The Sun.
London, England, 1830-04-08 00:00:00

RECORDER'S REPORT.

Yesterday the Recorder made his report to his Majesty,
at Windsor, of the prisoners capitally convicted at the last
Old Bailey sessions,--viz , Jeremiah Crane (aged 41) and
Robert Farthing (22), stealing in a dwelling-house ;
George Williams (19), Henry Richards (38), Thomas
Burdett (28), Thomas Sales (27), and James Webber
(20), housebreaking; William Jones alias Gray (55),
horse-stealing ; and William Lewin Watkins (28), forgery.
Also Gilbert Witt (16), convicted in September sessions,
and William Mealing (25), and William Adams (21),
convict, d in January sessions, stealing in a dwel'ing house.
All of whom his Majesty was graciously pleased to respite
during his royal pleasure, exc-pt Thomas Sales, who is
left for execatiou on Wednesday next.

. ...

-

THE NORTHERN ROADS.

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS.

REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON
THE STATE ON THE NORTHERN ROADS.

REPORT.
THE SELECT COMMITTEE APPOINTED TO INQUIRE
INTO THE STATE OF THE. ROADS BETWEEN
LONDON AND EDINBURGH, AND LONDON AND
PORTPATRICK, AND WHO WERE EMPOWERED
TO REPORT THEIR OBSERVATIONS THEREUPON,
TOGETHER WITH.THE MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE THEM, TO THE HOUSE ;—HAVE,
PURSUANT TO THE ORDERS OF THE HOUSE,
CONSIDERED THE MA'ITERS TO THEM REFERRED,
AND AGREED TO THE FOLLOWING REPORT,
WHICH, TOGETHER. WITH THE MINUTES OF
EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THEM, AND AN AP-
PENDIX, THEY HAVE DIRECTED TO BE RE-
PORTED TO THE HOUSE,
Your Committee, in reporting to the House their opinion
on the subject that has been submitted to their considera.
tion, and the recommendation which they have to make
respecting it, conceive that it will lead to a better under-
standing of what they have to offer, if they describe, in the
.first instance, the great lines of communication between
London and Edinburgh, and London and Portpatrick.
The present mail-coach road between London and Edin-
liorF,e is by Ware and Huntingdon and the Great North
Read, aei far as Ferrybridge, whence it deviates to the
right by 'York, passing through Newcastle and Morpeth
to Berwick-tenon-Tweed, snaking a distance of 399 miles
between Lornirin and Edinburgh.
The principal route, however, followed by travellers to
Edinburgh from London, is by Barnet, joining the former
road near Alconbury Hill, both lines remaining the same
to Ferrybridge, from which place, by avoiding York and
-going by Boroughbridee, a shorter road is obtained; the
'two again uniting at Northailerton and continuing the
same to Morpeth, from which last place another road
proceeds to Edinburgh by Coldstream Bridge, better known
by the name of the Wooler Line.
One of the roads to Portpatrick from London, is by
the Great North Road as far as Boroughbridge, and thence
uerses the mountainous district of Stainmore to Carlisle:
eke other is, by Derby and 'Manchester, uniting with the
former road at Carlisle : an inspection of the map of the
country betwen London and Edinburgh and Portpatrick
will at once simow how much these roads between London
and Edinburgh and Portpatrick respectively deviate from
the shortest line.
This circumstance, which is of such great importance
to am: the leading interests of the country, has for several
years pot excited an anxious examination into the means
by which the distances between these places might be best
shortened, the present roads roost efficiently improved,
and the difficulties that present themselves to such im-
provements most easily overcome.
Your Committee find, that so far back as 1819, in con-
sequence of a Memoriel addressed to the Lords of the Trea-
sury by several persons of great weight, a survey of a
line of road was made by Mr. Telford fmorn near Borough-
bridge to Sedburgh, and of another commencing from the
same point, but leading by Aldstone Moor and Castleton
Hawick.
Mr. Telford's reports on these roads were laid before
the house on the 14mh day of July, 1820 ; and your Com-
mittee .beg to refer to them, as affording conclusive reasons
why neither of these lines should be adopted, although
from an inspection of the Map they appear to be the most
direct.
In consequence of this survey and report, an application
was made by the gentlemen interested in the road between
Morpeth and Edinburgh, to have a survey made of the
Woofer line. Mr. Telford was accordingly directed to
snake such survey. The same, together with his estimate
and report, was, in the year 1822, referred to a Select
Committee of this House, who reported their opinion to
the House. To that report your Committee refer for a
staisement of the advantages and facilities that might be ob-
tained for the public by the adoption of this line of road,
and by carrying into effect the improvements recommended
by Mr. Telford.
In the year f 22 the gentlemen interested in the Eastern
or Berwick line applied for a survey of that road. This
application having been complied with, Mr. Telford, by
tie direction of the Lords of the Treasury, made a survey
accordingly, which was presented to their Lordships in
the year 1824.
From this survey it appears that a very improved line in
that direction might be obtained by avoiding hills and
shortening distances, both objects of great importance, as
this road must always continue a line of communication
for the mail, connecting as it does the great towns en the
sea coast, and running through the most fertile districts on
both sides of the border, though from its more circuitous
route it is less well adapted for the direct Edinburgh mail
from London.
Besides these roads, it has been stated to your Com-
mittee that a shorter line than either the Berwick or the
Wooler line, might be obtained by going from New-
castle up the Rede Water, across the Carter by .ledburgh,
and joining the Wooler road near Lauder.
Your Committee having thus described, in general
terms, what has been done to asemeeteio the best line of
communication between London and Edinhaeolt, through
the northern parts of the kingdom, will now proceed to
describe what proceedings have taken place with respect
so the road between London and Morpeth.
In the year 1823, a memorial, signed by several persons
of great consideration in the north of England, interested
in the matter, including the Mayor of Newcastle and the
Bailiffs of Morpeth, was addressed to the Lords of the
Treasury, praying for a survey of time road between Mor-
petit and London. This memorial having been followed
by another in the year .1825, which was very numerousin
ly
signed by several of the greatest landed proprietors
Yorkshire, as well as by the Lord Mayor and Commonalty
of the city of York, and by one from the Mayor and Bur-
gesses of the town of Kingston-upormetiedl, the Lords of
the Treasury directed the Postmaster-General: to comply
with their prayer.
;31r. Telford accordingly received instructions to under-
take this task, and the result of his lest:ours was embodied
in a report made to the Postmaster-General, And accom-
panied with very detailed plans, which were laid before
the House in the course of the last Session of Parliament,
To that report and survey your Committee are at present
content to refer, and to state generally that it appears from
Mr. Telford's reports, as well as from the evidence which
be gave to your Committee, that a distance of thirty miles
in;ght be saved between London and Edinburgh.
Your Committee find that no survey has been made of
the road between London and Portpatrick, excepting in so
far as it is the same with the London and Edinburgh road,
and excepting in so far as it has been surveyed and re-
ported on between Carlisle and Portpatrick, by Messrs.
gennie and Telford. These reports were made in the
years 1808 and 1811, and having been laid before this
House in the years 1809 and 1811, were refereed to Se-
lect Committees of this House, to whose reports yoor
Committee desire to refer.
Your Committee beg to observe that the mail-coach to
Glasgow at present takes the route of Doncaster and Leeds,
and thence, by the circuitous and mountainous road arteoss
Stainmore, through Carlisle, but your Committee are led
to believe that not only a much more level road, but a more
direct line might be obtained.
Your Committee called for a copy of all meen.orials and
representations that had been made since the year 1819, to
time Lore's of the 'Treasury or the Postmaster-General, re-
lating to be survey of these roads, or to the acceleration
of the mail between London and Edinburgh, and Glasgow
and Portpatrick respectively, in order that the opinions of
the agricultural sod commercial bodies intense:mi.:La in these
greet lines of commeunee.tion might be ascertained, maul for
the purpose of learning the extent of the grievances coin- •
plained of, and the remedies by which such grievanCes were
proposed to be removed. Some of these communicationto
s
trill be found in the Appendix to this rep:..,,
sufficient
point out the general nature of the case, wlti A= has been
brought under the consideration of the Government and]
the Postmaster-General; but ae was represented to your
+Committee that so great bad been the interest felt, and
vvhicia still exists, ulean this subject, that if ehe order of
your Committee was to he strictly enforced, it would 'mo-
dem a mass of papers so great as to encumber the proceed-
ings of your Committee, and materially interfere with the
eedinary business+ of these departments of the Government,
your Committee have contented themselves with a neleetion
of tome of the principal documents adverted to.
Taking into consideration, therefore, the whole (pies-
emss of the improvement of the :seeds from London to
Edinburgh and Posnpatrick, its nmsgrs'oaeste and import-
ance, the vast varier) of interest connected with it, its
different bearings, both as misl'enting time public at large and
principally conezrued,
the Weal districts your Committee
have come to 00 opinion that the iroesroyesneut of these
roads might be best annoniplieted by a Boase ea Commie_
&toners for the improvement of the roads between London
send Holyhead, and London and Liverpool.
In thia view, your Committee examined Sir
Henry Par-
nell, Bart., a member of ties Committee, to whoee active
and intelligent superintendence the improvement of the
roads between the metropolis and the Irish capital is pio„_
eipally due. From his statement it appears .that with
•
powers of no very extensive nature, the Commissioners
bayc ben abled to make the road from London through
tatinezharaen to Holyhca,l, front havins formerly lima
Bi

one of the very worst in England, to be perhiPs the
best; and that the consequence has been a large increase
of travelling on the road, and a great acceleration in the
general communication between London and Dublin, by
which the tolls have risen so as to afford the means of
defraying the expense of all the improvements that have
from time to time been carried into effect upon the Eng-
lish part of the road, producing at the same time so
large a Sinking Fund, that no lees a sum than 40,0001.
of principal and 13,0001. of interest has been paid upon
a total sum of 54,0001. advanced by the Exchequer
Bill Loan Commissioners.
In now proceeding to recommend what appears to
your Committee to be the best course to be adopted with
respect to the improvement of the roads to Edinburgh
and Portpatrick, your Committee beg further to refer the
House to that part of the evidence of Sir H. Parnell in
which he says "as nearly all the improvements on the
Holyhead road are completed, and also the works at the
harbours of Holyhead and Howth, it is not necessary to
continue the present Commission as it is at present con-
stituted ; and therefore, if it were thought advisable to
take advantage of the experience that has been acquired
in conducting road improvements, in carrying on the
general improvement of the northern roads, a new Com-
mission might be formed in the place of the present
one, composed of as many new Commissioners and such
a number of the present Commissioners as together
would form a Commission in every respect proper and
competent to superintend the improvement of the northern
roads." The examinations your Committee have made
with reference to this view of the question, induce them
to think this suggestion is one well worthy of consider-
ation, as offering the best plan for securing these im-
provements in the communication between the metropolis
and the northern parts of the United Kingdom which
have been so long and so repeatedly called for.
Your Committee can entertain no doubt that a Com•
mission so constituted would more effectually and more
certainly secure a successful result than a Commission en-
tirely composed of persons not having the same experience
as the Holyhead Road Commissioners. A Commission
composed of an entirely new body of individuals would
have to form a new system for forwarding a business of a
very complicated kind, in place of talting advantage of those
modes of proceeding which have proved in every way suc-
cessful, particularly in respect to securing the concurrence
and co-operation of the local trustees.
It was for these reasons, therefore, that your Committee,
after having given the subject referred to them the fullest
consideration, are of opinion that the business of examin-
ing into what particulars are the most fit to be adopted for
the improvement of the northern roads; of settling with
the local trustees the several details which will be neces-
sary with respect to loans, and to tolls for repaying such
loans ; of making contracts and superintending the execu-
tion of them; and of promoting an improved system of
general management of the repair's of these roads by the
trustees, ought to be placed under a new Board of Com-
missioners, to consist partly of some of those who are now
Commissioners of the Holyhead and Liverpool roads, and
partly of new Commissioners connected with the northern
roads, and to have the same powers which the Parliamentary
Commissioners of the Holyhead and Liverpool roads have.
Your Committee beg to point out, that the advantages
arising from the superintendence of such a Board of Com-
missioners will not be confined to the more immediate and
direct benefit arising from making great works, but will
(as has been eminently experienced in the working of the
Holyhead and Liverpool Road Commission) be felt in the
advice, assistance, and explanations that such a hoard will
from time to time be able to give to the local surveyors, '
thus assisting the trustees of the several roads gradually
to adopt, under the authority of their own Acts, a more
perfect, and a more economical system of road-making
than at present prevails; which improved condition of
things will be accompanied with this additional and im-
portant circumstance, that all the works that may thus he
executed will form part of one general combined and en-
larged plan of operations, in place of that heretofore
limited, and not always enlightened system of manage-
ment that has characterised the works of many of the local
road surveyors throughout England ; occasioning it is
feared an expenditure of public money not always the most
judicious nor the best suited to the general interests of the
country And your Committee are of opinion that they
cannot better illustrate the correctness of these observations
than by a reference to the sth and 6th annual reports of
the Commissioners for the improvement of the London
and Holyhead, and London and Liverpool roads, in which
are described the improvements that have been made on the
road from Darlaston bridge to the confines of the county
of Stafford, being a portion of the Liverpool road, by the
local trusteee acting under the advice of the Commissioners
and their engineer, in consequence of which very consi-
derable and expensive works have been completed and
others are intended.
your Committee wish further to remark that the im-
proving the communication between London and Edin-
burgh has of late years assumed a character of more pecu-
liar consequence to the people of Scotland, owing to the
removal to London of all the revenue boards connected with
that part of the United Kingdom, entitling them, in the
opinion of your Committee, to the most favourable con-
sideration lay Parliament of their representations and peti-
tions on this subject ; the more so as your Committee un-
derstand that much inconvenience is experienced at Edit:-
burgh, the seat of the principal banks, as well as the
Courts of Justice of the country, being thus the commer-
cial as well as the judicial capital of that part of the island,
owing to the time of the arrival of the mail after bank
hours,producing thereby many inconvenient and embarras-
sing questions as to the noting and acceptance of bills.
Influenced by a desire to remove such inconveniences, the
gentlemen of Mid-Lothian and Berwickshire have already
completed a very large portion of the improvements on
that part of the road which lies within their counties, and
which were recommended by Mr. Telford, and the re-
mainder of such improvements are either contracted for or
Minot being so, in the earnest expectation that some mea-
sure will be adopted by Parliament, through the
medium of a Parliamentary Commission, to carry into
effect the improvement or this whole line to the south,
in such direction and in such manner as such Corn-
ruissiioners shall recommend, attending with impartiality
to the interests of all parties, as well of those that are si-
tuated upon, as of tliesce that are placed at the extremities
of the line.

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.
rstit'.Rlftll, 17 DIE MARTI', 1830.
LORD VISCOUNT 11ORPETH in the Chair.
Thomas Telford, Esq. called in, and examined—By
what road does the mail coach travel from London to
Edinburgh ?—lt goes by Ware, Huntingdon, Newark,
York, Newcastle, and Berwirk.
What is the distance ?—The distance by the mail road
is 399 miles.
What is the state of this road with respect to its direc-
tion as to bills?—It is very hilly and very circuitous, and
it is otherwise imperfect.
Through the whole extent of the road ?—Not alto-
gether ; there are some districts in which it is better than
in others,, but it is very hilly and very circuitous taking
the whole roati, so much so that I think, between London
and Edinburgh, with proper management, upwards of 30
miles might be saved in the distance.
What surveys have you ever made, showing what im-
provements could be effected ?—I have made between
London and Newark two regular surreys, between Newark
and Newcastle I have made three, and between Newcastle
acd Edinburgh I have made two surveys.
Takicg what route ?—I took one route by the present
mail road, by; Ware which I have described ; and I took
the other by Barnet, 'ant thence to Newark; and from
Newark I took three, one by Vor1;; one by BoroughliricLe
to meet at Darlington, and a third by 13os:1ton-on-Tees ;
from Newcastle I took one by Wooler and Coldstream, and
anoth& by Berwick.
What would be ,the distance from London to Edinburgh
if the improvements you Laye swgested a
were dopted ?
Deducting 29 or 30 miles teem Bf.), that would reduce it
to 369.
What road does the mail coach travel to Carlisle and
Port I-tatrisak ?—lt travels by Northampton, Derby,
Manchester, Preston; Carlisle, and Dumfries to Port Pa-
nick, and by that mail rout the distance is 421 miles.
Can you state what road the Carlisle is..',-Glas:gow mail
travel.;?--It travels by Barnet, Newark, Doncaster, .r_eeds,
and over Staic—ure, by Penrith and Carlisle.
What is the distance by that road to Carlish?-1 have
never surveyed the road, therefore it is only from the Pos.-
office route I can state that ; I never surveyJ any of the
road from Linden to Port Patrick, except from Cu-lisle
to Gretna.
Are you acquainted with tite state of that road ?—I
think 1 am pretty generally acquainted with it ; J have
not been beyond Dumfries lately, but I know from Dam-
fries to Lr;isle.
Are you aequain,Lzt/ with the state of the road between
London and Carlisle?.-1: au; not acquainted with the
whole of that route.
What a'neuld you say of the state of the rot:a `i-1:7;
some cases it is very b;d, especially over Stiinmore ; in-
deed, front Greta Bridge to c.u:lisle is very hilly, and a
very bad road.
.D 0 you think that road might be materially improved
with 1 h respect to direction and to hills?—There is no
doubt of it.
Do you „Row whether the tanCe might be shortened
s