'It is impossible to manage a [pre-1914] railway by theory" ... or is it?

In the early 1900s the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) was one of five British railway companies that began sending its clerks to the London School of Economics (LSE) to undertake classes in 'railway administration.' The aim of this move was to augment the skills and knowledge of its clerical staff, the company's future managers, in a period when the quality of the railway industry's management was being questioned and it was being challenged by high material and labour costs, competition from trams on suburban routes, increased government intervention and stagnating traffic growth. Indeed, this caused a severe drop in company profitability from the late 1890s onwards.

However, before the First World War the idea of railway employees attending universities to receive management training was not universally accepted within many companies'. Furthermore, this attitude was not restricted to the railways and Amdam argued that historians have almost unanimously concluded that within British industry generally there was a ‘skepticism towards business education within the both the academic and business community’.[1]

This scepticism towards was expressed frequently by LSWR clerks in the company's staff magazine, The South Western Gazette, which was largely written and edited by them. When Hilditch, the Waterloo Station Superintendent, retired in 1905, the piece announcing this stated that he had had ‘a good plain practical education, but he possessed, in addition, what universities have not yet been able to provide, namely, a shrewdness and capacity for sound common sense, a cool head and clear intellectual grasp.'[2] The anti-university feeling was reiterated in 1909 when another clerk, writing on the matter staff education, stated that ' I will dismiss the question of the London School of Economics by saying that “it is impossible to manage a railway by theory.” Indeed, he preferred an institute where individuals could learn 'practical' railway skills.[3]

The problem with this attitude was that it was what had created many of the problems railway management faced immediately after the late 1890s. Indeed, because many senior officials felt that good railway managers were born within the industry, not made outside it, and thus recruited the vast majority internally, companies' decision-makers were highly institutionalised within the practices and norms of the railways that employed them and the industry as a whole.  Consequently, railways were unable to respond adequately to the challenges they faced as there was severe lack of innovation within them and few new ideas were being generated. This is what my PhD shows in the LSWR's case.


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[1]Amdam, Rolv Petter, ‘Business Education’, in Jones, Geoffrey and Zeitlin, Robert (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Business History, (Oxford, 2007), p.586 
[2] South Western Gazette, September 1905, p.9 
[3] South Western Gazette, December 1909, p.10

Did the Management Ever Control Britain's 19th Century Railways?

Alfred Chandler

The rise of what Alfred Chandler called the ‘visible hand’ of management has dominated the business history literature for forty years. Simply put, Chandler argued that managers came to dominate American business in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As technology was introduced to companies and markets expanded, their processes of distribution and then coordination became more complex as they increased in size. Consequently, this generated a need for better administrative control of the organisations’ activities, leading to the rise of the ‘visible hand’ of management. Indeed, as managers grew in number within firms, they increasingly steered their destinies, wrestling control of corporate strategy from companies’ shareholders, financiers and directors. Chandler called this ‘managerial capitalism.’[1]

In the United States this process occurred first in the railroads. When faced with challenges such as safety concerns, then the increasing volume, speed and complexity of traffic on the line, companies quickly developed hierarchies of railway managers to coordinate their activities, leading to the rise of the ‘visible hand.’ Ward argued that a situation had developed on the Pennsylvania Railroad by 1873 where ‘paramount executive authority had emerged’, directors were by then ‘pliant acceders,’ and shareholders were virtually impotent.[2] Indeed, there is no doubt that Chandler admired railroads, such as the Pennsylvania, where managers had seized control of the organisation, arguing they were the best managed and innovative. They adopted high-level strategic direction, with considerable authority delegated to operating units and complex administrative practices were developed.[3] Indeed, Zunz also argued similar of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, which he considered an exemplar of good management practice because it was controlled by the company’s management class.[4]

The question, therefore, is to what extent this process was replicated in the British context? How much control did British railway managers have over their companies’ directors and shareholders in the nineteenth century, and, ultimately, their destinies? Chandler argued that because of the nation’s smaller size British railway managers were challenged less than their American counterparts to develop new and innovative management techniques.[5] Therefore, this possibly implies that British railway managers did not secure the same level of control as some American managers. However, Channon countered this by arguing that British railway managers were challenged in different ways because of the country’s high-density, expensive and intensive network, which was, unlike in the United States, complete in its operating and physical details in a much shorter time period after the industry’s establishment.[6] Therefore, while not ruling out a rise of the ‘visible hand’ of management, this may suggest that a different pattern of managerial development occurred within British railways. Nevertheless, neither of these perspectives really answered the question of whether there was a rise in the ‘visible hand’ of management in the British railway industry in the nineteenth century.

No comprehensive history of British railway management before 1914 has been written. Therefore, I have had to compile what I know about the rise of the ‘visible hand’ from case studies. However, some historians have broadly attempted to assess when the railways’ management class, particularly within larger companies, came to dominate the industry’s direction. Cain argued that General Managers, who were usually at the top of railway companies’ hierarchies, were the most important decision-makers in the industry by 1870.[7]  Channon made a similar claim, stating that before 1870 managerial ascendency ‘cannot be assumed.’[8] I believe both were wrong, and using a number of case studies I will suggest that management cannot be said to have ascended into a position of control before the 1900s.

Richard Moon

Terry Gourvish’s book on Mark Huish, the London and North Western Railway’s General Manager between the company’s formation in 1846 and 1858, is an enthralling text. It relates the story of a railway manager who during his administration and after his death was considered ‘unscrupulous, dictatorial and Machiavellian’; controlling the companies' policies. At face value this would suggest he was the first ‘managerial capitalist’ in Britain’s railway industry. Yet, Gourvish’s research showed the reverse. He argued that while Huish had more control of the company’s policies than his contemporaries, he did not possess the ‘dictatorial’ influence in decision-making often ascribed to him.’ Indeed, his resignation was forced on him 1858 as he did not satisfy the board’s requirements regarding inter-company diplomacy.[9]

Archibald Scott

Indeed, it was the career of the man who instigated  Huish’s resignation, LNWR director Richard Moon, that truly shows that the ‘visible hand’ of management did not really control policy on the British railway network until long after it had on many American railroads. Moon was appointed chairman of the company in 1861 and stayed in the post for thirty years. Before his ascendency becoming chairman, he had a reputation for taking a highly detailed interest in most of the company’s operational affairs, even when they were beyond his remit. Indeed, most railways’ boards met twice monthly, with directors meeting in committees the day before. Yet, Moon would be active in the company’s affairs every day of the week. Thus, when made chairman his controlling instincts were let loose. His biographer, Peter Braine, described him as being ‘not only a managing director, but also effectively his own General Manager,’ throughout his chairmanship. [10] Indeed, the company’s General Manager between 1858 and 1875, William Cawkwell, was very much under his and the board’s control.[11]

But directors having control of companies’ strategic direction was not unusual in the period. Lord Salisbury, chairman of the Great Eastern Railway between 1868 and 1871, looms large in the company’s history. On his appointment the GER was in chancery. Yet, he successfully turned it around and it began paying dividends again in the 1870s.[12] On the London and South Western Railway, as I will explain in my thesis, policy was dominated by directors until the 1881 when they gave the General Manager, Archibald Scott, more ‘general control’ over the concern’s affairs.[13] However, even then he was still under their control and did not have a decisive role in corporate decision-making. Lastly, on the Great Northern Railway in the 1850s, 60s and 70s it had directors who ‘thought they knew more about the business than the company’s senior officers.’[14] Therefore, this would suggest that the dominance of company boards was still present in the industry as late as the 1870s.

Indeed, from the 1860s there also appeared controlling positions within companies which would now be described as managing directorships. In most cases the individuals taking these positions were ex-managers, who on retirement became controlling directors. The most prominent examples of this were Edward Watkin and James Staats Forbes. They were fierce rivals, with Watkin chairing the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire (1864-1894), South Eastern (1866-1894) and Metropolitan Railways (1872-1894); while Forbes was chairman of the London, Chatham and Dover (1873-1898) and Metropolitan District Railways (1872-1901). Both men had served as railwaymen and then had moved onto railways’ boards where they dominated policy.[15] The other example of this was the managing directorship of the Daniel Gooch on the Great Western Railway. Gooch had been the company’s Locomotive Superintendent between 1837 and 1864, and when he resigned took up a position on the board. He then became the company’s chairman, and had a position akin to a managing director between 1865 and his death in 1889.[16] Furthermore, James Ramsden on the Furness railway also was in such a position between 1866 and 1883.[17]

Myles Fenton

But by the late 1880s the dominant power of railway managers was coming through more widely within the British Railway industry. Between 1885 and 1897, as my thesis will show, Charles Scotter was the dominant General Manager of the London and South Western Railway, controlling almost all aspects of policy, large and small. Cornelius Lundie, General Manager and Superintendent of the Line of the Rhymney Railway between 1858 and 1904, ran the railway as he wished with little or no reference to the board’s interests.[18] Even Watkin  relied on the General Managers at each of his companies for their safe and efficient operation. They were the SER’s Myles Fenton, William Pollitt at the MSLR and John Bell at the Metropolitan.[19] Indeed, Hodgkins argued that because Pollitt and Bell were rivals a proposed link between the MSLR and Metropolitan in the 1890s would have been difficult to arrange. Therefore, this suggests that despite Watkin’s domineering chairmanship of his companies, his chief executives still heavily influenced their railways’ policies.[20]

George Gibb

These cases were, however, only the start of a shift of towards the absolute control of the ‘visible hand’ of management within Britain’s railways. In 1891 George Gibb was appointed General Manager of the North Eastern Railway. Gibb reformed the company’s operations and, through dominating the company’s board and staff, dragged it into a position where experts acknowledged it was a model of good management practice.[21] But Gibb was just the first of a new breed of railway executives. Indeed, as a crisis hit the industry around 1900, as passenger, goods and revenue growth stalled, the cost of fuel and materials increased, and railway securities became less favoured as investment opportunities, the role of reversing  the industry’s financial situation fell onto the shoulders of executives.

After 1900 a raft of new and innovative managers came to the fore within British railways. Sam Fay, an ex-LSWR employee, became the Great Central Railway’s General Manager in 1902, and through his dynamic leadership transformed it from being a poorly performing to concern into one that, while never rich, made great advances and innovations in operational practice.[22] On the Midland Railway Cecil Paget, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, devised a whole new method of train control that added greatly to the company’s operating efficiency,[23] reducing delays to freight trains from 21,869 hours in 1907 to 7,749 hours in 1913.[24] Lastly, in 1912 Herbert Walker became the LSWR’s General Manager. Through dominating the company’s directorate he reformed its management and introduced electric traction onto its ailing suburban network.[25]

Of course, not all railways had General Managers that were as dynamic as these three. However, generally by the early twentieth century executives controlled the strategic direction of most of the largest companies within the British railway industry. Furthermore, the process of the rise of the ‘visible hand’ was also helped, as my thesis will relate and as Channon discussed,[26] by directors having less time to dedicate to the companies they served. Before 1900 the many took an active interest in their railway companies as they had little else to occupy their time. However, from around 1900, as the British corporate economy grew, they took on other external responsibilities, such other directorships. Thus, large numbers of directors were occupied by these activities, leaving vacuum of control into which railway executives could step.

Herbert Walker

Therefore, it is not surprising that on the formation in 1912 of the Railway Executive Committee, established to organise Britain’s railways in wartime, all its members were General Managers of the country’s largest companies. Indeed, the diminished role of the railway directors in the administration of the industry by that time was reflected by the fact that not one was present on the REC. Consequently, Britain’s railways in World War One was completely managed by the ‘visible hand’ of management,[27] the final proof that it had secured strategic control of the industry by 1914.

Overall, this survey [tentatively] disproves Channon and Cain’s claims that railway managers were universally important to British railways’ policies by 1870, and there was much variance in who controlled their direction. Overall, in the contrast with experience of the American railroads, the rise of the ‘Visible Hand’ of management occurred relatively late in the British context; only truly emerging after 1900. But why this was so?

I think that Chandler was correct to some extent in arguing that British railway managers were challenged less than their American counterparts because of the country’s smaller size. Despite the dramatic traffic growth throughout the century, the smaller size of British railway companies meant that there was never a point until after the 1890s when the internal administrative control required by them was beyond the ability of one director or their boards to organise. Indeed, the highly centralised management structures of British railway companies throughout the period, where decisions could be made by a small group of directors or managers at the top of the hierarchy,[28]  meant that dynamic and knowledgeable individuals, irrespective of whether they were directors or a managers, had the possibility of controlling their railways. Thus, this is why it is unclear before 1900 if management had 'ascended' within the industry. Indeed, one factor in an individual controlling a railway in the period was his personality; and all of the men mentioned were certainly characters. 

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[1] Channon, Geoffrey, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940: Studies in Economic and Business History, (Aldershot, 2001), p.5

[2] Ward, James A., ‘Power and Accountability on the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1846-1878’, Business History Review, XLIX (1975), p.58

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

[4] Zunz, Oliver, Making America Corporate: 1870-1920, (Chicago, 1990), p.47

[5] Chandler, Alfred D., Scale and Scope: the Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism, (London, 1990) p.253

[6] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940, p.29

[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] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940, p.44

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

[10] Braine, Peter, The Railway Moon – A Man and His Railway: Sir Richard Moon and the L&NWR, (Taunton, 2012), p.477

[11] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940, p.44

[12] Barker, T.C., 'Lord Salisbury, Chairman of the Great Eastern Railway 1868-1872' in Marriner, S., Business and Businessmen: Studies in Business, Economic and Accounting History, (Liverpool, 1972)

[13] The South Western Gazette, December 1881, p.2

[14] Simmons, Jack, The Railway in England and Wales 1830-1914, (Leicester, 1978), p.247

[15] Gourvish, T.R., ‘The Performance of British Railway Management after 1860: The Railways of Watkin and Forbes’, Business History, 20 (1978), p.198

[16] 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.113

[17] Simmons, The Railway in England and Wales 1830-1914, p.247

[18] Simmons, The Railway in England and Wales 1830-1914, p.247

[19] Gourvish, ‘The performance of British railway management after 1860’, p.188-191

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

[21] Irving , R.J., The North Eastern Railway Company: An Economic History, 1870-1914,  (Leicester, 1976)  p.261-264

[22] Dow, Andrew, ‘Great Central Railway,’ The Oxford Companion to British Railway History, (1997, Oxford), p.191-192

[23] Burtt, Philip, Control on the Railways, (London, 1926), p.144-151

[24] Edwards, Roy, ‘Divisional train control and the emergence of dynamic capabilities: The experience of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, c.1923-c.1939, Management and Organisational History, 6 (2011), p.398

[25] Klapper, C.F., Sir Herbert Walker’s Southern Railway, (London, 1973), p.33-76

[26] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940, p.187-188

[27] Pratt, Edwin A., British Railways and the Great War: Organisation, Efforts, Difficulties and Achievements – Vol. 1, (London, 1921), p.40-50

[28] Bonavia, The Organisation of British Railways,p.17-18

A Brief History of the Female Railway Clerk 1830-1914

While I have written frequently about female clerks on Britain’s railways before 1914, I have never penned a complete history. Therefore, this post will provide a broad survey of the changes in women’s clerical employment on the railways between 1830 and 1914.

Initially it may be useful to specify who I am talking about. Women were employed in three clerical positions on the Victorian railway. Firstly, there were the booking clerks; who sold tickets to passengers and registered their luggage. Secondly, women were engaged as administrative clerks, to fill in returns, conduct correspondence, and deal with the day-to-day station administration. Lastly there were telegraph clerks, who sent and received telegraph messages. It would be interesting to talk about these types of clerks separately. Yet, that would take some time and I have decided to just do a general history of all female clerical workers.

When the first female clerks were engaged on Britain’s railways is uncertain. However, the earliest I have found was Margaret Savage, who was appointed as a Telegraph Clerk at the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway’s (LBSCR) Three Bridges Station in August 1855. Two years later Margaret’s sister, Harriet, was also employed there as a Booking Clerk. Clearly, both Margaret and Harriett only got their jobs because their father, Thomas, was the Station Master there.[1] The same occurred in the case of Elizabeth Spearpoint, who was appointed as Telegraph Clerk at the LBSCR’s West Croydon Station in October 1857 because  her father, Robert, was in charge of that station.[2] Interestingly, what these and other appointments by the LBSCR suggest is that in the 1850s it was the first company to adopt a coherent policy regarding female clerical staff, which was simply to appoint station masters’ daughters in clerical positions.

It is not clear to what extent similar opportunities were available for women on other railways. Yet, a letter to The Timesreported in 1858 that:

“In taking a ticket the other day at the Edinburgh station of the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway, we were pleasantly surprised on being waited upon by a blooming and bonnie lassie, who, along with an activity quite equal to, exhibited a politeness very rare in railway clerks of the literally ruder sex. We observed that the department was entirely occupied by women, there being another giving out tickets, and a third telegraphing.” [3]

Nevertheless, the evidence suggests before 1870 different railways adopted different policies regarding female clerks, and many, such as the London and South Western, Great Western, Metropolitan and London and North Western Railways, did not employ any. Thus, the first reference to a female clerk in the London and South Western Railway’s files, of which I have done an extensive survey, was in 1871, as follows:

Mr Fifields Daughter – Read letter from Mr Fifield Agent at Oakley Station requesting that his daughter may be appointed as Telegraphist at that Station at a pay of 7/- per week

   Recommend this to the Board[4]

Indeed, the fact that this matter had to be submitted to the board suggests that this was the first case the company had considered. Thereafter, the LSWR employed some female clerks, but these were in isolated cases and there was no set policy.

The first case of a railway company employing a large group of female clerks at one time was the London and North Western Railway between late 1874 and 1876. The women were working in the Birmingham Curzon Street Station Goods Department and their role was to make 'abstracts from invoices for the ledger accounts of credit customers and for forwarding to the Railway Clearing House.’[5] Following this, the company began employing large numbers of female clerks around the its network, at locations including Camden, Shrewsbury, Bolton, Manchester and Wolverhampton.[6]

The success of this ‘experiment’ (a word used frequently) meant that other companies began investigating the possibility of engaging women for clerical work. Most notably, the Great Western Railway investigated it thoroughly for about six months in 1876. On the 30 August its board minuted that:

‘…female clerks might be employed with advantage, but their work should be confined to offices (such as Goods or Abstract Offices) where they could be employed separately from the men clerks, except when the member of a station master’s family may be employed at the same station himself.’[7]

This was a promising start, and a later letter by a senior management endorsed these views. Indeed, on 24 November a meeting of goods managers authorised a trial of clerks at Birmingham, Bristol and Plymouth Goods Stations. For some unknown reason the trial was not proceeded with, and it was not until 1905 that the matter was considered again by the company.[8]

Nevertheless, despite the LNWR’s ‘experiment’ being successful,  it would not be until after 1900 that the cases of women being engaged in clerical positions on the railways became common. In March that year twelve were employed at Kings Cross Station by the Great Northern Railway, with the North British Railway engaged forty as telegraph clerks at Edinburgh Waverly Station. In 1901 the North Eastern Railway employed six women as telegraphists at York, with an undetermined number of female clerks being appointed there in the Traffic Statistics office the following year.[9] In 1906 the Great Western Railway employed a number of women in clerical positions at the Paddington Goods Department, followed by female telegraphists and tracers in 1908 and 1910 respectively.[10] One of the last places to engage female clerks was the Railway Clearing House, which in 1912 appointed twenty-seven who were related to men working there. This number had increased to 180 two years later.[11] Thus, by July 1914 there were 2,341 female clerical staff working on Britain’s railways.[12]

The LSWR's 'Conditions of Service' for female clerks.

However, not all companies were quick to appoint women in clerical capacities, and it was only in March 1914 that the London and South Western Railway drew up formal 'conditions of employment'.'[13] Indeed, by the coming of war, the company had only employed six female clerks.[14]

Overall, how should we think about the increase in the number female clerks within British railways after 1900? It would be easy for me to simply claim this change occurred because it became more socially acceptable for women to take up such positions. Yet, I cannot help think that there was an economic rationale involved on the railway companies’ part. Between 1870 and 1900 the profitability of British railway companies declined, with the industry’s operating costs increasing from fifty-one to sixty –two per cent of revenue over the period. Indeed, the most significant rise in companies’ expenses occurred in the late 1890s.[15] Consequently, the railway companies began looking at many ways to economise from around 1900.

Indeed, given that female clerks were paid less than their male colleagues, this raises an interesting question; to what extent was the expansion of women’s clerical employment on railways after 1900 advanced by changes in society, or changes in the nature of the railways’ business? My impression is that alterations in society's attitudes made the employment of female clerks more acceptable. Yet, because the cases of their employment on the railways grew rapidly after 1900, with little progress directly before it, I would also suggest that the industry's weakened financial circumstances stimulated managers into taking advantage of changing attitudes by employing more women in clerical positions, thus reducing railways' wage bills. Indeed, when the London Underground was considering engaging women as clerks in 1907, the Railway Gazette stated the following: ‘such an innovation has obviously only one raison d’être, that of economy…’[16]

Of course, I may be wrong in this assessment, which is based on the information I have to hand. Therefore, I am open to other perspectives and suggestions.

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[1] The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 414/770, Traffic staff: register of appointments Indexed, p.62

[2] TNA, RAIL 414/771, Traffic staff: register of appointments Indexed, p.77

[3] The Times, quoted in Wojtczak, Helena, Railwaywomen, (Hastings, 2005), p.27

[4] TNA, RAIL 411/241, Traffic Committee Minute Book, Minute 575, 30 November 1871

[5] The Englishwomen’s Review, Friday, 15 February 15th, 1878

[6] TNA, RAIL RAIL 410/1837 to RAIL 410/1842, Salaried Staff Registers.

[7] GWR Board Minute, 30 August 1876, quoted in, Matheson, Rosa, The Fair Sex: Women and the Great Western Railway, (Stroud, 2007), p.50

[8] Matheson, The Fair Sex, p.51

[9] Wojtczak, Railwaywomen, p.29-31

[10] Matheson, The Fair Sex, p.52-54

[11] Wojtczak, Railwaywomen, p.29

[12] Wojtczak, Railwaywomen, p.38

[13] TNA, RAIL 411/275, Traffic Officers’ Conference, March 1914, Appendix 1

[14] TNA, RAIL 411/506, Clerical register - Female staff, Various Staff Records

[15] Gourvish, T.R., Railways and the British Economy: 1830-1914, (London, 1980), p.42

[16] Railway Gazette, quoted in Wojtczak, Railwaywomen, p.27

'Titanic' and the London and South Western Railway - An Intimate Relationship

The London and South Western Railway had an intimate relationship with Titanic, the ship having sailed from the company’s Southampton Docks. However, the association goes deeper than just a doomed ship sailing from a south coast port that happened to be owned by a railway company. Rather, from its inception, Titanic had been destined to sail from Southampton.

The LSWR purchased the failing Southampton Dock Company in 1892 and set about expanding the port to make the best use of its new acquisition. Between 1892 and 1910 the company spent a total of £3,063,644 on what was dryly referred to in its accounts as ‘New Plant, Graving Docks, Warehouses and Various Improvements.’[1] This included new graving docks in 1895 and 1905, and new quays in 1898.[2] Consequently, the investment had the effect the LSWR’s directors expected; it grew the port's trade. In 1892 421,611 tons had passed through the docks and, given most of this was carried by the LSWR, it constituted 15.41 per cent of the company’s goods traffic. However, with increasing numbers of steamship lines serving Southampton, the tonnage of goods passing through the docks grew to 1,113,132 by 1908,  44.38 per cent of the LSWR’s freight traffic.[3]

Adriatic approaching Southampton

Indeed, by 1908 twenty-one companies were sailing from Southampton, including the Union-Castle Line, Royal Mail Steam Packet services, the American Line and, not unexpectedly, the White Star Line.[4] The White Star Line began its association with Southampton in June 1907 when its New York express service transferred there from Liverpool. On the 5 June that year, a day Railway Magazine labelled the docks’ ‘Red-Letter Day’, the White Star steamer Adriatic inaugurated the weekly service.[5] Months later, the company was claiming the move had been an ‘immediate success’, and on both inward and outward journeys  it was refusing customers.[6]

Therefore, the White Star Line’s decision to move its services to Southampton could be perceived as a rational one based on its assessment of where it could garner the most trade. Yet, on the LSWR’s June 1907 ‘report and statement of accounts’ there appeared the name of a new director; The Right Hon. Lord Pirrie,[7] who immediately joined the company’s ‘Docks and Marine’ Committee.[8]  Pirrie can be easily describe as a ‘shipping magnate’, and when appointed to the LSWR’s board he was a director of twelve other companies, nine of which were associated with sea-bound trade and commerce. Amongst these was his position as chairman of Harland and Wolff, who built the Titanic and its sister ships, and his directorship of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Co, or White Star Line as it was more commonly known.[8]

Therefore, it is not surprising that the White Star Line transferred to Southampton; nor that in April 1907 Harland and Wolff opened a repairing depot at the docks to service White Star Line ships (amongst others).[9] However, the accommodation of Pirrie’s shipping interests by the LSWR did not stop there. In October 1907 the company began work on a new sixteen acre dock which, at the White Star Line’s request, was to be known as the ‘White Star Dock’ (although other companies could use it). This was opened in early 1911 and on 14 June that year Titanic’ssister ship, Olympic, sailed from there. Furthermore, when the LSWR found out about plans for Olympic and Titanic, it extended its Trafalgar Dry Dock to accommodate them..[10]

It shouldn’t be assumed that the LSWR acting as an arm of the White Star Line by spending so much capital on the docks for it. The investments were mutually beneficial for both businesses, and both greatly profited. Indeed, Pirrie’s presence on the LSWR board was not to control its policies in his favour; rather, he acted as a bridge between it and the White Star Line (and Harland and Wolff) so their strategies were coordinated. Thus, Pirrie, the White Star Line and the LSWR should collectively held responsible for bringing Titanic to Southampton.

On the morning of 10 April 1912, the day Titanicsailed, two special boat trains are known to have left the LSWR’s Waterloo terminus bound for the doomed vessel. Second and third class passengers, as well as the first class passengers’ maids and valets, travelled on a 7.30 am train; arriving dock-side two hours later. Later, 202 First class passengers departed Waterloo at 9.45am, arriving at 11.30 am, only thirty minutes before the ship sailed.[11]

Therefore, the links between the LSWR and Titanic ran deep, and when the ship foundered on the 15 April it is no surprise the railways' board minuted the following:

‘Wreck of the White Star Liner Titanic – The Chairman mentioned that, under his instructions, a letter of sympathy had been sent to Messrs. Ismay, Imrie & Co. with reference to the terrible disaster that had recently befell the Titanic and upon his motion it was resolved: “That a donation of £500 be given for the relief of the sufferers and divided equally between the Mansion House fund which is being raised on the behalf of the relatives of those persons, whether crew or passengers, who lost their lives in this sad calamity and the Mayor or Southampton’s fund for the relatives of the crew.”[12]

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[1] The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 1110/283 and RAIL 1110/284, London & South Western Railway – Reports and Accounts

[2] Faulkner, J.N. and Williams, R.A., The LSWR in the Twentieth Century, (Newton Abbot, 1988), p.142

[3] Railway Magazine, April 1909, p.402-406

[4] Railway Magazine, April 1909, p.403

[5] Railway Magazine, March 1909, p.297

[6] The Times, Monday 26 August 1907, p.4

[7] TNA, RAIL 1110/284, London & South Western Railway – Reports and Accounts, Half year ending June 1907

[8] South Western Gazette, June 1918, p.80

[9] Directory of Directors, (London, 1907)

[10] Faulkner, and Williams, the LSWR in the Twentieth Century, p.144

[11] Bevan, Mike and Chivers, Colin ‘The Titanic Centenary’, South Western Circular, 15 (April 2012), p.470

[12] TNA, RAIL 411/39, Court of Directors Minute Book, 19 April 1912

Reducing Railway Industry Fragmentation in the early 1900s

Christian Wolmar has written frequently that one of the major causes of the railway industry's current woes, in terms of operational costs and passengers fares being too high, is the fragmentation of the industry. Britain's railways as they exist contain a myriad of private companies interacting with each other within a web of complex working arrangements, most of which force costs up. Indeed, it is accepted by most experts that separating the management of the trains from the tracks was a disaster.[1]

But fragmentation within the railway industry isn't a new issue and was addressed by railway managers in the early 1900s. In the late 1890s the railway industry's profits were depressed by a mix of poor management, competition, increasing material costs and the growth of high volume low-margin traffic (However, historians are divided on which of these factors played the biggest role). Indeed, in 1885 the industry's operating ratio, which is expenditure expressed as a proportion of revenue, stood at fifty-two per cent. By 1900 this had been driven up to sixty-two per cent.[2]

In response to their change in fortunes, railway companies attempted to reduce costs through numerous means in the first years of the 1900s;  more efficient track maintenance, better locomotive designs, new technologies and improved goods operation. Yet, despite these vigorous efforts to improve how they functioned, inter-company rivalry and duplicated services remained one of the most serious and costly issues for industry leaders. Between 1870 and 1900 the railway companies of Britain, of which there over a hundred, unsuccessfully sunk resources and capital into competing for market share on certain routes and at cities which were served by more than one company. For Example, the Great Western and London and South Western Railways had a protracted battle in the West of England, both in terms of the services they provided and through line building to gain territory. But such competition only served to depress profits, not improve them.

Therefore, late in the first decade of the twentieth century railway companies came together to promote economical working, eliminate competition, pool resources and ultimately reduce overheads. While outright mergers were actively resisted by government, as they would hand companies regional monopolies, railway directors and managers worked around this objection by forming 'working unions'. In late 1907 the Great Northern and Great Central Railways announced an alliance in which they pooled receipts and the management of all rolling stock, lines and works were placed under the remit of a joint committee. It was an arrangement akin to amalgamation, however, it just wasn't a legal union. 

Other companies soon followed suit. In June 1908 the London and North Western and Midland Railways produced a less comprehensive scheme, where all receipts, except those from coal and coke traffic, were pooled, competitive capital expenditure was ceased and cooperative and economical train operations were sought. Indeed, this had considerable success in reducing these two companies' operational expenses. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway joined the agreement in 1909. Furthermore, early in 1909 the Caledonian and North British Railways drew up a very similar agreement. Lastly, in August 1910, after nearly a year and a half of negotiation, the Great Western and London and South Western Railways came to terms. [3]

While the fragmentation of the modern railway industry is different in many ways to that which existed immediately after 1900, there is no doubt that in the period knowledgeable industry leaders felt a sensible way to reduce their railway's operational and capital costs was to cooperate. Indeed, the particular success of the London and North Western and Midland Railway in reducing these forms of expenditure through unification, is a testament to the idea that when it comes to railways, collaboration, not fragmentation, can be preferable.

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[1] Wolmar, Christian, "Fragmentation is the problem, not the solution", Christian Wolmar's Website, 19 May 2011

[2] Gourvish, Terry, Railways and the British Economy 1830-1914, (London, 1980), p.42

[3] Cain, P.J., 'Railway Combination and Government, 1900-1914', The Economic History Review, 4 (1972), p.633