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CHAP. XIV.]

EDWARD PEASE.

163

very great influence upon the future history of railway locomotion.

Of this railway Edward Pease was the projector. A thoughtful and sagacious man, ready in resources, possessed of indomitable energy and perseverance, he was eminently qualified to undertake what appeared to many the desperate enterprise of obtaining an Act of Parliament to construct a railway through a rather unpromising district. One who knew him in 1818 said, "he was a man who could see a hundred years ahead." When the writer last saw him, in the autumn of 1854, Mr. Pease was in his eighty-eighth year; yet he still possessed the hopefulness and mental vigour of a man in his prime. Hale and hearty, full of interesting reminiscences of the past, he yet entered with interest into the life of the present, and displayed a warm sympathy for all current projects calculated to render the lives of men happier. Still sound in health, his eye had not lost its brilliancy, nor his cheek its colour; and there was an elasticity in his step which younger men might have envied. His vigorous judgment and genuine native shrewdness, together with that courageous strength and tenacity of purpose which made him, when once convinced, stand by the railway project upon which he had set his heart, when all the world. called him schemer and fool, had not yet departed from him; and he could now afford to crack a lively joke at the prejudiced blindness of those who had so long made him the subject of their ridicule. Pointing to a fine prospect from his drawing-room window, extending to the wooded knolls on the further side of the valley, the numerous full-grown trees within sight, gay in all the gorgeous livery of autumn, Mr. Pease observed:-"What changes happen in a single lifetime! Look at those fine old trees; every one of them has been planted by my own hand. When I was a boy I was fond of planting, and my father indulged me in my pastime.

I went about with a spade in my hand, planting trees everywhere as far as you can see: they grew whilst I slept; and now see what a goodly array they make! Aye," continued he, "but RAILWAYS are a far more extraordinary growth even than these. They have grown up not only since I was a boy, but since I became a man. When I started the Stockton and Darlington Railway, some five-and-thirty years since, I was already fifty years old. Nobody could then have dreamt what railways would have grown to, within one man's lifetime."

In projecting a railway from Witton Colliery, a few miles above Darlington, to Stockton, in the year 1817, Edward Pease at first stood almost alone. Long before this railway was projected, as early as the year 1768,- the scheme of a canal had been discussed, and Brindley, the engineer, who had at one period of his life worked in the neighbourhood as a labourer, was consulted. The project, however, proceeded no further, probably from want of support. In 1812, Mr. Rennie, the engineer, was employed to make a survey of a tramroad. But the commercial distress which then prevailed in the county of Durham prevented the project from ripening to maturity. The necessity for finding an outlet and new markets for the Bishop Auckland coals continued, however, to be felt. What was at first contemplated by Mr. Pease, was merely the means of effecting land sales of coal at the stations along the proposed railway. The shipment of coal from the Tees was not taken into account as a source of profit. It was not expected that coals could be led there to advantage, or that more than 10,000 tons could be disposed of at Stockton, and those merely for the purpose of ballasting ships disembarking goods at that port. The conveyance of passengers was not even dreamt of.

In getting up a company for the purpose of surveying and forming a railway, Mr. Pease had great difficulties to contend

CHAP. XIV.] THE STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON LINE. 165

with. The people of the neighbourhood spoke of it as a ridiculous undertaking, and predicted that it would be the ruin of all who had to do with it. Even those who were most interested in the opening out of new markets for the vend of their coals, were indifferent, if not actually hostile. The Stockton merchants and ship-owners, whom the formation of a railway was calculated to benefit so greatly, gave the project no support; and not twenty shares were subscribed for in the whole town. Mr. Pease nevertheless persevered with the formation of a company; and he induced many of his friends and relations to subscribe for shares. The Richardsons and Backhouses, members, like himself, of the Society of Friends, influenced by his persuasion, united themselves with him; and so many of the same denomination (having great confidence in these influential Darlington names) followed their example and subscribed for shares, that the railway subsequently obtained the designation, which it still enjoys, of "The Quakers' Line.”

The engineer first employed to make a survey of the tramroad, was a Mr. Overton, who had had considerable experience in the formation of similar roads in Wales. The necessary preliminary steps were taken in the year 1818 to apply for an Act to authorise the construction of a tramroad from Witton to Stockton. The measure was, however, strongly opposed by the Duke of Cleveland, because the proposed line passed near to one of his fox covers; and, having considerable parliamentary influence, he succeeded in throwing out the bill by a majority of only thirteen,—above one hundred members voting in support of the measure. nobleman said, when he heard of the division, "Well, if the Quakers in these times, when nobody knows anything about railways, can raise up such a phalanx as they have done on this occasion, I should recommend the county gentlemen to be very wary how they oppose them."

Α

A new survey was then made, avoiding the Duke's fox cover; and in 1819 a renewed application was made to Parliament for an Act. But George III. dying in January, 1820, while Parliament was still sitting, there was a dissolution, and the bill was necessarily suspended. The promoters, however, did not lose sight of their project. They had now spent a considerable sum of money in surveys and legal and parliamentary expenses, and were determined to proceed, though they were still unable to enlist the active support of the inhabitants of the district proposed to be served by the railway.

As an instance of the opposition on the part of the local authorities, which the promoters had to encounter, we may mention that, in 1819, while the bill was before Parliament, the road trustees, perhaps secretly fearing the success of the railway, which openly they denied, got up an alarm, predicting the total and immediate ruin of the turnpike road trusts in event of the bill becoming law. On this Mr. Pease published a notice intimating that, if any of the creditors or mortgagees of the road between Darlington and West Auckland were apprehensive that the proposed rail or tramway would be prejudicial to their interests, the promoters would, through their solicitors (Raisbeck and Mewburn), purchase their securities at the price originally paid for them. This measure had the salutary effect of quieting the road interests for a season, though they afterwards displayed an active hostility to the railway when it came to be formed.

The energy of Edward Pease, backed by the support of his Quaker friends, enabled him to hold the company together, to raise the requisite preliminary funds from time to time for the purpose of prosecuting the undertaking, and eventually to overcome the opposition raised against the measure in Parliament. The bill at length passed; and the royal assent was given to the first Stockton and Darlington Railway Act on the 19th of April, 1821.

CHAP. XIV.]

MODEST ANTICIPATIONS.

167

The preamble of this Act recites, that "the making and maintaining of a Railway or Tramroad, for the passage of waggons and other carriages" from Stockton to Witton Park Colliery (by Darlington), "will be of great public utility, by facilitating the conveyance of coal, iron, lime, corn, and other commodities" between the places mentioned. The projectors of the line did not originally contemplate the employment of locomotives; for in the Act they provide for the making and maintaining of the tramroads for the passage upon them "of waggons and other carriages "" with men and horses or otherwise," and a further clause made provision as to the damages which might be done in the course of traffic by the " waggoners." The public were to be free " to use, with horses, cattle, and carriages," the roads formed by the company, on payment of the authorised rates, "between the hours of seven in the morning and six in the evening," during the winter months; "between six in the morning and eight in the evening," in two of the spring and autumn months each; and "between five in the morning and ten in the evening," in the high summer months of May, June, July, and August.

From this it will be obvious that the projectors of this line had themselves at first no very large conceptions as to the scope of their project. A public locomotive railway was as yet a new and untried thing; and the Darlington men merely proposed, by means of their intended road, to provide a more facile mode of transporting their coals and merchandise to market.

Although the locomotive had been working for years successfully at Killingworth, its merits do not seem to have been fairly estimated, even in the locality itself; and it was still regarded rather in the light of a mechanical curiosity, than as the vital force of the railway system.

Thomas Gray, of Nottingham, was a much more sanguine

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