142 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



methods of tlie carrying trade. They not only 

 did not destroy it, hut, in the altered shape it took, 

 increased it fifty -fold. No fewer than twenty-one 

 district managers hecame necessary to the conduct 

 of the husiness, Avhich at length gave employment 

 to hetween three and four thousand people. 



The central figure of this successful reorgani- 

 sation hecame, like William Chaplin, a power 

 in the railway world. He was for some years 

 Chairman of the South-Eastern Railway, and in 

 that capacity strongly urged the purchase of 

 Folkestone Harhour, an undertaking then in the 

 market. His co-directors did not at the time 

 agree with the proposal, hut eventually came 

 round to his way of thinking, and hrouglit up the 

 suhject again. Meanwhile he had privately pur- 

 chased the harl)our. The high sense of duty that 

 characterised him led to his considering that, as 

 Chairman of the Uailway Company, and as there- 

 fore trustee of the interests of the proprietors, he 

 could not retain the property, and he accordingly 

 transferred it at the price he had given. He 

 was at the same time a director of the Great 

 Northern Uailway of Prance, hut was in 1818, 

 in consequence of a severe illness, ohliged to 

 resign some of these activities, together with the 

 detailed management of Pickford's, which he then 

 left ill the hands of his three sons, hut never gave 

 up control of the husiness. He had in the mean- 

 time purchased an estate at A^^oodside Park, 

 Whetstone, where he resided. He died there, 

 March 21th, 1872, in his eighty-seventh year. 



