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British Transport Historical Records and their Value to the Architectural Historian
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Extract
In an address at the Inaugural General Meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, Mr. Howard Colvin distinguished three traditions in the study of architectural history. First, there is ‘the study of buildings as monuments whose history is contained in their own structure’; secondly, there is the ‘use of documents … to throw light on the history of a structure, on the mind of an architect, or on the building practice of an age’; thirdly, ‘there is the art-historical approach which is concerned chiefly with tracing aesthetic concepts’. The study of railway architecture in Britain, in so far as it has been studied at all, has hitherto been undertaken by the first and third of these methods. With regard to railway architecture, this is true of Mr. Barman's book and of the important studies of Professors Hitchcock and Meeks although they make some use of original drawings and plans. It is the purpose of this article to show that the second method also—the use of records—is necessary to a full understanding of the subject.
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- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1959
References
1 H. M. Colvin, ‘The Study of Architectural History in England’, an address delivered at the Inaugural Meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, York, 1 Jun. 1957, 1.
2 C. Barman, An Introduction to Railway Architecture (1950).
3 Hitchcock, H. R., Early Victorian Architecture in Britain, 2 v. (1954)Google Scholar. C. L. V, Meeks, The Railway Station: An Architectural History (1957).
4 The first published study to make use of British Transport Historical Records for purposes of architectural history, so far as I know, is Cole, D., ‘Mocatta's Stations for the Brighton Railway in Journal of Transport History iii (1957–8), 149ff Google Scholar.
5 British Transport Commission, The Preservation of Relics and Records (1951).
6 Published by Hitchcock, , op. cit., ii, XV23.Google Scholar
7 For a discussion of the principles underlying this division, see Journal of Transport History, ii (1956–7), 129.Google Scholar
8 British Transport Historical Records (BTHR) HL 2/8.
9 Carr-Saunders, A. M. and Wilson, P. A., The Professions (1933), 188–9.Google Scholar
10 BTHR HL 2/8.
11 ibid.
12 ibid.
13 ibid.
14 ibid.
15 ibid.
16 Rolt, L. T. C., Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1957), 231–2.Google Scholar
17 Pevsner, N., Matthew Digby Wyatt (1950), 30.Google Scholar
18 ibid., 18.
19 ibid., 13.
20 BTHR GW 1/5, 15 Apr. 1852.
21 BTHR GEN 3/55.
22 BTHR GW 1/4/ 9 and 23 Jan. 1851.
23 Hitchcock, , op. cit., i, 530 ff.Google Scholar
24 BTHR GW 1/5 15 May 1851.
25 ibid., 23 Oct. 1851.
26 ibid., 30 Oct. 1851.
27 ibid., 27 Nov. 1851.
28 ibid., 4 Mar. 1852.
29 ibid., 18 Mar. 1852.
30 Hitchcock, , op. cit., i, 540.Google Scholar
31 BTHR YNM 1/1 27 Dec. 1838.
32 ibid., 24 Jan. 1839.
33 ibid., 31 Jan. 1839.
34 ibid., 7 Feb. 1839.
35 ibid.. 14 Feb. 1839,
36 Carr-Saunders, and Wilson, , op. cit., 177–8.Google Scholar
37 BTHR YNM 1/1 13 Feb. 1840.
38 ibid., YNM 1/2 24 Feb. 1841.
39 ibid., GNE 4/6.
40 ibid., YNM 1/2 12 Nov. 1845.
41 ibid., YNM 1/6 8 Dec. 1852.
42 ibid., NER 1/8, 29 Dec. 1854.
43 ibid., GNE 1/2 11 Jan. 1840.
44 ibid., GNE 3/8 Original drawings signed by Andrews.
45 ibid., GNE 4/7.
46 ibid., NER 1/8 16 Dec. 1854.
47 ibid., NER 1/9 23 Jan., 17 Apr. 1857.
48 ibid., GNE 8/2,
49 ibid., NER 4/68.
50 ibid.
51 ibid., GNE 8/1.
52 ibid., YSN 1/1 19 Jan. 1852.
53 ibid., 17 Feb. 1853.
54 ibid.
55 ibid., NER 1/8 16 Dec. 1854.
56 ibid., NER 1/12 20 Apr. 1866.
57 Hitchcock, , op. cit., i, 211, 499, 504, 508–9: ii, XV22, 23Google Scholar. Meeks, , op. cit., 33–4 and Fig. 11.Google Scholar
58 Now in York Railway Museum and reproduced by Hitchcock, XV 23.
59 Now British Transport Historical Relics 6381 /57Y and reproduced by Meeks, Fig. 11.
60 Hitchcock, , op. cit., 499 Google Scholar; Meeks, op. cit., Fig. 11, the caption of which reads ‘York, The Railway Station, by G. T. Andrews, 1840–41. Plan’. Internal evidence is sufficient to show that the date of this plan is later than 1841. It includes offices for the Midland (incorporated 1844) and Great Northern (incorporated 1846) Railways. Great Northern trains did not begin running to York until 1850. Moreover the title of the plan omitted by Professor Meeks includes the vital letters ‘N.E.R.’; the North Eastern Railway was incorporated only in 1854.
61 Hitchcock, , op. cit., i 499.Google Scholar
62 ibid., 508.
63 Meeks, , op. cit., 33.Google Scholar
64 ibid., 34.
65 BTHR YNM 1/1 23 Aug. 1838.
66 ibid., 6 Dec. 1838.
67 ibid., 3 Oct. 1839.
68 ibid., 26 Mar. 1840.
69 ibid., 7 May 1840.
70 ibid., 6 Aug. 1840.
71 ibid., 7 May 1840.
72 ibid., 29 Jun. 1840.
73 ibid., 20 Jul. 1840.
74 ibid., 13 Aug. 1840.
75 ibid., 17 Sep. 1840.
76 ibid., 18 Sept. 1840.
77 ibid.
78 ibid., YNM 1/2 29 Jan. 1841.
79 ibid., GNE 3/4.
80 Meeks, , op. cit., 33–4.Google Scholar
81 BTHR GNE 4/8.
82 ibid., YNM 1/5 26 Apr. 1850.
83 ibid.. 12 Jul. 1850.
84 ibid., YSN 1/1 23 Dec. 1851.
85 ibid., 12 Jan. 1852.
86 ibid., 19 Jan. 1852.
87 ibid., 8 May 1852.
88 ibid., 17 Feb. 1853.
89 Cf. Harvey, J., ‘Architectural Archives’, in Archives, ii, (1953–6) 117–122.Google Scholar
90 Cf. Hitchcock, , op. cit., i, 510.Google Scholar
91 ibid., i, 523.
92 Cf. Barman, op. cit., 29, where it is apparently suggested that Matthew Digby Wyatt worked with Brunel at Bristol; this can hardly have been the case since Bristol was completed in 1840, when Wyatt was in his twenty-first year.
93 BTHR HRP 7/9.