CHAPTER II. A BIRTHDAY PARTY.
“A birthday:—and now a day that rose
with much of hope, with meaning rife—
A thoughtful day from dawn to close.”—Jean Ingleow.
With the advent of the young Montgomeryshire engineer, and his cordial co-operation with the Montgomeryshire contractor, the public began eagerly to count the days, or at any rate, the months, before the due arrival of the first Montgomeryshire railway. The prospects of a punctual delivery were eminently propitious. In his first report, Mr. Piercy was able to announce substantial progress with the work, which was being carried out by Messrs. Davies and Savin, “at a cost below that of any railway yet brought into operation.” True, there were one or two inevitable set-backs. One of the engines which had arrived by road, and been set on the rails at Newtown, refused properly to perform its duty; but, fortunately, a Mr. Howell, of Hawarden, who knew all about the intricate interior of these new-fangled monsters, happened to be staying at Llanidloes, and he was called in to diagnose and advise, with effective result.
A more serious problem was the revision of the terms of the lease of the line to Messrs. Davies and Savin, which a committee of shareholders were busily engaged in attempting to carry forward. Complications of another sort led Mr. Piercy
to tender his resignation, which, being somewhat peremptorily refused, he withdrew. Still further anxiety and considerable expense was involved in the prosecution of Parliamentary application for power to extend the line from the originally designed terminus at Newtown to the Shropshire Union Canal; for, though it was only a matter of some quarter of a mile, it was strenuously opposed in both Houses. Such were the distractions which beset railway building in those days; but enthusiasm and determination still triumphed, and the work proceeded along the line with sufficient rapidity to admit its being opened for mineral traffic on April 30th, 1859. At the very last moment trouble was experienced in obtaining the necessary certificate of the Board of Trade for passenger traffic, but that precious document came to hand on August 9th, and, with more fortunate outcome than on a previous occasion, Mrs. Owen, of Glansevern, was invited to perform the pleasing duty of declaring the line open.
The day fixed was Wednesday, August 31st, and a local newspaper gives us some account of the proceedings:—“Preparations were made on an extensive scale, and the day was ushered in by cannon firing, bell-ringing, and the hearty congratulations of the people of the town, with their country friends, who flocked in to take part in the proceedings. The houses were elegantly decorated with flags and banners, flowers and evergreens, and a variety of mottoes, more or less appropriate. Amongst others we noticed, on the Old Market Hall (which, by the way, it was a charity to hide from the gaze of strangers), a profusion of flags, with a large banner in the centre, ‘Hail, Star of Brunswick.’ The Red Lion exhibited a local tribute to its friend, by placing on the door ‘Welcome, Whalley, champion of our rights.’ The Railway Station was profusely decorated, and the Queen’s Head displayed an
elegant archway of leaves and flowers. The Trewythen Arms was also gaily covered with flags, and numbers of private houses displayed a variety of gay decorations. The cold and wet state of the weather in no way damped the ardour of the men of Montgomeryshire, and they were rewarded by a speedy dispersion of clouds, and the grateful warmth of the noonday sun. Llanidloes was all alive; business was entirely suspended and soon after 9 o’clock a large crowd collected near the public rooms, where a procession was formed, headed by the Plasmadoc Brass Band, and accompanied in the following order by:—
The Mayor (W. Swancott, Esq.), and the Corporation consisting of Messrs. R. Homes, E. Clayton, T. Davies, T. F. Roberts, D. Snead; L. Minshall, Pugh, J. Jarman, Hamer, J. Mendus Jones,
Flag.
Banner,—‘Whither Bound?’ ‘To Milford.’