The Story of the Cambrian: A Biography of a Railway

by C. P. Gasquoine

Estimating working expenses at 50 per cent., that left a surplus of £4,125, being nearly 7 per cent. per annum on £60,000, the required capital. With such a scheme the majority of the local owners readily expressed their agreement, and arrangements were made for cutting of the first sod, in a field which was to form the site of the Llanidloes station, on October 3rd, 1855. Mrs. Owen, of Glansevern, was invited to perform the ceremony, but, owing to what she regarded as a premature announcement of the fact in the “Shrewsbury Chronicle,” that lady sent an advertisement to the journal announcing the postponement of the function. Pages of the

Company’s minute book were devoted to expressions of the Board’s “utmost astonishment” and demands for explanations. Mrs. Owen was at no loss for material to furnish equally voluminous reply, the pith of which was that she was simply inspired by a desire to obtain time, both to secure the attendance of her influential friends and to inform herself of the financial position of the undertaking.

It was all a storm in a tea-cup, but it was a very severe storm while it lasted; and Mr. Whalley had to cut the sod himself, in a deluge of rain, taking occasion, however, in doing so, to express, in graceful terms, the disappointment felt at the absence of one “who had done so much to introduce improved means of communication through the county,” a reference equally gracefully acknowledged by letter from Glansevern a few days later. “Up to the present period,” wrote Mrs. Owen, “we have been strangers in this part of the county to the preparations necessary for inaugurating a railway, and it should not, therefore, be wondered at if our first attempt should not have been attended with perfect success; misapprehension, excess of zeal and inexperience might all lead to mistakes and errors, and it is not, perhaps, possible for us all to escape censure.”

Perhaps not. At any rate, it was a philosophic conclusion, and it enabled the Board, with unruffled feathers, to proceed to the business of receiving tenders for the construction of the line. Out of seven, the lowest was that of Mr. David Davies, who was, moreover, prepared to accept part payment in shares, an arrangement which, later, paved the way to the process of leasing these local railways to the contractors, that became almost a custom. Hardly, however, had these preliminaries been successfully negotiated, when Mr. Rice Hopkins died, and after a temporary agreement with one of his

relatives to carry on in an advisory capacity, the Board proceeded to select a successor out of four “persons who presented themselves as eligible for this purpose.”

Their choice was easily made. The line was being built by a local contractor. Fate was now to throw up a new engineer, whose claims were not less obvious on similar grounds. A native of Trefeglwys, Mr. Benjamin Piercy had, from an early age, taken great interest in railway planning, and, though this branch of the profession did not directly touch his daily routine, he devoted many leisure hours to its study. In his journeys through Wales he was impressed with the necessity of opening out its valleys to the great railway world that was developing beyond the English border, and when Mr. Henry Robertson began to make his surveys of the Shrewsbury and Chester line, Mr. Piercy became one of his assistants. So diligently did the young man discharge his duties here that, it is recorded, he was the means of preventing the loss of a year in obtaining the Act for the making of this line.

It was natural, therefore, that, when the Rea Valley line was being mooted, he should be engaged to prepare the Parliamentary plans. It was in this connection that an untoward incident occurred, which throws some light on the tremendous rivalry that existed among the promoters of various railway schemes and the means that were sometimes adopted to thwart the progress of antagonistic proposals. Mr. Piercy had, with great energy, got his plans ready and taken them to London, but they were surreptitiously removed from his room at the hotel, and the matter was hung up for a year. In the meantime, as we have already noted, the line of route was changed. In the following year, however, he duly deposited the plans for the railway from Shrewsbury to Welshpool, with a branch to Minsterley, already mentioned. Although strongly

opposed, at every stage, including Standing Orders, Mr. Piercy succeeded in carrying the Bill through both Houses, and it received the Royal assent. It was in the Select Committees on this Bill that he first made his reputation as a witness in Parliamentary Committees. After this he was engaged upon nearly all the projects for introducing independent railways into Wales, all of them meeting with fierce opposition. For several days consecutively he was as a witness under cross-examination by the genial Mr. Serjeant Merewether, and other eminent counsel, but so little headway were they able to make against Mr. Piercy that, upon one occasion, when a Committee passed a Bill of his, Mr. Merewether held up his brief-bag and asked the Committee whether they would not give that too to Mr. Piercy. [16]

In 1858 Mr. Piercy was formally appointed engineer to the Company. With the assistance of Mr. George Owen, the cordial co-operation of Messrs. Davies and Savin, and under the enthusiastic leadership of Mr. Whalley, he was destined to carry these undertakings into being, and to nurture them in their infancy, and thus to join the little group of pioneer workers who, in their several capacities, may, in special degree, be termed the parents of the Cambrian.