Railway Regulation Act 1844
The Railway Regulation Act 1844[1] (7 & 8 Vict. c. 85) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom providing a minimum standard for rail passenger travel. It provided compulsory services at a price affordable to poorer people to enable them to travel to find work. It is one of the Railway Regulation Acts 1840 to 1893.[2]
Long title
An Act to attach certain Conditions to the construction of future Railways authorised by any Act of the present or succeeding sessions of Parliament; and for other Purposes in relation to Railways.
7 & 8 Vict. c. 85
9 August 1844
The prior situation[edit]
Until that time there were three or more classes of carriage, third class usually an open goods wagon, often without seats, sometimes referred to sarcastically as "Stanhopes", a corruption of "Stand-ups". During that year, a select committee had produced six reports on the railways, at the behest of the Board of Trade under its president, W. E. Gladstone. These led to An Act to attach certain Conditions to the construction of future Railways authorised by any Act of the present or succeeding sessions of Parliament; and for other Purposes in relation to Railways, referred to as "Gladstone's Act".
The original bill introduced into Parliament by W. E. Gladstone had been far-reaching for its time - even proposing state ownership of the railways and telegraph.
The Act stated:
In return the railway operator was exempted from duty on third class passengers. The price was not cheap for working people. An additional requirement was that they should be allowed to carry 56 lb (25 kg) of luggage free. It helped those in search of work thus, as Smith[3] points out, its benefit was to improve labour supply.