Curious certainly was the method which up to then prevailed on the Great Northern system. Three different Managers exercised jurisdiction over separate sections of the line, and the Secretary of the Company, an able man, stationed in Dublin, performed much more than secretarial duties, and encroached, so I often heard the managers complain, upon their functions. This divided authority was a survival of the time before 1877, when the Great Northern system belonged to several independent companies; and, in the words of the Allport Commission of 1887, “its continued existence after ten years could hardly be defended.”
Very pleasant and very interesting I found my new avocation on the County Down, which for short the Belfast and County Down Railway was usually called. My salary certainly was not magnificent, £500 a year, but it was about £100 more than the whole of the income I earned in Scotland, and now for the £500 I had only my railway work to perform. Now I could give up those newspaper lucubrations, which had become almost a burden and daily enjoy some hours of leisure. The change soon benefited my health. Instead of close confinement to the office during the day, and drudgery indoors with pen and ink at night, my days were varied with out-door as well as in-door work, and I had time for reading, recreation and social enjoyment. My lean and lanky form filled out, and I became familiar with the greeting of my friends: “Why, how well you look!”
The County Down railway was 68 miles long. Situated entirely in County Down, it occupied a snug little corner to itself, bounded on the north by Belfast Lough, on the south by the Mourne Mountains, and on the east by Strangford Lough and the Irish Sea. To the west ran the Great Northern railway but some distance away. The County Down line enjoyed three fine sources of seaside traffic, Bangor, Donaghadee and Newcastle, and was rich in pleasure resorts and in residential districts. It even possessed the attractions of a golf course, the first in Ireland, the Kinnegar at Holywood,
but more of that anon. As I have said, it was a busy line, and it was not unprosperous. The dividend in 1885 reached five and a-half per cent., and in spite of considerable expenditure necessary for bringing the line up to first-class condition, it never went back, but steadily improved, and for many years has been a comfortable six and a-half per cent. In 1885 the condition of the permanent way, the rolling stock, and the stations was anything but good, and as the traffic showed capacity for development, to stint expenditure would have been but folly. I do not think, however, the outlay would have been so liberal as it was but for Lord (then Mr.) Pirrie, who was an active and influential director, though there were also on the Board several other business men of energy and position. Indeed, it was a good Board, but the Chairman, though a shrewd far-seeing man, had, like John Gilpin’s spouse, “a frugal mind,” and Lord Pirrie’s bold commercial spirit quite eclipsed his cautious ways. One instance will suffice to exemplify this, and also to illustrate the novelty of my new duties, which were delightful in their diversity and activity to one whose life hitherto had been confined to sedentary work.
It was the rolling stock that demanded the most urgent attention—engines, carriages and wagons and especially carriages. Of carriages there were not enough for the traffic of the line, and many were in a very sorry condition, particularly those which had been taken over with the Holywood and Bangor Railway, acquired by the company the previous year. One weekend, soon after I joined the service, I had all passenger carriages brought into Belfast, except those employed in running Sunday trains, and early on the Sunday morning (it was in the summer) with the company’s locomotive and mechanical engineer I examined each carriage thoroughly from top to bottom, inside and out, above and below, and with his practical help and expert knowledge, noted carefully down the defects of each. He worked with a will, delighted that someone as enthusiastic and even younger than himself was now in charge. He little suspected, I am sure, how ignorant I was of practical matters, as I kept my own counsel which was my habit when prudence so dictated. I knew the names of things and was well versed in the theory and statistics of repairs and renewals, but that was all. A fine worker was and is R. G. Miller. Well over 70 now, healthy and
energetic still, he occupies the position he did then. Age has not withered nor custom staled his juvenility. I met him on Kingstown promenade the other day walking with an elastic step and with the brightness of youth in his eye. The ordinary age-retirement limit, though a good rule generally, was not for him. Daylight failed and night came on before our task was finished, several carriages remaining unexamined. These and the Sunday running vehicles we subjected to scrutiny during the following week. At the next meeting of the Board I presented a report of what I had done, and urged that a number of new carriages should be contracted for without delay, enlarging upon the return we might confidently expect from a responsive traffic. The Chairman and most of the Board were a little aghast at what appeared, to a small company that had only recently emerged from straitened circumstances, a very large order. But Lord Pirrie came to the rescue, strongly supported my proposal and commended the thoroughness with which I had tackled the subject. The day was won, the carriages secure, and the order for their construction was placed with a firm in Birmingham. This expenditure was the precursor of further large outlays, for it was soon seen that the prospects of the company warranted a bold course.
I may, I am sure, be pardoned if I quote here some words from the report of Sir James Allport’s Commission on Irish Public Works. It is dated 4th January, 1888. I had then been less than three years with the County Down, and so could claim but a modicum of the praise it contains, and my modesty, therefore, need not be alarmed. The words are: “The history of the Belfast and County Down Company is sufficient to show how greatly both shareholders and the public may benefit from the infusion into the management of business qualities. In that case a board of business men have in ten years raised the dividend on the ordinary stock from nil to 5½ per cent., while giving the public an improved service and reduced rates.” My satisfaction was the greater as I had given evidence before the Commission, and helped to tell them the cheerful story of the progress and development of the County Down Company. It was my first appearance as a railway witness and before Sir James Allport, who had commanded my unbounded admiration from my first entrance at Derby into railway life. Need I say that to me it was an event of importance.
In the year 1875 the Board of the County Down, after an investigation of its affairs by a Committee of Shareholders, was reorganised, and it was then that Mr. Richard Woods Kelly became Chairman, and Lord (then Mr.) Pirrie a Director. The latter has more than once since told me that the County Down shares were one of his best investments.
Mr. Kelly merits more than a passing word. Before I joined the County Down I was told he was a “terror,” and that I ran foolish risk in leaving a service like the Glasgow and South-Western for a position in which I might find it impossible to please. But fears like that never disturbed me. To wrongdoers Mr. Kelly could certainly be “a terror,” and wrongdoers there were, I believe, in the service in the early days of his chairmanship. He was a mild-mannered man, tall, rather pale, with refined features and a low-toned pleasant voice. But beneath this smooth and gentle exterior resided great firmness. He would smile and smile with wonderful imperturbability and, in the quietest tones and the blandest way, say severe and cutting things. Economy was his strong point and he observed it in his public and private life with meritorious consistency. Impervious to cold, as to most other human weaknesses, in winter or summer he never wore an overcoat. His smooth face and tall slight figure seemed as indifferent to the angry elements as bronze or stone. By man or Nature I never saw him ruffled or in the least degree disturbed. But he had his human side, as all men have, and in time I discovered it and grew to like him. He was not at heart so cold as he seemed. Though he could not write a page without mis-spelling some of the words, his letters were always concise and very much to the point. But it was only in spelling he was deficient. He spoke well, was a shrewd judge of men, had a keen sense of humour, a clear perception of facts, and was quick to detect and discard everything irrelevant.
Lord Pirrie and Mr. Kelly, in connection with the County Down, were hand and glove, and it was no small part they played in its transformation from dark and dismal poverty to smiling prosperity.