As a show, the Greenwich Railway proved tolerably successful. During the first eleven months it carried 456,750 passengers, or an average of about 1300 a-day. But the railway having been found more convenient to the public than either the river boats or the omnibuses, the number of passengers rapidly increased. When the Croydon, Brighton, and South-Eastern Railways began to pour their streams of traffic over the Greenwich viaduct, its accommodation was found much too limited; and it was widened from time to time, until now nine lines of railway are laid side by side, over which more than twenty millions of passengers are carried yearly, or an average of about 60,000 a day all the year round.
Since the partial opening of the Greenwich Railway in 1836, a large extent of railways has been constructed in and about the metropolis, and convenient stations have been established almost in the heart of the City. Sixteen of these stations are within a circle of half a mile radius from the Mansion House, and above three hundred stations
are in actual use within about five miles of Charing Cross.
To accommodate this vast traffic, not fewer than 3600 local trains are run in and out daily, besides 340 trains which depart to and arrive from distant places, north, south, east, and west. In the morning hours, between 8.30 and 10.30, when business men are proceeding inwards to their offices and counting-houses, and in the afternoon between four and six, when they are returning outwards to their homes, as many as two thousand stoppages are made in the hour, within the metropolitan district, for the purpose of taking up and setting down passengers, while about two miles of railway are covered by the running trains.
One of the remarkable effects of railways has been to extend the residential area of all large towns and cities. This is especially notable in the case of London. Before the introduction of railways, the residential area of the metropolis was limited by the time occupied by business men in making the journey outwards and inwards daily; and it was for the most part bounded by Bow on the east, by Hampstead and Highgate on the north, by Paddington and Kensington on the west, and by Clapham and Brixton on the south. But now that stations have been established near the centre of the city, and places so distant as Waltham, Barnet, Watford, Hanwell, Richmond, Epsom, Croydon, Reigate, and Erith, can be more quickly reached by rail than the old suburban quarters were by omnibus, the metropolis has become extended in all directions along its railway lines, and the population of London, instead of living in the City or its immediate vicinity, as formerly,
have come to occupy a residential area of not less than six hundred square miles!
The number of new towns which have consequently sprung into existence near London within the last twenty years has been very great; towns numbering from ten to twenty thousand inhabitants, which before were but villages,—if, indeed, they existed. This has especially been the case along the lines south of the Thames, principally in consequence of the termini of those lines being more conveniently situated for city men of business. Hence the rapid growth of the suburban towns up and down the river, from Richmond and Staines on the west, to Erith and Gravesend on the east, and the hives of population which have settled on the high grounds south of the Thames, in the neighbourhood of Norwood and the Crystal Palace, rapidly spreading over the Surrey Downs, from Wimbledon to Guildford, and from Bromley to Croydon, Epsom, and Dorking. And now that the towns on the south and south-east coast can be reached by city men in little more time than it takes to travel to Clapham or Bayswater by omnibus, such places have become as it were parts of the great metropolis, and Brighton and Hastings are but the marine suburbs of London.
The improved state of the communications of the City with the country has had a marked effect upon its population. While the action of the railways has been to add largely to the number of persons living in London, it has also been accompanied by their dispersion over a much larger area. Thus the population of the central parts of London is constantly decreasing, whereas that of the suburban districts is as constantly increasing. The population
of the City fell off more than 10,000 between 1851 and 1861; and during the same period, that of Holborn, the Strand, St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, St. James’s, Westminster, East and West London, showed a considerable decrease. But, as regards the whole mass of the metropolitan population, the increase has been enormous. Thus, starting from 1801, when the population of London was 958,863, we find it increasing in each decennial period at the rate of between two and three hundred thousand, until the year 1841, when it amounted to 1,948,369. Railways had by that time reached London, after which its population increased at nearly double the former ratio. In the ten years ending 1851, the increase was 513,867; and in the ten years ending 1861, 441,753: until now, to quote the words of the Registrar-General in a recent annual Report, “the population within the registration limits is by estimate 2,993,513; but beyond this central mass there is a ring of life growing rapidly, and extending along railway lines over a circle of fifteen miles from Charing Cross. The population within that circle, patrolled by the metropolitan police, is about 3,463,771”!
The aggregation of so vast a number of persons within so comparatively limited an area—the immense quantity of food required for their daily sustenance, as well as of fuel, clothing, and other necessaries—would be attended with no small inconvenience and danger, but for the facilities again provided by the railways. The provisioning of a garrison of even four thousand men is considered a formidable affair; how much more so the provisioning of nearly four millions of people!