The Railway King


Book Description

George Hudson - the eponymous Railway King - started his career with a stroke of luck, inheriting £27,000 (a fortune in 1827) from a distant relative. He invested successfully in the North Midland Railway, then formed his own Midland Railway, raising £5 million and bribing MPs along the way. But from his glory in 1845 he fell into disgrace, admitting corruption and selling land he did not own. He was eventually imprisoned in York Castle and died a broken man in 1871. His story provides an excellent insight into nineteenth-century politics and industrial progress, full of moral dilemmas and a testimony to the growth of the railways in Britain - a timely subject.




The Railway King


Book Description

George Hudson - the eponymous Railway King - started his career with a stroke of luck, inheriting u27,000 (a fortune in 1827) from a distant relative. He invested succesfully in the North Midland Railway, then formed his own Midland Railway, raising u5 million and bribing MP's along the way. But from his glory in 1845 he fell into disgrace, admitting corruption and selling land he did not own. He was eventually imprisoned in York Castle and died a broken man in 1871."







George Hudson: The Railway King


Book Description

George Hudson was the greatest British railway entrepreneur of the 19th century. In 1848, he controlled over 1,000 miles of railway and, when it came to railway promotion, it seemed he could do no wrong. However, in early 1849 it came to light that some of his business methods had been less than ethical and he was forced to relinquish the chairmanship of each of his companies. His fall from grace was spectacular and his detractors, of whom there were many, were quick to denounce him as a fraudster, a charlatan and a crook. Even today, when the name George Hudson is mentioned, these same insults are often levelled at him. This new biography takes a fresh look at Hudson’s extraordinary life, from his humble beginnings as a farmer’s boy, to becoming Lord Mayor of York before catching the railway bug. He was MP for Sunderland between 1845 and 1859. After his fall from grace, Hudson endured a 20-year court battle with the York and North Midland Railway (subsequently the North Eastern Railway) for outstanding debts. Hudson made many mistakes in creating his railway empire, but did he deserve all the vitriol that still accompanies his reputation? In seeking to answer this question, Matthew Wells looks at the evidence, including what was said about Hudson during his lifetime and what Hudson himself had to say about the actions he took.







The Railway King of Canada


Book Description

During the first two decades of this century, Sir William Mackenzie was one of Canada’s best-known entrepreneurs. He spearheaded some of the largest and most technologically advanced projects undertaken in Canada during his lifetime--building enterprises that became the foundations for such major institutions as Canadian National Railways, Brascan, and the Toronto Transit Commission. He built a business empire that stretched from Montreal to British Columbia and to Riod de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. It included gas, electric, telephone, and transit utilities, railroads, hotels, and steamshs, as well as substantial coal mining, whaling and timber interests. Along the way, he funded the first full-length documentary movie, received a knighthood from George V, and owned Canada’s largest newspaper, La Presse. He accumulated an enormous personal fortune, but when he died in 1923 his estate was virtually bankrupt as a result of the dramatic collapse of his Canadian Northern Railway during the First World War. In an era when the entrepreneur has come to be seen as a media hero and when struggles about the role of state enterprise in the transportation and energy sectors consume public policy debate, it is ironic that Mackenzie is largely forgotten by all but a few historians and railway aficionados. He left no papers to guide biographers. After a decade of gathering and piecing together fragments from an immense array of sources, Rae Fleming has written the first biography of the man that the German press extolled as the ‘Railway King of Canada.’







The Railway King


Book Description




Railway king


Book Description




The Railway King


Book Description