Blenkinsop's locomotive at work on the Middleton
cogged railroad, and from an early period he
seems to have entertained almost as sanguine
views on the subject as Sir Richard Phillips
himself. It would appear that Gray was residing
at Brussels in 1816 when the project of a
canal from Charleroi, for the purpose of
connecting Holland with the mining districts of
Belgium, was the subject of discussion; and in
conversations with Mr. John Cockerill and
others, he took the opportunity of advocating
the superior advantages of a railway. For some
years after he pondered the subject more
carefully, and at length became fully possessed by
the grand idea, on which other minds were now
at work. He occupied himself for some time
with the preparation of a pamphlet on the
subject. He shut himself up in his room, secluded
from his wife and relations, declining to give
them any information on the subject of his
mysterious studies, beyond the assurance that
his scheme ' would revolutionise the whole face
of the material world and of society.'

"In 1820, Mr. Gray published the result of
his studies, in his Observations on a General
Iron Railway, in which, with great cogency, he
urged the superiority of a locomotive railway
over common roads and canals, pointing out, at
the same time, the advantages of this mode of
conveyance for merchandise and persons, to all
classes of the community. That Mr. Gray had
obtained his idea from Blenkinsop's engine and
road, is obvious from the accurate engraving
which he gives in his book of the cog-wheeled
engine then travelling upon the Middleton
cogged railroad. Mr. Gray, in his introduction,
refers to railroads already in existence, and
others in course of projection; and, alluding to
the great improvement in the locomotive engines,
he adds:

"' The necessity of employing horses on
the railway may be superseded, for the public
benefit would soon be so evident to any common
observer, as to admit of no comparison between
horse and mechanic power; besides, the incitement
given to all our artisans by the success of
their ingenuity, would still prompt the further
progress in this useful art. The prejudices of
many persons will, however, oppose the system,
therefore time must be allowed, with gradual
use of those machines, to convince the public of
their superiority in the same manner as
steampackets. '

"The treatise seems to have met with a ready
sale; for we find that, two years after, it had
already passed into a fourth edition. In 1822,
Mr. Gray added to the book a diagram, showing
a number of suggested lines of railway, connecting
the principal towns of England; and
another, in like manner, connecting the principal
towns of Ireland. In his first edition, Mr. Gray
suggested the propriety of making a railway
between Manchester and Liverpool, ' which,'
he observed, ' would employ many thousands of
the distressed population of Lancashire.'

"The publication of this essay must have had
the effect of bringing the subject of railway
extension more prominently under the notice of
the public than it had been brought before.
Although little able to afford it, Gray also
pressed his favourite project of a general iron
road on the attention of public men—mayors,
members of parliament, and prime ministers.
He sent memorials to Lord Sidmouth in 1820,
and to the Lord Mayor and Corporation of
London in 1821. In 1822, he addressed the Earl
of Liverpool, Sir Robert Peel, and others, urging
the great national importance of his system.
In the year following, he petitioned the ministers
of state to the same effect. He was so pertinacious
that public men pronounced him to be a
' bore;' and in the town of Nottingham, where
he then lived, those who knew him declared him
to be ' cracked.'

"William Howitt, who frequently met Gray at
that time, has published a lively portraiture of
this indefatigable and enthusiastic projector,
who seized all men by the button, and would
not let them go until he had unravelled to them
his wonderful scheme. With Thomas Gray,
' begin where you would, on whatever subject—
the weather, the news, the political movement
of the day—it would not be many minutes
before you would be enveloped with steam, and
listening to an harangue on the practicability and
immense advantages to the nation, and to every
man in it, of a general iron railway.'"

This statement, though seeming tolerably
fair to those not informed on the subject, is
misleading, and contains inaccuracies. What
is represented as a pamphlet issued on the
question of a general iron railway, by Gray in
1820, was, in truth, a solid volume of two
hundred and thirty-three pages, and
illustrated with plates of a train on the line, and
other things. Again, Mr. Smiles says that
Gray " was fully possessed by the grand idea on
which other minds were now at work." The
grand idea which fully possessed Gray, was that
of a system of railways with steam trains
extending over the whole kingdom, and superseding
every other mode of conveyance for people
on land, and for all kinds of goods which required
speed. No such idea, it may be sufficiently
shown from Mr. Smiles's own book, was occupying
the minds of any other man at this time.
The utmost stretch to which any other minds
had reached was the introduction of locomotive
trains on isolated pieces of road, and exclusively
for the conveyance of coals and such heavy
goods. Sir Richard Phillips had, indeed, thrown
out an idea that such a system might possibly
be introduced, as Dr. Darwin had done before
him in the celebrated lines:

Soon shall thine arm, unconquered steam, afar,
Urge the light bark and whirl the rapid car!

But Gray had not merely thrown out a
speculative loose idea, he had seized that idea and
worked it out, and demonstrated it, in an elaborate
volume, the result of years of labour and
concentrated thought. Others, like Mr. James
and Mr. Edward Pease, had contemplated the
use of locomotive engines on particular pieces