Transport

Abstract

Since most turnpike trusts derived their incomes principally from long-distance traffic, they were bound to be affected immediately and seriously by the coming of the railways. The appointment of a Select Committee as promptly as March 1839 to ascertain ‘how far the formation of railroads may affect the interest of Turnpike Trusts, and the Creditors of such Trusts’, shows that the holders of the £9 million worth of turnpike stocks were not slow to react to the first threat of the railways. And since the purpose of the enquiry was to suggest measures to safeguard the interest of these stock-holders, it is not surprising that the Committee’s Report proposed no more drastic alteration of the turnpike system than the amalgamation of trusts into unions of trusts. In the event, the turnpikes lingered on until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, disappearing gradually, thanks to riots in South Wales (the ‘Rebecca Riots’ of 1842–3), another Select Committee of 1864, and legislation of 1862, 1863, 1870 and 1871. The following extract from the evidence of Mr. Edward Sherman, a stage-coach proprietor, illustrates well, amongst other points, the incidence of turnpike tolls and the stagecoach duty on coaching in competition with the new railways.