The Last Journey of William Huskisson
Extract
This excerpt from the first part of The Last Journey of William Huskisson describes the build-up to the official opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Huskisson’s fatal accident was about two hours away.
The sky was brightening. For John Moss and the other
directors assembled at the company offices in Crown Street
it was already a day of triumph, whatever the ensuing
hours might bring. They had received word that the Duke
of Wellington, the Prime Minister, had arrived in Liverpool
safely, and was on his way, though there appeared to
be some delay. As they waited, they were encouraged by
the huge crowds and the morning’s papers.
Liverpool enjoyed a prosperous newspaper trade, and in
one week a resident might decide between the Courier,
the Mercury, the Journal, the Albion and the Liverpool
Times, and while there was little to divide them on subject
matter, they each twisted a Whiggish or Tory knife. Advertisements
and paid announcements anchored the front pages. Mr Gray,
of the Royal College of Surgeons, announced his annual
trip from London to Liverpool to fit clients with false
teeth, which were fixed “by capillary attraction
and the pressure of the atmosphere, thereby avoiding
pinning to stumps, tieing, twisting wires...” Courses
improving handwriting were popular, as were new treatments
for bile, nervous debility and slow fevers. The Siamese
twins at the King’s Arms Hotel were proving such
a draw that they were remaining in Liverpool until Saturday
25th, when, according to their promoter Captain Coffin, “they
must positively leave”. The day’s papers
carried news of a special medal to commemorate the opening
of the railway, “a beautiful and highly-finished
production that leaves its competitors far behind”.
A copy in gold had already been sent to the Duke of Wellington,
Sir Robert Peel and Mr Huskisson.
Crime and misadventure featured prominently. Accidents were invariably Melancholy. In the week of the railway opening, the papers had news of a melancholy event in Oxford Street, London, to a young man named James Rogers, a porter employed by Mr Benson, a grocer in Tottenham Court Road. “The unfortunate young man was crossing Oxford-street, carrying a heavy load, when he was suddenly knocked down by a large carriage dog that ran with great force between his legs, and most unfortunately at the same instant a cart was passing loaded with bricks, the wheel of which passed over his leg and thigh, which were fractured in a most shocking manner before the car-man had any power of stopping his horse.” There was so much sudden blood that another dog stopped to drink it. Assistance was immediately rendered to Rogers, and he was conveyed in a most deplorable condition to the hospital, where his family met him with long faces.
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