Before entering upon any description of the new life that awaited me in Glasgow, I will briefly allude to the principal events connected with the Midland and with railways generally which took place during the first five years of my railway career.
Closely associated with many of these events was Mr. James Allport, the Midland general manager, one of the foremost and ablest of the early railway pioneers, regarding whom it is fit and proper a few words should be said. Strangely enough I never saw him until nearly two years after I entered the Midland service, and this was on the occasion of a visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to Derby. We clerks were allowed good positions on the station platform to witness the arrival of their Royal Highnesses by their special train from London. Mr. Allport accompanied them along the platform to the carriages outside the station. Probably the chairman and directors of the company were also present, but our eyes were not for them. Directors were to us junior clerks, remote personalities, mythical beings dwelling on Olympian heights.
It was a great thing to see the future King and Queen of England, and our loyalty and enthusiasm knew no bounds. They were young and charming, and beloved by the people; but, hero worshipper as I was, our great general manager was to me even more than royalty. I little thought, as I looked on Mr. Allport then, that, twenty years later, I should appear before
him to give evidence concerning Irish railways, when he was chairman of an important Royal Commission.
The great abilities which enable a man to win and hold such a position as his fired my fancy. I look at men and men’s affairs with different eyes now; but Mr. Allport was a great personality, and youthful enthusiasm might well be excused for placing him on a high pedestal. He was tall and handsome, with well-shaped head, broad brow, large clear keen eyes, firm well-formed mouth, strong nose and chin, possessed of an abundant head of hair, not close cropped in the style of to-day, but full and wavy, and what one never sees now, a handsome natural curl along the centre of the head with a parting on each side. This suited him well, and added to his distinctive individuality. When I entered the Midland service he was fifty-six years of age and in the plenitude of his power, for those were days when the company was forcing its way north and south and widely extending its territory. He was the animating spirit of all the company’s enterprises. No opposition, no difficulties ever daunted him. His nature was bold and fitted to command, and to him is due, in a large degree, the proud position the Midland holds to-day. It was not until late in life, 1884 I think, when he had reached the age of seventy-two, that his great qualities were accorded public recognition. He then received the honour of knighthood but had retired from active service and become a director of his company.
There was another personality that loomed large, in those years, on the Midland—Samuel Swarbrick, the accountant. His world was finance, and in it he was a master. So great was his skill that the Great Eastern Railway Company, which, financially, was in a parlous condition and their dividend nil, in 1866 took him from the Midland and made him their general manager, at, in those days, a princely salary. Their confidence was fully justified; his skill brought the company, if not to absolute prosperity, at least to a dividend-paying condition, and laid the foundation of the position that company now occupies.
His reputation as a man of figures stood as I have just said very high, but, whilst I was at Derby, and before he moved to the Great Eastern, he was prominent also as the happy possessor of the best coloured meerschaum pipes in the county, and this, in those days, was no small distinction. But
a man does not achieve greatness by his own unaided efforts. Others, his subordinates, help him to climb the ladder. It was so with Mr. Swarbrick. There was a tall policeman in the service of the company, the possessor of a fine figure, and a splendid long sandy-coloured beard. His primary duty was to air himself at the front entrance of the station arrayed in a fine uniform and tall silk hat, and this duty he conscientiously performed. Secondarily, his occupation was to start the colouring of new meerschaums for Mr. Swarbrick. Non-meerschaum smokers may not know what a delicate task this is, but once well begun the rest is comparatively easy. The tall policeman was an artist at the work; but it nearly brought him to a tragic end, as I will relate.
Outside Derby station was a ticket platform at which all incoming trains stopped for the collection of tickets. This platform was on a bridge that crossed the river. One Saturday night our fine policeman was airing himself on this platform, colouring a handsome new meerschaum for Mr. Swarbrick. It was a windy night and a sudden gust blew his tall hat into the river, and after it unfortunately dropped the meerschaum. Hat and pipe both! Without a moment’s hesitation in plunged the policeman to the rescue; but the river was deep and he an indifferent swimmer. The night was dark and he was not brought to land till life had nearly left him. He recovered, but lost his sight and became blind for the rest of his life. Mr. Swarbrick provided for him, I believe, by setting him up in a small public house, where, I am told, despite his loss of sight, he ended his days not unhappily.