Hampshire heritage: The Greatest Railway Builder in the World

MANY of us are familiar with the names of eminent Victorian engineers Stephenson, Telford and Brunel. But few people in Hampshire, save possibly for the residents of Brassey Road in Winchester, have ever heard of Thomas Brassey, 1805-1870. And fewer still know much about him. Yet in his day he was regarded as the Greatest Railway Builder in the World. He was a towering figure of Victorian enterprise who built an astonishing number of railways not only in the British Isles but later in Europe and eventually around the world.

One of his earliest contracts in the 1830s was the line from Basingstoke to Winchester, awarded to him after the previous contractor was sacked following delays and cost over-runs. This critical infrastructure opened up a route from the capital to a major ocean-facing port, Southampton, for the first time. Whilst working on this line he moved his family to Winchester, also living for a time in Popham and Fareham. In the years after the link to Winchester opened in 1840 he worked on the lines to Portsmouth, Christchurch and Yeovil and built Salisbury Station. Crucially, with these local contracts, he developed a reputation for high standards of workmanship and delivering his contracts on time and in budget.

From 1841 Brassey spread his wings to continental Europe, initially in France but later in Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Russia, Poland and Romania. Even more ambitiously, he subsequently took on contracts in Canada, Australia, India, Syria, Persia, Argentina and Mauritius. By the time of his death in 1870 he had built a third of the lines in the UK and one mile in every twenty in the world, totalling around 6,500 miles.

Perhaps his most challenging project was the 539-mile Great Trunk Railway in Canada from Quebec to Toronto. This was over virgin land and required a two-mile bridge over the St Lawrence River at Montreal, then the longest in the world. It took five years to build, 1854-59, in harsh conditions.  Brassey manufactured and shipped everything he needed including  pre-fabricated bridges, rolling stock and engines from the Canada Works, his purpose-built factory in Birkenhead. And he transported 3,000 navvies, carpenters, bricklayers and masons to support the locally engaged labour, clearly an amazing feat of logistical organisation.

In 1854 Brassey made a bold patriotic gesture. The British Army was in severe difficulty in the Crimea as the road from the port of Balaclava to the front at Sevastopol had become an almost impassable muddy track. Brassey offered to build a railway, at cost.  In January 1855 he transported materials, supplies, rolling stock and 500 hundred men to the Crimea and in appalling winter conditions built the 40 mile railway in just six weeks, contributing greatly to the successful taking of Sevastopol the following September.

In his middle years, when railway contracts were becoming fewer, Brassey diversified by taking on the building of harbours and docks including the Victoria docks in London and those in Birkenhead, Greenock, Barrow and Callao in Peru. He also worked on the Calcutta Water Works, the Runcorn Bridge, the Thames Embankment and one of the major new sewers in London. At the time of his death, he was known to be working on plans for the Panama Canal and the Channel Tunnel.

Central to Brassey’s success was the loyalty he showed to his workers and the loyalty they showed to him in return. His workforce often exceeded 80,000 men spread over four continents. He built a strong team of trusted and skilled lieutenants who were able to earn modest fortunes of their own whilst in his employ. He treated them and his navvies with respect, paid them very well, fed them on beef (2lbs per man per day),  clothed and housed them, looked after them when injured or sick, and financially assisted their bereaved families. He also gave them tobacco and often provided a lending library. Paternalistically, he occasionally took on contracts just to keep his men employed and his dependable teams together. A contemporary correspondent once described him as:

A good plain man, close buttoned to his chin

Broad cloth without, an honest heart within

In addition to his brilliance with managing and inspiring employees, Brassey was technically skilled, possessed a shrewd business brain, had excellent judgement and a memory that served as his filing cabinet. His reputation for the quality of his work was summed up by his remark that he didn’t want his work to last 99 years but “At ninety-nine years, it should be as good as the day it was built”.  His word was his bond and he was universally admired. His energy was legendary and he died with his boots on at the age of 65 in 1870, leaving a fortune of £5.2 million, equivalent to around £600 million today.

Brassey was fortunate indeed to marry Maria who was by no means the traditional Victorian spouse. She not only bore him three sons but contributed greatly to his success as his counsellor, adviser and frequently interpreter as she spoke fluent French and helped him forge his breakthrough into continental contracts. With her help, Brassey achieved a near monopoly of railway contracts in France. Their three sons, Thomas, Henry and Albert, led successful lives, two becoming Members of Parliament with Thomas serving as the Governor of Victoria, later created Baron Brassey.

So, why is Thomas Brassey not more celebrated today? Perhaps more high-profile figures have taken all the limelight. He was certainly a relatively modest man, lacking in ostentation and self-promotion. Also, he carried a lot of information in his own head and did all his own correspondence, never employing a personal secretary. Consequently, very little of his company records survived, leaving few archives for historians to explore. In addition, his business also ran down fairly quickly after his death, as none of his sons had the talent or the inclination to follow their father.

Whatever the reason, there is certainly a case to be made for restoring Brassey to his rightful place as a great Victorian who was a pioneer in delivering the railway age on which much of the success of Britain’s industrial revolution and the integration of the British Empire was founded. Our Wintonian ancestors clearly remembered him by naming Brassey Road in Winchester after him. And our city can be proud that he cut his teeth on the railway line he built a hundred and eighty-five years ago and on which thousands of Hampshire folk still travel for business and pleasure every day.

On May 10, as part of the weekend celebrations at Micheldever Station commemorating the 185th anniversary of the opening of the line, an information board about Thomas Brassey will be unveiled by the Mayor, followed by a talk on his life at Warren Hall the following day. Further information about all the events of the weekend can be found on the Railway 200 website or by contacting Sue on stationadoptiongroupmicst@gmail.com.