A History of the English Railway; its Social Relations and Revelations. 1820–1845（vol. II）

Claims Supported by This Source

1. Of the 23 railway acts in England in 1836, 4 were abandoned and 15 were completed. There were 24 railway acts in 1843. In 1844, 37 schemes were authorized, with share capital of £13,981,000 and borrowings of £4,006,000, for a total of £17,987,000 (pp. 133–134).
2. The bank's bullion increased from £5,629,000 in January 1842 to £14,867,000 in January 1845. Circulation increased from £16,923,000 to £20,301,000, and the bank's discount rate was 2.5%. In January 1845, 16 lines were registered, and 52 more companies were added in April, all trading at a premium (pp. 134–135, 143).
3. Contemporary description: Merchants applied for shares in their children's names and sold the letters of allotment; a young daughter became a large subscriber; clerks became railway brokers; servants read railway papers and withdrew savings from savings banks. "A son gambled with his widowed mother's money" (pp. 144–146, 153–154).
4. The Railway Department of the Board of Trade was established on August 6, 1844, published its five points for review on November 28, and began issuing reports from December 31, but Parliament overturned its recommendations. The Railway Department's authority was abolished on July 10, 1845. Description of speculators waiting for the "Gazette" (pp. 160–165).
5. In 1845, the deposit was raised from 5% to 10%, but registrations still increased in July and August, and 457 were registered in September (pp. 166–167).
6. Examples of subscription contracts cited by the Marquess of Clanricarde in the House of Lords: a subscriber for £25,000 with no address, a half-pay officer on £54 a year for £41,500, a curate in Kent for £25,000, and the brother of a washerwoman's son living in an attic for £37,500 (pp. 168–169).
7. The parliamentary list of subscribers (for over £2,000) includes 900 lawyers, 364 persons connected with banking, 257 clergymen (2 for £26,000), and 157 Members of Parliament (1 for £291,000). However, many of the bankers signed as chairmen of existing companies (pp. 189–190).
8. On Thursday, 16 October 1845, the Bank of England raised the interest rate; on Friday, transactions decreased, and on Saturday, the alarm began. The stock market panic spread to various regions, and Consols fell by 1.5%. Subscriptions to new schemes stopped, and advertisements disappeared (pp. 191–192).
9. The conviction among well-informed people was that "no other panic was ever so fatal to the middle classes," with tales of family ruin, suicide, debtors' prison, and daughters sent into service. When the scrip became worthless paper, allotments were given for all applications; to pay meant bankruptcy, and not to pay meant a lawsuit (pp. 195–197).
10. Hudson was a member of the Board of Health for the City of York in 1832 and Lord Mayor in 1837. The author treats the 1849 accusations (such as depositing £31,000 received for land on 30 December 1845 into his own account) defensively, from the perspective of the mania of the time, writing that "for the acts which he and his colleagues had done, one name alone was singled out" (pp. 198, 228–239).
11. As examples of Hudson's generosity, it is written that "no widow ever appealed to him in vain" and "the poor clergyman found in him a firm friend" (p. 225).

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