Description:Professor Eric Richards writes that ‘soon after Christmas 1825 it was announced, quite suddenly, that the Marquis of Stafford had bought a thousand shares in the Liverpool and Manchester Railway’. Richards defines the Marquis’s investment of £100,000 as a ‘momentous’ decision, making him the largest canal and railway proprietor in Britain.
The Marquis’s investment came as a result of James Loch’s investigations into the viability of the railways, and the understanding that the increased traffic created by new facilities would benefit both the railways and the existing canals. The letter featured above was written to Mr. Pritt, the solicitor of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company by James Loch in May 1826. In the letter Loch outlines the policy which the Leveson-Gowers were pursuing in their decision to support both railways and canals.
Loch informs Pritt that it was ‘a matter of great importance to his Lord Stafford’s family as well as to himself, that the trade in the Railway should be encreased as much as possible, at the least possible loss to the Duke’s Canal’. This would ensure income for both of the Marquis of Stafford’s sons. Reflecting his belief that canals and railways could co-exist profitably, Loch remarks that Pritt was ‘quite correct’ in a statement which he had made ‘that the Railway will create a Trade of its own’.
The Marquis of Stafford was given the authority to appoint three directors to sit on the board of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company. James Loch was appointed, as was Captain James Bradshaw and James Sothern, the son and a close associate of Robert Haldane Bradshaw respectively. As Richards suggests, a specific purpose of the Marquis investing in the railways was to ensure his ‘direct influence’ over the ‘further development’ of the railways allowing him to ensure that canals were not adversely affected. As a shareholder with the authority to elect directors, the Marquis’s influence over the development of inland transport was ensured.
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 the quotations above refer to pages 74 and 94 of this publication.