Studies in British transport history 1870–1970

Studies in British transport history 1870–1970

Journal of Historical Geography, 2, 1 (1976) 71-94 Reviews The British Isles and the European mainland DEREK H. ALDCROFT,Studies in British Transpor...

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Journal of Historical Geography, 2, 1 (1976) 71-94

Reviews

The British Isles and the European mainland DEREK H. ALDCROFT,Studies in British Transport History 1870-1970 (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1974. Pp. vi+ 309. G.50) PHILIP S. BAGWELL,The Transport Revolution from I770 (London: Batsford, 1974. Pp. 460. S7.50) Transport history has never lacked practitioners, but in the view of some writers it has lacked a strong methodology. In recent years, however, a number of new and important trends have emerged. There has been a more detailed analysis of transport enterprises as corporate entities; a more critical focus on transport systems as agents of economic and social change (particularly on the contribution of railways to nineteenth-centuryeconomic growth and to the form of Victorian cities); and a growing interest in the application of current economic and econometric analysis to historical situations. Bagwell attempts to do justice to the first two of these themes in a review of Britain’s transport history since 1770. It is good to read a study which not only covers a wide field but gives attention to such neglected topics as coastal shipping and road transport before the railway age. In detail, however, the balance seems less well judged; some space is given to literary illusions (Locksley Hall, Sybil and Barchester Towers) while too little is allowed for a proper discussion of the econometric work of Hawke and of Mitchell. Even when he makes substantial claims, Bagwell fails to elaborate on evidence; for example, where is the evidence for the allegation (p.123) that smaller inventories and a “quickening pace of transactions” were important consequences of the advent of the railway ? For the modern period the same admirable general balance is maintained, especially in those chapters which attempt to trace the interaction of modes of transport in the twentieth century, but once again there must be doubt about the selection of sources and evidence. Do we need to know that “For the Ministry of War Transport, Mr P. J. Noel-Baker announced on 21 May 1943 that work was well advanced . . .” (p. 368)? On the other hand, two maps of bus services in the West Country are left to speak for themselves while the alleged effect of the M4 is evidenced solely by a quotation from the Sunday Telegraph. For these reasons Bagwell’s work cannot be considered authoritative, but it will stand alongside Dyos and Aldcroft’s similar (but less expensive) volume as a useful introduction to recent transport history and as a source of themes which geographers may choose to investigate in detail. In The transport revolution from 1770 Aldcroft presents a collection of his papers which have (with two exceptions) appeared in periodicals over the last decade. Although the volume starts with an extended review of Hawke’s work on nineteenth-century raifways, most of the papers are on aspects of transport history in the twentieth century. Of thirteen essays six (in part) concern shipping, five railways, two internal air transport and one road passenger transport. Some of the papers will be of limited interest to