Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 15th of September 1830, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened its doors to a crowd of dignitaries, politicians, and thousands of curious onlookers lining the tracks. What was meant to be a triumphant celebration of human ingenuity ended in death, political chaos, and a nightmarish return journey. By the time the last locomotive limped back into Liverpool at 10:30 pm, a cabinet minister was dead, the prime minister had been pelted with vegetables, and 400 passengers had been forced to walk a mile through the dark. And yet this day - with all its disasters - marked the beginning of a new world. How did a single railway opening transform how humanity moved? Who was the man who died on the tracks, and why did his death make the story famous? What did it mean that ordinary people could now travel faster than a snipe in flight?

• 2. Building the Line

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  Liverpool merchant Joseph Sandars and his colleague Henry Booth founded the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in May 1824. Their motivation was practical: shipping raw cotton the 35 miles from Liverpool to Manchester cost as much as transporting it all the way from America to Liverpool in the first place. Water transport on the Bridgewater Canal and its rivals was slow and expensive, and the canal operators had little incentive to improve. The direct construction cost of the line reached around £820,000, and two years of parliamentary lobbying added another estimated £70,000 to that figure. For context, the Bridgewater Canal - which served the same purpose - had cost an estimated £220,000 to build in the late 18th century. The average labourer in the region earned around £20 a year. In 1826, George Stephenson was appointed to design and build the route. He laid four equally spaced rails, envisioning a system that could operate as a standard double-track line but could shift to a central pair of rails when a locomotive needed extra width or an outer rail gave way. The final test run, on the 14th of June 1830, hauled two passenger carriages and seven fully loaded coal wagons for 29 miles in 2 hours and 25 minutes without any trouble. The directors met that evening and decided the railway was ready to open in late summer. One witness to the test runs was actress, author, and anti-slavery campaigner Fanny Kemble, who rode with George Stephenson and described the locomotive as a spirited animal: a creature with steam for breath, pistons for legs, and a small glass tube for thirst. She wrote of travelling at thirty-five miles an hour, swifter, she said, than a bird flies - they had tested the claim against a snipe.

• 3. The Man on the Tracks

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  William Huskisson was born at Birtsmorton Court in Malvern, Worcestershire, on the 11th of March 1770. At thirteen he moved to Paris to live with his great-uncle Dr. Richard Gem, and was present at the Storming of the Bastille. He learned economics from the Marquis de Condorcet and became an assistant to Earl Gower, who would later become the Marquess of Stafford. Back in London, Home Secretary Henry Dundas appointed him to oversee the Aliens Act, and by 1795, at the age of 24, he was Under-Secretary of State for War. By 1823 he had reached the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade, and it was in that role that he drove the restructuring of Britain's overseas outposts into the network of interdependent states that became the British Empire. He also worked to reduce taxes on manufacturing, reform the Navigation Acts, and push for a gradual abolition of slavery. The Manchester Guardian called him "perhaps the most useful practical statesman of the present day". His fall from the inner circle came in 1828, when he and fellow Canningites resigned from the government of the Duke of Wellington over the question of parliamentary representation for Manchester. On the morning of the opening, despite still recovering from a previous serious illness, Huskisson felt it was his duty as Liverpool's MP to be present. He and his wife Emily travelled in the carriage directly in front of the Duke of Wellington's spectacular purpose-built car, a 32-foot-long platform topped with a crimson canopy, gilt pillars, and ducal coronets.

• 4. Parkside

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  Fifty-five minutes after leaving Liverpool, the procession reached Parkside station, 17 miles from the city and roughly the midpoint of the route. Although the railway's printed leaflet advised passengers to stay on board while the locomotives took on water, around 50 of the dignitaries climbed down to stretch their legs. Among them were the Marquess of Stafford, Prince Esterházy, the Earl of Wilton, L&M founder Joseph Sandars, and Huskisson. Most of them stood near the rail lines because deep puddles on either side of the embankment left nowhere else to stand. Sandars later recalled that Huskisson congratulated him on realising his vision and said he "must be one of the happiest men in the world". William Holmes, the Chief Whip, then drew Huskisson aside. Wellington was in a good mood after the cheering crowds along the route; Holmes suggested this was the moment to seek a reconciliation. Huskisson walked along the tracks to Wellington's carriage, extended his hand, and the Duke reached out and shook it. As the two men exchanged greetings, some in the crowd spotted Rocket approaching on the adjacent northern track hauling the third of the seven trains. They shouted a warning. The other men on the track scrambled to safety. But Edmondson's special carriage for the Duke had no fixed steps - only a movable set kept at the back of the car. With Rocket 80 feet away there was no time to fetch them. Joseph Locke, driving Rocket, saw people on the line and threw the engine into reverse - a process that took ten seconds to engage. Edward Littleton MP reached out from inside the carriage and hauled Prince Esterházy to safety. Huskisson made two attempts to run across the track, returning each time to the side of the carriage. Holmes clung to the side and called out to him: "For God's sake, Mr Huskisson, be firm." Huskisson grabbed the open door of the carriage. The door swung outward directly into Rocket's path. The locomotive struck the door, Huskisson fell onto the track, and the wheel passed over his right leg and thigh. His first words were: "It's all over with me."

• 5. The Race to Eccles

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  Joseph Parkes, Lord Wilton, and William Rathbone were the first to reach Huskisson. They found that the wheel had passed over his right calf and thigh, leaving the knee untouched. A flap of skin had been cut back, exposing the muscles; the arteries were flattened but not severed, still pulsing visibly. Observers noted that Huskisson appeared not to be in pain, and lay watching his own leg shake uncontrollably. Henry Herbert Southey, physician to the recently deceased George IV, had been travelling in the Duke's train, as had Dr Hunter, professor of anatomy at the University of Edinburgh; a Liverpool surgeon, Joseph Brandreth, had been travelling behind Phoenix. All three rushed to Huskisson's side. The doctors suggested returning to Liverpool for treatment. George Stephenson insisted it was better to press on to Manchester. The band's flat-bottomed wagon was cleared, Huskisson was loaded onto it still lying on a door ripped from a nearby railway storeroom, and Stephenson himself drove Northumbrian toward Manchester at nearly 40 mph - briefly setting a new world speed record. The crowds along the route cheered and waved, unaware of what had happened. Stephenson and the doctors decided to stop at the vicarage of the Rev. Thomas Blackburne, vicar of Eccles, four miles short of Manchester. Huskisson, only partially conscious, agreed: "Pray do so, I am sure my friend Blackburne will be kind to me." He did not know that Blackburne had been at Parkside watching the whole thing and was still with the stranded passengers. The party arrived at the vicarage in a hailstorm and was greeted by Mrs Blackburne, who had stayed home after a presentiment that something was wrong and rumours of a planned attack on Wellington at Eccles. Huskisson was given laudanum and brandy. By around 4:00 pm, briefly stronger, he dictated an amendment to his will to his secretary William Wainewright, ensuring Emily would inherit all his property, and shakily signed it. He then read the Lord's Prayer aloud with Lord Wilton, and when he reached the line about forgiveness of trespasses, said: "That I do most heartily; and I declare to God that I have not the slightest feeling of ill-will towards any human being."

• 6. Wellington in Manchester

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  Back at Parkside the remaining seven trains had halted following the accident. No telegraph existed yet, and no signalling system could reach Manchester, Liverpool, or the party at Eccles. The railway's staff argued they should continue - a large crowd was waiting and the railway was not at fault. Sir Robert Peel, the Home Secretary, and Wellington felt it disrespectful to proceed. Riders from Manchester broke the deadlock: the crowd there was becoming restless and the authorities feared a riot. With Northumbrian gone and all seven remaining locomotives on the northern track, there was no way to move the Duke's carriages. A long chain was tied between Phoenix on the northern track and the three remaining carriages of Wellington's train on the southern track. At 1:30 pm Phoenix and its attached train were joined to North Star, and the two locomotives moved slowly toward Manchester. The atmosphere had turned sombre. One witness wrote that the buoyant exhilaration of the morning was gone, and the procession now wore the aspect of a funeral. The military band, whose wagon had been commandeered to carry Huskisson, picked its way home through the mud. As the trains neared Manchester the trackside crowds became hostile. Protesters waved tricolore flags and banners reading "No Corn Laws" and "Vote by Ballot". Weavers hissed and pelted Wellington's carriage with vegetables. The crowd pressed onto the tracks and the trains were forced to push people aside with their own momentum, moving at a crawl. Wellington arrived at Liverpool Road station in Manchester shortly before 3:00 pm. He refused to leave his carriage. He ordered food brought to him, and ordered the locomotives readied for return. At 4:37 pm the trains began pulling out of Manchester.

• 7. The Long Way Home

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  The departure from Manchester collapsed almost immediately. Six of the seven trains on the northern track could not leave; mechanical failures and the absence of room to turn the locomotives left them stranded. Only Wellington's three carriages got away cleanly; the Duke reached Childwall Hall in Roby at around 6:30 pm and went to bed. The remaining 24 passenger carriages were eventually lashed together with rope and attached to the three still-usable locomotives. This single improvised train of around 600 passengers crawled out of Manchester at roughly 5 mph, slowed further by grit and mud on the rails and crowds still standing on the tracks. Darkness fell and it began to rain. Since no night running had been planned, none of the trains carried lighting or engine lamps. The driver of Comet, leading the long train, held a burning tarry rope to light the way ahead. Crowds who had been drinking all day lined the bridges and threw objects down into the open carriages. On one occasion Comet struck a wheelbarrow apparently placed deliberately across the rails. Passing Eccles, a messenger briefly stopped to ask after Huskisson; those inside the vicarage said he was frail and an operation unlikely to succeed. Near Sutton the three engines could not haul the combined weight up an incline. Around 400 of the male passengers climbed out and walked a mile, lit only by sparks flying from the locomotives, while the engines dragged the empty carriages up the gradient before returning. The train finally reached Liverpool at 10:30 pm. Those who had paid two shillings each to watch the morning departure from the top of a chimney near the Liverpool tunnel had been forgotten entirely; at around 8:00 pm, a teacher of gymnastics named John Harrison lowered himself down the rope hand-over-hand and coaxed the others to follow. James Radley of the Adelphi Hotel had prepared a banquet for 230 and sold 60 advance tickets to celebrate steam power; by 9:00 pm only 20 people had arrived. During the meal, riders brought contradictory reports from Eccles. By dessert, a messenger said no operation had been performed and Huskisson was worsening. At around 11:00 pm, steamship pioneer Francis B. Ogden gave a speech about the planned Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. By then, though they did not know it, Huskisson was already dead.

• 8. What Followed

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  Huskisson's death and funeral made the opening of the railway one of the most widely reported events of the era. News spread around the world that cheap and rapid long-distance land travel was possible for the first time. A journey that had previously cost a great deal and taken the better part of a day could now be completed in under two hours, at a price ordinary people could afford. By the end of the first week of the railway's scheduled service, which began operating the afternoon of the 16th of September with 130 passengers, 6,104 people had travelled on the line. Within a month of the opening, plans were put forward to connect Liverpool and Manchester to the other major cities of England. Within ten years, 1,775 miles of railways had been built across Britain. Within twenty years of the L&M's opening, more than 6,200 miles were in place. William Huskisson was buried in Liverpool on Friday the 24th of September. An estimated 69,000 people - roughly half the city's population - lined the route of the funeral procession, which stretched nearly half a mile. Emily Huskisson had objected to gun salutes, but a 32-pounder cannon was fired to mark the departure of the coffin from the Town Hall and a 6-pounder sounded its arrival at St James Cemetery. After the inquest, Emily found two undelivered speeches in her husband's jacket pocket. One was a tribute to James Watt, inventor of the condensing steam engine. The other was marked "to be burnt at my death", but she could not bring herself to destroy the last thing her husband had written. In it, Huskisson called the railway the principle of commerce itself: a force that multiplies the enjoyment of mankind by increasing the facilities and diminishing the labour by which goods are produced and distributed throughout the world.