Plateways, characterized by their flat-topped rails or “plates” often laid on stone blocks, were designed to be pulled by horses. These early railways were primarily for private transport of goods – usually for canals, mines or factories. The Surrey Iron Railway was in essence a public railway, being accessible to any individual or company willing to pay tolls. Its engineer was William Jessop, who had designed earlier plateways for a number of canal systems. The passing of an Act of Parliament in 1801 granted permission for the construction of the Surrey Iron Railway, often claimed to be inadvertently labelled as the ‘world’s first public railway.’ As shall be seen in a moment, the world’s first public railway was indeed the Surrey Iron and not any others as has so often been asserted.
The Surrey Iron Railway Coat of Arms. Facebook.
Transport firsts?
Transport firsts are difficult to evaluate, but there is one thing that’s certain. We British seem to think we have many firsts in terms of transport. But for example, when the ‘first’ of the canals were being built in this country (starting with the Bridgewater Canal of 1769) its sobering that artificial waterways had been built centuries before such as the Fossdyke, the New River (including aqueducts, lengthy tunnels) and the Wey Navigation. Even self-propelled road vehicles were already a reality at the time the Bridgewater canal was opened thus technology was already in a sense ahead of the desire for artificial waterways. Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot’s Fardier à vapeur showed its first ever paces in 1769. And even railways, which had first appeared in the UK perhaps a century before hand, were followed by other examples during the 18th Century. In 1801 Richard Trevithick built a steam propelled road vehicle and by 1804 he had built one that ran upon a railway. Even in 1803 he successfully ran what was known as the London Steam Carriage and a passenger carrying vehicle. Certainly the issue at stake was one of a matter of convenience and that is perhaps where the Surrey Iron Railway and others sort of had won the day because they proved to be an easy means (of sorts) of transporting large quantities of goods by other means than a canal.
Most of these were hampered by limitations, including pulling power and the tonnage that could be carried. Thus the only practical and true means of large scale conveyance in 1803 was transport by barge or horse drawn plateway. There was no arguing that water had long been the most consistent form of transporting heavy stuff for centuries. Hence its interesting the Surrey Iron Railway attempted to buck the trend – first by not exactly having a reliance upon a waterway as the main flow of its goods was to the waterway in question (the Thames) – but also having a railway with a length far in excess of anything previous. That posed another problem – land. This had to be acquired before the company could build any track.
The Surrey Iron Railway – was it the first of its type?
Many often bill the Surrey Iron as being the first public railway in the world. It has been agreed there were other lines worthy of this title, thus the Surrey Iron Railway has been re-evaluated as not exactly being the world’s first public railway. However the Surrey Iron Railway was the first of its kind even though others claim the Lake Lock Rail Road has that honour. The difference is the Lake Lock, also a public railway, was a feeder to the Aire and Calder Navigation (essentially a canalised river). The Surrey Iron Railway was not a feeder to any canal or canalised river. It did have a short canal at its northern end however the purpose of this canal was to permit traffic off the Thames into a safe haven where barges could be unloaded. Hence the Surrey Iron Railway stood independent of the country’s many artificial waterways.
Lake Lock was pretty much the same as many other iron rail roads or waggonways – the Little Eaton tramway, the Consall Forge and the Cauldon Low tramways, or the quarry and limestone lines such as at Pentrefelin or Llanymynech that fed into the Ellesmere and Montgomery canals in Shropshire and Wales. The Ashby, Ticknall and Cloud Hill tramway was a horse plateway which opened one year before the Surrey Iron Railway and like a number of others, it closed in the first part of the 20th Century.
All had been built to serve a man made waterway and perhaps more importantly they were built on land already owned by the proprietors concerned. This was the philosophy that William Jessop and Thomas Telford practised – that canals were the main transport artery and waggonways, plateways or tramways, were a feeder. Take also the Penydarren tramroad of 1804. It captured attention with a first ever use of steam traction on an iron road. This was Trevithick’s famous locomotive which some view as the real precursor of the modern railway rather than the Stockton and Darlington. There’s no doubt as soon as the Surrey Iron Railway had begun business, it had little future upon which to build any success.
What is important in terms of the Surrey Iron Railway being at the top of the list, it was almost certainly the world’s first public railway without dependence upon a canal. It had no land to speak of and thus had to legally acquire land for its route. The act authorising the line was what one observer called a ‘pure railway bill’ (Google Books):
Perhaps the first railway to work free from a canal, for any length right out, was the Surrey Iron Railway, for which an Act of Parliament was passed in 1801, and another in 1803; so that the whole length was 21 miles, reaching from the quarries at Merstham, Reigate and Godstone, to Croydon and the Thames at Wandsworth. (Google Books).
The Surrey Iron Railway’s Act of Parliament makes it the first
The Surrey Iron Railway’s claim to being the first ever was by diligence of its having to obtain an Act of Parliament. Thus it was the first to be obtained for a railway. 1 The Lake Lock and others were built mainly on land belonging to the owners thus they did not need legislation. At the absolute minimum, it was the Act of Parliament and the need to compulsorily acquire the necessary land for its route that the Surrey Iron Railway can be viewed as the first of what would be numerous examples of railways across the UK (and indeed elsewhere) to be established by this very process.
The Surrey Iron Railway’s problem was, unlike the canals and their railways, it did not work effectively because private enterprise had to be brought in to operate its trains. In a sense it was an early lesson for Governments that have tried to privatise railway systems. How does one encourage private enterprise upon a system that needs a considerable degree of regulation? On a canal, a private operator could carry enormous amounts of tonnage on a single vessel. Not only that the canal gave considerable amounts of flexibility too. On the Surrey Iron Railway to achieve the same tonnage required an inordinately long train be used. Because the aggregates, coals, wares, were split up among numerous waggons, more manpower was needed to load and unload the individual waggons. Compared to a canal, the safety factor, indeed the standardisation of the waggons, became quite a critical factor thus there was far less flexibility – even though the aim of the Surrey Iron Railway had been that of promoting waggons that could be used either on the roads or on the railway itself.
Model of how the iron railway may have looked. This can be seen in the Wandle Industrial Museum at Mitcham.
As a result the Surrey Iron Railway was not even “superior in every respect to the old and sluggish canal.” (Frederick Williams 1852). The iron railway was indeed touted as being faster but in overall terms including transfers and regular plateway breakages, it proved sort of contrived and was not exactly superior to a canal nor even by this time a burgeoning roads network – much improved with the use of macadam and tar. Thus the Surrey Iron Railway was a concept that wasn’t to be.
There’s no doubt the Surrey Iron Railway used cranes to speed up work, and its waggons had side doors to facilitate unloading. It seems even some waggons had an experimental design that allowed them to be tipped and unloaded faster. Even so, the Surrey Iron Railway was, in a modern sense, what Beeching would deemed an old fashioned type of intensive manpower operation of the type he despised.
A short haul waggon way connected to a canal worked considerably well – and its why several such systems lasted into the early 20th Century. As a stand alone system the Surrey Iron Railway failed, having struggled to make money even. Those with an eye for business saw little reason in owning a waggon on the Iron Railway compared to having one on the roads. The former required tolls to be paid whilst the latter was toll free – something the railway had no answer for. If the company had permitted a free-for all on its line, how would a vastly increased maintenance routine – as well as continual breakage of the iron rails – be paid for?
Other considerations in terms of being first
A slightly different way of evaluating which railway had been the most important in terms of history, is the Surrey Iron Railway had substantially been the first railway ever to capture the world’s attention – and that because it was sited in the metropolitan area which constituted London and its outlying areas. The line’s call to fame was that it was not just one of a kind (like other plateways) but that it was a public railway – meaning anyone could use it. Farmers, proprietors and merchant men with a suitable wheeled wagon of the correct gauge and a sturdy horse, could upon acquiring a permit, be allowed to use the Surrey Iron Railway.
As for canals, there’s no doubt the Surrey Iron Railway built its own canal (just 625 metres or 2050 feet in length) at Wandsworth. The difference here was the iron railway was the master and the canal the servant. The Lake Lock railway is extolled as the very first to have conceived of a public line, however it was merely a 3 mile long feeder to the 34 mile long Aire and Calder Navigation. In comparison the Surrey Iron Railway was of substantial length at eight miles. Its extension to Merstham increased this to around seventeen miles. There was the hope a longer railway would substantially increase revenue and keep shareholders happy but that did not happen.
There is another first that can be attributed to the Surrey Iron Railway – it had the world’s first ever railway junction. This formed a location at Mitcham where the main line to Croydon and the one and quarter mile (2km) branch to Hackbridge went separate ways. Again it wasn’t a junction in the technical sense that had a signal box and signals protecting the different routes, so its down to interpretation. The Railway Gazette however does insist Mitcham had the world’s first ever junction.
Evidently any number of railway firsts depend on what is being implied and what the actual schematics happen to be. Some argue the Stockton and Darlington isn’t the first in the world because it actually started out as a horse drawn railway and it had entertained the idea of steam traction hauling passengers very late in the day. In fact its passenger service on 27th September 1825 was a special one-off. Its regular passenger trains were horse-drawn until 1833, thus no passenger steam hauled services were seen in those eight years apart from that one off special that had appeared on 27/09/1825! In a way its a bit of a cheat to claim the Stockton and Darlington’s 1825 had date marked the 200th anniversary of the UK’s railways. Maybe 1833 would have been a more truer milestone?
In terms of passenger operations, the Stockton and Darlington’s one off run on 27th September 1825 is little different from Trevithick’s 1804 attempt which had both goods and passengers (seventy men in all) conveyed by steam locomotive for nine miles from Penydarren to the Glamorganshire canal at Abercynon. Which truly had been the first passenger conveyance of those two lines? Was it 1804 or 1825? There’s no doubt the most magical rabbit to be pulled out of the hat wins the day.
One other milestone is the Surrey Iron Railway had been the first in the UK to shut completely – and that five years before another alleged ‘first’ – the Newmarket and Chesterford whose nine mile line from Six Mile Bottom to Great Chesterford closed in 1851. But that constituted a partial closure! The first really ought to be the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway, by decree of being an extension of the Surrey Iron Railway! Nevertheless it can be decreed both the Surrey and Merstham lines in fact had constituted what was Britain’s first ever large scale railway system closure!
The Surrey Iron Railway – a historical round-up
The Surrey Iron Railway ran for eight and half miles between Wandsworth and Croydon with a general ruling gradient of 1 in 120 (one inch per ten feet or 28.33 minutes of angle) up towards Croydon. It was a 4 ft 2 in (1,270 mm) railway line with flanges set on the rails instead of the wheels, so the line is more accurately known as a plateway. A footpath was provided alongside the entire length of the railway. The whole undertaking was designed by William Jessop with George Leather as resident engineer and the firm of Jessop and Outram as contractors.
The course of the railway between Wandsworth and Croydon. Facebook.
The Hereford Journal of 3 June 1801 reports: “The Surrey iron railway promises to be one of the most useful public works that have of late been undertaken for the improvement of the country. The iron roads are excellent substitutes for the canals and in some instances superior to them. This iron railway commencing at Wandsworth will in all probability be extended to Portsmouth…”
It is said the Surrey Iron Railway acquired approximately 61,000 stone blocks in all for its new line. The stone came from quarries at Cromford whilst the iron rails came from the nearby Butterley Ironworks. There’s certainly no doubt these materials intended for the new trackway had come by way of the newly established canal system. The Cromford Canal had opened in 1794 (see London Rail’s feature on this canal) and it would have been this which enabled the stones and rails to be taken forthwith down to the Trent via the Erewash Canal, and thence along the river to Shardlow where further onward transit was facilitated by way of the Trent and Mersey, Coventry and Oxford Canals. From there it would have been a moot point whether the transit had gone via the Southern Oxford Canal or the newly opened Grand Junction Canal. That via the Oxford Canal would have ensured continual transit right through to Wandsworth. That via the Grand Junction, well it would have depended on transhipment of the stones and rails via the Blisworth Hill Railway (an iron plateway built by William Jessop as a temporary means of connection the two completed sections of that canal while its troublesome tunnel at Blisworth was being built). That railway is covered on London Rail.
Perhaps the transits involved both routes, say the stones via Oxford and the iron rails via Blisworth, that is on account of the ease of transhipment of these. One curiosity in all this is the possibility that the Surrey Iron Railway (and its extension to Merstham) could have conceivably been transported upon another iron railway en route to Wandsworth! The Blisworth Hill Railway closed in March 1805 – but its track was not resold for other iron railways. This is because the ex Blisworth Hill trackage was largely reused for a temporary line from Gayton to Northampton until its relevant canal (the Northampton Arm of May 1815) could be completed.
In terms of the Surrey Iron Railway then being under construction, another was soon proposed. This was the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway. The Salisbury and Winchester Journal for 12th September 1803 reported a committee of the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway at the Bear Inn, Havant, on Friday 26th August 1803 convened “for the purpose of extending the said Railway to Portsmouth and London”. This was no doubt an intention to extend the line from Merstham to Portsmouth and from Wandsworth to London. Both the Surrey Iron Railway and the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway would be incorporated into a new company called the London and Portsmouth Iron Railway.
The Merstham extension involved a great amount of engineering including bridges, embankments and cuttings – and perhaps the earliest examples of such works in the south of England. There are examples of large scale engineering works in the north of England on earlier lines such as the Ashby, Ticknall and Cloud Hill or the Butterley Gangroad, but the Merstham extension was no doubt the first in southern England.
Continued in part two.
Source material used
This feature was originally penned in 2013 for the 210th anniversary of one of the earliest public railways. The Surrey Iron Railway of 1803 formerly ran between Wandsworth and Croydon. The original 2013 series were no doubt the first in-depth Internet guide covering the route of the former railway. Peter McGow’s intensive research on both Surrey Iron Railway and Croydon canal proved an excellent means of working out where these former transport routes had gone. McGow’s work is specialist & can only be seen at the Croydon archives or the Wandle Museum. Its not an actual hands on route guide, which is what this London Rail series is.
Derek Bayliss’ Retracing the First Public Railway (Surrey Iron Railway) and Retracing Canals to Croydon and Camberwell (Croydon and Grand Surrey canals), published in the 1980s, were intended as a more accessible guide covering both routes. Both Bayliss and McGow’s work proved an invaluable source. His Surrey Iron Railway work can be seen at the Wandle Museum, whilst that on the Croydon Canal is available only through the Croydon Local Studies Library and Archives. A comprehensive online guide to the Croydon Canal can be seen at London Canals.
Two other sources also were invaluable in this considerable updating of the 2013 work. These are F. G. Bing’s The Grand Surrey Iron Railway and Charles Lee’s The World’s First Public Railway – both published in 1931. These give a detail of the iron railway that isn’t possible these days, including information, observations and pictures.
The feature image is based on the Rotary Field sculpture sited in Purley. Good old hard work by the author with some help from AI created this fantastic image.
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