University challenge [Guest Editorial Backtrack]
In a guest editorial DAVID TURNER from the Centre for Lifelong Learning at
the University of York introduces the Postgraduate Diploma course in Railway
Studies which was advertised in the magazine last month. It is impossible
to accurately measure the magnitude of the railways' influence on British
history. Yet over the last 80 years scholars within academic communities
have asked penetrating questions of how railways instigated, influenced and
were affected by historical events and change. They have adjudged that the
railways have had many social, economic, cultural and political 'ripple effects'
within the nation, a considerable number of which are explored by students
on the Postgraduate Diploma in Railway Studies run by the University of York's
Centre for Lifelong Learning.
Examining even just one area of railway activity can demonstrate how powerful
these ripple effects were. The relationship between the railways and Whitbread,
one of London's great breweries before 1914, might not be the first thing
that comes to mind when considering the relationship between the industry
and the railways. Even when considering the relationship between the railways
and brewers, the vaults under St. Pancras which were filled daily by the
barrels of Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton, are likelier to come to mind. Yet
Whitbread's experience is a useful prism through which one can consider the
broader influence the railways had on the nation's economic development after
1870. In the face of declining beer consumption from 1880, Whitbread sought
to extend its business beyond its London tied house and create a bottling
operation to tap the home drinker market. The barrier to this was that rates
for rail conveyance were too high. Only after 1892, when various agreements
with the railways were struck, did expansion proceed. By 1914 the company
had around 39 depots nationally and 427,455 barrels of beer 51 % of
its output going into bottles. Whilst Whitbread continued to send
considerable volumes of beer by ship after 1892, the railways to some extent
had constituted a gatekeeper to its expansion.
But clearly the ripple effect of the railways on the nation goes further
than just the interface between the industry and one brewer, as students
will find out. Whitbread's inability before 1892 to get favourable rates
was just one constituent part in a general feeling that the railways did
more harm than good in the nation. For example, it was argued they did not
ensure the travelling public's safety. Since the 1860s many had decried the
industry's failure to invest in block working, continuous automatic brakes
and interlocking points and signals, even when the technologies were still
developing.
It was also alleged that the railways in pursuit of profit used their monopoly
positions to keep goods rates excessively high, depressing the margins of
businesses and making them anti-competitive on the world stage. Under most
pressure was British agriculture which, after 1876, was suffering from an
agricultural depression. Whilst there were complex factors behind this, farmers
argued that they could not access the preferential rates given to imported
bulk agricultural produce, putting them at a competitive disadvantage. Whether
the accusations of the farmers and other industrial producers were accurate
is a matter for future research, but the ripple effect of the railways' actions
continued onwards into the political sphere.
Public and political perception of railway rates policy, combined with safety
concerns and railway directors' and managers' frequent arrogance in the face
of criticism, meant that increasingly the railways' independence was chipped
away. Safety was one area. In 1889, after the Armagh accident in which 80
people died because of the absence of continuous automatic brakes and block
working, these devices and interlocking became mandatory in response to renewed
public outcry. Most seriously for the railways' financial position, the
Government tightened its control over railways' charging powers. In an age
when there was anxiety over British economic might being in decline, especially
considerlnq the strides forward made by the economies of the United States
and Germany, many argued the railways should be made to work in the national
interest. To this effect in the late1 880s the Government ordered that all
rates be revised. Then in 1894 after the railways raised all rates
to the maximum permitted level from 1 st January 1893, a stunning strategic
failure the companies were forced justify every rate increase thereafter.
The ripple effect of the railways' actions did not stop there either. In
the 1890s some argued that politicians had not gone far enough. Since William
Gait's 1844 pamphlet Railway Reform, nationalisation had been part
of the political discourse. The debates over the railways' economic and social
role after 1880 cemented the idea in the public consciousness and led to
more regular and vociferous calls for it. Whilst it would not occur until
1948, this situation, some have argued, made nationalisation an inevitability.
Overall, this snapshot demonstrates how the activities of British railways
after 1870 had ripple effects through time into Britain's economic, industrial,
social and political history. Yet students on the Postgraduate Diploma in
Railway Studies will examine so much more. Taught wholly online over two
years, part-time, they will encounter the latest scholarly debates on a host
of subjects. They will be encouraged to form their own views on how between
1825 and 2002 the railways' social and economic role changed, how their
management and employment practices developed, how they were treated politically,
their representation in culture and, ultimately, how all these things were
interlinked. The course therefore offers an exciting opportunity to explore
the diversity of railway history beyond the railhead. For more information,
please email emily.limb@york.ac.uk.
David Turner