TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 153 
A Statistical Account of the Parish of Bellingham. By W. H. Cuantroy. 
On the Origin of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. 
By W. Fattows, of Middlesbrough. 
The author began by stating that the first locomotive railway was the Stockton 
and Darlington line, the Act for which was dated April 19, 1821, and the line 
opened in September 1825; whilst the Act for the Liverpool and Manchester, to 
which the honour of being first constructed has been erroneously assigned, was 
dated May 5, 1826, and it was opened September 15, 1830. he first effort to 
provide for the extension of the trade of the South Durham district was made as 
early as 1767, when subscriptions were opened for connecting the towns of Stock- 
ton and Darlington and the neighbouring country by means of a canal. A joint 
report on the project was prepared by Mr. Robert Whitworth and the celebrated 
Brindley, estimating the expense at £63,722, exclusive of parliamentary expenses ; 
the total length was to be thirty-three miles, and the rise in that distance 328 feet. 
The scheme was never carried out, and similar projects made afterwards met with 
the same fate. A public meeting was held at Stockton in July 1818, presided 
over by the Earl of Strathmore, at which, notwithstanding resolutions proposed 
by Mr. Edward Pease and other gentlemen in favour of the formation of a railway, 
a canal scheme in the northern part of the district, based on the report of Mr, Lea- 
ther, was resolyed to be adopted. Mr. Pease and his friends called a meeting at 
Darlington on the 13th November in the same year, when it was resolved to form 
a Company for a railway from Stockton by way of Yarm and Darlington, to 
the Auckland coal-field, with a proposed capital of £100,000. The share list was 
soon made up, and Mr, Overton surveyed the line. An application was made to 
Parliament for an Act for constructing the same; and such an Act received the 
Royal assent in April 1821, and George Stephenson was called in to construct it. 
The first rail was laid by Mr. Meynell (the Chairman of the Company) on the 
22nd of May, 1821. The formal opening of this railway took place on the 27th of 
September, 1825, when a locomotive drawing five waggons laden with coal, one 
with flour, one containing surveyors, engineers, &c., six waggons with strangers, 
fourteen with workmen and others, and last of all, other six wagegons of coals, 
assed from one end to the other of the line. The whole train moved at the rate of 
rom ten to twelve miles an hour, with an estimated weight of 86 tons. It was 
computed that about 700 people were drawn in this train, a number which created 
the greatest astonishment. Since that time the Stockton and Darlington Railway 
has always paid dividends to its shareholders; and the Company, having carried 
into effect the scheme foreshadowed by Brindley and Whitworth, has become the 
connecting link between the towns of Stockton and Kendal and the western parts 
of the island. The Company, as a separate company, held its last meeting during 
the present month (August 1863), Parliament having sanctioned its amalgamation 
with the North-eastern system. It began with a capital of £100,000, and ended as 
a separate company with one of £4,000,000. 
On the Difference between Irish and English Poor-law. By Dr. Hancock. 
He said that the difference between the Irish and English Poor-laws was most 
material. The statistics of the distressed districts show the extent to which able- 
bodied men can and do get relief. There was a very simple proof that the Irish 
Poor-law could not be adopted in Ireland. The Poor-law Amendment Act, in 
1834, was passed with the intention of abolishing all out-door relief to the able- 
bodied, but when it began to be extended to the manufacturing districts in the 
North of England, this was found to be impracticable, and the attempt was given 
up. The great intercourse which takes place between England and Ireland leads 
to the labouring population spending part of their lives in one country and part in 
the other. It is manifest that the establishing of a different rule by law as to the 
mode of treating labourers engaged in the same trade when suffering from the 
same calamity, is just such a cause as would be calculated to contribute in some 
degree to feelings of discontent. There can be no doubt that a great deal of dis- 
turbance connected with land in Ireland, particularly the more violent part of it, 
