The few Railwaymen on Strike before 1870

While reading an article by P.W. Kingsford on railway labour relations between 1835 and 1875, I was surprised by the seemingly peaceful relationship between railway workers and their employers. Indeed, Kingsford's extensive trawl of railway companies' files only turned up ten examples of strike action in the period, as follows: 

 Of the strikes, nine were actions regarding wages, either asking for increases or preventing decreases, while one, the Eastern Counties Enginemen's strike of 1850, was against disciplinary fines. Only four succeeded. In 1848 London and North Western Enginmen secured an 'understanding' that after a reorganisation a reduction of wages would not take place. The year after, Midland Railway Goods Guards and Porters ensured a reduction of wages would not go ahead. In 1854, Porters on the London and North Western managed to win an increase in wages. Lastly, 1867, Enginmen secured a compromise in a 'right of appeal in promotion.' Curiously, Kingsford doesn't site whether this was secured in the case of the North Eastern or London, Brighton and South Coast Enginemen.[1]

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[1] Kingsford, P.W., 'Labour Relations on the Railways, 1835-1875', in Channon, Geoffrey, Railways Volume II: Studies in Transport History, (Aldershot, 1996), p.53

PhD Historiography Snippet - Forward Planning by Railway Companies

The Midland Railway's St. Pancras Station

Numerous historians have touched on the lack of accurate forward planning in railway companies’ investment policies in the nineteenth century. Irving argued that in the 1870s the NER’s investment was higher than the line’s traffic demanded and in the 1880s only kept pace with it. Consequently, with traffic increasing rapidly in the late 1880s, investment policies failed by 1888 as network capacity was inadequate.[1] Hodgkins argued that Sir Edward Watkin’s attempted expansion of the small Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway in the1880s added lines that were ‘too much for it to digest’. Ultimately these extensions were expensive failures as they were 'not properly weighed up as investment opportunities.'[2] 

Channon’s study of the Midland Railway’s extension to London in 1869 provided the most detail on what decision-makers knew when formulating a major policies. He argued that those who made the decision, the General Manager and a small group of directors, could not be considered traditional ‘profit maximisers’ as their ‘knowledge of costs revenues, and alternatives was either too rudimentary or too incomplete to form the basis of accurate profit forecasts.’ Indeed, construction costs, especially in London, were particularly hard to predict.[3] Therefore, if Channon's assessment of the knowledge Midland Railway decision-makers' had is applied to the cases above, it suggests that those directing policy within nineteenth century railway companies possessed rudimentary information regarding the cost of, and potential revenues from, their ventures.

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[1] Irving, R.J., The North Eastern Railway Company, (Leicester, 1976)  , p.166

[2] Hodgkins, David, The Second Railway King: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Watkin, (Melton Priory, 2002)  , p.486

[3] Channon, Geoffrey, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940: Studies in Economic and Business History, (Aldershot, 2001), p.107

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

Railways' Rising Costs in the late Nineteenth Century

One of the major challenges to railway company profitability in the last years of the nineteenth century was the increasingly high cost of materials and fuel. Indeed, the London and South Western Railway, the subject of my thesis, was no exception and the three graphs below show how much it paid for rails per ton, track chairs per ton, Fish plates (that joined the rails together) per ton, individual sleepers and fuel per ton. All graphs indicate a steep increase in prices between 1894 and 1900.

From Labourer to London Bridge Station Superintendent

London Bridge - 1856

I have got into the habit of looking at the social backgrounds of early railway managers.  Recently I came across Henry Anscombe, the superintendent at the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway's London Bridge station in 1864. Ascombe began his career with the LBSCR in March 1847 at the age of 37[1], and was listed in the 1851 census as being a porter[2]. However, he had come from quite a lowly background, and the 1841 census states that he and his father were labourers in his home town of Chailey in Sussex.[3] Early in his career he narrowly escaped death, and in 1848 he was knocked down by a train and had both legs broken. Yet, clearly this did not hinder his career, and at some point between 1851 and 1864 he rose through the ranks rapidly to command London Bridge Station. He was appointed the Brighton station Superintendent in 1876, and died while still in the company's service in March 1896.[4]

The social gulf between where Anscombe came from and where he ended up was huge. However, the rise he would have experienced was not have been uncommon for many early railway managers, and with formal hiring and promotional structures not yet established, the companies employed staff, at all levels, from a vast array of backgrounds. It is, therefore, unsurprising that for Anscombe such a rise was possible.

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[1] The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 414/768, Register of salaried staff appointed 1836-1879, 1864 - 1879, p.1
[2] HO 107/1653/148, 1851 census, Sussex-Chichester St Bartholomew-District 1, p.16
[3] HO 107/1113/1, 1841 census, Sussex-Chailey-District 3, p.5
[4] The Standard, Monday, March 16, 1896, p. 3; Issue 22373.

PhD Historiography Snippet: The Power of the Victorian Railway Chief Executive

Naturally, as companies expanded physically the management class grew to coordinate the increased operations. Studies have shown how this, in some cases, brought it into conflict with directors which Wilson and Thomson called ‘trustees of investors’ proprietorial rights.’[1]  Amongst early railway managers, London and North Western Railway General Manager, Mark Huish, had a reputation for being ‘unscrupulous, dictatorial and Machiavellian’ in his control of company policy between 1846 and 1858. Yet, while Gourvish argued that none of Huish’s contemporaries had his ‘predominance in railway affairs’, he also made the case that ‘Huish was not the company’s sole policy maker and he did not possess the ‘dictatorial’ influence so often ascribed to him.’ Indeed, he encountered the resistance of the directors to delegate power to salaried officials[2] and in 1858 his resignation was forced upon him as he could not satisfy the director’s requirements regarding inter-company diplomacy.[3] Lastly, on his resignation his successor, Cawkwell, had far greater controls placed on his freedom of action by the board.[4]

Indeed, this case shows that whether managers controlled or influenced policy were two different matters. Clearly, by the 1860s the influence of senior managers, verses those of directors, varied within different companies. Decision-making could become heavily influenced by chief executives, a small group of directors, or both. When Channon examined the building of the Midland Railway’s main line to London, opened in 1868, he argued the decision was formulated by a small number of directors who were influenced heavily by the General Manager, James Allport.[5] Furthermore, Gourvish argued in respect of the railways managed by Watkin and Forbes that ‘company strategies are usually presented in terms of either the directorship of a managing director or of one or two active directors.’[6]

Despite Cain arguing that by the 1870s Chief Executives were ‘the single most important decision-makers in the industry,’[7] the reality was that different managers continued to have varied levels of control over  company policies after 1870. In his study of Edward Watkin, chairman of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway (1864-1894), South Eastern (1866-1894) and Metropolitan Railways (1872-1894), and James Staats Forbes, chairman of the London, Chatham and Dover (1873-1898) and Metropolitan District Railways (1872-1901), he wrote of two railwaymen who remained in control of the companies’ policies, even when promoted onto their boards. Nevertheless, there were attempts by the SER board to oust Watkin in 1878-79 and 1885-86. [8]

Sir George Gibb

Furthermore, despite Watkin dedicating a large portion of his time to railway work, he was unable to directly control the three companies he was managing director of, relying on the senior executives at each to run operations; Myles Fenton at the SER, William Pollitt at the MS&LR and John Bell at the Metropolitan.[9] Hodgkins even described how Pollitt and Bell had a long standing rivalry which would have made a proposed link between the MS&L and Metropolitan Railways in the 1890s difficult,[10] and suggesting that even under Watkin’s domineering leadership these chief executives had the status and influence to direct their railways’ policies.

As late as the 1890s management’s ability to influence and control policy was different from company to company. Irving argued in his study of the North Eastern Railway (NER) that when Gibb became General Manager in 1891 he almost completely controlled company decision-making, dominating the staff and board, and allowing him to drag the company ‘to a position where it was acknowledged by experts to be a model on which successful railway management might be based.’ Nonetheless, on his departure in 1906 a vacuum was left and that thereafter the new General Manager, Butterworth, did not have the handle on company affairs, allowing the board to reassert its position at the heart of company policy.[11] Furthermore, Klapper’s portrait of Sir Herbert Walker’s administration of the London & South Western Railway from 1912 is one that highlights the primacy of the General Manager in policy, rather than the directorate.[12]

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[1] Wilson, John F. and Thomson, Andrew, The Making of Modern Management: British Management in Historical Perspective, (Oxford, 2009), p.57

[2] Gourvish, T.R. Mark Huish and the London & North Western Railway, (Leicester, 1972) , p.167-182

[3] Gourvish, Mark Huish and the London & North Western Railway, p.257-260

[4] Gourvish, Mark Huish and the London & North Western Railway, p.177

[5] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940, p.107

[6] Gourvish, T.R. ‘The performance of British railway management after 1860: The railways of Watkin and Forbes’, Business History, 20 (1978) p.188-189

[7] Cain, P.J., ‘Railways 1870-1914: the maturity of the private system,’ in Freeman, Michael J. and Aldcroft, Derek H. (eds.) Transport in Victorian Britain, (Manchester, 1988), p.112

[8] Gourvish, ‘The performance of British railway management after 1860’, p.188-189

[9] Gourvish, ‘The performance of British railway management after 1860’, p.191

[10] Hodgkins, David, The Second Railway King: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Watkin, (Melton Priory, 2002)   p.609

[11] Irving, R.J., The North Eastern Railway Company, (Leicester, 1976)  p.261-264

[12] Klapper, C.F., Sir Herbert Walker’s Southern Railway, (London, 1973)

Meet A Railway Luminary, No. 2: Archibald Scott

Archibald Scott was a grandee of the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR). He was born in Bell Street, Dundee, in 1821 to Archibald, a tanner, and Ann. The 1841 census shows that in that year he had four brothers and two sisters, and was listed as a clerk. However, it is unknown if this was within a railway company.[1] Nevertheless, he did work for the Edingburgh, Perth and Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow and North British Railway companies before being appointed as Traffic Manager of the L&SWR in 1852 at the  age of thirty-one.[2] The previous holder of the post had left the goods accounts in complete disarray and he immediately set about reforming them, as well as introducing undetermined management changes into the Traffic Department generally.[3]

In the 1860s he was responsible for establishing the Traffic Department's management structures. However, as the years passed he found it increasingly difficult to manage the growing business as he was unwilling to delegate power to subordinates.[4] Indeed, this was despite being made General Manager in 1870.[5] Furthermore, because he was so controlling Scott threw himself into his work, something he could easily do as he never married. In 1884 one proprietor noted that ‘I have known him to attend at your offices when all other people would expect to be, and would be at fireside.’ Furthermore, another comment from an unknown source was that ‘it is said towards Paddington that you must rise very early in the morning to be up to him.’[6]

Despite this, the company's performance declined because of his controlling nature in the 1870s and early 1880s. Indeed, when given 'more general' control of the company in 1881 he began attempting to influence the activities of all the L&SWR's departments in just as much detail as in the Traffic Department. Yet, he was a traffic manager, and had never learnt anything to do with the organisation of the company's engineering sections, for example the Locomotive Department. Indeed, he clashed with the company's Locomotive Superintendent, William Adams. Thus, he eventually failed to gain influence in areas outside his own understanding, and the company's performance continued to decline.[7]

Nevertheless, Scott was a kind and benevolent senior manager and The South Western Gazette stated that he 'was of a sympathetic nature, open handed and ever-ready to give relief of the unfortunate and distressed, and many of the older servants of the S.W.R. company can bear witness to his benevolence.'[8] Indeed, he established within the company such a community spirit that in the national railway strike of 1911 the L&SWR was the only railway whose staff did not come out.[9]

After coming under much pressure from the public because of the L&SWR's poor public services, some of which I related in a Turnip Rail Blog Post, he retired at the end of 1884 at the age of sixty-three.[10] He took up a position on the board, from which he retired in 1902 because of ill-health. It was said that after ending his time as a director he never travelled on a train again.[11] He died on the 6 December1910 at his house in South Bank, Surbiton,[12] and was buried on the 9 December at Kingston Cemetery.[13]

The photo above is the only known image of Scott. The South Western Gazette stated that Scott had a 'an insurmountable objection to having his portrait taken.' However, the image shown is was a snapshot taken by 'a friend' in the days before he retired as a director.[12]

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[1] National Archives of Scotland [NAS], Unknown Reference, 1841 Census, Dundee, Forfarsh, p282
[2] South Western Gazette, December 1884, p.4
[3] Williams, R.A. The London and South Western Railway: Volume 1, The Formative Years, (Newton Abbott, 1968), p.219-220
[4] Honestly, read my PhD thesis in October.
[5] Williams, R.A. The London and South Western Railway: Volume 2, Growth and Consolidation, (Newton Abbott, 1973), p.298
[6]Williams, The London and South Western Railway: Volume 2, p298
[7] Again, read my Thesis in October.
[8] South Western Gazette, December 1884, p.4
[9] South Western Gazette, January 1911, p.8
[10] Faulkner J.N. And Williams R.A., The London and South Western Railway in the Twentieth Century, (Newton Abbott, 1988) p.189
[11] South Western Gazette, January 1911, p.8
[12] The Times, Wednesday December 7, p.13
[13]  South Western Gazette, January 1911, p.8