QUEEN VICTORIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23686, 19 December 1938, Page 11

QUEEN VICTORIA

HER FIRST RAIL TRIP SHE ENJOYED IT SUBJECTS PROFOUNDLY SHOCKED (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail; LONDON, Nov. 17, Speaking at the centenary dinner of the L.M.S. Railway in London, the Duke of Gloucester recalled how many people were shocked by the first train journey made by his great grandmother, Queen Victoria. It was in 1842 that Queen Victoria ventured on her first railway journey from Slough to Paddington, and when she said she enjoyed it.a large section of her subjects were profoundly shocked. "Tributes were paid in the press to the precautions taken by the directors of the line and to the Queen's courage, but it was plainly suggested in so many words that her Majesty's person should not be subjected to such risks, and that royal railway excursions should either be wholly abandoned or only very occasionally resorted to. "But during the next few years public oninion became more or less reconciled, and in 1848 Queen Victoria travelled for the first time by train from Balmoral to London in two days, sleeping the night at Crewe, thus initiating the long and uninterrupted association of my family with your great system." EFFECT ON ETON MORALS The Duke told how the coming of the railways created widespread opposition. "The strongest opposition." he said, " came from the landed gentry, whose properties v/ould be ruined, and among the countless stories there is a record of a reverend gentleman who demanded, and obtained, handsome compensation because his daughter's bedroom windows were exposed to the unhallowed gaze of the men working on the London and Birmingham line." The Duke also recalled that when the Great Western Railway were planning their line from Paddington to Bristol public attention was drawn to the disastrous effects thai it would have on the health and morals of Eton College, and the Duke of Cumberland opposed the Bill in the House of Lords on the grounds that the railroad, even from the distance of Slough, would be very disturbing to the Eton boys." The dinner was in celebration of the London and Birmingham line—the first main line between London and the industrial Midlands. Its construction was carried out by Robert Stephenson, and the Duke observed that, while surveying and prospecting the route, Stephenson covered the distance between London and Birmingham on foot no fewer than 20 times.