Back Track
Grievances in two towns on opposite sides of Calderdale were reaching new heights in early 1844. Both Halifax and Huddersfield felt deeply dismayed that they had been bypassed by the Manchester & Leeds Railway, completed on 1st March 1841, which stuck to the valley floor in order to adhere to George Stephenson’s policy of minimum gradients. There was a consensus that the root of the problem was a company based in Lancashire and thus showing little concern for ‘God’s Own County’ of Yorkshire
At first and against the odds, Halifax seemed to be faring better. Its position in the narrow and steep-sided tributary valley of Hebble Brook, which for centuries had provided water power for early mills, did not lend itself to railway construction. The Manchester & Leeds nevertheless promised to build a branch from a junction at North Dean to a terminus in the bottom of the town at Shaw Syke. An Act of 1st July 1839 included a clause of dubious value that the line should be built ‘as soon as possible’. Characteristically, the company was not swayed and took five years to complete its total length of a mere 1¾ miles.
Opening on 1st July 1844 seemed only to heighten the grievances. Much of the single line was on a gradient of 1 in 44 and many drivers had to get a run at the bank by setting back on to the main line through a tunnel towards Elland, the nearest station to the junction. There was intense discontent over poor connections to Manchester, now seen as vitally important with the town diversifying into cotton manufacture after centuries of dependence on wool. Perversely the only redeeming feature was that Huddersfield was in a worse position. It still had no railway.
Belatedly the Manchester company proposed to build a branch from Cooper Bridge to Huddersfield, which in a similar way to Halifax would terminate in the lower part of the town. It would prevent any possible competing extension westwards to Manchester and such was the protest at a stormy public meeting in January 1844 that the proposal was abandoned. Halifax interests must have rubbed their hands and thought they would remain in a premier position. There were in for a nasty shock.
Huddersfield was in many respects a feudal fiefdom like no other. As related in my article in the January 2022 , the Ramsden family claimed to own the whole town except for one house. Presiding over its destiny were the Honourable Lady Isabella Ramsden and her brother-in-law, the 5th Earl Fitzwilliam, one of the wealthiest men in England. Collectively they realised that decisive steps had to be taken if Huddersfield were to meet the challenges posed by the coming ‘Railway Mania’. Their carefully chosen agent was George Loch, a trained lawyer with an outstanding reputation in upper
