The Losing Battle, 1861–81

As might be expected, the immediate result of the passing into law of the Locomotive Act was a more rapid growth in the numbers of road steamers of all sorts, now that they had legal recognition and were no longer subject to discriminatory tolls. However, by an ironic and unkind twist of fate, the steam promoters who had done more than anyone else to draw public attention to the subject, and so to secure passage of the Bill, gained least from it. At first the prospects for them, as for others in the same line of business, seemed set fair. Encouraged by the passage of the Act, a new company to market the Boydell patent issued its prospectus in August 1861. This was the Endless Railway Traction Engine Company (Boydell’s Patent), which invited applications for £30,000-worth of £10 shares. The directors were the same as those of the previous concern, with the addition of another M.P., William McCormick (Liberal-Conservative, Londonderry), and Robert Griffiths. McCormick was a civil engineering contractor whose interest may be deduced. Griffiths may have been the engineer, manufacturer and prolific inventor of the same name, who was a public figure at the time. As already mentioned, Frederick Young was engineer to the company. The prospectus made a point of the fact that the Act had reduced tolls on steam to parity with those on horsedrawn traffic.1