Graham Trust talks about the dinner on the eve of the launch of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 5th August 2011 by Liam Physick
Graham Trust describes the banquet held on the eve of the opening day of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and of the anxiety felt by John Moss on the occasion. He erroneously names the opening day as 15th October 1830: in fact it was 15th September
Interviewee: Graham Trust
Interviewee Gender: Male
Date of Interview: 16th November 2010
Interview Transcript
Jenny: What I’m thinking about now is that opening day and, what, you know, it’s, a lot of the, sort of, events have been detailed, and we covered a little bit at the start, but, I mean, often it’s described as the first global news story and I wonder how, like, your research, what you’ve found John Moss to have been feeling when it finally, sort of, came to the opening day and, you know, all eyes were on Liverpool.
Graham: Yeah, you have to . . .
Jenny: We’ve got a quote! (laughs)
Graham: We have got a quote. The opening day was this really exciting day. Yeah, its . . . as the big day approached, this is from the, my book, one, one, one reporter described how “Liverpool was never so full of strangers. All the inns in the town were crowded to overflowing, never was their such as assemblage of wealth, rank, beauty and fashion in this, in this neighbourhood” (Jenny laughs) and there were a couple of dinners which were to be held that, that evening – the, the, the Railway opened on 15th October (sic) 1830, and there was an engineers’ dinner, and there was also to be a presentation to the Duke of Wellington at the Wellington Rooms on Mount Pleasant, and Moss was to attend that particular meeting, and he was, he was becoming somewhat anxious, he said, he said, “We are plagued to death almost by the demands of the great, who imagine that they only have to ask and have. Huskisson is adding to our numbers by collecting some parliamentary friends around him. It would not surprise me if we had some sparring at our dinner.” (both laugh)
Categorised under: The Station & Railway Pioneers
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