HISTORY OF THE YORK TO BEVERLEY LINE - Personalities

George Hudson

George Hudson was born at Howsham on 10 March 1800 of yeoman farming stock. The fifth son of his father John Hudson, By the time he was eight years old both of his parents had died and he was being cared for by his brothers and sisters. An entry in the Howsham poor book reads "6th April 1815 to 6th April 1816 received of George Hudson for Bastardy 12/6d". Following this illegitimate birth George aged 15 fled/travelled the 10 miles from his little village to the city of York. He trained as a draper at Nicholson and Bell's Draper's shop in College Street, now the National Trust shop in York.

Mr. Nicholson's children, Richard and Elizabeth took a shine to young George and on 15 July 1821 Elizabeth, five years his senior, and George, were married in Holy Trinity church Goodramgate, a tiny medieval church just a short walk from the shop where they lived and worked. (by the way the church interior is still pretty much as it was in George's day, well worth a look). He was a staunch Tory and Methodist, preaching quite often at the local halls. He liked being a draper but fate was about to intervene in a big way.

George's great-uncle Mathew Bottril was one of the richest men in York and lived at 44 Monkgate. When Mathew died on 25 May 1827, George inherited £30,000 and his house, making him now one of the richest men in York. George spent days at the old man's bedside and there is speculation that he influenced the altering of the will on 21 April 1827. He used his wealth to gain power in city government and then the railway. While he had no interest in railways as a technical feature, and saw them only as a means of making money, he becoming a leading promoter of the railway earning himself the title of "Railway King".

On 30 December 1833, a meeting was held at Mrs. Tomlinson's hotel (Londesborough Arms) in Low Petergate, York's Railway Committee was set up and he became the treasurer. At the time there was no definite objective but this led to a meeting in the York Guildhall on 13 October 1935, chaired by TW Wilson the Lord Mayor,which adopted a resolution for the immediate formation of the York & North Midland Railway with Hudson as chairman and George Stephenson was appointed Engineer. This was one month after the launch of the North Midland Railway itself. The NMR was authorised to build a route from Derby to Leeds thereby creating a continuous railway from London to Leeds. The Y&NMR was to provide a branch from York to Normanton to open up a route to the south. This line was authorised on 21 June 1836 and the first part to Milford Junction, where it joins the Leeds and Selby line was opened on 29 May 1839. In May 1840 it opened to Normanton where it united with the Midland Railway, forming a direct link with London and being the final link on the east side of the country for a route from Dover to Edinburgh.

On 21 June 1836 Parliamentary approval was also given for its first railway from Selby to Hull which opened on 1 July 1840 (Act of Incorporation (6 & 7 Wm IV cap 81)). By 1840 he had created rail links from York to Leeds & Selby, Birmingham and London (the first direct train to London ran 11 May 1840), and indirectly to Liverpool. He became Lord Mayor of York in 1937 and later member of parliament for York, and Sunderland on 14th of August 1845 having sufficiently bribed the electors with everything from cash to the promise of jobs on the railway..

Hudson owned large estates at Huntington, Londesborough, Shipton and Market Weighton, through which the line ran. In 1845, when MP, Lord Mayor and Member for York, he had purchased Londesborough Park an estate of 12,000 acres from the 6th Duke of Devonshire for £470,000. This estate covered a area comprising much of the best type of country through which a railway from York to Hull would pass. This purchase as well as being an investment, other estates near Bridlington and Ripon were also purchased at this time, was also part of his attempt to stop the proposed railway by the Manchester and Leeds Railway Co. Being an MP it would have been virtually impossible to have sought an Act of Parliament to compulsory purchase his land. He eventually secured big profits from the sales of land over which the railway would have to pass, then quickly claimed compensation for the loss of revenue of lands lost. Not a very cunning move as he was soon spotted and accused of overcharging the YNMR for the land. The company only just managed to recover its money, with great difficulty, following tense and angry scenes in the bankruptcy court.

On 12th October 1846 at the Michaelmas Court held at the hall of the company of Merchant Adventurers of York, G. Hudson Esq. MP was given the freedom of the Company.

By 1848 there had also been failings in his railway companies, and with shareholders expecting big profits and dividends he boosted the dividend from the company's capital leading to financial problems. These were found out when the accounts were investigated by a shareholder's committee under the chairmanship of John Swann following a shareholder's meeting held at the De Grey Rooms on 20 February 1849. Hudson's shady dealings enabled the other directors who had acquiesced, actively or by neglect to escape penalty leaving Hudson to make compensation to the railways.

The directors arranged in March 1849 for one of their agents to meet an agent nominated by Hudson to settle compensation, but Hudson was overpaid, as the directors minutes show, and in November, 1849, it was necessary to seek repayment, only obtained with great difficulty in the Bankruptcy Court. With his railway career at an end, the bankrupt Hudson was considered to have brought shame on all who associated with him. Among those embarrassed were the YNMR, the Midland Railway and the City of York, whose people wanted nothing more to do with him. They tore down a statue of Hudson outside the original station, replacing it with one of George Leeman, first chairman of the North Eastern Railway, and George Hudson Street was unceremoniously renamed Railway Street. It took them until the city's 1,900th anniversary in 1971 to bury the hatchet and honour Hudson for the good he had done in making York the railway centre it is. Railway Street again became George Hudson Street and, as a private gesture, the Adelphi Hotel in that street was renamed The Railway King. After his downfall Hudson went abroad, becoming poverty stricken until helped by former friends. He returned to the UK in 1870 following the abolition of imprisonment for debt. He became ill while visiting York and returned to his home in London where he died on 14th December 1871. His body was returned to Yorkappropriately by rail six days later where at 9.30 am a simple and unostentatious funeral procession passed through York to the sound of the Minster and other church bells as tradesmen closed their shutters and people lined the streets. The hearse continued to Scrayingham where he was buried to the west of the porch at St Peter's church with other members of the Hudson family. At the time of his death the former millionaire had assets of less than £200.

Hudson once declared that he was happiest serving behind the shop counter and the worst thing in his life was inheriting the fortune which led him to the railways and misfortune.

George Hudson, Rail King, lies at Scrayingham
This network of lines he was laying 'em.
He financed steel wares
By flaunting his shares;
But he ran out of steam over-paying 'em

George Townsend Andrews

G T Andrews was born in Exeter on 19 December 1804. His father John Daniel Andrews (1777-1836) made his living in Jamaica where he had married Eliza Panton in 1800. George became a pupil of Peter Frederick Robinson (1776-1858) a fashionable architect with a taste of the picturesque. In 1825 Robinson won a competition for the design of the Yorkshire County Gaol at York Castle. He sent George to York as his partner to supervise this major work. He became involved with a number of business ventures other than railways including the enlargement of Castle Mills Bridge for the River Foss Navigation, and the ill-fated Durham County Coal Company.

A friend of Hudson probably from 1830 when he remodeled Hudson's house at 44 Monkgate. In the early 1830s he designed a head office for the York City & County Bank of which he later became a director, almost simultaneously with G Hudson's York Union Bank which was founded in 1833. He became a member of the Provisional Committee of the York & North Midland Railway when it was established in October 1835 and was one of the group that drew up the company's prospectus. He appears to have designed all the building erected by that company from August 1839 until early 1849, work to a value of £515,284. He designed the first York station, erected jointly by York & North Midland Railway and the Great North of England Railway which lead to work on on the GNE line between York and Northallerton. By the 1840s his career was riding high and in 1846-7 when Hudson was in his third term as Lord Mayor of York, George was his Sheriff.

However in February 1849 they fell out when George refused to reduce his fees on Hudson's development of a new town on Whitby's West Cliff. Hudson employed John Dobson as architect for this project. This and Hudson's downfall caused George's regular supply of railway work to cease. Shareholders displayed outrage at the "wanton extravagance which has prevailed in the erection of the station buildings ....... the Architect appears to have been permitted to do pretty much as he pleased", not that this had worried them in happier times. While he should have been able the weather the financial storm this caused him with his other works he speculated badly and the result was the assignment of his assets to creditors in October 1852 and the sale of his art collection. He made his chief clerk, Rawlins Gould, a partner in the summer of 1855, made his will on 27 September and died on 29 December 1855.

Besides the Station at Stockton, George has other connections with the village. He was the architect when Holy Trinity was rebuilt in 1843. William Wilkinson Wilberforce a farmer in Stockton from c1850s was originally apprenticed to George during the 1840s finishing his articles in 1849. Thomas Price, son in law of Hall Plumer of Stockton Hallwas to become a patron providing work for George on the design of the head offices for both the City & County Bank and Yorkshire Insurance buildings.

George's signature from a jury summons of 30 December 1846 when he was Sheriff of York. (original in York City Archives).

GT Andrew's Station Style

Features that became a trademark of Andrew's designs for stations include - a two storey house ranged parallel to the road at a level crossing, coupled with chimneys linked by a prominent arch and in the gable a coupled pair of small round arched windows. Some had an entrance portico and bay window.

During the period 1845-8 his designs had settled down and most stations were located at level crossings and took the form of a three-bay, two-storey house with its principal frontage to the road. A short one storey office range extended behind, along the platform, the office roof normally being continued down onto cast-iron columns to provide some shelter. The domestic accommodation was spacious, without being unduly large by the standards of the time. A sitting room was provided on the ground floor, with a kitchen projecting to the side or rear, and there were three bedrooms upstairs. There were no bathrooms of course and water was commonly drawn by hand pump from an individual well. The platform end of the main range was occupied by the office, with a canted bay window giving the stationmaster a view along both tracks. There seems to have been either one or two waiting rooms originally, and these were often augmented later by extensions to the platform wing.

Except where stone was a traditional material, the stations were built of local clamp brick, with contrasting lintels of a finely-jointed orange gauged brick. Plinths were normally of Bramley Fall gritstone, cills of sandstone, while a deep sandstone plat band was usually employed. Shallow-pitched roofs, with a considerable overhang, contributed to the markedly Italianate appearance of these modest villas, further enhanced by the common provision of coupled chimneys.

The roadside facade centred on the entrance, which was most frequently emphasised by a bold sandstone doorcase, which is a simplified version of the entrance to the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. In exceptional cases a small portico was provided with four square columns and responding pilasters, which masked the presence of two doorways; public and private.

Messrs Jackson and Bean

Jackson and Bean were awarded the contract for building the main double line works of the original line to Market Weighton.

Burton and Son of London

Burton and Son constructed the stations under the direction the architect, G. T. Andrews.

Mr. John C Birkinshaw

Mr. T Jackson Jnr. of Mottingham, Kent

Mr. Jackson Jnr., son of original contractor, was the contractor who worked on the extension of the line to Beverley.