The case was, however, here stated, to say the least, in the mildest possible manner. The fact was that the authorities at Manchester had, and not without reason, passed a very panic-stricken hour on account of the Duke of Wellington. That personage had been in a position of no inconsiderable peril. Though the reporter preserved a decorous silence on that point, the ministerial car had on the way been pelted, as well as hooted; and at Manchester a vast mass of not particularly well disposed persons had fairly overwhelmed both police and soldiery, and had taken complete possession of the tracks. They were not riotous but they were very rough; and they insisted on climbing upon the carriages and pressing their attentions on the distinguished inmates in a manner somewhat at variance with English ideas of propriety. The Duke’s efforts at conciliatory manners, as evinced through much hand-shaking, were not without significance. It was small matter for wonder, therefore, that the terrified authorities, before they got him out of their town, heartily regretted that they had not allowed him to have his own way after the accident to Mr. Huskisson, when he proposed to turn back without coming to it. Having once got him safely started back to Liverpool, therefore, they preferred to leave the other guests to take care of themselves, rather than have the Duke face the crowd again. As there were no sidings on that early road, and the connections between the tracks had, as a measure of safety, been temporarily removed, the ministerial train in moving towards Liverpool had necessarily pushed before it the engines belonging to the other trains. The unfortunate guests on those other trains, thus left to their fate, had for the rest of the day a very dreary time of it. To avoid accidents, the six trains abandoned at Manchester were united into one, to which were attached the three locomotives remaining. In this form they started. Presently the strain broke the couplings. Pieces of rope were then put in requisition, and again they got in motion. In due time the three other engines came along, but they could only be used by putting them on in front of the three already attached to the train. Two of them were used in that way, and the eleven cars thus drawn by five locomotives, and preceded at a short distance by one other,
went on towards Liverpool. It was dark, and to meet the exigencies of the occasion the first germ of the present elaborate system of railroad night signals was improvised on the spot. From the foremost and pioneer locomotive obstacles were signalled to the train locomotives by the very primitive expedient of swinging the lighted end of a tar-rope. At Rainhill the weight of the train proved too much for the combined motive-power, and the thoroughly wearied passengers had to leave their carriages and walk up the incline. When they got to the summit and, resuming their seats, were again in motion, fresh delay was occasioned by the leading locomotive running into a wheel-barrow, maliciously placed on the track to obstruct it. Not until ten o’clock did they enter the tunnel at Liverpool. Meanwhile all sorts of rumours of general disaster had for hours been circulating among the vast concourse of spectators who were assembled waiting for their friends, and whose relief expressed itself in hearty cheers as the train at last rolled safely into the station.
We have also Miss Kemble’s story of this day, to which in her letter of August 25th she had looked forward with such eager interest. With her father and mother she had been staying at a country place in Lancashire, and in her account of the affair, written in 1876, she says:—
“The whole gay party assembled at Heaton, my mother and myself included, went to Liverpool for the opening of the railroad. The throng of strangers gathered there for the same purpose made it almost impossible to obtain a night’s lodging for love or money; and glad and thankful were we to put up with and be put up in a tiny garret by an old friend, Mr. Radley, of the Adelphi, which many would have given twice what we paid to obtain. The day opened gloriously, and never was an innumerable concourse of sight-seers in better humour than the surging, swaying crowd that lined the railroad with living faces. . . After this disastrous event [the accident to Mr. Huskisson] the day became overcast, and as we neared Manchester the sky grew cloudy and dark, and it began to rain. The vast concourse of people who had assembled to witness the triumphant arrival of the successful travellers was of the lowest order of mechanics and artisans, among whom great
distress and a dangerous spirit of discontent with the government at that time prevailed. Groans and hisses greeted the carriage, full of influential personages, in which the Duke of Wellington sat. High above the grim and grimy crowd of scowling faces a loom had been erected, at which sat a tattered, starved-looking weaver, evidently set there as a representative man, to protest against this triumph of machinery, and the gain and glory which the wealthy Liverpool and Manchester men were likely to derive from it. The contrast between our departure from Liverpool and our arrival at Manchester was one of the most striking things I ever witnessed.
Manchester, September 20th, 1830.
My Dearest H—:
* * * * *
“You probably have by this time heard and read accounts of the opening of the railroad, and the fearful accident which occurred at it, for the papers are full of nothing else. The accident you mention did occur, but though the unfortunate man who was killed bore Mr. Stephenson’s name, he was not related to him. [Besides Mr. Huskisson, another man named Stephenson had about this time been killed on the railroad]. I will tell you something of the events on the fifteenth, as though you may be acquainted with the circumstances of poor Mr. Huskisson’s death, none but an eye-witness of the whole scene can form a conception of it. I told you that we had had places given to us, and it was the main purpose of our returning from Birmingham to Manchester to be present at what promised to be one of the most striking events in the scientific annals of our country. We started on Wednesday last, to the number of about eight hundred people, in carriages constructed as I before described to you. The most intense curiosity and excitement prevailed, and though the weather was uncertain, enormous masses of densely packed people lined the road, shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by them. What with the sight and sound of these cheering multitudes and the tremendous velocity with which we were borne past them, my spirits rose to the true champagne height, and I never enjoyed anything so much as the first hour of
our progress. I had been unluckily separated from my mother in the first distribution of places, but by an exchange of seats which she was enabled to make she rejoined me, when I was at the height of my ecstasy, which was considerably damped by finding that she was frightened to death, and intent upon nothing but devising means of escaping from a situation which appeared to her to threaten with instant annihilation herself and all her travelling companions. While I was chewing the cud of this disappointment, which was rather bitter, as I expected her to be as delighted as myself with our excursion, a man flew by us, calling out through a speaking trumpet to stop the engine, for that somebody in the directors’ car had sustained an injury. We were all stopped accordingly and presently a hundred voices were heard exclaiming that Mr. Huskisson was killed. The confusion that ensued is indescribable; the calling out from carriage to carriage to ascertain the truth, the contrary reports which were sent back to us, the hundred questions eagerly uttered at once, and the repeated and urgent demands for surgical assistance, created a sudden turmoil that was quite sickening. At last we distinctly ascertained that the unfortunate man’s thigh was broken.