Biographical details of chairmen, managers
&
other senior officers
Sir Alexander Butterworth of the North Eastern, though 67, seemed oblivious of his age; in his case certainly "age did not weary nor the years condemn". Even so, it would have been a tough assignment at his time of life to tackle the formation and the initial management of so vast a concern as the new London & North Eastern Railway. Moreover, by some he was being thought of in those days as the probable Chairman.
Thornton's going made it almost certain that R.L. Wedgwood would become General Manager of the group. Indeed, there was no one else, unless Lord Faringdon or any others had insisted on bringing in someone from outside the service. But it would have been much more difficult to find a fully qualified outside candidate for this post than for the Chairmanship. Various ideas were canvassed. One which originated with some members of the North Eastern Railway Board was that Sir Alexander Butterworth should resign the General Managership of that company in favour of Wedgwood, but that the former should be created "Chief Officer" of the N.E.R., and as such become the North Eastern nominee for the post of Group General Manager., The object was to put forward a name of such weight that no possible objection could be raised; then, after a few years, Sir Alexander could retire and leave the way open for Wedgwood to succeed him. But the proposal did not appeal to Butterworth. "I thought the programme an inconsistent one", he wrote, "and that as regards myself the first move would militate against the success of the second. I admit that it is a matter of opinion, and in any event it is the opinion of the directors and not mine that must prevail".
As early as August, 1921, Sir Alexander had a talk with Wedgwood on the matter, and smoothed the way for the latter to discuss things with Viscount Grey, who subsequently communicated to Butterworth the outcome of the meeting: "My talk with Wedgwood brought out nothing new. The position is that he wants to become General Manager of the N.E. Rly. on equal terms with the General Managers of other lines, so that he will have an equal chance with them of making good his succession to General Managership of the Group. If he were in that position of General Manager of the N.E. Rly. he would decline an outside offer. . . That is the impression I got. It must be talked over at our September meeting".
The North Eastern Directors, however, seemed unable to make up their minds. Writing to one of them on 2nd November, 1921, Butterworth urged the necessity of decision:
"I think that what the N.E. Board ought to direct their minds primarily to is the surest means of securing that the chief official position (not merely at the first start but for years) shall go, to someone in whom the North Eastern Board has complete confidence, recognising that it is more than likely that candidates will be put forward for that position whose qualities would not or might not entirely commend themselves to the North Eastern directors".
A few days later, obviously anxious alike at the lack of decision and the effluxion of time, Sir Alexander addressed a private memorandum to his Board on the subject. It was a lengthy and closely reasoned document breathing throughout the little man's loyalty to his company and his affection for his Deputy, Wedgwood. After calling for careful thinking in a complicated situation, and insisting that the interests of the North Eastern Railway must take precedence over any personal considerations, he wrote:
"I will merely point out that the answers might be different if Amalgamation were coming about on 1st January, 1922, from what they would be if it were going to be postponed till 1st January, 1925. But obviously, if W's best chance of becoming ultimate Group General Manager depends ofr initial appointment, the aim of the Directors should at once be directed towards making as good as possible his prospects of being accepted as first General Manager to the Group, e.g. by at once giving him a General Manager's status and experience. If, on the other hand, his best chance lies in the other direction (i.e. by succeeding B.) then the important thing is to do everything to improve and nothing to diminish B.'s chances of being chosen or accepted as the first Group General Manager. . . . Of course, the matter would be greatly simplified if you could arrange with. a majority of the Group to support your programme, i.e., your nominee, and the most practical step would seem to be to try and bring this about".
The "B" in the passage just quoted was, of course, Butterworth's unassuming way of referring to himself, and the final paragraph of his memorandum revealed, no doubt unwittingly, the stature of the man who for nearly sixteen years had guided the destinies of his company:
"In conclusion, a word about myself. As I have said more than once, I have no wish to relinquish either my work or my salary as long as I am fit to discharge the one and earn the other, and I should like to work for the Group after Amalgamation, if I am still fit for work of that sort. But I should not like, and would not knowingly agree, to remain in my present or any other position a moment longer than the Directors thought it was to the interest of the Company that I should do so. I have had a good innings, and the last thing I should like would be in any way to outstay my welcome. Besides, I am not unmindful of the kindness I have always received from the Directors both individually and collectively. Therefore they need have no hesitation in telling me that in their view the time has come when it would be in the interest of the Company that I should relinqulsh the reins in favour of a younger man. I shall comply without any sense of grievance and I shall be ready to retire wholly or to undertake other work for the Company, as the Directors may think to be most in the interests of the Company".
Admirable indeed but even at the age of 67, not an entirely unqualified Nunc Dimittis.
Tliis document was at last successful in bringing the North Eastern Railway Board to the point of decision. At their next meeting, on 11th November, 1921, the following Minute was drawn:
"In view of the approaching amalgamation of the Companies forming the North Eastern, Eastern and Scottish group, the question of the General Managership of the Corapany pending such amalgamation and the bearing which any change might have upon the selection of the first General Manager of the Amalgamated Company were considered by the Board, and Sir Alexander Butterworth having expressed his desire that the Directors should not allow any considerations of his personal interests to stand in the way of the adoption of whatever course the Board considered would be in the best interests of the Company and having stated that the Directors might regard themselves as having a tender of his resignation in their hands, it was RESOLVED:
That Sir Alexander Butterworth's resignation of the position of General Manager be accepted as from 31st December next, but that he be requested to remain in the service of the Company at his present salary pending the formation of the Amalgamated Company for the purpose of advising the Board upon all questions relating to the Amalgamation. 2. That Mr. R.L. Wedgwood be appointed General Manager of the Company from 1st January next. ... 3. That it be placed on record that it is the intention of the Board to make Sir Alexander Butterworth when his connection with the Company ceases an adequate financial grant in recognition of the most valuable services he has rendered to the Company during his association with it first as Solicitor and then as General Manager". As Sir Alexander had suggested, the North Eastern Directors then took the further step, through their Chairman, Lord Knaresborough, of informing the Chairmen of the other companies in the Group of their decision, and intimating that they were putting forward R.L. Wedgwood as their candidate for the General Managership of the new company.
Cobbold, John Chevalier
Member of greatly respected Suffolk family: involved in formation of Eastern Union Railway from Ipswich to Colchester, especially the Act of 19 July 1844 and was also behind the Ipswich to Bury line and it amalgamation with the EUR. (Allen, C.J. The Great Eastern Railway)
Gooday was General Manager of the GER from 1899 to 1910. According to Allen he was a "forcible character". He had joined the railway at 16 as a junior clerk on a salary of five shillings per week, but by 1877 he had become Assistant Continental Manager, and in 1880, Continental Manager. In 1899 he became General Manager of the LB&SCR, but returned to the GER as GM in the same year in succession to Sir William Birt. Gooday was closely involved in the the GCR/GER/GNR amalgamation proposal which was rejected by Parliament. He joined the Board in 1910. He was succeeded by Hyde.
"That wily old lawyer Sir William Guy Granet, sometime Dictator of the Midland" (in the words of the late Hamilton Ellis) would have outmanoeuvred Machiavelli himself. Nock wrote,6 "Step by step, inexorably he virtually dictated the terms of the amalgamation and, although he did not become either chairman or deputy chairman of the new company, he dominated the proceedings of the hoard... The result was that the Midland precepts of management were adoptd... Seventeen years earlier Granet had completely overthrown the traditional form of railway organisation which had prevailed on the Midland as firmly as on all the other large railways of Great Britain and now it was the turn of the other constituents of the LMS to experience what the Midland had passed through from 1906 onward."
Rutherford notes that Granet was undoubtedly one of those who wished to reduce the status, power (and salaries) of the idiosyncratic Victorian locomotive superintendents. He may well have arrived at that view (or received it from others and promulgated it further) whilst he was Secretary of the Railway Companies' Association early in the new century. Certainly once he [Granet] became General Manager of the Midland Railway, R.M. Deeley's attempts to introduce appropriate modern locomotive power—eight-coupled engines for freight and four-cylinder de Glehn compound 4-6-0s for 'crack' expresses got nowhere and Deeley left in 1909. He was replaced by Henry Fowler, a man of wide interests but not the design of locomotives, although he was interested in details such as the application of superheating or the metal lurgy of boiler stays. The concept of 'the dead hand of Derby' in locomotive matters can be. traced back to these events.
Granet was once asked what type of man made the ideal leader and he replied "The benevolent despot". He got his man in the person of Lord Stamp (a director of ICI) who took up the post of President in January 1926;
H. G. Burgess, the last General Manager, retired in March 1927 and Granet himself resigned in October and moved to the City.
Henderson was born on 28 September 1850, the second child of George and Eliza Henderson. He tended to become involved in business interests with his younger brothers Henry (Harry) and Brodie. When 17 he entered the City firm of Deloittes who were Accountants to the GWR. He moved to the stockbroker firmm of Eyton, Greenwood & Eyton and became a member of the Stock Exchange when 22. In 1874 he married Jane Davis who bore him 7 children, including 6 sons. He, and his brothers developed business interests in Latin America, especially successful of which were those in the Buenos Aires & Great Southern Railway where the Government guaranteed a 7% dividend.
In 1888 he became a director of the Manchester Ship Canal, and subsequently helped to bail out Barings Bank. Thus he came to the attention of the MSLR Board which he was invited to join. He formed a syndicate with £4m capital to underwrite the London extension. Amongst his achievements with the GCR was the brilliant acquisition of Sam Fay from the LSWR, probably Robinson as Locomotive Superintendent, and Dixon Davies as Sokicitor. He entered politics as Liberal-Unionist MP for West Staffordshire (between 1906 and 1913, and then briefly as MP for St George's Hanover Square until raised to the peerage, as Lord Faringdon, in 1916 - he had been knighted in1902. He was involved in acquiring the LD&ECR and in developing Immingham Docks. He was involved in merger proposals with the GNR, and later GER, but these were thrown out by Parliament. He resisted negotiating with the trade unions. At the grouping the GCR Board presented him with a portrait by Sir William Orpen which is kept at Buscot. He died in 1934 whilst still Deputy Chairman of the LNER.
When 40 he purchased Buscot, Faringdon, for £80,000 where he maintained his collections of fine books and paintings, especially those by the pre-Raphaelites: Burcot is now a National Trust property. See Backtrack
Hyde followed the succesful Gooday as General Manager of the GER, but was forced to retire in 1914 aged only 50 due to the takeover of the LTSR by the Midland Railway.
Lindley, Peter
Moon, Sir Richard
Rutherford states that Moon "would no miney to improve the company's services or safety until forced to"
O'Brien, H. Eoghan (Electrical engineer)
Own papers
The future of mainline electrification on British railways. J. Instn Electrical Engrs, 1924, 62, 729-81.
Rutherford states that one of Horwich's most important souls was H. Eoghan O'Brien an Irishman from a family with means. He was educated at Eton and served an apprenticeship with Kitson & Co. of Leeds, also attending the University in that city. Eventually he found his way to Horwich under John Aspinall and in 1903 was appointed electrical engineer in charge of the Liverpool to Southport electrifi cation. After various other posts he became Works Manager, Horwich, and chief assistant to Hughes in 1910. Service in the First World War with the Royal Engineers saw him ranked Lieutenant-Colonel and awarded the DSO. He became Chief Electrical Engineer of the 'greater LNWR' in 1922 and of the LMSR from 1st January 1923. He set up an enlarged department at Horwich and took on extra staff.
Some very heavy trains were operated with the dynamometer car, using two Hughes 4-6-0s, to gain figures for resistance, fuel consumption and costs, &c, and these were incorporated in a monumental paper read to the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1924. The paper included masses of facts and figures and proposals for electrifying the Crewe-Carlisle section of the LNWR main line (a scenario envisaged by Frank Webb when Victoria was still on the throne).
It was read on Merseyside and in Manchester and Newcastle upon Tyne before being read in London and it appears that no one at Euston knew much about it — until it was too late.
O'Brien wrote: "I was for many years a sceptic as to both the desirability and the possibilities of financial success of main-line electrification; my conversion to other views has been brought about entirely by the new facts which have emerged during the last five years. The extraordinary progress made in electric locomotive design, as witnessed by locomotives recently constructed by British, American and Swiss manufacturers; the data showing the reduction in the cost of repairs and shed maintenance when compared with steam locomotives as communicated by Sir Vincent Raven and others and confirmed by the results obtained on suburban railways: the multiplication of highly economical power stations in the congested areas most suitable for electrification; and the definite indication of very high traffic densities on main-line routes given by British railway statistics are all factors which have only recently become applicable on a sound basis to the solution of the problem. If one-man operation of the locomotives and the cheap electrification of sidings can be put in in the next few years, on an equally sound basis, the case for the electrification of a considerable proportion of the main lines of this country will be irresistible.
"It is scarcely to be expected that these new data, which have as yet but lightly impressed themselves on the minds of the technical staffs of the railways, will have penetrated to the traffic officers, accountants and directorates but fortunately there will be in Europe within a year or less and within easy reach of this country, working examples of the new conditions produced by electrifica tion on railways more analogous to British Railways than the electrified railways of the United States have been".
Not only did it appear that O'Brien was laying down a long-term traction policy (not that Euston had one to speak of) but he was shgwing in no uncertain manner that he had masses of evidence to back up his ideas and proposals. It would also seem that the paper was read with Hughes' knowledge and tacit approval.
There was an outbreak of mass apoplexy at Euston and O'Brien was called to Euston to 'discuss' the matter. It is not known what was said but O'Brien 'resigned' and went back to the family seat in Ireland and spent the next twenty years lecturing on transport at Trinity College, Dublin. He lived on until October 1967 when he passed away, aged 91.
If O'Brien's ideas had been accepted then Chapter 17 of Barnes' Locomotives that never were might have come to be.
Salisbury, Marquis of
Chairman of the Great Eastern from 1868-1871: took the railway out of Chancery and the Company was able to pay a small dividernd on its ordinary shares. Publicly stated that the Liverpool Street extension was "one of the greatest mistakes ever committed in connection with a railway." (Allen, C.J.: The Great Eastern Railway)
Stamp (Manager)
Lord Stamp (a director of ICI) took up the post of President of the LMSR
in January 1926;
Sir Josiah Stamp (later Lord Stamp of Shortlands) was a very able and successful man as his CV reveals. He had so many fingers in so many pies, however, that he was criticised for not (so the critics said) spending his time concentrating on LMSR problems. He was a Government adviser to many departments and would read learned papers to anyone anywhere, at the drop of a hat. He was not, however, experienced in the railway industry in any way and (like another ICI director some years later) thought that all large organisations could be approached in a similar manner. What he did not know, or if he did, would not accept, was that~"A service indus try such as a railway derives its efficiency more from that intangible thing, staff morale, than any other single source
Sir Herbert Walker said of Stamp: "[He] had a fine brain and he brought discipline to the LMS but he didn't know how to use it and he chose an American system which didn't work".
A. . Pearson, an LMS man who was at the centre of affairs at Euston for many years, said "Stamp was a great believer in the ability to steer the show and also in the ability of the people on the show to work in a team. . . This was Stamp's mistake. He thought that to be able to work in a team was the best thing, the acme, the test of everything.. . If you got one that did not, that whs a misfit, he avoided him
As an economist Stamp had been on the Dawes Committee in Germany and a party to the setting up of Deutsches Reichsbahn Gesellschaft — the state railway company reorganised on commercial lines and once removed from direct state control.
Stamp's judgement could be seriously flawed, however. In 1936 he had written to The Times arguing that Britain's universities should still send representatives to Heidelberg's 550th anniversary ceremony even though 40 Jewish lecturers had been sacked. He argued that this was not the University's fault but the responsibility of the Nazi government. Two years later, however, he was writing articles for Herman Goering's magazine Die Vierjahresplan and attended the Nuremburg Party Rally as a guest of Hitler.
Stamp's important contribution to locomotive matters is always said to be his appointment of Stanier from 1st January 1932 in order to end feuding in that area once and for all. It should be pointed out, however, that Stamp was in charge for a full six years before this appointment was made and it indicates corporate procrastination more than decisive action.
In his Presidential Address to the Institute of Transport in 1929 entitled Scientific Research in Transport, Stamp again revealed his preference for intellectual solutions to problems and it was no surprise, therefore, when in 1930 Sir Harold Hartley CBE FRS, a Balliol don, became Vice-President (Works and Ancillary Undertakings) and Director of Scientific Research of the LMS.
In view of Stamp's fondness for the Nazi regime it is highly ironic that the Stamp household was killed in an air-raid in XXXX. Was Dudley Stamp his brother?
Allen (in both his histories of the GER and the LNER) is strong on this fascinating personality, and the significance of a major might-have-been if Thotnton had been offered the post of Chief General Manager on the LNER. Allen actually worked directly for Thornton in producing statistics in graphical form for him during his general managership of the Great Eastern. His appoinment at the age of 41 must be regarded as one of Lord Claude Hamilton's great achievements. The Great Eastern Board had clearly been shocked by the Midland's acquistion of the Tilbury line and sought more dynamic management in the shape of an American, who had been General Superintendent of the Long Island Rail Road. He was strong on technical, traffic and adminstrative qualifications, and his experience of electrification might be useful. He was appointed in May 1914. He was a big and burly figure with a fresh-complexioned face and was accessible to staff. He instigated higher levels of remuneration for the senior staff and this was to create problems following the Grouping. He was a great believer in the creation of specific committees to address particular problems: there was a timetable committee, for instance. In 1917, following the retirement of Horace Wilmer, Thornton additionally took over the role of Chief Engineer, but in March 1919 he relinquished this role when John Miller, who had also served on the Long Island Rail Road, took over the Chief Engineer's duties.
It is tempting to postulate what might have become of the Great Eastern under Thornton if there had been no World War and no amalgamation in1923. The LNER, under its coal and steel orientated Board, considered suburban development an alien occupation. In consequence, suburban development in Essex and Hertfordshire remained less advanced than in the Metropolitan's Chilterns and Sir Herbert Walker's Southern. Earlier electric trains to the fringes of the Epping Forest and to the Blackwater and Clacton might have balanced development elsewhere: Harlow might have been a middle class suburb, rather than a new town. The Buntingford branch might still be with us and Hertford might have become another Guildford.
Allen states that Ralph Lewis Wedgwood was born on 2nd March, 1874, the third son of Clement Francis Wedgwood and great-great-grandson of Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the far-famed pottery firm bearing his name. He was thus inheritor of the great radical and intellectual traditions associated with Wedgwood and Darwin; his great-uncle by marriage was, indeed, Charles Darwin himself. Ralph was educated at Clifton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where at the age of 22 he took a first in the Moral Philosophy Tripos. Forthwith he was invited by Sir George Gibb to join the staff of the North Eastern Railway, and accepted without hesitation. That this young intellectual, scion of a distinguished family, should have opted for what might well have seemed to him anything so mundane as railway service is explicable because from his early days, like so many "spotters" of later years, he had developed a deep interest in, and affection for, railways and trains. His brother Frank had been bitten in the same way, and it is not without interest that the latter became a director, first of the North Staffordshire and later of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway.
Ralph Wedgwood started his railway career on Tees-side, there gaining familiarity with traffic and dock working, and becoming District Superintendent at Middlesbrough in 1902. Then, in 1904, at the early age of 30, he was appointed Secretary to the North Eastern Railway. His interest, however, was in the Traffic Department and a year later, at his own request, he returned to that department as Divisional Goods Manager at Newcastle. In 1911 he became Assistant Goods Manager at York, and succeeded Eric Geddes as Chief Goods Manager on the latter being appointed Deputy General Manager in the same year. When Philip Burtt, the NER Passenger Manager, retired in 1914, Wedgwood added the duties of this office to his own, and in all these appointments thus gained an exceptionally wide experience of the traffic side of railway business.
Then came the First World War, in which Wedgwood volunteered for service, being transferred, after a spell in the Transport Establishment in France, to the Ministry of Munitions. From 1916 to 1919 he was Director of Docks, under the Director-General of Transportation in France, with the rank of Brigadier-General. Much of his life during this period was spent in a sleeping car, and he often used to look back with nostalgia on this existence in such typically railway surroundings. His war service was rewarded by the bestowal of the C.B. and the C.M.G. He then returned to the North Eastern Railway in 1919 as Deputy General Manager, and succeeded Sir Alexander Butterworth as General Manager from the beginning of 1922, finally becoming Chief General Manager of the London & North Eastern Railway from the formation of the Company in 1923.
In 1924 he was knighted, and in 1942, on his retirement from the Railway Executive Committee, a baronetcy was conferred on him. Among many other activities of a busy life, Wedgwood was President of the Confederation of Employers' Organisations for the year 1929-1930, a member of the Weir Committee on Main Line Electrification in 1930-1931, and a member of the Central Electricity Board from 1931 to 1946; he was also Chairman of the Committee of Enquiry into Indian Railways in 1936 and 1937.
As Chief General Manager of the LNER, Sir Ralph was the embodiment of the classical quality gravitas, and, certainly to the younger elements, a somewhat awe-inspiring figure. To some extent this austerity of demeanour and outlook was accentuated by the form of organisation adopted by the company, with the Chief General Manager at the summit of a pyramid, supported by the Area General Managers, who coped with much of the hurly-burly of daily work. But the awe owed much more to the intellectual power which Wedgwood brought to bear on every item reaching his desk, and the lucidity with which his views and judgments were expressed. His letters on major subjects, and his policy directives, were couched in language which had all the force and authority of Papal encycicals. The recipients therefore were under some compulsion to put forth their best into any action that was necessary, or any reply that they were required to make.
But with all this, it must not be thought that Wedgwood ever ceased to be a railwayman to the core. The railway lore acquired in his earliest days, and the practical first-hand experience of railway working that he had gained on Tees-side in the tough first years of his railway life, never left him. Thus he was always able to appreciate every detail of the proposals and plans put before him by his officers, and to master, not only their intrinsic merits, but also their significance in the general scheme of things. The officers sponsoring major schemes, as in discussion he sat opposite them in isolation at his desk, realised that he was just as familiar with what was being proposed as they were.
His great gifts showed at their best when he was in the witness-box. It was no small satisfaction to the railway lawyers when, in any major case, they were to have him as witness. He was always a complete master of his brief, for as a preliminary he would go to the greatest lengths in order to marshal all the relevant facts, foreseeing any possible line of attack that opposing counsel might take. Moreover, his alert mind was proof against any surprise question shaking him in cross- examination, and not infrequently he caused counsel on the other side to retire frustrated. One outstanding tribute to Wedgwood's competence in this field was paid by a former Chief Officer of the London Midland & Scottish Railway, A.J. Pearson, in his book, The Railways and the Nation, in which he wrote: "Sir Ralph Wedgwood's name was a household word on British railways between the wars. One of the beacons of his career was the evidence he gave to the Railway Rates Tribunal in the great revision of railway charges of 1920-1927 when he was in the witness-box day after day under cross-examination. It was a wonderful performance, and his patience and endurance were remarkable", A tribute to his powers also was made by Lord Brabazon when the latter was Minister of Transport during the early part of the Second World War. After sitting-in at a session of the Railway Executive Committee, the Minister remarked that it all seemed very complicated to him, but added that nowhere, even among the top echelons of the Civil Service, had he heard such quick and incisive arguments as those of Sir Ralph.
If, at these Olympian heights, Wedgwood was sometimes felt to be a little aloof from the rhythm of the railway, it was because smoking concerts and similar "get-togethers" were not altogether in his line of country, and it was not his way to assume any unnatural semblance of heartiness. On the other hand the Chairman, William Whitelaw, had a natural gift for presiding acceptably on such occasions, and Wedgwood was therefore wise enough to leave the representation of the higher command as far as possible to Whitelaw at such social events. Nevertheless, behind a somewhat formidable exterior the former concealed a very human personality. His pithy and pertinent comments of any item of news, or his witty sallies provoked by quite ordinary incidents in daily life, were a joy to hear. And when once, in the quiet hours of the day at Liverpool Street Station, he was seen to try walking up a descending escalator, remarking "I've always wondered how difficult it was", one felt that the eternal boy was not far below the surface.
This being so, it is not surprising that the policy of introducing Britain's first high speed streamline train, the "Silver Jubilee", was one for which he was personally responsible. In this he was fortunate in having the collaboration, as Chief Mechanical Engineer, of Sir Nigel Gresley, who produced the fine locomotives and rolling stock needed to make this express and its successors, the "Coronation" and "West Riding Limited", the outstanding success that they were. His admiration for Sir Nigel was great, and the two men, so unlike in many ways, were close friends. On being told of Gresley's untimely death in 1941, Sir Ralph was deeply moved. His comment, so typical of the speaker, might well have been used as Sir Nigel's epitaph: "A great Englishman whose ancestors fought at Agincourt".
Such, in a few words, is a portrait of the man selected to be the Chief Officer of the London & North Eastern Railway for the 16 years from the company's inauguration in 1923. Some have held the view that he was too much of an intellectual and too remote in consequence; others may have felt that by comparison, say, with Sir Josiah Stamp of the London, Midland & Scottish his leadership was too much in the background; nevertheless the general opinion has been that no better appointment could have been made.
Under his guidance a number of large corporations, each with its own traditions and loyalties, were moulded in a comparatively few years into a loyalty to the London & North Eastern Railway without experiencing any of the troubles that beset the L.M.S.R. in its early years, which finally made it necessary for the latter company to bring in a personality from outside to accomplish this by no means easy task. Wedgwood saw the L.N.E.R. through the difficult peace years, with the financial anxieties and labour troubles described in later chapters, and when in 1939 the nation had once again to resort to arms because of German aggression it was Sir Ralph, by then retired from railway service, who was selected by the Government to be Chairman of the Railway Executive Committee, charged with managing all the railways of the country. Through his railway life it was a long, rather lonely, and very hard furrow that Sir Ralph Wedgwood was destined to plough, but plough it he did, and looking. back we can see that the furrow was straight.