Description:The letter featured above was written by James Loch to William Huskisson, a politician and close associate of the Leveson-Gower family. Huskisson was extremely influential in the development of the railways in the later 1820s and worked closely with Loch. The two men consulted frequently on matters concerning the indemnification of the canals amidst the growth of the railway networks.
Professor Eric Richards writes about a proposal made in 1830 by the Birmingham and Liverpool Railway promoters to build a railway over the River Mersey. Concerned that this new railroad would damage the income of the Bridgewater Canal, James Loch proposed that the trustees of the Bridgewater Canal should construct a railway bridge over the Mersey at Runcorn Gap. The canal proprietors could then charge a toll on goods which were transported over the bridge, allowing the canals to benefit from the successful growth of railways.
Loch wrote to Huskisson on 14th July 1830 requesting a consultation to discuss his proposal. The letter outlines the motivations behind Loch’s scheme to build ‘the Bridge over the Mersey’. Loch believed the bridge to be ‘the only way of indemnifying those beneficially interested’. He proposed ‘demanding a portion’ from the railways in charging traffic to cross the bridge ‘not for the purpose of giving us all that we shall lose by this scheme’, but to ensure that the canal proprietors shared from the success of the new railway. Loch concludes adding that the canal proprietors were ‘content to bear some of the loss but not the whole of it’.
William Huskisson met with a fatal accident at the opening of the railway. Huskisson and a group of politicians and celebrities who had been invited to attend the opening of the railway had alighted from a train and were standing on the railway tracks at Parkside next to the Duke of Wellington’s carriage. George Stephenson’s locomotive Rocket was seen approaching on the tracks and in the panic which ensued Huskisson fell into the path of the oncoming locomotive which crushed his leg. Huskisson was lifted onto the Rocket and rushed to Manchester for medical treatment. The locomotive, driven by George Stephenson, reached a record speed of thirty five miles per hour on the journey, making the Rocket, in Simon Garfield’s words ‘the fastest train in the world’. Huskisson later died from his injuries and a monument now stands at the site of the accident to commemorate his life.
For in-depth contextual analysis of correspondence relating to the development of inland transport during this period, see Professor Eric Richards The Leviathan of Wealth: The Sutherland Fortune in the Industrial Revolution (Routledge, 1973) which has formed the basis for interpretation of the letters featured here. For discussion of the Birmingham and Liverpool Railway scheme and the construction of the bridge over the Mersey see page 99 of this publication.
Contextual information about William Huskisson’s accident taken from Simon Garfield, The Last Journey of William Huskisson (Faber and Faber, 2002)
For biographical information about William Huskisson, see A. C. Howe, ‘Huskisson, William (1770–1830)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14264]