Joseph Locke

by Joseph Locke- Civil Engineer

  Joseph and Phoebe never had children, but in 1848 they adopted an infant, Minna Maurice, who soon became Minna Locke and was always referred to as ‘our daughter’. The picture we have of family life is sketchy, but there is nothing to suggest that Joseph and Phoebe were anything other than a happy couple and she must have had a degree of stoicism to cope with both her disabilities and a husband whose work constantly took him away from home.

  Chapter Six

  THE LONDON AND SOUTHAMPTON RAILWAY

  Even before work on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway had been completed, work was advancing on other lines in the region. The main line was joined by a branch to Wigan, which in turn was followed by plans for a further extension from Wigan to Preston. The two lines were then amalgamated to create the North Union Railway. Other companies were also looking for future developments, and, as a result, engineers of proven ability were in great demand. Locke was now very definitely one of those men. He had already worked with Charles Vignoles to produce plans for a line from Manchester to the Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal, and Vignoles himself was to go on to become Chief Engineer for the North Union. It was all a great flurry of activity, with rival schemes all attempting to find their place in the profitable expansion.

  While all this was going on, the proprietors of the Grand Junction began to think in terms of expansion north, with a line to Scotland. They asked Locke to survey a possible route and report on its feasibility. He set off to journey over the northern fells to the Southern Uplands across the border and duly put in his report – The London and Glasgow Railway through Lancashire in 1836. It was not exactly an in-depth study, running to just three pages in the printed edition. For whatever reason, the Grand Junction directors were in no hurry to push onward across the border. However, with connections now made to Preston, it seemed sensible to move on even further north to Lancaster. In 1836 Locke was asked to survey the route and he produced two reports, as a result of which he was invited to take on the job of Chief Engineer, which he accepted.

  By this time, Locke’s reputation was assured as a safe pair of hands, a man who could bring a line in on time and on or even under budget. He put in his estimate for the total cost at £250,000, a very modest £12,500 per mile. To put this in perspective, the Dublin & Kingston Railway, opened in 1834 and just 6 miles long, had cost a staggering £50,000 per mile. Needless to say, the directors were greatly cheered when they saw the figures and anticipated substantial profits. Things did not go quite as planned. Building the line presented few problems; the whole route lay along the flat coastal plain. It was an obvious line, following the existing turnpike road and closely copied in more recent times by the M6. It was so straightforward that the busy young engineer felt confident enough to hand over most of the supervison to an assistant. Then the troubles started. They began when the government insisted that the planned bridges were inadequate: they had to be built higher and with more substantial abutments. Then the tricky business of land purchase brought new difficulties. £25,000 had been allowed for this; in the event the cost rose to £90,000.

  One important decision that had to be taken was the siting of the terminus. It was decided to build the station in Dock Street close to the Lancaster Canal, in the expectation that there would be a connection with the North Union line. But the latter Company built their station 200 yards away. It was typical of the age that companies were often more concerned with protecting their own interests as they saw them, rather than considering the convenience of passengers. It was a fact of railway construction that Locke was to denounce later in life (see p.90). The two companies that could usefully have co-operated saw themselves more as rivals. Eventually common sense did prevail: the companies were merged, the lines joined and Carlisle residents had just the one station to go to for all their trains.

  Taking over the North Union proved, however, something of a mixed blessing. Vignoles had rather overestimated the power of locomotives available to work the line. He had more difficult country to work in than Locke but was quite prepared to take a direct line up quite steep slopes, and the tough gradient on the stretch of line running to the west of Chorley was particularly demanding. It was said that in the early days the guard often had to call for help from passengers to get out and help give the engine a shove to get it started up the bank: the request only went to the third class. Even without the need to get out and push it was notoriously slow and it was not unknown for passengers who just missed a train to be encouraged to trot after it and clamber aboard.

  Locke may have exceeded his original budget as the final cost was £400,000 not the estimated £250,000. The directors must have been disappointed to find the man they had chosen for his ability to keep down costs had not managed to do so. They could, however, console themselves with the thought that it was still cheaper than any other railway under construction at that time. The cost of £20,000 was still less than half that of the Dublin & Kingston Railway and compared very favourably with the neighbouring North Union at £30,000. And it was still cheaper than Locke’s earlier Grand Junction, though that was only to be expected given the difference in engineering work involved. The miscalculation did nothing to dent Locke’s reputation as a sound man who could be relied on to get things done competently, on time and at low cost.

  Joseph Locke had come a long way from the happy-go-lucky boy who had skipped in and out of a variety of jobs before having had the immense good fortune of being taken under the wing of George Stephenson. That he had been forced to disagree with his mentor had undoubtedly cast a dark shadow over the life of the young man, but now he had no need to rely on his association with any more experienced engineer; he had earned his own place in the world. His status was confirmed in February 1838 when he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, the country’s most prestigious scientific organisation. It seems a little odd to us today as, whatever his achievements might have been, he would hardly be considered nowadays as having advanced science in any way, or even at this stage made any important new contribution to technology apart from the introduction of the doubleheaded rail. Those who proposed him were mostly other engineers, including Brunel and Rastrick. There was one scientist among the nominees, Dr Dionysius Lardner, who is mostly famous these days for very unscientific predictions: steamships could never cross the Atlantic and travelling through Box tunnel by train would inevitably prove fatal. The reasons given for proposing him seemed to rest on his work on the Grand Junction and for being ‘a gentleman well conversant with every aspect of practical science.’ What makes it even more surprising is that no similar honour had yet been offered to Robert Stephenson, who with the design of Rocket had transformed locomotive development. Those involved must have known of Locke’s falling out with George Stephenson and this could have been their way of showing their support for the careful approach to construction contracts as opposed to the rather slapdash methods of the older man. Robert Stephenson finally got the initial F.R.S. behind his name in 1849.

  While Locke was still at work in the northwest, a number of Lancashire investors had put money into a new line from London to Southampton. The idea had first been mooted in 1830. There were several reasons why the line was thought desirable. The Napoleonic wars were still fresh in the memory and there were many who saw Southampton as the ideal deep-sea port as the entrance to the Solent could easily be protected from attack from the sea. At that time packet boats from the continent were mostly docking at Falmouth, which meant there was a long, slow land journey before despatches could reach London. Devey spelled out other advantages:

  Then there were the Torbay fisheries, the produce of which was often found rotting in Southampton for want of a speedy communication with London; and the merchant vessels, which instead of discharging their cargoes at an opportune harbour, were obliged to pass round the North Foreland; and proceed at a snail’s pace up the blockaded Thames.

  He went on to suggest that Southampton could also be the major port for vessels from the Far E
ast, bringing ‘the jewels of Delhi and the silks of Cashmere.’ There was only one problem: although Southampton had been an important port since Roman times, it lacked modern facilities, so the original proposal included provision for building a new dock complex. A prospectus for the Southampton, London & Branch Railway & Dock Company was duly issued; the branch referred to was one that was planned to run from the main line towards Bath and Bristol. Francis Giles was appointed as the engineer to survey the route for the proposed main line. He was a very experienced engineer, born in 1787, who had been trained as a surveyor and spent the earlier part of his working life with the elder John Rennie. He had been involved in a number of important canal projects and, no doubt influenced by the Rennie connection, he was among those who were opposed to George Stephenson’s appointment to the Liverpool & Manchester and famously remarked that ‘no engineer in his senses would go through Chat Moss if he wanted to make a railway from Liverpool to Manchester.’ He prophesied that even if a line were constructed, the first locomotive that tried to use it would sink to the bottom of the bog. Perhaps his rather conservative and cautious outlook made him seem an ideal candidate for the role of Chief Engineer for the proposed line. He was, in any case, one of the few engineers who already had railway experience, thanks to his work in the construction of the Newcastle & Carlisle.

  The first survey completed, the original promoters felt able to raise the capital to go to Parliament and Giles set off again to do a second survey to meet the more rigorous demands of the official application for an Act. In the event, the decision was taken to hold back on bringing forward their Bill until after the London & Birmingham Bill had been approved, reasoning that if that major trunk route from London went through, there would be an easier passage for the next route from the capital. This was indeed the case, but they were no longer alone in thinking of lines to the south west from London: Brunel’s Great Western put in an appearance and effectively scuppered the originally proposed branch line. It was also decided that dock development should be left to a separate company, so the only line now would be the main line.

  The Act was duly obtained and work began under Giles in 1834. The route was well chosen. The most direct route was made impossible by the great swelling rise of the South Downs that lay right across the potential track. Instead, the route headed out west through Wimbledon and on to weybridge and Basingstoke, before heading south for Winchester and Southampton. The London terminus was south of the river at Nine Elms, a site now occupied by the new Covent Garden flower market. There were four tunnels on the line: two of them were very close together and the most demanding to build, three quarters of a mile and 200 yards respectively at Popham Beacon, between Basingstoke and Winchester. The most troublesome works proposed in the plan, however, turned out not to be in tunnelling but in creating a deep cutting through the chalk at St George’s Hill near Weybridge. This proposal provided an opportunity to reverse a previous argument: now it was George Stephenson’s turn to produce scathing criticism of the cutting that would be over a hundred feet below the surface at its deepest point. Relationships between Giles and the Stephensons had never been very good; and Giles had already suffered the indignity of failing to gain the job of Chief Engineer for the London & Birmingham Railway, which had gone to young Robert. In the event, it was the Stephenson camp that triumphed, with success at Chat Moss and on the London to Birmingham line, while Giles was floundering on the new route to Southampton.

  Giles, like many engineers of the time, had more than one project on the go when he started on the London & Southampton line. That should not have been a problem, but he had made a fundamental mistake in parcelling up the works between a large number of small contractors. It was impossible for him to keep strict control over all of them and it seems that, left to their own devices, they did the easy work first and began to try to renegotiate contracts when things got more difficult. Work proceeded at an incredibly slow pace: in the first year only 2 miles of track had been completed and by early 1836, after nearly two years of work, the figure had only risen to 10 miles. There was increasing discontent among the shareholders, who felt that not only was the work going slowly, but was already showing signs of going over budget. A group led by the Lancashire investors, who were by now used to seeing construction carried out efficiently, protested. They called on the man they knew they could trust and sent Joseph Locke off to survey the works. His report could never have been other than critical. Giles resigned before he was pushed and, by the beginning of 1837, Locke was appointed as the new Chief Engineer.

  The line was notable for its use of ‘cut and fill’, with the spoil from cuttings being used to build embankments. This was particularly the case in the section between Basingstoke and Winchester that crossed the edge of the South Downs. This section was entrusted to the man who had proved himself on the Grand Junction, Thomas Brassey. In his biography of Brassey, published in 1872, Sir Arthur Helps discussed the relationship between the two men:

  It has been thought by some persons that Mr. Locke showed a spirit of favouritism for Mr. Brassey; and this is so far true, that Mr. Locke was always delighted to have Mr. Brassey as a coadjutor; but those who knew anything of the qualities of that eminent engineer, Mr. Locke, must be well aware that his regard as a man of business for any other man of business would have been founded upon no prejudices, and upon no unreasonable favouritism. To put the matter plainly, it was soon discovered that whenever Mr. Brassey had undertaken a contract on a line, the Engineer-in-chief had but little occasion for rigid supervision. Mr. Locke well knew that a bargain once concluded with Mr. Brassey would be exactly, I may say handsomely, fulfilled, and that no difficulties or contingencies would be made an excuse for delay, or an occasion for demanding any alterations in the terms of the contract.

  It was precisely because Locke had contractors who could be relied on to carry out his own carefully detailed instructions, which included a number of variations on the original route, that made his method of working so much more efficient than Giles. One of his first decisions was to reroute the line to avoid the deep St George’s cutting and it could well be that other important changes were made. One nineteenth-century report states that the line was originally laid using stone-sleeper blocks, but that was later changed to wooden sleepers. If that is the case, then we can assume that the older technique was employed by Giles and Locke would have changed to the new technology he had used on the Grand Junction. He also seems to have increased the weight of rail used. In evidence to a committee investigating ‘the deterioration of railway stock and road’ of 1843, he spoke firmly in favour of wooden sleepers and also gave his views on the appropriate weight of rail. He noted that the Liverpool & Manchester Railway had initially been laid with rail weighing just 35lbs/yard, but that had been increased over the years to 75lbs/yard and he regarded that figure as perfectly adequate for doubleheaded rails. This was his likeliest choice for the London & Southampton track. As a result of his rerouting to avoid the deepest cutting and other improvements, he was able to tell the directors that the route would be open from London to Woking by 1 May 1838. He was as good as his word: the line was completed and once the official inspection had shown everything was in order, the directors set off from Nine Elms on 12 May and ended their journey 23 miles away at Woking Common. It was a more than ample vindication of the decision to replace Giles. The line was at once opened for business, and the Company were keen to make the most of their opportunities. Derby Day was only two weeks after the opening run and advertisements were placed for race day special trains. The effect was rather more than they had bargained for:

  A crowd of about 5,000 persons were found at the station gates. Several trains were despatched but still the throng increased, till at length, and amid the shrieks of the female portion of their number, the mob broke over the booking counter, leaped through the windows, invaded the platform and rushed pell mell into a train chartered by a private party. Finding resistance useless, the official sen
t for the Metropolitan Police and at twelve o’clock a notice was posted in the booking office window announcing that no more trains would run that day.

  It was a promising beginning, if not too promising. Doubts must have arisen about having a London terminus with a single platform. But there were inevitable delays in the work on the troublesome section south of Basingstoke, particularly with earth movement on the banks and cuttings, problems that plagued many early railway engineers, just as they had their canal predecessors. For a time this section had to be covered by stage coaches linking the completed part of this sections with the line running north from Southampton. Even so the whole line was declared officially open on 11 May 1840. This was no mean achievement considering Giles had only managed to oversee completion of ten miles in two years. Locke had been forced to revise the budget when he took command, raising it from one million to £1,507, 753. In the end, when all the costs were added up, the final bill came to £1,551, 914, a very modest overspend for a major project.

  with the route to Southampton completed, the decision was taken to extend the network with a branch to Portsmouth. However, the notion that the home of the Royal Navy should somehow be served by no more than a branch line from a mere mercantile marine port was clearly unacceptable to the locals. Portsmouth, they felt, deserved better, and they opened new negotiations with the London & Brighton Company as offering a possible alternative route to the capital. In the event the proposed line to Portsmouth failed to raise the necessary funds, and instead the London & Southampton Company promoted a simpler route to Gosport, and the Act of 1839 authorised a change of name to the London & South western Railway, which placated local feelings. It was the start of what was to become a major network over the coming years.