London Midland & Scottish Railway CoBiographyBiographyDuring the First World War the government had taken control of the railways to co-ordinate the war effort. After the war ended it was decided that the railway companies could not competitively return to their prior state, and so the 120 existing railway companies were combined into four companies, which became known as the ‘Big Four’’.
The London Midland and Scottish Railway, also known as the LMS, was founded on 1 January 1923. The London and North Western Railway (LNWR), Midland Railway (MR), Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (LYR), North Staffordshire Railway (NSR), Highland Railway (HR), Furness Railway (FR), Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) and Caledonian Railway (CR) were merged. These eight large constituent companies were joined by 27 other smaller subsidiary railways. The LMS covered the Western half of the country, stretching from the London and the Midlands, through Yorkshire, Lancashire, and up to Scotland. In all the LMS had a total of 7,790 miles of track, which made it the largest railway of the Big Four.
The London termini of the LMS were St. Pancras and Euston stations and it had works at Crewe, Horwich, Wolverton and Derby amongst other locations. In 1934 the LMS moved into a new headquarters at Euston House on Seymour Street (later renamed Eversholt Street) in London.
Charles Napier Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence of Kingsgate was the first appointed chairman of LMS, he had previously been the chairman of the LNWR between 1921-1923. He was chairman of the LMS for one year, and was succeeded by Sir Guy Granet. The management structure was headed by a chairman and a deputy chairman, there was a board of directors that had initially had 20 members, made of men who previously worked for the constituent companies. The first General Manager was Arthur Watson from the LYR. There was a Deputy General Manager for Scotland, a post first held by D.A. Matthieson, formerly of the CR. J.H. Follows, from the Midland Railway, was the first Chief General Superintendent and S.H. Hunt, formerly of the LNWR, was the first Chief Goods Manager. The post of Chief Engineer was initially held by E.F.C. Trench, formerly employed by the LNWR. The first Chief Mechanical Engineer was G. Hughes from the LYR and his deputy was Sir Henry Fowler, from the Midland Railway. The management structure was re-organised from January 1926 and an Executive was set up, Sir Josiah Stamp was the first President of the Executive. From January 1927 four Vice-Presidents were appointed to replace the general managers on the Executive committee. The line was divided up for operational management into three geographical divisions, which were called Western, Midland and Northern. Each division was overseen by a General Superintendent who reported to the Chief General Superintendent.
The main line of the LMS ran from London Euston to Wick over 729 miles. The LMS ran a number of joint railways with the London & North Eastern Railway and the Southern Railway. It ran the Cheshire Lines Committee, the Midland and Great Northern line between Peterborough, the Norwich and Lowestoft and the Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham suburban line with the London & North Eastern Railway. It also joined forces with the Southern Railway to run the Somerset and Dorset line between Bath, Burnham and Bournemouth.
The LMS undertook a limited programme of electrification, mainly focusing on suburban lines in London and Manchester. The LMS owned many hotels, including the Queen’s Hotel in Leeds and the iconic Art Deco Midland Hotel at Morecombe Bay. The LMS also ran passenger steamers from Holyhead, Heysham and Stranraer over the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Following the 1947 Transport Act which nationalised the railways, the concerns of the LMS were taken over by the Railway Executive as part of the British Transport Committee. Within the Railway Executive, British Rail: London Midland Region assumed responsibility for the LMS’s former area of operations.
Cantlie, JamesBiographyBiographySir James Cantlie, physician and medical administrator, was born on 17 January 1851 at Keithmore Farm, Dufftown, Banffshire, Scotland, the eldest son of William and Janet Cantlie. His early education took place at a local school in the village of Drummuir and at Milne's Institution at Fochabers, Speyside. He graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 1871 with an MA in natural science before training in medicine at the same institution and graduating MB and CM with honourable distinction in 1873. Cantlie was appointed instructor of anatomy at Charing Cross Hospital, London, in the same year. He became an instructor in the St John Ambulance Association and in 1882 he joined the London Scottish Volunteers as a surgeon. In 1883 he played a part in the establishment of the Volunteer Medical Staff Corps, volunteering later that year for service in Egypt, where he developed an interest in tropical diseases.
Cantlie married Mabel Barclay Brown on 30 July 1884. They had four sons, Sir Keith Cantlie, (1886-1977), Admiral Sir Colin Cantlie (1888-1967), Lieutenant General Sir Neil Cantlie (1892-1975), and Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth R E Cantlie (1899-1986).
Cantlie was interested in the physical condition of the urban poor and wrote a paper entitled Degeneracy among Londoners which was read at the Parkes Museum in 1885. In 1887 he moved to Hong Kong where he practised medicine and established a medical college for Chinese students, the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese which later became the University of Hong Kong. One of the college’s first students was Sun Yat-Sen, who became the first president of the Chinese republic in 1911. In 1886 Cantlie was appointed advisor to the India Office when an epidemic of bubonic plague broke out in Bombay.
In 1896 Cantlie returned to London to take the chair of applied anatomy at Charing Cross Hospital. Soon afterwards, he was instrumental in obtaining the release of Sun Yat-Sen after his abduction by Chinese agents and detention at the Chinese legation in London.
Cantlie was a co-founder of the Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, which published its first edition in August 1898, and was its editor for the following 23 years. He also played a part in the establishment of the London School of Tropical Medicine which opened in 1899 and where he was the first surgeon and lecturer in tropical surgery. Cantlie’s book Physical Efficiency was published in 1906. He continued his involvement with St John Ambulance and was an adviser to the War Office on the establishment of the medical section of the Territorial Force (later the Territorial Army), formed in 1907.
Sir James Cantlie and his wife Lady Cantlie were commandants in the British Red Cross Society during the First World War. They founded a College of Ambulance and a humanitarian corps to aid those in medical need or poverty. Cantlie was appointed knight of the British Empire in 1918 and received an honorary LLD degree from the University of Aberdeen in 1919.
Lady Cantlie died on 21 December 1921 and Sir James passed away few years after her, on 28 May 1926 at Dorset Square, London, and was buried at Cottered cemetery, Buntingford, Hertfordshire.
