The Membership of the Railway Executive Committee in World War One

Herbert Ashcombe Walker

The Railway Executive Committee was the organisation that took over and operated Britain's railways in the two world wars.  In the First World War it consisted entirely of the railway industry's leading general managers and was the natural conclusion of eighty-nine years of the rise of its management class. Indeed, the directors of railway companies, which had dominated the organisation of the early railways, were not represented. In 1914 the members of the REC were as follows:

Herbert Ashcombe Walker (Chairman) - London and South Western Railway
Sir Sam Fay (Deputy Chairman) - Great Central Railway
Donald Alexander Matheson - Caledonian Railway
Francis Dent - South Eastern and Chatham Railway
Frank Potter - Great Western Railway
Sir Robert Turnbull - London and North Western Railway
John Audley Frederick Aspinall - Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
Sir Guy Granet - Midland Railway
Sir Alexander Kaye Butterworth - North Eastern Railway
Charles Dent - Great Northern Railway
William Forbes - London, Brighton and South Coast Railway