Stephen Halliday - London Underground

For more than two centuries before the development of the Underground, ideas had been put forward for dealing with Londons traffic problem. Most did not progress beyond the proposal stage. One, the forerunner of todays black cabs, was successful. The basic principles of another was incorporated into the Metropolitan Railway, the first Underground service to open, although the idea itself was never actually developed. This chapter covers some of the pioneering spirits behind these early ideas.

On a visit to Paris in 1828 George Shillibeer, a coachbuilder, admired the Omnibus service which had been introduced there by Stanislas Baudry after trials in his native Nantes. Shillibeer launched a similar service in London on 4th July 1829, using his specially designed vehicle, along the New Road, between Paddington Green and the Angel. He offered five services daily in each direction, charging the considerable sum of one shilling and sixpence for passengers inside the coach and one shilling for those outside. His newspaper advertisements emphasized that, a person of great respectability attends his Vehicle as Conductor; and every possible attention will be paid to the accommodation of ladies and children. Such reassurances were necessary for this novel form of transport as gentry were not accustomed to sharing conveyances with strangers. Sadly, the fares were too high for most and, having deposited his passengers at the Angel, Shillibeer was still leaving them to find their way into the City. Within a year Stanislas Baudry, faced with financial ruin, drowned himself in the Seine while George Shillibeer, more prudently, fled to France to escape his creditors. He later returned to England and, after a short spell in a debtors prison, emerged to redesign his omnibus as a funeral carriage (which it always resembled) and thereby recover his fortunes.

In 1855 William Moseley, an architect, put forward a scheme to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Metropolitan Communications. He proposed to build a railway below street level between St Pauls Cathedral and Oxford Circus, with a branch to Piccadilly Circus. It would be covered by a wrought-iron grid, free of traffic, along which pedestrians could walk for one penny and watch the trains beneath them. Tolls for bridges across the Thames were at this time commonplace so the idea of charging a penny to use such a footway was not outrageous. The footway itself would be enclosed within a glass canopy (hence the Crystal title) with shops, flats and hotels on either side. It would have been the original Victorian shopping mall. The trains would be pneumatic railways, driven by atmospheric pressure, thus generating neither steam nor smoke. The cost was estimated at 2 million. The Committee felt that this scheme, though ingenious, was not value for money and it had the additional and fatal flaw of not connecting with any of the main-line stations.

A more ambitious scheme came from Sir Joseph Paxton, the creator of the Crystal Palace. In 1855 he proposed a railway 12 miles long, linking all of Londons mainline termini and crossing the Thames three times. It would be built above ground and, like Moseleys, be encased by a glass arcade with shops and houses on either side. The arcade would protect residents and shoppers from the smells of smoking chimneys and the stench of sewage flowing into the reeking Thames. It would for that reason alone have been a desirable area for pedestrians and, by linking all the main termini, would have removed a great deal of traffic from the streets. Paxton argued that for the fortunate residents the atmosphere would be almost equal to going to a foreign climate [and] would prevent many infirm persons being obliged to go into foreign countries in the winter! Once again a pneumatic railway was proposed and Paxton suggested that the staggering cost of 34 million for the patriotically named Great Victorian Way should be underwritten by the Treasury. The MPs, while noting its many features of remarkable novelty, felt that the scheme was rather too costly.