CHAP. X. WILLIAM JAMES. 183 



Corporation of London in 1821. In 1822, he addressed 

 the Earl of Liverpool, Sir Robert Peel, and others, 

 urging the great national importance of his plan. In 

 the year following, he petitioned the ministers of state 

 to the same effect. He was so pertinacious that public 

 men pronounced him to be a " bore," and in the town 

 of Nottingham, where he then lived, those who knew 

 him declared him to be " cracked." William Howitt, 

 who frequently met Gray at that time, has published a 

 lively portraiture of this indefatigable and enthusiastic 

 projector, who seized all men by the button, and would 

 not let them go until he had unravelled to them his 

 wonderful scheme. With Thomas Gray, says he, " begin 

 where you would, on whatever subject the weather, 

 the news, the political movement or event of the day- 

 it would not be many minutes before you w^ould be 

 enveloped with steam, and listening to an harangue on 

 the practicability and immense advantages, to the nation 

 and to every man in it, of ' a general iron railway.' ' 



These speculations show that the subject of railways 

 was gradually becoming familiar to the public mind, 

 and that thoughtful men were anticipating with con- 

 fidence the adoption of steam-power for the purposes of 

 railway traction. At the same time, a still more profit- 

 able class of labourers was at work first, men like i 

 Stephenson, who were engaged in improving the loco- 

 motive and making it a practicable and economical 

 working power, and next, those like Edward Pease of 

 Darlington, and Joseph Saiidars of Liverpool, who were 

 organizing the means of laying down the railways. Mr. 

 William James, of West Bromwich, belonged to the 

 active class of projectors. He was a man of considerable 

 social influence, of an active temperament, and had from 

 an early period taken a warm interest in the formation 

 of tramroads. Acting as land-agent for gentlemen of 

 property in the mining districts, he had laid down 

 several lines in the neighbourhood of Birmingham, 



