3-070-941 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Lt.-Col. Gerard Smith cutting the first turf of the Hull, Barnsley and West Riding Railway and Dock, 1881. 'The ceremony of cutting the first turf in the work of constructing this railway and dock was performed on Saturday by Lieutenant-Colonel Gerard Smith, the chairman of the company. Although snow covered the ground to a depth of several inches, many thousands of persons assembled to witness the ceremony. Spacious platforms had been erected, one of which was for the accommodation of the trade and friendly societies and other public bodies who took part in the procession. On the opposite side of the inclosure there was a platform for shareholders of the new company, another for the Mayor, Corporation, and various officials and ladies, while a third was occupied by a choir of 2000 voices...Lieutenant-Colonel Smith was presented with a silver spade and a polished oak barrow...The appliances for the shipment of coal, coupled with the fact that the railway is driven into the very heart of the South Yorkshire coal district, are expected to make Hull what it has never been before - a coal port - seeing that the unworked coal bed of South Yorkshire comes within about twenty-nine miles of the port'. From Illustrated London News", 1881.