X10

Index: BRA 1860 RAI

The Dewsbury, Batley, Gomersal and Bradford Railway Company: the Rev. Godfrey Wright

Size: 20”*30”

Material: Paper

Scale: 30 yards to 1”

Condition: good

On this occasion we have a title for a plan. It is a proposed railway route for the ‘Dewsbury, Batley, Gomersal and Bradford Railway Company: the Rev. Godfrey Wright’. The plan is undated, but the company name only appears in the press in the years 1860-61. Godfrey Wright (1780-1862), of Hooton Pagnall, Doncaster owned a great deal of land in Bradford and the surrounding area: his name has been included in this series of maps on many occasions. Rev. Wright certainly owned the land identified in the plan. It is possible from the title that he had an interest in the railway company as well, although if so his name never appears in press reports.

The company name was not familiar to me. It appears in Bradford Observer share advertisements first in 1860, although none of the original promotors were Bradford businessmen. It would appear that the railway company were planning a 7 miles line from Batley to Bradford, via Gomersal and Birstall. The line would have originated at an independent station near the junction of Leeds Road and George Street and, passing north of Eastbrook Worsted Mills (through the Low Moor Iron Company coal staithe), have left Bradford next to Hammerton Street. An expensive part of the project would seem to have been a planned tunnel, 1.5 miles long, conveying the line under the Leeds, Bradford and Halifax Railway junction and on to Birstal. The position of the tunnel entrance is marked on the plan. The project would have been associated with the creation of a large number of residential streets in east Bradford. It is clear that the larger London and North West Railway Co. were involved but a bill proposed to Parliament was withdrawn when only £60,000 could be raised locally rather than the £200,000 required. I do not find the name of the company in newspapers after April 1861 and evidently no such railway line was constructed.