A History of Inland Transport and Communication in England

by Edwin A. Pratt

Much enlargement or rebuilding of works is already proceeding, while manufacturers who have hitherto devoted their attention mainly or exclusively to pleasure motors are now adapting their plant, etc., to the making of commercial motors either instead or in addition. The demand for pleasure motors is limited; that for public service motors and motor-vehicles for traders is illimitable. From the great stores which keep their "fleet" of delivery cars, and from the furniture-remover who wants the equivalent almost of a traction-engine down to the draper, the grocer or the butcher who is content with a modest three-wheel auto-carrier for loads up to five or ten cwt., every class of trader is to-day finding that, to keep pace with the times, and to deliver goods as promptly and at the same distances as his competitors, he must needs have a quicker means of road transport than a horsed-vehicle.

Then, while large traders having their fleets of motor-vehicles set up their own repairing shops, the needs of smaller traders with only two or three delivery vans are provided for by motor manufacturers or others who undertake "maintenance" on contract terms, thus saving such traders from all trouble in the matter of repairs and upkeep.

When one adds to these considerations the fact that traders not only in the United Kingdom but in the colonies, in every European country, and even as far away as Japan, are looking to English and Scotch manufacturers to supply them with motor-traction vehicles, the impression is conveyed that the further great development of the motor industry in the United Kingdom will be far less in pleasure motors, or even in the motors used by doctors and others for professional purposes, than in commercial motors; and this impression is confirmed by a remark made by Sir Samuel Samuel at the Motor-Aviation dinner given by him at the Savoy Hotel on October 30, 1911. "The future of the motor-car industry," he said, "lay in the commercial motor traffic, the solution of the street traffic problem lay in motor-omnibuses, and in ten years time most of the tramway stock would be scrapped."

Apart from figures as to the number of public service or commercial motors—chiefly, as I have shown, of home manufacture—already in use, the only available statistics indicating the growth of the British motor industry are those given in the Board of Trade Returns concerning "cars, chassis and parts" exported, the total value thereof being £1,502,000 in 1909 and £2,511,000 in 1910. The imports in the same years rose from £4,218,000 to £5,065,000. It may be assumed that the latter figures relate more particularly to pleasure cars; though it should be remembered that even on these, as imported from France or Germany, additional work may often be done here—in the way of body-building or otherwise—to the extent of £200 or so per car. Many allied trades are likewise doing a good business in the supply of accessories.

Allowing, next, for the employment given to drivers, repairers and others, and for the sum total (if it could only be estimated) of the amount distributed annually by motorists among hotel proprietors and town and country tradespeople, the circulation of money that is directly due to motoring and motor-traction must be prodigious. As far back as 1906 it was estimated that motor drivers alone in this country were receiving over £5,000,000 a year in wages, that the wages paid to men employed in the manufacture of cars and accessories amounted to nearly £10,000,000 a year, and that the total number of drivers and others concerned in motoring was about 230,000. But much has happened since 1906, and if these figures accurately represent the position then, they would have to be greatly increased to represent the position to-day.

Thus we see that automobilism—using the word in its widest application—has not only brought about some remarkable changes in our conditions of inland transport and communication but is itself rapidly developing into still another of our national industries, even if it should not have done so already.

Tube railways are an outcome of various attempts to solve a problem in urban transport that more especially applies to London.

When railways were first brought to the Metropolis the prejudice against them was so strong, and the lack of foresight as to the purpose they would eventually serve was so pronounced, that in 1846 limits were set up, on what were then the outskirts of London, within which the lines were not to come. The whole of the central area was to be left free from railways, the view of a Royal Commission which considered the subject in the year stated being that, as the proportion of short-distance passengers by the main lines was only small, the probable demand for the accommodation of short-distance traffic would not justify the sacrifice of property or the expenditure of money that would be involved in placing the termini in crowded centres. The same Commission recommended that if, at any future time, it should be thought necessary to admit railways within the prescribed area, this should be done in conformity with some uniform plan. Under no circumstances, they urged, should separate schemes having no reference to each other be tolerated.

It was not long before the growth of London and the transport needs of its population made clear the fact that the exclusion of railways from the central area could not be maintained, though the recommendation of the 1846 Commission as regards a uniform plan was wholly disregarded.

Supplementing the omnibuses originally established between Paddington and the City in 1829 by Shillibeer came, in 1863, the first line of underground railway, connecting Paddington station with Farringdon Street, and constructed in an open cutting, where possible. An earlier idea of having one central station in London for all the different main lines of railway was discarded in favour of underground railways of the type here in question; and the "inner circle," linking up most of the main-line termini, was eventually completed. The original restrictions in regard to the central area were also modified, such stations as those at Charing Cross, Cannon-Street, Holborn and Liverpool Street being allowed to be set up within the once sacred precincts. Branches were made from the inner circle of the underground system; the main-line railways began to develop their now enormous suburban business; the omnibuses were crowded in the busy hours of the day, while the tramways, though excluded from the central area still more rigidly than the railways had been, gained no lack of patronage to or from the "outer fringe."