Lincoln Joins the Railway Age

Lincoln was one of the last major towns or cities to be linked by rail, a line from London to Cambridge had been proposed in 1825 and would have extended to York via Lincoln, this route was abandoned. In the event, the London to York line followed a route to the west of the River Trent mainly due to the lobbying of Doncaster’s MP, who believed that a line running through Lincoln would be detrimental to his town. 

Railway promoters became active again in 1833 when three routes were proposed through Lincoln. In March 1835 a Lincoln committee under the chairmanship of Thomas Norton, the City’s mayor, reported on the alternative routes. Again, nothing came of this move to bring the railway to Lincoln.

In 1845 a meeting of 6,000 people at the Beast Market ended in a free fight when the chairman, the Lincoln mayor, announced that the London to York line had won the right to serve Lincoln. Opponents complained that labourers had been brought at 2/- (10p) a piece to vote for the London to York project. George Hudson, “The Railway King“, had spent a lot of money opposing the line in favour of his Midland Railway. His boast was that he would bring a railway to Lincolnshire while the rest were still talking about it!

Hudson’s boast came true when the Midland Railway brought the first route into Lincoln from Nottingham. The line opened on 3rd August 1846, the first train left Nottingham at 9 am, stopping off at the various villages en route to pick up those invited to celebrate the new enterprise, and arriving at Lincoln at 11 am.

It was an important day for the city: the buildings and streets were decorated, the bells of the Cathedral and churches ringing peals at intervals, the band of the 4th Irish Dragoons played the “Railway Waltz” as two trains left the Midland Station, carrying local dignitaries and cannon were fired. The journey to Nottingham took almost 2 hours. The return journey was in heavy rain. A banquet was held in the National School in Silver Street.

Unfortunately there was a casualty of all the merriment: a man called Paul Harden has his leg shattered by the bursting of a cannon in the station yard. He was taken to the County Hospital where his leg was amputated.

The Great Northern Railway opened in 1848, this line was routed from Peterborough through rural Lincolnshire, via Sleaford. Lincoln now had two railways crossing the High Street. The town clerk was sent to London to enquire whether both lines could be routed through one crossing, but he was assured that the crossings would not have a detrimental affect on the flow of the road traffic using the High Street.

The Elegant Entrance Portico of the Midland Railway Station,
now part of St Mark's Shopping Centre

The coming of the railways completely transformed Lincoln’s communications with other parts of the country. The produce of Lincolnshire’s farms and factories could be easily transported and in return coal for homes and industry could be brought into the county. Travelling by mail coach to London took 13 hours whereas by train it would take a mere 4 hours: a businessman could leave Lincoln early in the morning transact his business in London and return home in the evening to sleep in his own bed. In less than 5 years railway lines radiated from Lincoln in all directions.

Prince Albert passed through Lincoln in 1849 to lay the foundation stone of the Grimsby docks.

On the 27th August 1851 Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the Prince of Wales had a brief stop at Lincoln, en route for Balmoral. An address was read by the Mayor and he presented the keys of the city, following Her Majesty’s reply some grapes That had been grown by Richard Ellison of Sudbrooke Holm. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, was a regular visitor to the city by train, mainly for the horse racing, as a guest of Henry Chaplin of Blankney Hall.

The Midland Station, otherwise known as St Mark’s Station, closed 11 May 1985, the Great Northern Station, now known as the Central Station continues to operate from St Mary’s Street.


First published on Wordpress 10th October 2013

By Mail Coach to London

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"Royal Mail" coach operated from
the Reindeer and the Saracens Head.

1828 Pigot & Co Directory

Before the arrival of the railways getting from point A to point B wasn't easy. Walking was probably the most common form of travel for most people, travelling by horse was for those who could afford it but the more fortunate would travel by Mail Coach.

The Mail Coach came into being in the late 18th century.  The period from 1810 to 1830 was the "Golden Age" of coach travel, road surfaces had improved and coaches could attain average speeds of 12 mph.

This is a record of the Journey by mail coach from Lincoln to London, before the arrival of the railway:

"Leaving Lincoln by the mail at 2 p.m., supping at Peterborough at 9, the traveller, after composing himself for an uneasy slumber about Yaxley Barracks (from whence the waters of Whittlesea Mere might be seen shimmering in the moonlight), grumbling through a weary night at the obstinate legs of his opposite neighbour, and sorely pinched in the small of the back, was only delivered, cold and cross, at the Spread Eagle, Gracechurch Street, about 5 the next morning. He had then the choice of going to bed, with feet like ice, in a fireless room, opening out on an open-air gallery (where a box was fixed for the barber to shave travellers), or of sulking in a fusty coffee-room till the waiters were astir and the world was aired." - The Lincoln Pocket Guide, Sir Charles H J Anderson.

Fifteen hours to London may seem slow to us today but in the early 19th century it must have been quite rapid.

People made their wills before they were "received into the York stage-coach, which performed the journey to London (if God permitted) in four days."

In 1786 the cost of a coach from Lincoln to London via Newark, Grantham, Stamford, etc. was £1 11s 6d (£1.58) for inside passengers and 15s 9d (£0.79) for the less fortunate on the outside.  To put the price into perspective, in 1797 an agricultural labourer earned £30.03 per annum and surgeons £174.95 per annum.

Denbigh Hall bridge which took the railway over Watling Street

With the arrival of the railways some enterprising coach operators saw an opportunity to take advantage of the faster method of travel.  In April 1838 Denbigh Hall Station opened at Denbigh near what is now Milton Keynes.  Denbigh Hall was a temporary terminus of the London and Birmingham railway.  A coach named "The Railway" departed from Lincoln's Saracen's Head Inn at Six o'clock Monday to Saturday mornings, breakfasting at eight at Sleaford, passing through Folkingham at 9.15, Bourne at 10.15, Greatford 11.00, Stamford 11.30, Duddington 12.00pm, Weldon 1.00, Kettering 2.00, Northampton for dinner at 3.30, arriving at Denbigh Hall at 6.15.  The 48 miles from there to Euston station, London took 2 hours by steam train.

Denbigh Hall Station closed in November 1838 when the railway continued north west to Birmingham.

It was noted in the Lincolnshire Chronicle of 10 May 1839, "Horses at our great April fair at Lincoln have not sold so well as usual, neither can they be expected, for the railways are superseding coaches and posting, and in a few years we shall neither require horses nor the oats to feed them".

Travelling by coach wasn't always plain sailing,
Lincolnshire Chronicle 13 July 1838

By 1841 the Lincoln Railway Coach was connecting at Blisworth railway station, an eleven hour journey.  Long distance coaching from Lincoln had more or less ceased by the late 1840s.

The demise of long distance coach travel had a retrograde effect on taverns and inns, in particular the hamlet of Spital-in-the-Street where the number of coaches supported two inns.

Click here to learn more about travel by mail coach

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The Schoolboy who Killed a King

John Hutchinson

Charles Brandon,
1st Duke of Norfolk

St Katherines Priory was a religious house of the Gilbertine Order, it stood on a site west of St Catherines, south of Sincil Drain and north of Hamilton Road. William Griffith, the last prior, surrendered the priory in 1535 to an agent of King Henry VIII. The property, and most of the monastic lands of Lincolnshire, was granted to Henry’s former brother in law, 

The stone from the priory was used to build, St Katherine’s Hall, a grand Elizabethan house. The house became the property of Sir Thomas Grantham, member of Parliament for Lincoln from 1604 to 1629, on the death of his father Vincent when Thomas was still a minor. The Grantham family had been prominent in Lincoln since the early 1400s and made their fortune as wool merchants.

In 1603 King James I stayed at St Katherine’s Hall on his journey to London, during his stay he knighted Thomas.

Some years later John Hutchinson, a pupil of Lincoln Grammar School at Greyfriars, lived at the Hall as a guest of Sir Thomas.  Hutchinson was more interested in military matters than academic subjects and later became a colonel on the parliamentarian side. During the Civil War Hutchinson was governor of Nottingham castle and refused on three occasions to surrender it to his Royalist Opponents.

Hutchinson was one of the 39 signatories of the death warrant of James I’s son, Charles I.

In October 1663 Hutchinson was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in what was known as the Farnley Wood Plot. Hutchinson was to be transported to the Isle Man, but instead was sent to Sandown Castle in Kent in May 1664, he died of a fever there on 11 September 1664, aged 49.

He was buried at St Margaret's Church, Owthorpe, Nottinghamshire.

Lincoln's Industrial Revolution

In The Decline and Rise of Lincoln I wrote about how Lincoln fell from its position as one of the most important cities in England to a rural backwater hardly able to support itself. Now I will cover the times when Lincoln grew in prosperity again but never regained it’s former importance. In 1821 Lincoln’s population was 11,776, while Boston’s, which gained the Staple from Lincoln in 1369, stood at 10,373.

Lincoln was about to go through immense change, Richard Ellison had purchased a 999 year lease on the Fosdyke Canal in 1740 and set about improving navigation on the canal and the river Witham east of Lincoln. Farm produce and others goods could be sent from Lincoln by barge to other parts of the country and coal and lime could be brought in. Lincoln, surrounded by agriculture, was late in embracing the Industrial Revolution.

It was the 1840s when the Industrial Revolution arrived in Lincoln.  These people made a massive contribution to the growth of prosperity of Lincoln, click on the links to learn about their companies
William Rainforth
Nathaniel Clayton and Joseph Shuttleworth
Richard Duckering
Robert Robey
William Foster
Joseph Ruston
John Cooke

... and many more here

Lincoln's Waterside Industrial Area Today 

Lincoln was one of the last major centres of population in England connected to the railway, the Midland Railway arrived in Lincoln in 1846 and the Great Northern in 1848, bringing with them traffic delays on Lincoln’s High Street.

In the period 1841 to 1861 Lincoln’s population grew by over 50% to almost 21,000, the population of St Swithin’s and St Peter at Gowts parishes, where most of the engineering firms were based, almost doubled.  At the end of the 19th century the population of Lincoln was 48,784 more than three times that of Boston.

Clayton & Shuttleworth's Iron Works in 1869

The Decline and Rise of Lincoln

Arms of the city of Lincoln 

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lincoln is one of nine cities and nine towns in England that were given the status “County of the City of …”, such places are called County Corporate.

Counties Corporate were created during the Middle Ages, and were effectively small self-governing counties of no prescribed size but usually including some surrounding countryside and villages. They usually covered towns or cities which were deemed to be important enough to be independent from their county. Each town or city’s charter was drafted according to its needs, in some cases there was a security issue which brought about the status, i.e. Poole was plagued by pirates so became County of the Town of Poole.

Lincoln's Stonebow,
Meetings of the Corporation/Council have been held here for five centuries  

While they were administratively distinct counties, with their own sheriffs, most of the counties corporate remained part of the “county at large” for purposes such as the county assize courts. From the 17th century the separate jurisdictions of the counties corporate were increasingly merged with that of the surrounding county, so that by the late 19th century the title was mostly a ceremonial one.

Lincoln’s County Corporate status was made by a Royal Charter dated 21st November 1409. The main points of the charter were:

• The election of two sheriffs instead of bailiffs.
• The city to be called the County and City of Lincoln.
• The Mayor to be the King’s Escheator¹.
• The power to render accounts to the King’s Exchequer by attorney.
• The Mayor and Sheriffs with four others to be justices of the peace, with defined jurisdiction.
• A yearly fair beginning fifteen days before the feast of the deposition of St. Hugh (17 November) and continuing for fifteen days after.
• The receipt in aid of the payment of the city rent of £180 of the annual rent of £6 paid to the Crown by the weavers of Lincoln; strictly and fully reserving the exemption from the jurisdiction of the City of the Cathedral Church, the Close, and the Dean and Chapter.

The Charter was witnessed at Westminster by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the bishops of London, Durham, and Bath and Wells, Edward duke of York, John earl of Somerset, chamberlain, John Typtot, treasurer, master John Prophete keeper of the Privy Seal, and John Stanley, steward of the household..

By the 15th century Lincoln’s fortunes were on the wane, it’s Jewish community, the second largest in he country after London, had been expelled 100 years before and in 1369 the Wool Staple² was moved to Boston: the population of Lincoln had fallen to its lowest level because of these reasons and the Black Death which ravaged most of England at this time. Buildings were demolished and the land was turned back to farming, even within the city walls. Lincoln’s population at this time was in the region of about 2,000, drastically down from its 6,000 at the time of the Conquest. Many churches were closed, some were demolished, there being parishes that were uninhabited.

Lincoln started to revive in the 18th century due to many factors, the main one being Richard Ellisons leasing and making navigable again the Fosdyke. The population grew and at the 1801 census there were over 7,200 people in Lincoln, and by 1901 the population had grown to nearly 49,000. The Industrial Revolution had arrived!

In 1466 a Charter was granted by Edward IV “to the Mayor Thomas Grantham and the citizens, in relief of the desolation and ruin which had come upon the city, that the villages of Braunstone, Wadyugtone, Bracebrigge and Canwik should be separated from the county and annexed to the county of the city, with the transfer of all jurisdiction of sheriffs etc., that all their inhabitants should contribute to "scot and lot" and all the charges of the city, and none be allowed to dwell within the liberties of the city who should refuse so to do… “

County Corporates were abolished through Government Acts in the 19th century, notably the Militia Act 1882 and Local Government Act 1888, Lincoln becoming part of Lincolnshire County Council but retaining it’s City Council status.

The list of Counties Corporate and when created

1. County of the City of …

• Canterbury (1471)
• Coventry (1451, abolished 1842)
• Exeter (1537)
• Lichfield (1556)
• Lincoln (1409)
• London (1132 until 1965)
• Norwich (1404)
• Worcestor (1622)
• York (1396)

2. County of the Town of

• Bristol (1373, City since 1542)
• Chester (1238/1239, City since 1541)
• Gloucester (1483, City since 1541)
• Newcastle upon Tyne (1400)
• Nottingham (1448)
• Poole (1571)
• Southampton (1447)

3. Borough and Town of …

• Berwick upon Tweed (1551)

4. Kingston upon Hull became County of Hullshire by charter of 1440, restricted to Town and County Kingston upon Hull in 1835

1 A person appointed to receive property of a person who died intestate.

2 Lincoln was originally granted the Wool Staple in 1313 due to the importance of its Cloth industry, its loss was a blow the Lincoln didn’t recover from for a very long time.

First published on Wordpress 1st May 2013

Click here to read the next part of this story

These Water Carriers Never Made It To Mesopotamia

I am sure most Lincolnians would understand the relevance of the title of this blogpost.

By Christmas 1914 the opposing armies of the First World War became bogged down in the mud and reached a stalemate: each dug trenches in the battlefields of France and Belgium to consolidate their positions.  

In 1915 the Admiralty Landship Committee, through the sponsorship of Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, was formed with the task of developing 'a machine, strongly armoured, carrying guns, capable of negotiating obstacles in the battle area and crossing opposing trenches'.

Major Walter Gordon Wilson of the Naval Air Service and William Tritton of William Foster & Co. Ltd., were commissioned by the Landship Committee to produce the first landship in secrecy.  

Fosters were an agricultural machinery manufacturer in Lincoln, their Traction Engines and threshing machines were world-renowned and had worked with Hornsby's of Grantham on the development of tracked vehicles.  Foster’s heavy Daimler tractors were already being used to move howitzer guns and other heavy equipment to and on the battlefield.

The main driving force behind the development of the landship was Colonel Swinton, he had witnessed tests of tracked vehicles for military use soon after the start of the war and saw their effectiveness in penetrating enemy positions.

Swinton laid down certain key criteria that were to be part of the finished design:  the landship must attain a minimum speed of 4 mph, be able to climb a five-foot-high obstacle, successfully span a five-foot trench, and be immune to the effects of small-arms fire.  Furthermore, it should possess two machine guns, have a range of twenty miles and be maintained by a crew of ten men.

To keep the development secret the team met in a room at the White Hart Hotel, Lincoln, which later became known as The Tank Room, and Fosters workers were told they were making ‘water-carriers for Mesopotamia’, which they shortened to ‘tank’.

Little Willie

It took just 37 days to produce a prototype, which was given the name 'Little Willie' (named after William Tritton.  Little Willie was tested on land adjoining Fosters Wellington works.  The tracks kept coming off so it was redesigned with tracks around the body and the profile was curved to assist with turning. this tank was called  'Big Willie', later renamed 'Mother'.

The Lincoln number 1 - This machine was developed in August 1915 and known as "Little Willie" after Sir William Tritton.

Mother - Officially named "His Majesty's Landship Centipede".  It first ran on 12th January 1916, it was tested at Burton Park near Lincoln and Hatfield, Hertfordshire.  It is the predecessor of all British heavy tanks.

Tanks were in full production in Lincoln by 1916, the original designs being improved as expertise and experience of using them grew, much of the production was outsourced to other engineering companies who had greater capacity, although Fosters were called upon to build tanks in World War II.

Mark I - The War Office placed an order for one hundred tanks in February 1916, 25 were built in Lincoln and 75 in Wednesbury.  First used at the Battle of Flers–Courcelette (Battle of the Somme) in September 1916, but they were limited in number and not used effectively, they suffered reliability problems.  The Battle of Cambrai in November 1917 saw the first use of tanks on a large scale when an advance of 5 miles was made.  The tank had changed the face of warfare.

Mark II & III - Sir Douglas Haig, the British Commander in Chief, placed an order for 1,000 tanks.  These were delivered between January and March 1917.

Mk IV Tank

Mark IV - The main improvements were in armour, the re-siting of the fuel tank and ease of transport. A total of 1,220 Mk IV were built: 420 "Males", 595 "Females" and 205 Tank Tenders (unarmed vehicles used to carry supplies), which made it the most numerous British tank of the war. The Mark IV was first used in mid-1917 at the Battle of Messines Ridge. It remained in British service until the end of the war, and a small number served briefly with other combatants afterwards. 100 were produced in Lincoln.

Tanks fitted with machine guns were known as "female", those armed with six-pounder guns "males"

At the end of the war, Fosters returned to agricultural engineering work.  In 1927 a new company was formed, Gwynne's Pumps, to acquire the Hammersmith Ironworks of Gwynne's Engineering Co which was in liquidation.  The manufacturing was later moved to Lincoln.  W Foster & Co and Gwynne's Pumps were acquired by W H Allen Sons & Co in 1961 and the Waterloo Street Foundry later demolished, but the road which runs through the tank testing site has been named Tritton Road in honour of Sir William Tritton.

Each town or city that raised money through War Bonds was offered a de-commissioned tank for display.  Lincoln's tank was sited at Wickham Gardens but eventually sold for scrap

The Museum of  Lincolnshire Life displays a Mark IV tank, known as Daphne built at Foster's in 1917 it saw action at the Battle of Cambrai.  At the end of the war it was one of the tanks sent to the Bovington Training Camp.  In the early 1980s the Bovington Tank Museum released Daphne on permanent loan to Lincoln City Council on condition it was restored.  The restoration by apprentices from Ruston Gas Turbines (Now known as Siemens) was completed in about 2 years.

Daphne at the Museum of Lincolnshire Life

10th May 2015 - A memorial to the designers and all those involved in the building of the Lincoln tank was unveiled.

Article originally posted on Wordpress 15-08-2013

What’s this Lincolnshire Stuff?

Posted on August 10, 2013

Lincolnshire Longwool Sheep

Lincolnshire Longwool was once one of the most important breeds of sheep in this country. These sheep made the fortunes of many families in Lincolnshire: the wool from the sheep was exported to Europe and the sheep were walked to London and killed for their mutton and lanolin.

By the late 18th century sales of Lincolnshire wool had been in decline for many years. The Revd Gideon Bouyer was Rector of Theddlethorpe St Helen and of Willoughby from 1771 to 1810, noticing the poverty and lack of work available in the area, founded a village school, set children spinning and started the Stuff Ball.

The first Stuff Ball was held at the Windmill Inn, Alford in 1785. Lincolnshire Stuff was the wool from the Lincolnshire Longwool, in the early days ladies would be given free admittance to the ball if they were wearing a dress made of Lincolnshire Stuff and the same for men if they were not wearing silk or linen; a different colour for the Stuff was chosen for each year to ensure the ladies always wore new dresses, the colour for the first ball was orange.

By 1789 the ball had become so popular it was moved to the County Assembly Rooms in Lincoln. The ball had been previously held in November but was moved to January.

Woollen dresses can be very warm during dancing and in 1803 the rule for free admittance was changed: the ladies were admitted free if they took six yards of the better stuff or 10 yards of the plainer material.

The Stuff Ball continued until 1929 but was revived in 1938, finally ending in 1947 when the Patroness, Lady Worsley, chose mauve and silver as the stuff colours.

The Lincoln Stuff factory was on the corner of the High Street and what is now Robey Street, becoming a boarding house after the Stuff trade declined and then subdivided in private houses.

Link: http://www.lincolnlongwools.co.uk/