George Hudson

George Hudson (probably 10 March 1800 - 14 December 1871), English railway financier, known as the "Railway King", was born in Howsham, in the parish of Scrayingham in the East Riding of Yorkshire, north of Stamford Bridge, east of York. He is buried in Scrayingham. Aged 15 he fled his home village in disgrace after fathering a child, the year being 1815.

Career

Apprenticed to a firm of linen-drapers in York, he soon became a successful merchant, and in 1837 was elected lord mayor of York. Having inherited, in 1827, a sum of £30,000, he invested it in North Midland Railway shares, and was shortly afterwards appointed a director. In 1833 he had founded and for some time acted as manager of the York Banking Company.

Railways

He had for long believed in running a railway to York, and he took an active part in securing the passing of the York and North Midland Railway Bill, and was elected chairman of the new company with the line being opened in 1839. From this time he turned his attention to the proliferation of railways. In 1841 he initiated the Newcastle and Darlington line. With George Stephenson he planned and carried out the extension of the Midland to Newcastle, and by 1844 had over a thousand miles of railway under his control. In this year the mania for railway speculation was at its height, and no man was more courted than the "railway king". The name was conferred upon him by Sydney Smith.

Member of Parliament

Despite his personal wealth, he was presented with a tribute of £20,000. Deputy-lieutenant for Durham, and thrice lord mayor of York, he was elected the Conservative MP for Sunderland between 1849 and 1851 [Who's Who in British History. ISBN 1-85585-771 - 5. p 435] ; , the event being judged of such public interest that the news was conveyed to London by a special train, which travelled part of the way at the rate of 75 miles an hour.

Fraud and ruin

Full of rewards and honours, he was suddenly ruined by the disclosure of fraud in the Eastern Railway, along with the discovery of his bribery of MPs. Sunderland clung to her generous representative till 1859, but on the bursting of the bubble he had lost influence and fortune. His later life was chiefly spent on the continent. Some friends gave him a small annuity a short time before his death, which took place in London.

His name has been used to point the moral of vaulting ambition and unstable fortune, Thomas Carlyle calling him the "big swollen gambler" in one of the "Latter-Day Pamphlets".

He built the estate Baldersby Park, often referred to as the first palladian villa in England, between the small towns of Ripon and Thirsk. The mansion is now home to Queen Mary's School, a girls' independent school.

Memorials

Hudson House, on the site of the former York and North Midland Railway terminus in York, is named after him, as is George Hudson Street in the City of York running parallel to North Street.

References

Further reading

*A.J. Peacock and David Joy, "George Hudson of York", Dalesman, 1971.
*A. J.Arnold, and S. M. McCartney, "George Hudson: The Rise and Fall of the Railway King", London and New York: Hambeldon and London, 2004
*Lambert, Richard S. "The Railway King 1800-1871, a study of George Hudson and the Business Morals of his Times", George Allen and Unwin, 1964.

ee also

* Railway Mania

External links

* [http://freespace.virgin.net/owston.tj/hudson.htm Short biography] , bibliography and more

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