Edward Watkin
Sir Edward William Watkin, 1st Baronet (born September 26, 1819 in Salford , † April 13, 1901 in Manchester ) was a British manager and politician ( Liberal Party ). He was a Member of the House of Commons for over 30 years . He was chairman of several railway companies, including the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway , the South Eastern Railway and the Metropolitan Railway (the latter is now part of the London Underground network ). Watkin sought unsuccessfully to build a railway network under his control that would extend from the Midlands via London to Paris , for which purpose he wanted to build a tunnel under the English Channel . Another failed project was the Watkin's Tower .
biography
Railway manager
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He was the son of Absalom Watkin, a wealthy cotton merchant and a leading figure in the Anti-Corn Law League ; his mother's name was Elizabeth Watkinson. His brother Alfred Watkin, a trader, was Mayor of Manchester in 1873/74 . Edward Watkin received lessons in a private school and then began to work in his father's company. He was a member of the Manchester Athenaeum literary society and helped organize literary evenings. In 1845 he was secretary of a committee that raised money for the establishment of three public parks in Manchester and Salford . That same year he co-founded the Manchester Examiner newspaper .
In 1845 Watkin left the cotton trade behind and was then secretary of the Trent Valley Railway , which was sold to the London and Birmingham Railway at a large profit while it was still under construction ; this in turn went on in 1846 in the London and North Western Railway (LNWR). In the following years Watkin was assistant to Mark Huish , the managing director of the LNWR. In 1851 he traveled to North America to study the railroad there; a year later he published the report A Trip to the United States and Canada. In 1853 he was appointed managing director of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR). At the request of the Duke of Newcastle , then Minister of War and Colonialism, Watkin went to Canada in 1861 . He investigated ways of uniting the British colonies into one dominion and bringing the Northwest Territory administered by the Hudson's Bay Company under government control (both implemented by 1870). Another task was to put the Grand Trunk Railway's finances in order.
Watkin led the Grand Trunk Railway from London for two years before returning to MS&LR in 1863, which appointed him first director and in 1864 chairman. He held this position for the next 30 years. For a short time he also sat on the boards of the Great Eastern Railway and the Great Western Railway. For the Cheshire Lines Committee he realized a new railway line between Manchester and Liverpool . He was also involved in the realization of the railway between Athens and Piraeus . Through a merger of various companies initiated by him, he created a direct connection between Liverpool and South Wales , with a tunnel opened in 1886 under the Mersey .
Politician
Watkin, a member of the Liberal Party , was a member of the House of Commons for nearly three decades . He represented Great Yarmouth from 1857 to 1858, Stockport from 1864 to 1868 and Hythe from 1874 to 1895. Although he joined the Conservatives in 1885 , he often represented an independent, non-party opinion. From 1859 to 1862 he was a member of the Manchester City Council, and in 1874 he held the ceremonial office of High Sheriff of Cheshire .
Failed visions
In 1866 Watkin was appointed chairman of the South Eastern Railway (SER). Shortly after taking office, the troubled company slid into bankruptcy proceedings . After tough negotiations with creditors and competitors, he managed to avert bankruptcy. From 1872 he was also chairman of the London Metropolitan Railway (Met), whose route network expanded rapidly under his leadership. From Baker Street , the Met reached far into the counties of Middlesex , Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire within a few years . Watkin pursued the long-term vision of a coherent international rail network under his control. He was not only chairman of the MS&LR, the Met and the SER, but also a board member of the French railway company Compagnie des chemins de fer du Nord . Trains should run directly from Manchester and Liverpool via London to Paris , crossing under the English Channel in a tunnel.
In 1872 Watkin was a co-founder of the Submarine Railway Company , whose goal was to build the Channel Tunnel. From 1881 she carried out test bores with tunnel boring machines . On the English side, the Dover adit ran from 1,893 meters, while on the French side from Sangatte , 1,669 meters were drilled. Although Watkin had launched a massive PR campaign (he had invited the heir to the throne, William Ewart Gladstone and the Archbishop of Canterbury , among others, to banquets), the project met with fierce political opposition: One of the most prominent opponents was General Garnet Wolseley , who participated in the Tunnel saw a possible invasion route for French troops. Queen Victoria allegedly described the project as "reprehensible". In May 1882, the Board of Trade ordered an immediate halt to construction. Watkin tried several times through parliamentary channels to be allowed to resume the test drilling, but in vain. At least the connection from the Midlands to London was realized in the form of the Great Central Main Line, which opened in 1899 .
Watkin also had no success with a project in London. In 1891 he commissioned the construction of a monumental observation tower near the Wembley Park Met station . Watkin's Tower was to be 353 meters high and thus tower almost 30 meters above the recently opened Eiffel Tower in Paris. Due to financial difficulties, the construction work dragged on and in 1895 the tower was only around 47 meters high. It turned out that the settlement would cause it to collapse if it were continued. The tower stump known as Watkin's Folly ("Watkins Madness") was finally demolished in 1907.
Edward Watkin had to give up all his offices for health reasons in 1894, he died seven years later in Manchester. His son Alfred Mellor Watkin was also a member of the lower house (for the constituency of Grimsby ) from 1877 to 1880 .
literature
- John Neville Greaves: Sir Edward Watkin 1819-1901: the Last of the Railway Kings . Melrose Books, Ely 2014, ISBN 978-1-909757-32-5 .
- David Hodgkins: The Second Railway King . Merton Priory Press, Chesterfield 2002, ISBN 1-898937-49-4 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Watkin, Edward |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Watkin, Edward William, 1st Baronet |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British manager and politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 26, 1819 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Salford |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 13, 1901 |
| Place of death | Manchester |