CHAPTER X.. A General Manager and His Office

A GENERAL MANAGER AND HIS OFFICE

January, 1875, was a momentous time for me. In the second week of that month I commenced my new duties at Glasgow and bade farewell for ever to the tall stool and "the dry drudgery of the desk's dead wood." Before me opened a pleasing prospect of attractive and interesting work, brightened by the beams of youthful hope and awakened ambition. I was now chief clerk to a general manager. Was it to be wondered at that I felt proud and elated if also a little scared as to how I should get on.

Mr. Wainwright assumed the office of general manager on the first day of the year. I say office, but in fact a general manager's office scarcely existed. His predecessor, Mr. Johnstone, a capable but in some respects a singular man, performed his managerial duties without an office staff, wrote all his own letters, and not only wrote them but first carefully drafted them out in a hand minute almost as Jonathan Swift's. A strenuous worker, Mr. Johnstone, like most men who have no hobby, did not long survive his retirement from active business life.

Mr. Wainwright, who, like myself, was born in Sheffield, was twenty-three years my senior. His early railway life was passed in the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (now the Great Central), of which the redoubtable Mr. (afterwards Sir) Edward Watkin was then the lively general manager.

A different man to his predecessor was Mr. Wainwright. Unlike Mr. Johnstone he was modern and progressive. He never scorned delights or loved, for their own sake, laborious days; pleasure to him was as welcome as sunshine; and work he made a pleasure.

As I have said, no general manager's office existed. Of systematic managerial supervision there was none. What was to be done? Something certainly, and soon. Mr. Wainwright concurred in a suggestion I made that I should visit Derby, see the general manager's office of the Midland there, and learn how it was conducted. This I did. E. W. Wells, a principal clerk in that office, who was married to my cousin, showed and told me everything. I returned laden with knowledge which I embodied in a report and my recommendations were adopted. Several clerks were appointed and the general manager's office, of which I was chief clerk, soon became efficient.

Wells afterwards became Assistant General Manager of the Midland, and Frank Tatlow, my cousin and brother of Wells' wife, is now its General Manager, in succession to Sir Guy Granet. I am not a little proud that the attainments of one who bears the name of Tatlow, and is so nearly related to myself, have enabled him to reach the topmost post on a railway such as the Midland Railway of England. He commenced as a junior clerk in the General Manager's office and worked his way step by step to that eminent position. No adventitious circumstances helped him on.

I became fond of railway work, which it seems to me for interest and variety holds a high place among all the occupations by which man, who was born to labour, may earn his daily bread. My duties were certainly arduous but intensely interesting. The correspondence with other railway companies regarding agreements, joint line working, Parliamentary matters, and many other important subjects, conducted as it required to be, with skill, care and precision, was for me a liberal education. The fierce rivalry which, in those days, raged in Scotland for competitive traffic culminated often in disputes which could only be settled by the intervention of the general managers, and these brought much exciting work into the office. Again, the close and intimate relations between the Midland and the Glasgow and South-Western involved interesting communications, meetings and discussions, and the keeping of certain special accounts which it fell to me to supervise.

The Midland and the Glasgow and South-Western alliance was regarded by the West Coast Companies (the London and North-Western and the Caledonian) with much disfavour. In their eyes it was an attack upon their hen roost, and it certainly resulted in the loss to them of a large share of through traffic between England and Scotland which the West Coast route had previously had all to itself. To carry on the competition successfully necessitated a large expenditure of capital by the Glasgow and South-Western, and the Midland, of course, had to help in this. The original cost of Saint Enoch Station for instance was nearly one and three-quarter millions sterling, and a considerable outlay was also necessary for goods stations and other accommodation. There was in those days much doing between the general managers' offices of the Midland and Glasgow and South-Western companies, and it was all delightfully new and novel to me.

A Committee of Directors of the two companies, called the Midland and Glasgow and South-Western Joint Committee, was established. This committee, with the two general managers, met periodically either at Derby, London, Carlisle or Glasgow. Mr. Wainwright acted as secretary and I kept the minute book and papers relating to the business of the committee.

Pullman cars had been introduced on the Midland and were run on the through trains between Saint Pancras and Saint Enoch. The cars were the property of Mr. Pullman, but the Midland kept them in repair, the Glasgow and South-Western relieving them of a proportion of the cost corresponding to the mileage run over their line. Mr. Pullman received as his remuneration the extra fare paid by the passengers--three shillings each for drawing-room cars and five shillings each for sleeping cars. Other through carriages on these trains were jointly owned by the two companies. The interesting accounts connected with these arrangements were supervised by me. I commenced work with Mr. Wainwright on a Monday. The following Saturday afternoon, before leaving the office, to my great surprise and delight, he presented me with a first- class station to station pass over the railway. With what pride I showed it to Tom that evening! Six months later my salary was increased, and the pleasant fact was announced to me by my kindly chief, coupled with the expression of a wish that he and I might long work together.

On the Scottish railways the financial half-years ended, not in June and December, as in other parts of the United Kingdom, but at the end of July and January. This was for the better equalisation of receipts, taking a month from the fat half-year to the lean, and giving, in exchange, a month from the lean to the fat. Soon after the first-half-year was concluded and the accounts published, which was in the month of September (my first September with the Glasgow and South-Western), Mr. Wainwright handed to me a large sheet of closely printed figures, giving a detailed analysis and comparison of the accounts of five of the principal English and the three principal Scottish railways in columnar form, with a request that I should take out the figures and compile for printing a similar statement for the past half-year, from the accounts of the eight companies. I trembled inwardly for I had never yet looked at a railway account, but I took them home, and, as in the case of the Acts of Parliament, found them simpler than I thought; and, with less trouble than I expected, succeeded in accomplishing the task.

Mr. Wainwright was himself a skilful statistician and tested everything he could by the cold logic of figures. I was soon surprised to find that I too had a taste for statistics and acquired some skill in their compilation. Up to this I had always imagined that I disliked everything in the shape of arithmetic. At school I was certainly never fond of it, and since school my acquaintance with figures had been little more than the adding up of long columns in huge books at the half-yearly stocktaking in the stores department at St. Rollox, a thing I detested, and which invariably gave me a headache. Well pleased was Mr. Wainwright to see that statistics took my fancy. As general manager he had not much time himself to devote to them, but the office was now well manned and we were able to establish, and keep up, tables, statistics and returns concerning matters of railway working in a way which I have not seen surpassed. These statistics were of much practical use when considering questions of economy and other matters from day to day.

My first year as general manager's clerk was, I have always thought, the most important in my railway life. Certainly in that year I learned much and acquired from my chief business habits which have stood me in good stead since. Mr. Wainwright was a man of no ordinary nature, as all who knew him will admit. He was a pattern of punctuality and promptitude, never spared himself in doing a thing well and expected the same thoroughness in others, though he would make allowance for want of capacity, but not for indolence or carelessness. Straightforwardness, honesty and rectitude marked all he did. His word was his bond. His disposition was to trust those around him, and his generous confidence was usually justified. High-minded and possessing a keen sense of honor himself, he had an instinctive aversion to anything mean or low in others. A man of great liberality and generous to a fault he often found it hard to say no, but when obliged to adopt that attitude it was done with a tact and courtesy which left no sting. In all business matters he required a rigid economy though never at the expense of efficiency.

Intellectually he stood high, as I had ample opportunity of judging, but if asked what were his most striking qualities I should say goodness and a charm of manner which eludes description, but irresistibly attracted all who met him. In appearance he was tall and portly, and his bearing, carriage and presence were gentlemanly and refined. He was of fair complexion, was possessed of a delightful smile, and had side whiskers (turning white) continued in the old-fashioned way under the chin, and yet he was so bright and debonair that he never looked old-fashioned. Like myself he was a great lover of Dickens, and I think his most prized possession was a small bookcase which had belonged to Dickens' study and which he purchased at the sale at Gad's Hill. His directors esteemed him highly, and the officers of the company were all sincerely attached to him. In his room he held almost daily conferences. Correspondence formed but a small part in his method of dealing with departments. He believed in the value of viva voce discussion, and discouraged all unnecessary inter-departmental correspondence. In this he was right I am sure. The daily conferences were cheerful and pleasant, for he had the delightful faculty of "mixing business with pleasure and wisdom with mirth." I consider that I was singularly fortunate at this period of my life in finding myself placed in close and intimate association with such a man as Mr. Wainwright, in enjoying his confidence as I did, and in being afforded the opportunity of benefiting by his kind precepts and fine example.

In Glasgow there was a weekly paper of much humour and spirit called The Bailie. With each issue it published an article on some prominent man of the day under the title of Men You Know, accompanied by a portrait of the person selected. It is the Glasgow Punch. It was established in 1873,and "Ma Conscience!" is its motto. It still, I am glad to hear, runs an honorable and profitable course, which its merits well deserve. In its issue of September 13th, 1882, Mr. Wainwright was The Man You Know, and, at the request of the Editor, I wrote the article upon him. In it are some words which, penned when I was with him daily, and his influence was strong upon me, are, perhaps, more true and faithful than any I could at this distance of time write, and so I will quote them here, and with them conclude this chapter.

"He (The Man You Know) is one upon whom responsibility rests gracefully and lightly, who accomplishes great things without apparent effort, and whose personal influence smoothes the daily friction of official life. He rules with a gentler sway than many who are accustomed to other methods of command would believe possible. He believes in Emerson's maxim that if you deal nobly with men they will act nobly, and his habit towards everyone around him, and its success, lends force to the genial truth of the American philosopher."