'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

English Shareholders, Scottish Passengers and Stopping Trains for God in 1846

Interestingly, the running of trains on Sunday in England and Wales was more common in the industry’s formative years. Indeed, Simmons stated that in 1887 20.1% of the nation’s railways were closed to passengers on Sunday, yet in 1847 this figure had only been 2.6%.[1] In 1847, the Board of Trade requested that every railway company in Britain submit a return detailing the number of Sunday trains that they ran. The result was that the 55 British railway companies (not including Irish companies) ran 530 scheduled services on ‘the Sabbath.’

However, within this sample there was a very distinct difference in practice between Scottish railway companies and those located south of the border. Of the 55 railway companies in the sample 38 were based in England and Wales (69%). However, these companies ran 514 of the Sunday trains listed (97%), leaving only 16 trains operating in Scotland. It could be argued that this was because many of the Scottish railway companies were smaller in size. Indeed, the Scottish companies that did run Sunday trains were amongst the largest in the country. For example, the North British railway company ran 6 trains. Yet, with such a small number of trains running, comparative to the size of the network, it can only be concluded that there was some unique reason for the difference in operating levels on Sundays in Scotland.[2]

The case of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway (E&GR), listed on parliamentary papers as running 4 mail trains only on Sunday, is an interesting case that perhaps reveals why in many cases trains were not run. When the line was opened in February 1842 the company immediately put on morning and evening trains on Sunday. These conveyed 1000s of passengers each day but were scheduled to avoid the hours when worship was undertaken.[3]

Yet, this policy, which was seemingly an unusual occurrence amongst the Scottish railway companies, soon displeased the shareholders of the company. Indeed, at the first shareholder’s meeting of the company after the line had opened on the 24^th February 1842, much of it was consumed by debate over the Sunday trains. Indeed, the chairman, Mr Leadbetter, stated that he had received 203 memorials against the running of trains on that day from reverends, church groups and private individuals.[4] Yet, for all their campaigning, the memorialists failed to change company policy on this occasion. Subsequently, at every meeting of the proprietors of the E&GR thereafter, those against Sunday trains proposed motions to stop them.

All of these motions failed. However, in 1846 the shareholders of the company took a different approach. The English shareholders forced out the directors of the company and replaced them with some of their number who approved of shutting the railway on Sundays.[5] As had become usual, at the January 1846 meeting one of the shareholders, Sir Andrew Agnew, proposed a motion: “That no work be done on this railway on the Lord’s Day according to the Fourth Commandment of the moral law.” This was supported after memorials were presented by many individuals, including a Mr Blackadder who presented two from the Scottish Observance Committee and the Free Church of Scotland.[6] Once again the vote failed.

However, between then and August E&GR shareholders opposed to Sabbath running mobilised. At a meeting at a company’s headquarters on August 24th, the holders of 2000 shares met to discuss the management and direction of the company. While there were many issues to deal with, such as failed amalgamation attempts with other companies and the profitability of the company, Sunday running was a key issue. The events of the meeting were summed up in the words of the Daily News after the event. The English shareholders had ‘crossed the border in person [having previously voted by proxy], attacked the directors in their city of Glasgow, overthrown the old dynasty and installed themselves on the vacant throne.’

To the dismay of the Daily News the first act of the new directors was not to improve the company’s operation, but to stop Sunday trains.[7] This, clearly had a detrimental effect on the company’s profits. In Parliament in 1849 Joseph Locke, the noted railway engineer and at that point M.P. for Honiton, stated that the ‘New directors came in… [and] closed the railway on Sunday. And thus the Sabbath party, though a small fraction of the entire proprietary, succeeded in their object, and those who obtained power had managed to reduce the dividends below what they were before.’[8]

Furthermore, the stopping of Sunday trains was against the wishes of the travelling public. The Liverpool Mercury reported that many of the people who used them ‘consider it the “unkindest cut of all” and that the public were ‘resolved to resist the resolution’ that ordered the trains to be abandoned. Indeed, it was stated by the paper that the Sunday running was of worth, in that it brought many individuals to church and that the trains’ use was not for recreation but the promotion of religious activity.[9] Indeed, in February 1847, the Earl of Lincoln presented a petition to the House of Commons from the people of Linlithgow against the ceasing of Sunday running.[10]But, this did not succeed, and the E&G had train-free Sundays for decades after.

The interesting thing about this case is that it was the English proprietors, who could use Sunday trains in their own country, who stopped them in Scotland. The reason for this hypocrisy was alluded to in the Railway Chronicle of January 1847. Discussing the E&GR case it stated that ‘the English public demands Sunday trains, the Scotch rejects them.’ Indeed, it suggested that the halting of Sunday trains was because of the fact that Scotland was ‘pre-eminently a religious nation.’[11] Indeed, the fact that this was a factor in the English delegation of E&GR shareholder’s decision was reinforced by a letter from them to the rest of the proprietors in March 1847.[12]

Therefore, this was a case of stereotyping combined with religious fervour, which had almost universally negative effect. A few very vocal and religiously active English shareholders forced on the Scottish travelling public a change which they thought they wanted. Yet, clearly the shareholders held a view of the Scottish passenger’s religiosity that wasn’t in line with reality, as the stoppage of Sunday trains was against the actual wishes of the E&GR customers. Furthermore, these shareholders allowed their religious fervour to override any considerations about the profitability and performance of the company, stopping the Sunday trains which were profitable. Indeed, it is quite possible that the English shareholders’ actions may even been borne of some frustration amongst the shareholders at not being able to change the state of Sunday trains in England and Wales.

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[1] Simmons, Jack, The Victorian Railway, (London, 1991), p.286

[2] House of Commons Parliamentary Papers [HCCP] 1847 (167) Railways. Copy of all regulations of every railway company on the subject to travelling on Sunday.

[3] Hansard, HC Deb 25 April 1849 vol 104 cc831-48, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1849/apr/25/sunday-travelling-on-railways

[4] Caledonian Mercury, Thursday, February 24, 1842; Issue 19053

[5] Liverpool Mercury, Friday, October 30, 1846; Issue 1852

[6] Caledonian Mercury, Thursday, February 26, 1846; Issue 19549

[7] Daily News, Wednesday, October 28, 1846; Issue 129

[8] Hansard, HC Deb 25 April 1849 vol 104 cc831-48, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1849/apr/25/sunday-travelling-on-railways

[9] Liverpool Mercury, Friday, October 30, 1846; Issue 1852

[10] Dundee Courier, Tuesday, February 23, 1847; pg.1

[11]The Railway Chronicle, reprinted in, The Bury and Norwich Post, and East Anglian , Wednesday, January 13, 1847; Issue 3368

[12] Glasgow Herald, Monday, March 1, 1847; Issue 4600.

[13] Simmons, The Victorian Railway, p.287

Commerce and Finance in Railway Promotion - To Bristol and Southampton we go!

The individuals behind the establishment of Britain’s railway companies have been inadequately studied. What we do know is that they came from a range of different backgrounds, for example traders, landowners, industrialists and gentry. However, which of these groups of individuals played the most important role in the new railway companies has always been vague. Usually, historians have always ascribing the most prominent roles to interested parties such as ‘businessmen’ or ‘merchants,’ without exploring in much more detail the ‘nuts and bolts’ of their involvement.

However, my recent research on the London and Southampton Railway (L&SR) (later to become the London and South Western Railway) and Geoffrey Channon’s on the Great Western Railway (GWR), has given more detail as to who the promoters and early directors of these railway companies were. Subsequently, as my research came after Channon’s, I have established a more nuanced story behind the promotion of Britain’s early railways.

The promoters of the GWR in 1835 were all related to the fact that Bristol, one of its termini, had been a trading port for centuries. Subsequently, Channon showed that 16 of the 30 directors that were involved in its promotion between 1833 and 1835, came from ‘commerce and finance.’ This reflected the high number of merchants that were based in London and Bristol that served to gain from the promotion of a railway through the expansion of trade.[1] Some of the notable individuals included William Tothill, a manufacturing chemist, Thomas Guppy, owner with his brother of Friars Sugar Refinery, and Nicholas Roach, Chairman of the Bristol Dock company, who was also an oil and leather manufacturer.

Further, many of Bristol’s commercial bodies, such as the Corporation, the Society of Merchant Ventures, the Bristol Dock Company and the Bristol Chamber of Commerce, also backed the plan.[2] Therefore, the established merchants and trade organisations of the city came together to promote the new railway and further increase their wealth and prosperity.

However, when I looked at the L&SR, I found a different story. This story principally hinged on the fact that the company’s destination town, Southampton, was not an established trading port like Bristol. G.A. Sekton, a biographer of the L&SWR, wrote that in Southampton before 1834 ‘there were no manufacturers… requiring access to the great mart [London] for their consumption; there was no trade, no commerce there.’[3] Indeed, the port could only charitably be described as a small fishing village. Thus, this meant that the individuals involved in the establishment of the L&SR’s project were different to those involved in the GWR.

Firstly, 10 of the 23 (43.47%) directors that joined the L&SWR board between 1834 and 1840 were categorised as being involved in ‘commerce and finance.’ Yet, unlike the case of GWR, further investigation shows that only three of these individuals were merchants. The seven remaining promoters and directors were actually working in banking and finance. These included Sir John Easthope, a former stockbroker, Edmund Jerningham, of the London Joint-stock bank and Robert Williams, of Williams, Williams & Williams bank, Bridehead.

The reason for the significant involvement of financial men seems to be because of the investment opportunities provided by developing a completely new port. While in the case of the GWR there was a pre-existing economy held in the grasp of merchants looking to expand Bristol’s trade, Southampton possibly could have been developed quickly, providing a lucrative investment opportunity for bankers to make large amounts of money quickly. Indeed, the L&S’s original name was the ‘London, Southampton, and Branch Railway and Dock Company,’evidencing the fact that its promoters saw the opportunities of developing a new railway with a new port at its terminus. Lastly, the involvement of bankers would have also allowed the embryonic company to access the capital on favourable terms, as large amounts would be required to develop the port. This said, the docks part of the plan was dropped early on.

Thus, comparing my research with Channon’s has shown that who the promoters and early directors of railway companies were, was dictated by where the lines were proposed to be built and the economies through which they passed.

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[1] Channon, Geoffrey, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1840, (Aldershot, 2001), p.184

[2] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, p.56-58

[3] Sekton, G.A., The London & South Western Railway: Half a Century of Railway Progress to 1896, (London, 1896, reprint 1989), p.2

[4] Fay, Sam, A Royal Road, (Kingston, 1881) p.5

Railway linkages in Railway Directorship

I thought I'd return to the work that I am currently doing on the directorships that the board members of the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) held that were beyond the company. I think their may have been some misunderstanding over my post a few days ago on this topic. The directors of the L&SWR did sit on the boards of other railway companies before 1914. The figures for the L&SWR board members' external railway directorships are as follows:-

1880 - 2 directorships, held by 2 men (Average = 1/director)

1885 - 6 directorships, held by 3 men (Average = 2/director)

1890 - 7 directorships, held by 5 men (Average = 1.4/director)

1895 - 5 directorships, held by 4 men (Average = 1.25/director)

1900 - 2 directorships, held by 2 men (Average = 1/director)

1905 - 1 directorship, held by 1 man (Average = 1 director)

1910 - None

1914 - None

Firstly, the evidence suggests that the number of interlocking directorships with other railways were always small amongst L&SWR directors. Although, the fact that throughout this period the company only had 12 directors, clearly would have influenced this fact. Additionally, of the seven L&SWR board members that were on other railway company boards, only three, A.F. Govett, Arthur E. Guest and Capitan James Johnston, had membership of more than one railway company board. There can also be observed a trend in the figures of declining membership of other railway companies' boards by L&SWR directors, and after 1914 there were none.

I am uncertain why this may be so. However it has been posited by Geoffrey Channon that as the corporate economy developed, as more large business opened up their boards to new directors, railway company boards became less appealing. For most of the 19th century railways had been the only businesses where individuals could obtain directorships. Yet, as the economy grew, the increasing number of other businesses became more appealing for potential directors, and thus, fewer individuals sat on railway company boards.

What the evidence above doesn't show is that slightly more of L&SWR board member's external railway directorships were not on British railway company boards. In total, across all years between 1880 and 1914, L&SWR directors had positions on 11 railway company boards. Only 5 of these directorships were within British railway companies (the Whitby Redcar and Middlesbrough Railway, the Taff Vale Railway, the Cardiff, Penarth and Barry Junction Railway, the North Staffordshire Railway and the Great Northern and City.) However, the remaining 6 directorships were on the boards of railway companies operating overseas, with one in Spain (the Olot and Girona Railway), one in Mexico (the Mexico Southern Railway), two in Brazil (the Donna Thereza Christina and the Southern Brazilian Rio Grande Do Sul Railway) and two in India (the Pondicheri Railway and the South Indian Railway)

This possibly indicates that these directors ordinarily did not choose railway company directorships because of any immediate advantage for the L&SWR. The locations of these railways are so diverse that it is possible that the directors were simply on the board for their own advantage. Indeed, this borne out by the fact that the British railway boards that they sat on were firstly not linked with the L&SWR at any point physically, but also that they were generally small railways, insignificant in the highly developed railway industry. Thus, they would have little, if any affect on the L&SWR's business.

To direct a company, two companies...many companies

In my PhD work I have been thinking about what other directorships the L&SWR board members had. It isn't the most riveting subject. In fact it is quite dull. But, I can't always do everything that I want and a certain amount of mud has to be slung before I get to the gold at the bottom. However, one trend I identified struck me as interesting, as it reflected on the developmental state of the 'corporate' economy in Britain more generally. For this post I will use my research in combination with Geoffrey Channon’s, who's excellent book, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940, has become somewhat of a bible from me, although unfortunately their wasn't a Gideon-esque service giving them out, the cost of the book being £65.00. Anyway, I digress.

In 1880 a publication came out called the Directory of Directors (DoD), a title from which it wouldn't be hard to determine what its function was. It basically listed every director, of every company, and thus is invaluable guide to how different companies and industries, shared directors. As such, both Channon and I have used the DoD to determine how the board members of the Great Western Railway (GWR), in Channon's case, and the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR), in my case, shared directors with other businesses and sectors of the economy.

In short, we have both identified a pattern that I think represents the changing nature of the British corporate economy after 1900. Between 1880 both Channon and I have shown that the GWR and L&SWR's directors did not sit on many other boards. Now, our studies haven't presented the results of our research in the same way, but they can be compared. In Channon's case he identified that between 1881 and 1885, the majority of GWR directors (13 out of 21 - 61.9%) had no external directorships, with 5 (23.8%) having between 1 and 3, with only 3 having four or above (14.3%). Comparatively, my research has shown that in 1880 9 directors out of the L&SWR's 12 had no directorships (75%), with the remainder having between being on between 1 and 3 external boards. Similarly, in 1885 7 directors (58.33%) had no external directorships, while 5 had between 1 and 3 (41.67%). Thus, the period before 1900 can be considered one where railway company directors did not have many, if any, external directorships beyond their primary concern, the railways.

This is in stark contrast with the period after 1900. In Channon’s sample, between 1906 and 1910 only 4 of the GWR’s 22 directors sat on no other company boards. Yet, 10 (45.4%) had between 1 and 3 external directorships and 8 (36.4%) had between 4 and 6. A similar pattern was exhibited amongst the L&SWR directors. In 1910, 5 directors (41.67%) had no seats on external boards, 4 (33.3%) had between 1 and 3 external directorships and 2 (16.67%) had between 4 and 6. One, Lord Pirrie, sat on 12 company boards, mainly in shipping. In 1914, however, more L&SWR directors were seated on even more boards. Of them, 5 (41.67%) had between 1 and 3 external directorships, 2 (16.67%) sat on between 4 and 6 boards and another 2 had above 13. This left only 3 (25%) individuals who were solely L&SWR board members. In both the case of the GWR and L&SWR directors, most of the directors sat on external boards of companies that were not concerned with railways or transportation. Rather, these external companies were in the sectors of finance, industry and manufacturing.

Therefore, in the period after 1900 there is a clear change in the way that individuals chose to join company boards. For much of the 1900s the railway industry was the biggest, while others were still developing. Therefore, for an aspiring director the railways were some of the few companies on whose boards they could sit. Hence, many railway directors had fewer directorships. This trend may be also indicative of the nature of the business landscape in that many firms were family run and therefore may not have boards of directors. However, after 1900 the number of limited companies expanded, opening up the opportunities for individuals to sit on more boards. This is, therefore, reflected in the results above.

The pies that Viscount Pirrie had his fingers in

Well we've all heard in the newspapers haven't we. The director of company 'A,' lets call him 'Bob,' was involved with another company, the imaginatively named company 'B', and used his influence to secure contracts for company 'A' with company 'B.' More often we hear of these slightly dodgy associations through replacing company 'A' with the word 'Government,' but the principal is roughly the same. In short, what I am talking about are nefarious arrangements between businesses and institutions brokered by individuals who have a stake in both. For that individual, when the sordid details come out, they just look bad, their faces are emblazoned across the tabloids, their names writ-large in the banner headline.

But this is not a new phenomenon and my work on the directors of the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) has exposed the links between the directors of that company and external organisations. I have pieced together the history of L&SWR directorship in part through the Directory of Directors (DoD), a publication that from 1880 told the casual reader who, exactly sat on what company boards. So if Lord Geoffrey Munkton-Spitalton-Poo sat on the the board of the Walton-on-Thames Dog Food and Cannery Co., as well as the company that supplied the dogs for the food, it'd be in there. I just hope someday, someone, is going to sit down and like a massive spider work out exactly all these directorial webs, it'd be well sticky and catch many flies. For now, however, we're just going to have to put up with my little study of the other interests of the directors of the L&SWR. I want to highlight one part of my study in this blog.

In 1880, when the DoD was first published, the directors of the L&SWR seem quite a boring, uninteresting bunch. Of the 12 individuals, only 3 had other directorships. That meant that 9 of them simply turned up every fortnight to the L&SWR committee and board meetings and spent the rest of the time supping Cognac and beating the local peasantry (oh, and there were quite a few gentry in there also if you didn't get the stereotype). Of the three that had other financial interests, firstly, Serjeant Gaselee, (yes that is his name and I have always wondered if he did a lot of marching) was a director of the London and Provincial Law Assurance Society. We can surmise that because he was in insurance, he was therefore evil. Arthur Govett, whose name I can't make fun of, was a director of the quaintly named Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Railway Co., a company so insignificant it doesn't even warrant its own Wikipedia entry. Lastly, Captain James Gilbert Johnson, who I am sure did do some marching, was a director of the South Indian Railway Company and the Southampton Dock Company (SDC). The latter, as we will see is the crux of our story. However what can be said of the South Western Board members of the 1880s is that there were no tangible links at board level between the L&SWR's business and external companies. Boy, would that change.

You see the Southampton Dock Company in the 1880s, was, as companies go, pretty crap. Originally in 1831 the London and Southampton Railway, that would become the L&SWR, was promoted with the docks as part of it. This was quickly dropped and the Docks Company was set up independently. Unfortunately for the SDC a chronic lack of investment in the second half of the nineteenth century meant that by the 1880s the biggest boat you would be likely to see docked there would be little Tommy Burton's toy replica of the H.M.S Victory. So the L&SWR in 1885 stumped up some cash to help the company get a large, modern, dock built. The provisos were that four L&SWR directors would be on the Dock Company Board and the SDC had to use the L&SWR's engineer for the work. This effectively made the Dock Company into a vassal state of the railway company. The problem was that the L&SWR didn't give the SDC enough cash to finish the job. So when in 1890 the new dock was opened it was missing small things that you might need there, you know, things like cranes. The upshot was that in 1892 the L&SWR directors decided to buy the SDC, they finished the docks, fell in the dock and climbed out again (OK I made the last part up). This was a sensible course of action for the L&SWR. If the SDC had have gone under, and yes I will unashamedly use shipping metaphors, it would have meant that much of the L&SWR's goods traffic, that came through Southampton, would sail to other ports and complete their onward journeys via other railway companies. Therefore the L&SWR had to buy the SDC to save their own skin. After the purchase the L&SWR invested and expanded the docks precipitating a very large increase in the trade moving through the port, and making Southampton one of Britain's major trading centres.

So this is the state of play in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Now, if you are a wandering shipping magnate, wandering around, then you'd say getting a 'piece of that action' of a company with an expanding dock and increasing trade, would be a good thing. One such magnate was the Right Honourable Lord William Pirrie, 1^st Viscount Pirrie (shown).

Pirrie had been born on the 31^st May 1847 in Quebec, Canada, however his parents had brought him back to Colnig, County Down, when he was two. He went to school at the Royal Belfast Academical institution and in 1862 became a gentlemen apprentice at the Belfast shipbuilders Harland and Wolff (H&W). He would stay with the company all his life and would make partner in 1874, becoming its chairman on the death of Sir Edward Harland in 1895. Now looking at the myriad of directorships he held in 1907 it would seem that Pirrie was a man with little time on his hands to attend all the board meetings. I'm going to list them because the energy of the man must have been amazing. In alphabetical order they are:- African Steam Ship Co, British and Atlantic Steam Navigation Co, Eastern Telegraph Co, Frederick Leyland and Co, International Merchantile Marine Co. of New Jersey, London City and Midland Bank, Mississippi And Dominion Steam Ship Co, Ocean Transport Co, Oceanic Steam Navigation Co, Scottish Widows' Fund Life Assurance Soc and Wilsons and Furness-Leyland Line Ltd. Oh, and don't forget H&W. In short, he must have been run ragged.

On the death of Arthur Govett, he of quaint railways and director of the L&SWR, Pirrie was elected to replace him on the board. This therefore created a link between the L&SWR, the Docks at Southampton and the Shipping magnate's various concerns. Now I am not sure as to whether the L&SWR approached Pirrie, or the other way round, however the appointment must have been attractive to all involved. The South Western had access to an influential figure in the board rooms of one of Britain's biggest shipbuilders and also of many shipping lines. This therefore had the potential to bring trade to the Docks and the L&SWR, and make it a heck of a lot of money. It also brought Pirrie's experience in shipbuilding to the company, as the L&SWR had its own Steam Packet services operating, and in the years after 1907 it had built a number of new ships. The benefits for Pirrie were that those shipping companies he was involved in may have got preferential rates for docking at Southampton from the L&SWR. Further, when the L&SWR came to build ships, H&W may have received the contracts, making that company substantial sums.

Another point of interest was that Pirrie was involved in the Oceanic Steam Navigation Co, a company that also went by the name of the White Star Line. You may have heard of them as they owned a little vessel called the Titanic, you know, the one that came off worse than the iceberg in 1912. The White Star Line operated a considerable numbers of ships out of the South Western's Southampton Docks, as well as had all its ships built by H&W. In addition the White Star Line completed in 1911 its own docks at Southampton, with rail links to the South Western and attachments to their dock infrastructure. This is from where the Titanic sailed, and then promptly sank. Many of the first class passengers that sailed on the Titanic, were brought to Southampton by the L&SWR, and all of them stayed before they sailed in the very high class, caviare supplying, gold plated, South Western Hotel (owned by the L&SWR), just outside the dock complex. This hotel had long been the home of the high-class passenger waiting to depart from Southampton. These arrangements therefore would have benifitted both the White Star Line and the L&SWR.

Therefore, it is clear that, Pirrie had his fingers in many interlocking pies, a bit like a strudel. It is quite clear that he was the linchpin of a network that existed between transport, shipping and shipbuilding concerns. These links between them were clearly important to the companies involved as he brought bringing his expertise and influence, like a business octopus, to each. At the same time he personally would have befitted as the network increased his own wealth and the wealth of his main company, H&W. He wouldn't have chosen directorships by 'fancy,' and clearly he strategically placed himself so as to benefit himself and his companies to the maximum effect. There is however a large gap of information. At the current time we do not know to what extent his network connections played in shaping the different companies' policies, cooperative arrangements and investments. There is still much work to be done on the interlocking agreements and arrangements between companies. This, then, is what I hope to do in my work, a daunting task to be sure.