Frederick Smeeton Williams (1829 86) was a Congregational minister and pioneering railway historian. His first major transport work, Our Iron Roads (1852), enjoyed significant popularity, reaching its seventh edition by 1888. This, his second such effort, first published in 1876, is a lively history of the incorporation and development of one of Britain's first major railway companies following the earliest large-scale railway amalgamation of the Victorian age. Including 123 illustrations and 7 maps, this book is especially valuable for its contemporary description of the building of the...