Leonard Raisbeck: Pioneer of the Stockton & Darlington Railway

Leonard Raisbeck's family made their fortune in the early 18th century in the Norwegian timber trade. Over the course of the 18th century the family acquired land near Stockton that served as their power base on which to build their social standing.

William Raisbeck (Leonard's great-grandfather), like his immediate male descendants, was a member of the Newcastle Merchant Adventurers guild and travelled widely as a merchant to conduct his business. Thomas Raisbeck (Leonard's grandfather) and John Staplyton Raisbeck (Leonard's father) had less roaming—if no less distinguished—careers. Thomas founded a solicitors firm in Stockton that John and later John's son, Leonard, would work at. It was in his capacity as a legal professional that Leonard would build his role as the first promoter of the Stockton & Darlington Railway and serve the S&DR as its joint solicitor.  

Raisbeck's father and grandfather had both been mayors of Stockton. He followed them into a civic position and helped dispense justice at a local level as Recorder of Stockton. He also served as Colonel of the Stockton Loyal Volunteers, a military unit raised to counter the threat of invasion during the early 19th century. Raisbeck's social prominence gave him the platform he needed to champion the cause of a railway.

RAIS/3/2/1 Science Museum Group Collection Image source for Scan of an early 19th century manuscript

The founding of the S&DR was not the first time a link had been proposed between Stockton, Darlington and the Durham coalfields. There had been an earlier attempt in the 1760s to construct a canal. The route was surveyed and some of the subscribers to the 1760s canal scheme bore family names such as Pease and Backhouse, whose families in future generations would come to be key players in the S&DR. Several reports regarding the early canal scheme can be found in the archive, which suggests that the 18th century canal scheme fed into the development of the S&DR.  

A revived canal scheme also served as the starting point for the project that would come to be the S&DR. The initial brief for a survey was meant to address this question, but due to a misunderstanding Rennie only surveyed the terrain for a canal. Raisbeck alerted Rennie to this oversight, but Rennie's calculations for the likely cost and prospects for a railway were conjecture. Despite the railway being cheaper, the Committee decided in their 1812 report that a canal was the way forward. However, the expense of any scheme proved to be unfeasible in a challenging economic environment.

The 1812 scheme did not happen, but the seed of the idea lived on and the later 1810s saw a public debate over the canal/railway issue. One flyer, penned by ‘A Stockton Tradesman,’ exclaimed that ‘We cannot have a Canal!’ and went on to outline the advantages of a railway over a canal principally focusing on the flexibility that a railway would offer. The stances taken on the canal/railway issue were linked to geopolitics, as different towns in County Durham jostled to have a share of the coal trade by virtue of being connected to the River Tees, the North Sea and beyond.  

Whilst the choice of a railway over a canal for the link between the coalfields and markets in County Durham and beyond can be seen as an inflection point in what was considered the most practical form of inland transport, railways and canals continued to have an intertwined history over the next century-and-a-half. The railway companies went on to own and operate canal companies, and both forms of transport went on to be managed together by the British Transport Commission until their eventual separation in 1963.

RAIS/3/1/3 Science Museum Group Collection Image source for Scan of the title page and a map from an 18th century engineering report

As the purpose of the proposed canal or railway was to connect the River Tees with the collieries, the route of any link was fought over by the worthiest of the towns as they all sought to profit from the trade that would flow along the railway or canal.

Support for a particular form of transport was often split by geography. The schemes had support from prominent citizens in different towns. The S&DR is often associated with the Religious Society of Friends (commonly known as Quakers) who counted the S&DR dynasties of the Pease and Backhouse families among their adherents. Raisbeck himself attended the Church of England, and when the committee descended into acrimony in 1828 there were claims that the committee was split on religious sectarian lines.  

The Pease family had a father-and-son team of Edward and Joseph on the S&DR committee and championed the cause of the Middlesbrough extension, which was the cause of the controversy. From correspondence, Raisbeck and the Peases appear to have a cordial relationship both in personal and business terms. One of the letters from Edward Pease to Raisbeck was sent from the Sugar House, which was formerly the site of a Raisbeck family sugar mill business. 

The archive also contains a number of pamphlets and notices that were used to generate interest and support for the scheme across County Durham. Citizens were invited to meetings, induced to contribute to subscriptions to fund the surveys, and some people became shareholders once the railway scheme started.

The canal and railway debate clearly took place at least partly in the public sphere. The S&DR's motto was Periculum privatum utilitas publica (translated as 'At private risk for public service'), and while there was a limited number of people who could afford to contribute the capital needed to construct the railway, their efforts funded on private wealth were figured to have a benevolent public outcome for a wider number of inhabitants in the towns the railway connected.

RAIS/3/7 Science Museum Group Collection Image source for Scan of an extract from an early 19th century newspaper

The reason that the S&DR was created, and its most important traffic, was coal, which was transported from the collieries to the wharves in Stockton then taken by ship to cities and towns outside of County Durham. It became apparent after the railway was open for a few years that the wharves at Stockton were inadequate to transfer the volume of coal that the railway carried. The suggested remedy to this was to extend the line to Middlesbrough which was closer to the mouth of the River Tees.

A proud Stockton man, Raisbeck was in immediate opposition to the scheme, which would mean that Stockton would be bypassed and undermine the trade carried by the Tees Navigation Company, for which Raisbeck also worked as a solicitor. The plan was also opposed by other members of the S&DR's committee whose interests would have been damaged by the proposals.

Frantic and sometimes emotional debate occurred between the different factions. The tenor of the debate can be judged from the fact that there was disagreement over factors such as the height of a bridge or what type of bridge should be used—which seem innocent enough—but whether shipping could pass under the bridge was a critical if the Tees Navigation Company and merchants could salvage trade.

RAIS/4/4/1 Science Museum Group Collection Image source for Scan of a handwritten resignation letter from the 19th century

Despite the efforts of Edward and Joseph Pease, the heated deliberations led to Raisbeck's resignation from the Committee. However, his involvement with the railway's development didn't end there. As the extension required approval from parliament, Raisbeck was summoned to appear before a parliamentary committee to present his case against the extension after his resignation.

Efforts to stop the proposed extension were ultimately fruitless—it was approved by the House of Lords despite facing significant opposition.