Railway Expansion 249 



yield, or effect a compromise on, the terms asked for, announce 

 that they had made amicable arrangements with the opposi- 

 tion, re-introduce their Bill in the following Session, and then 

 succeed in getting it passed. 



It might happen, even then, that the companies obtained 

 their powers subject only to a variety of hampering or vexa- 

 tious restrictions which the landed gentry or others were 

 able to enforce in order that due respect should be shown 

 to their fears or their prejudices. In some of the earlier 

 railway Acts the companies were forbidden to use any " loco- 

 motives or moveable engines " without the written consent 

 of the owners or occupiers of the land through which their 

 lines passed. One of the clauses of the Liverpool and Man- 

 chester Act provided that " no steam engine shall be set up 

 in the township of Burtonwood or Winwick, and no loco- 

 motive shall be allowed to pass along the line within those 

 townships which shall be considered by Thomas Lord Lilford 

 or by the Rector of Winwick to be a nuisance or annoyance 

 to them from the noise or smoke thereof." The same two 

 individuals secured insertion of a clause in the Warrington 

 and Newton Railway Act to the effect that every locomotive 

 used within the parishes mentioned should be " constructed 

 on best principles for enabling it to consume its own smoke 

 and preventing noise in the machinery or motion thereof," 

 and should use " no coal, but only coke or other such fuel " 

 as his lordship and the rector might approve. 



The story of the London and Birmingham Railway is 

 especially significant of the general conditions under which 

 the English railway system came into being. 



Industrial expansion had brought about great develop- 

 ments in the Birmingham and Black Country districts, the 

 population in Birmingham alone having increased from about 

 50,000 in 1751 to 110,000 in 1830. Wide possibilities of in- 

 creasing trade and commerce were being opened up, but these 

 were seriously hampered by the disadvantages experienced 

 in the matter of transport. Small parcels of manufactured 

 goods could be sent by coach, and a good deal of wrought iron 

 in small quantities per coach was also distributed in the 

 same way during the course of the year. For bulky goods or 

 raw materials the only means of transport between Birming- 

 ham and London was by canal, and this meant a three-days' 



