right

152 of the photographer) is electrified, but the third rail does not appear to extend to the junction ahead, suggesting that this side of the platform was electrified for terminal working from the Hastings direction only. There is a pile of what appears to be electric insulators in the shadow under the bridge, together with sections for a catchpit standing vertically. All this suggests a date in the mid 1930's. My thanks to R.W. Kidner, Philip Knight, Pat McCarthy, Alan Mott, Martin Snow and Edwin Course for their assistance in identifying this view.

Correspondence The Journal 's New Format, Again. Thank you for the latest RCHS Journal. I merely write to say that as far as I am concerned the new format is a great improvement - the old was virtually unreadable. M. WOODWARD.

I write strongly to support the new format of the Journal - the print is clear, the illustrations much sharper and it is altogether more attractively presented. The contents too continue to be of a very high standard. P.R. ROGERS

I see that in the latest Journal of the R&CHS that several readers are complaining about the new type face. Personally, I welcome it and think it an improvement. It is refreshing to receive a publication with clear presentation that is clearly legible. J.W. NEVE

I am spurred to comment on the new Journal style following your recent editorial and limited feedback so far. I prefer the new size, which gets away from the awkward A5 format and allows more freedom for larger photographs and plans. A4 would have been a disaster, being far too large for the content. I also agree with general observations that the previous typeface was too small. Beyond that, I am less than completely happy. I am quite convinced in my own mind that the new format is less legible. Having had some experience in these matters I concur fully with typographical authors who point out that legibility is a function of type size, the typeface itself and general layout - in particular line length. The old Journal I found tolerably legible except that the size was a little small (9pt I think, whereas 10 or even 11 pt would have been better). I very much object to the new type face. It is widely accepted that as a general rule 'serif faces like that of the old Journal are easier to read when dealing with a mass of text. Sans serif faces certainly have a role to play but are stronger for headlining, short text passages and the like. Comparatively modern Sans faces such as Univers can be made to work for bulk text but the weight of letter needs selecting with care. It appears to me that the particular weight of Univers that has been chosen is much too heavy and the

153 slab-like result has had to be mitigated by a little extra leading (white space) between lines. All this is very wasteful of space as well as not contributing to legibility. It is nothing to do with type size,(only 1Opt I suspect), it is the design itself which is at issue. For myself, I firmly support the school of thinking that for very good historical and practical reasons believe that bulk text would be better set in a serif face. The face used previously (Baskerville, I think) was perfectly acceptable but could possibly still be improved upon by a change to something with a slightly larger 'x' height. Finally, there is the difficulty of the new page width which has tended to reduce legibility by increasing line length (notwithstanding a similar number of words per line). To be constructive, I see much good about the new journal size but in seeking to address one set of problems one might have introduced another. If it were me I would seriously reconsider the typeface and choose a 1Opt serif face with a larger 'x' height and width than the Baskerville (?) used previously. This would significantly increase legibility, partly because it would be a more appropriate face and partly because it would slightly reduce the words per line, allowing the eye to read more easily. Line length could be further improved by slightly adjusting margins as necessary. I would have no problem retaining Univers for headings and captions. If there is some perceived need to retain Univers for bulk text that a lighter weight would be preferable though I do think that it has a less professional 'feel' for a learned work, but that is just my subjective view. M.A.C. HORNE.

Tiverton Museum Tiverton Museum holds bound runs of both the Tiverton Gazette from 1858 to 1939 and The Somerset and Dorset News from 1890 to 1983. These are the two locally printed newspapers. As the Museum's volunteer Genealogy and Local History Co-ordinator I have, over the years, passed to the Journal's editor items from these papers of canal and railway interest. I enclose some recently discovered items.

1. The Great Western Railway Company's pleasure steamer Atlanta with 60 passengers on board, struck a submerged rock near Bolt Head, Devon, on Wednesday afternoon, when on an excursion trip from Plymouth to Torquay. One of the propellers was damaged and it was decided to land the passengers. They were taken off in the ship's boats, in fishing boats and by the coastguards, and in another steamer proceeded up the Salcombe estuary to Kingsbridge, whence they returned to Plymouth. The vessel succeeded in getting off under her own steam and returned later in the evening to Plymouth. (Tiverton Gazette, 15 July 1912) 2. HALBERTON: The Great Western Railway's Grand Western Canal has again developed a leak between Sellake and Greenway Bridges near the village. It is practically in the same place as in former years and is supposed to be caused by badgers burrowing too near the bed of the canal. (Devon & Somerset News, 12 May 1927) 3. Mr Ruskin has written the following letter to a Cumberland gentleman who had communicated with him on the Ambleside Railway project: 'My Dear Sir - I do not write now further concerning railroads here or elsewhere, because they are to me the loathesmost form of devilry now extant, animated and deliberate earthquakes,

154 destructive of all wise social habit or possible natural beauty, carriages of damned souls on the ridges of their own graves. (Tiverton Gazette, 8 March 1887) A.P. VOCE.

Charles Hadfield John Boyes has drawn attention to the incorrect date of death shown in the obituary notices for Charles Hadfield. I would draw attention to the incorrect statement in Alan Faulkner's review of 'Charles Hadfield, Canal Man and More' by Joseph Boughey on p. 41 of the March 1999 issue that Charles Hadfield was the first President of the Society. Whilst he certainly was a founder member, Charles Clinker was, in fact, the Society's first President.

Indeed, he was the first of four Presidents all named Charles and who, incidentally all served in that office in succession. They were: Charles Clinker, 1959-1961; Charles Hadfield, 1961-1963; Charles Klapper, 1963-1966 and Charles Lee, 1966-1967. In one office or another I had the pleasure of serving under all four of them. From each I learnt about a different aspect of the history of transport by road, water and rail, and for this I am grateful. A.P. VOCE.

BOOK REVIEWS THE ORIGINS OF THE LMS IN SOUTH WALES, Gwyn Briwnant Jones and Denis Dunstone, 257pp, over 400 photos, maps, diagrams and 4 paintings, hardback, Gomer Press, Llandysul, Ceredigion, 1999, ISBN 1 85902 671 0, £25. In the 1930s the GWR's publicity map suggested a near monopoly of railways in South Wales - but some were joint lines and others were not shown. Some of the latter tried to break that stranglehold and the difficulties ranged from the physical, typified by massive 0-8-4 tank engines struggling up the heads of the valleys from Abergavenny with over-rigid wheelbases that frequently derailed on the tight curves, to company politics of a particularly complex nature. Many small lines had been built, but when the big companies tried to take them over and thus gain access to the rich pickings of the area, the superior belligerence shown by the L&NWR in the days of Huish and Moon cut no ice with people like 'Crosher' Bailey who owned some of them and they met their match. The Midland were equally keen to penetrate and surprisingly showed that the limits of their territory were not just the Midlands but Carlisle, Southend and Swansea. The penetration by the big companies later encompassed by the LMS is extremely difficult to follow but it is magnificently told here with the aid of dozens of project, Railway Clearing House, and other maps, nearly all In full colour, complete with contours and other helpful features that must be unique in railway publications. A pre- grouping endpaper map of all the lines thst were built would have been helpful to the less familiar reader but that is a minor quibble. The photographs, many also in colour, are outstanding and particularly relevant to the subject, those of trains being shown with their backgrounds. The research is prodigious; the production is impeccable and this book will rank among the highest in railway histories. JOHN DENTON.

THE HISTORY AND PRACTICE OF BRITAIN'S RAILWAYS: A NEW RESEARCH AGENDA, edited by R.W. Ambler, 154 pp, 6 photos, 4 maps, boards, Ashgate, Gower 155 House, Aldershot GU11 3HR, 1999, ISBN 1 84014 667 2, £39.95.

For R&CHS members, this is definitely what an old Whitehall colleague would call "all good stuff'. A compilation of papers read by five academics and two "amateurs" at a 1995 Hull University seminar designed to consider the current state of railway history (deemed to be in rather a poor way) and produce ideas for future output, it has a 19- page bibliography and a full index. Seminar discussions are absent.

Howard Newby's readable and thought-provoking introduction includes comment on the controversy aroused by Neil Cossons' deftly provocative remarks at the 1993 NRM symposium, which in turn led to the Hull seminar. Like some of the other contributors, Newby also offers inspiration and encouragement to both academic and amateur historians . The latter (or rather some of them) earn surprisingly high, virtually unpatronising praise from several academic contributors but little is said about the differing motivations of the two breeds. Interesting proposals for new research come especially from M.J.T.Lewis (The Railway in Industry) and Colin Divall (Technical Changes and Railway Systems) whilst Gordon Biddle, in an informative paper (Railway Architecture, Architects and Engineers), points out possibilities for work in his favourite field. Most readers of this journal would find rewarding the well-illustrated paper by historical geographer D. Turnock (The Relations between Railways and Canals). By the nature of their chosen subjects, M.0 Reed (Railway Investment) and M.W. Kirby (Railway development and the role of the State) have a harder task to maintain interest, though both succeed. Alas, the economics of academic publishing have set the price of this slim but stimulating volume at a level which will severely restrict its readership. ALAN A JACKSON

THE BROMYARD BRANCH, William H. Smith, 160pp, 276x203mm, over 200 photos, 9 maps and diagrams, soft covers, Kidderminster Railway Museum, Station Approach, Comberton H111, Kidderminster, Worcs., 1998, ISBN 0954775 0 9, £14.95 plus £1.50 p&p.

The line from Worcester to Leominster via Bromyard was built and opened in stages, taking no less than 36 years from the first Act of 1861. After an Introduction summarising the whole story, five chapters are devoted to the events - or non-events, as the case may be - of this period, which ended with the railway in the hands of the GWR. Then follows a detailed description of the route, supplemented with extracts from OS maps. The next chapter covers the early years, with an indication of the traffic carried, the way the railway was operated and the locomotives and rolling stock used. The middle years, from World War Ito the end of World War II, feature events falling within living memory, which are recalled by former railwaymen and local inhabitants. The final chapter covers the British Railways era, ending with closure in 1964. Fortunately, two stations were saved from demolition and have been sympathetically restored. The photographs, which are well reproduced, cover a time from the late nineteenth century to closure and track-lifting. In addition to the usual range of railway subjects, the inclusion of country scenes and street views of some of the places served helps to convey the atmosphere of a country branch line. This book is an excellent record of not just the railway, but of other aspects of life in a bygone age, and the author

156 acknowledges the contribution of Bromsgrove & District Historical Society. There is no Index. MICHAEL HALE SCOTLAND'S INLAND WATERWAYS: CANALS, RIVERS AND LOCHS, P J G Ransom, 80 pp, 3 maps, 34 other illus., N M S Publishing, Edinburgh, 1999, ISBN 1 901663 22 1, £5.99. This booklet, published in the National Museum of Scotland's Scotland's Past in Action series, breaks new ground as well as summarising much which has already been published, notably Jean Lindsay's The Canals of Scotland (1968) and more recent work. The opening chapter handles new ground with navigation on (largely) unadapted rivers and lochs, from the crannogs of the first millennium B.C. through the use of rivers for log transport, to early passenger and freight traffics on rivers like the Leven and Loch Katrine. The next two chapters, on the canal age, place much emphasis on passenger carrying and indeed travel in general; these are well illustrated with many photographs and plates from the NMS collection. A chapter covering the railway era through to decline in the 1960s then usefully discusses the interaction between railway and waterway development, with interesting details of the effects of rail on loch and river transport as well as the more predictable decline of the lowland canals. The closing chapter covers the new (and surprising) era of canal revival, with the gradual restoration of the Forth & Clyde and Union Canals accelerating towards completion with the Millennium Link project. The parallel ups and downs of loch passenger transport are also covered. This is a commendable concise summary of the history of some very unusual waterways, which extends into new studies of river and lake transport, and lays stress on recent — and exciting — historical developments. It has a readable style, bar some ponderous referencing, usefully summarising a range of existing work and the author's own researches. JOSEPH BOUGHEY

LOST LINES; LONDON, Nigel Welbourn,128pp, approx. 260 photos and maps, card covers, Ian Allan, 1998, ISBN 0 7110 2623 8, £12.99. The usefulness of this book rests very largely on its very well-reproduced illustrations of abandoned railway and tramway infrastructure. The preliminary text to each of its 24 sections does little more than skim over the basic historical facts without adding to existing knowledge. It proceeds at what often seems a breathless pace with occasional diversions inconsistent with the title. Errors are commendably few: the City & South London loco exhibited at Moorgate was not destroyed in World War 2 but afterwards and officially; and surely the "short freight line" at Feltham serving an industrial area "north of the yard" was that into the Royal Army Service Corps Depot on the south or Down side of the line, and west of Feltham station? With its lack of an index, tight binding and skimpy inside margins, this slim volume might in time become tiresome to use for frequent reference. But its generous and often fresh photographic coverage will attract those fascinated by London's varied and busy railway past. ALAN A JACKSON

157 BIRMINGHAM TRANSPORT, Mike Hitches, 128pp, approx. 100 monochrome photographs„ soft covers, Sutton Publishing, ISBN 0 7509 1670 2, £10.99.

This book is a captioned album in Sutton's Photographic History of Transport series. It covers transport of all types in the city of Birmingham. There are sections about canals, railways, corporation buses, Midland Red buses and private road transport. The railway and road photographs are mainly of locomotives, trams and buses but there is a high proportion of views where these are set into clearly observable surroundings. Many of the pictures are of street scenes and of engineering features. A good collection, few which have been published before. Quality of reproduction is variable. Caption accuracy seems reasonable. The picture said to be of Galton Bridge over the BCN New Line is clearly not. It is of the nearby aqueduct taking a branch of the old line over the new. And the Cadburys excursion train at Bournville is not headed by a Johnson class 3 0-6-0, it looks more like a rebuilt Class 2 4-4-0. The private road transport section is a rather eccentric collection of pictures, mainly of private cars. But the total effect is very good. A good pictorial archive and wonderfully evocative for those of us who knew the city fifty years ago. MARTIN BARNES

THE TWILIGHT YEARS OF THE GLASGOW TRAM, Alasdair Turnbull, 144pp, over 250 coloured photos, A4 softback, Adam Gordon, 1998, ISBN 1 874422 22 2, £25 or £28 inc post and packing from publisher at Priory Cottage, Chetwode, Nr Buckingham, Bucks, MK18 4LB. The convenience of street tram systems affected the fortunes of the more hidebound railways and greatly so in Glasgow. Apart from that, railway vehicles used the tramtracks to get to places like Govan shipyard even though the slightly non-standard gauge required wagons to run on their flanges in the grooves. This fine collection of well captioned early colour photos excellently illustrates the scene and has much relevance to railway history. JOHN DENTON

NEWCASTLE' S RAILWAYS A VIEW FROM THE PAST, Ken Groundwater, 96pp, well over 150 photos, etc, map, boards, Ian Allan, 1998, ISBN 0 7110 2616 5, £15.99. From before the time when the new born George Stephenson first saw the wooden waggonway trains passing the front door of his birthplace at Wylam to the present day, nowhere in the world has seen more pioneering work on railways than here on Tyneside. 'Firsts' often required later revision. The very early 1904 electrification on the north bank was not followed on the south side until 1938 and later both were scrapped. All trains from Kings Cross to Edinburgh had to reverse in Newcastle Central until after the turn of this century and even the wonderfully coordinated Metro system suffered a serious setback with bus deregulation.

Despite the problems of pioneering, or perhaps because of it, Newcastle captures the historian and enthusiast with its magic and the author begins with quotations from admirers. Much of the excellent text is unashamed nostalgia but it is constructive and illustrates the work of the North Eastern Railway in a wider context. Poor proof reading allows several spelling mistakes and a duplicated photo of Stephenson's birthplace is captioned as a view of Newcastle city. That apart this is a very good and readable account of the history of Newcastle's railways. JOHN DENTON

158 COLONEL STEPHENS' RALWAYS: A VIEW FROM THE PAST, John Scott Morgan, 96pp, 236x172mm, 188b&w illus., pictorial boards. Ian Allen, 1999, ISBN 0 71102628 9, £15.99 A short introduction is followed by separate sections on sixteen companies, running alphabetically from Ashover to Weston, Clevedon & Portishead. The text is brief as are many of the captions to a very varied selection of illustrations, where time has lent quaint charm to portrayals of penny-pinchmg decrepitude. Dates cited are not always reliable: the Ashover appear to have run a special train well before the first sod was cut, and, on page 67, two widely different dates are given for cutting up the S&M's ex-LSWR Royal Saloon.

John Scott Morgan adds little of significance to his previous publications. Compared with the recent reprint by Atlantic, this offering lacks maps but has more and crisper photographs, including rarities such as busy days on the Welsh Highland and a locomotive in steam on Edge Hill. Although not essential reference material for impecunious historians with limited shelf space, this compilation fulfils its author's intention of providing "a pictorial essay recalling some of the more entertaining of Britain's minor railways". The pot boils merrily to concoct a flavoursome titbit for those who have acquired a taste for the Colonel's idiosyncratic bill of fare. DENNIS HADLEY

ABERDARE — THE RAILWAYS AND TRAMROADS, John F. Mear, 227pp, 246x170mm, 147 plates, 12 maps, boards, published by the author at 7 Tudor Terrace, Gadlys, Aberdare, CF44 8EB, 1999, ISBN 0 9518524 1 8, £14.00 plus £2.00 p&p.

The reviewer has long thought that the industry, canals, tramroads and railways of the Aberdare district warranted a book and it has now been written by a local historian who knows the area well. The area covered includes the Cynon Valley from in the east to the upper part of the Vale of Neath in the west; it extends to Penderyn in the north and the Dare Valley in the south. Chapter One outlines the reasons for the growth of iron making and the development of associated "iron ways" of various types. Chapter Two deals with Tappenden's Tramroad to the Neath Canal. The next chapter finds the in business, and takes the story farther into the nineteenth century, by the middle of which public passenger-carrying railways had arrived and the coal trade had developed. The following chapters deal with the Aberdare Railway, the and the Aberdare Valley Railway. Chapter Seven leaves tramways behind and looks at industrial railways and locomotives, while Chapter Eight brings the story up to date with the withdrawal of passenger services and, in recent years, their return to Aberdare. The motive power illustrated ranges from horse through steam to diesel. The book contains a list of maps, a list of plates, a bibliography, an index and a gazetteer indicating what remains, if any, are visible. The text is full of information, but it has to be said that some familiarity with the district is necessary to appreciate the detail. Unfortunately, the photographs have not reproduced very well, being generally rather "flat", and in some cases, too dark. Overall, for the price, the book is good value. MICHAEL HALE

159 THE CHRONICLE OF THE STOCKTON & DARLINGTON RAILWAY TO 1863, John H.Proud, 44pp 297 x 210mm, 12 photographs, 24 maps, plans, line reproductions, soft covers, North Eastern Railway Association, 31 Moreton Avenue, Stratford, Manchester, 11 M32 8BP, 1998, ISBN 1 873513 21 6, £6.50.

This slim, single-section volume consists largely of a detailed chronology of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, its precursors, constituant companies and associated works from 1725 to 1863 when it was amalgamated with the North Eastern Railway. Full details are given of dates of bills and their progress through to acts. A few key dates are included, such as the birth dates of R.Trevithick and I.K.Brunel, the Battle of Waterloo and also dates of connecting railways. The various illustrations and reproductions are all interesting and include portraits of five of the most prominent persons on the S&DR. There is a comprehensive S&DR bibliography. Rather than waste a blank page at the end, it is headed 'Notes', so inviting the reader to try writing on the highly glazed paper. It is a pity that the penultimate sentence of the chronology states: 'This committee was comprised of...' The usefulness of a book of this type depends to a large extent on remembering you have got it and being able to find it when it is shelved among other A4 books. In A5 with 88 pages and spine it might have been a little more expensive, but handier as a reference volume. JOHN MARSHALL

SWEAT AND INSPIRATION, Martin Worth, 200pp, approx. 60 monochrome pictures, hardback, Sutton Publishing, 1999, ISBN 0 7509 1660 5, £18.99.

Subtitled Pioneers of the Industrial Age, this book is derived from the author's BBC radio series about the lives and work of the early engineers. It is populated by the great men who engineered the beginning of the railway and canal eras such as Trevithick, George and Robert Stephenson, Brunel, Telford, Locke and Smeaton. There is probably not much actually new in the book but it is a quite extraordinarily readable work. Two features stand out. Firstly, the story is told almost as a chronological continuum. Consequently, for example, we are told what Brunel was doing whilst Locke was doing something else, how the timing of Trevithick's attempt at tunnelling under the Thames related to his other work and to what other people were doing with primitive steam engines on the Durham coal field at the same time. This pervasive style gives the book a dynamism and apparent breadth which is quite unusual and which makes for compelling reading. Secondly, we are told what the great men and those close to them were feeling and thinking at the various stages of success and frustration which punctuated their careers. This makes the book much more interesting and lubricates the text marvellously. Some of it must be speculative, but it is all plausible. The involvement of the women is unusual for a book about engineering history. Most of the wives play their parts - mostly as stoic supporter of the great man or stoic mother of the growing family which he has temporarily deserted. They are all a bit too stoic. It would be refreshing to hear that Mrs Brunel did occasionally blow her top and berate her workaholic husband for neglecting them when he did manage to snatch a few hours at home. Most railway and canal historians will enjoy this book for the easy introduction it will afford them to any areas which it covers which are outside their specialities. It will be particularly effective as an introduction for the novice to the engineering side of our interest. An ideal present for somebody who just might get hooked. MARTIN BARNES 160 THE NORTHUMBERLAND CENTRAL RAILWAY, N.D. Mackichan, 184pp, 15 maps, 8 drawings, 3 facsimile documents, soft covers, N.D. Mackichan, Aros, Whittingham, Alnwick, Northumberland, NE66 4RF, 1998, ISBN 0 953127702, £7.95 (p&p £1.00) from the publisher, proceeds to the Catherine Mackichan Bursary Trust for awards in history. The Railway of the title was the company that ultimately succeeded in building the Rothbury branch from Scots Gap. However, this is not a branch line history but a detailed study of railway developments in central Northumberland during the second half of the nineteenth century.

Whilst much of the story relates to local aspirations and the personalities involved, these have been carefully put in the context of national political and economic conditions, and of railway politics, especially the rivalry between the North Eastern and North British companies. To a large extent this revolved around various proposals for another Anglo-Scottish main line between the East Coast and Waverley routes. The book ends with a discussion of the North Eastern's Alnwick-Coldstream line, including interesting speculation that it was intended as part of an Anglo-Scottish main line and that further branches were planned from it. References are provided throughout via footnotes, and there is an index.

Although the content of the book is good, it is let down by poor design and presentation. There is no contents page or list of illustrations, the maps are poorly presented, captions to the drawings are inadequate, headings are in the same typeface as text and there are too many irritating editorial and typographical errors. This book is different and is recommended. It succeeds in combining a view of a local community fearful of being left behind by the railway age with the broader and often conflicting machinations of the contemporary business and political scene. TIM EDMONDS

HISTORIC CARRIAGE DRAWINGS Volume 2 - LMS AND CONSTITUENTS, David Jenkinson, 135pp, 305mm x 215mm, 153 photographs (3 in colour) and 68 pages of drawings, boards, Pendragon Partnership, 1998, ISBN 1 899816 06 2, £19.95. Volume 1 of this series gave promise of an extremely valuable project for modellers and carriage historian alike. Nevertheless it suffered from a number of faults and it is pleasing to see that Volume 2 has been produced to very high standards of editing and proof reading. In addition, for the same price, even more interesting photographs and superb drawings have been fitted into a work only a few pages longer than the first.

Selection of which carriages to feature must have been even more difficult for the LMS and its many constituents but here is a fair balance of types and periods. The drawings are the work of a number of artists but the minor differences of presentation enhance rather than detract, and it is a pleasure to see the work of a number of highly skilled draughtsmen. The only serious criticism is the continued misuse of the word "prototype" culminating on page 32 in what effectively is a prototype of a prototype. WILLIAM FEATHERSTONE

161 THE DUNSTABLE BRANCH, Bill Simpson, 144pp, 116 photographs, over 20 maps and plans, soft cover, Lamplight Publications, 260 Colwell Drive, Witney, Oxfordshire, OX8 7WL, 1998, ISBN 1 899246 03 7, £8.95.

Dunstable actually had two railway branches. This book is about the L&NWR line from Leighton Buzzard, although inevitably the GNR branch comes into the story. Though working was hindered by a long mile at 1 in 40, so the line was only of local significance. It was not the traditional rural branch however, as it contained several industrial sidings, mainly for sand and chalk, and was served by up to a dozen trains a day. There is a chapter about the Leigton Buzzard Narrow Gauge railway which was an important feeder. Leighton Buzzard station and the L&NWR main line around it are covered in some detail, with over 40 photographs. Practical reminiscences from branch railwaymen add value to the test.

To this reviewer, the author's style does not make for easy reading, The text would have benefited from editing, to provide a more logical progression, and to avoid repetition. Nevertheless, this is a useful record of an unglamorous railway that was busy into the 1960s and whose importance can easily be overlooked by later generations. ALLAN BRACKENBURY

LONDON'S LOCAL RAILWAYS, 2nd edition, Alan A. Jackson, 464pp, 240 x 176 mm, 246 photographs, 16 maps, Capital Transport Publishing, 1999, ISBN 85414 209 7, £25.00. Those who have the first edition will know that this is a book that is both good reading and a useful reference work. It is a collection of historical studies of individual passenger branch lines and loop lines that are within, or largely within, Greater London, but outside the central area bounded by the North, East, South and West London Railways. Although there is some overlap, it is generally complementary to the rather similar earlier book, London Railways by Edwin Course. As one would expect from Mr Jackson, this is not narrow railway history, but incorporates his unparalleled knowledge of how the development of these railways influenced, and was influenced by, the growth of London's suburbs.

This edition has been re-structured, so that the lines are grouped geographically and associated with the relevant map, rather than thematically, which makes it easier to use. The original text has been subject to some re-writing and extended by over 10% to bring in more recent developments and to embrace seven additional lines. The number of photographs has also been increased — almost four-fold — resulting in a 25% increase in the number of pages. The selection of photographs is excellent, including many from the author's fine collection of rare commercial picture postcards. The production is to a high standard and, although the price has doubled since the first edition was published in 1978, it is well worth it. (The RPI has increased by a factor of 3.3 during this interval.) GRAHAME BOYES

MIDLAND RAILWAY WAGONS, MIDLAND RECORD SUPPLEMENT No. 2, R J. Essery, 48pp, 273mm x 215mm, 40 photographs and 16 drawings, soft covers, Wild Swan Publications Ltd, 1998, ISBN 1 874103 45 3, £6.95. Although this slim volume stands on its own, it is a useful and welcome supplement to the author's definitive, two volume, work on Midland wagons. Eleven types of freight 162 stock receive either revision or new treatment; each accompanied by well produced original drawings and rare photographs. The wagons range from the commonplace, like the 10 ton high-sided, to the more esoteric, such as the covered van for carrying motor cars. The work concludes with a revised listing of wagon drawing and diagram numbers. A must for Midland Railway Company modellers and budding historians. WILLLAM FEATHERSTONE

SHORT REVIEWS

MIDLAND RECORD No. 11, R J Essery, ed, 8Opp, 63 monochrome photographs, diagrams and reproduced drawings, soft covers, Wild Swan Publications, 1999, ISBN 9 771357 639007, £8.95. Midland Record is not a magazine, it is an accumulating historical record of the MR - its locomotives and trains, stations, operating practices and byways. This edition features a wide variety of articles from a detailed study of a locomotive class, the '1121' tank engines, to a small piece about the Victoria Street goods warehouse in Liverpool. The age, quality and interest of the photographs are always a feature of this series. Where they keep finding them is a mystery.

RAILWAY EXECUTIVE/BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION/BRITISH RAILWAYS BOARD INDUSTRIAL LOCOMOTIVE REGISTRATION NUMBERS, Industrial Railway Society, 52pp, A5, 5 photographs, paper covers, IRS, 1 Clifton Court, Oakham, Rutland, LE15 6LT, 1998, ISBN 1 901 556 06 9, £4.50.

A booklet listing the number plates issued until the early 1970s to identify industrial locomotives authorised for use on BR tracks. Brief details of the locomotives themselves (wheel arrangement, builder, date, maker's number, owner, location) are also given.

HOLD UP AT SEARS CROSSING. A GUIDE TO THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, Bill Williams, 52pp, 19 photographs, 16 plans/diagrams, soft covers, Nene Valley Railway (Museum Group), Wansford Station, Peterborough PE8 6LR, 1998, ISBN 0-95 16980 8 7 £6.95 (p & p £7.45). This book is generally well produced on glossy art covers, and with plenty of photographs and diagrams. It is quite a clear, lucid account of the robbery, trial, and conviction of the robbers, but with very little about the subsequent careers of the robbers. Some of the diagrams are a little rough and ready, although clear enough.

LOCOMOTIVE STOCK OF THE NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY as at 31st December 1920, Ken Hoole, 78pp, A5 format, 62 line drawings, card covers, North Eastern Railway Association, 31 Moreton Avenue Manchester M32 8BP, ISBN 1 873513 19 4, £6.95, plus £1 for postage. Distinguished by the bright NER green of its covers, this slim volume is packed with information for the Darlington numerologist. It provides class tables of NER locomotives 163 in existence in 1920 as well as a list of locomotives in numerical order. Other information includes building and withdrawal dates, sheds in 1920, and where applicable the LNER 1946 numbers. Class identification is assisted by small, but clear, outline drawings, representing typical class members in 1920.

REPRINTS Since taking over the Oxford Publishing Company imprint, Ian Allan have recently reprinted the following major pictorial titles in railway history.

GREAT WESTERN BRANCH LINE TERMINI, Paul Karau, ISBN 0 86093 369 5, £29.99.

A PICTORIAL RECORD OF SOUTHERN SIGNALS, G Pryer, ISBN 0 902888 81 1, £24.99. A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF THE SOMERSET AND DORSET RAILWAY, C W Judge and C R Potts, ISBN 0 86093 003 3, £19.99. THE SIGNAL BOX, A PICTORIAL HISTORY AND GUIDE TO DESIGNS, The Signalling Study Group, ISBN 0 86093 224 9, £29.99.

AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF MIDLAND WAGONS, Volume 1, R J Essery, ISBN 0 86093 040 8, £29.99.

164 [Pages 165-196 see Bibliography] ON3LOV SPECIALIST RAILWAY, TRANSPORT & POSTER COLLECTORS AUCTIONS

Onslow's invite entries for their forthcoming specialist auctions of Transport Collectors Items and Posters, the next sale of which takes place on 31st March 1999. There have been some very notable prices for individual items and important collections in our sales which we have been holding since 1984. We recently sold one of the largest collections of railway tickets seen at auction for many years which created fierce competition between collectors and resulted in a new record price of £640 for a 1st Class Leominster to Berrington ticket of 1853. The collection was sold in 89 lots and totalled £18,182 whilst 16 lots of bus trolley and tram tickets brought £7,860. Other interesting material included the G A Hookham Collection of negatives of British Railways sold for £1265, a GWR cast iron towing path sign £621, a brass Doncaster No 2036 1948 works plate £632, a run of Great Central Railway Journal Vols. 1 to 6 and 8 to 13 £575 and a single vendor collection of Airey's and Railway Clearing House maps totalled over £3000. Nameplates continue to sell well as seen in Dominion of New Zealand for £6820, Princess Eugenie £4510, Earl Bathurst £4730, Twineham Court £4950 and Excalibur £4510. The coat of arms Crewkerne in vitreous enamel from SR West Country Class No 34040 realised £4180 and the smokebox number plate 6018 from GWR King Henry VI £2640. Two oval cast brass plates from LMS Royal Scott Class Locomotives Lancashire Witch and Velocipede realised £2640 and £3300 respectively. Most recently GWR/BR Athelney Castle sold with associated paperwork for £7200. It had been purchased by the vendors father from BR in 1964. We have also sold a fine collection of dining car and railway hotels silver-plate for £10,360, an important collection of locomotive works plates that totalled £18,386, the private antiquarian railway library of Norman Kerr of Cartmel for £33,000 and the railway contents of Wolferton Station Museum, the former royal station for Sandringham for £70,000. The Poster sales include many travel posters of the 1920's and 1930's published by the Big Four Railways, London Underground, Shipping Companies and Airlines. Prices for these have risen sharply in recent years and they continue to grow in popularity along with early British Rail examples. A fine collection of LNER and early BR posters sold for a total of £160,000 in 1996. The rarest example was The Night Scotsman by Alexander Alexeiff which realised £11,000. These had been discovered by a woman from East Anglia when she was moving house. Her late husband had worked for British Railways as an area maintenance engineer in the late 1950's and salvaged them from Liverpool Street Station when they wee being thrown out with other advertising material. Onslow's also specialise in Motoring and Road Transport, Aeronautical, Toys, Fine Luggage, Maritime and Titanic Collectors Items. For large consignments, name plates and important collections, special rates of commission can be negotiated. For further information contact Patrick Bogue or John Jenkins. ONSLOW'S, THE OLD DEPOT, THE GAS WORKS, off MICHAEL ROAD, LONDON SW6 2AD Telephone: 0171 371 0505

PUBLICATIONS OF THE RAILWAY AND CANAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Women and Children of the Cut, by Wendy Freer 80 pages, 23 x 17.5 cm, 42 illustrations £11.95 The Cabry Family: Railway Engineers, by Brian Lewis 112 pages, 23 x 17.5 cm, 61 illustrations £13.95 The Memories and Writings of a London Railwayman (H. V. Barley) 160 pages, 23 x 17.5 cm, 60 illustrations £16.95 The Light Railway King of the North, by A. L. Barnett 112 pages, 23 x 17.5 cm, 84 illustrations £11.95 The Military on English Waterways, by Hugh J. Compton & Antony Carr-Gomm 100 pages, 23 x 17 cm, 31 illustrations and maps £9.95

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