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Rail to the Rescue - Part 2

© John Barham

Whilst Betts and Beatty waited on tenterhooks, the two senior partners Samuel Peto and Thomas Brassey examined in minute detail their detailed plan for setting up a rail link between Balaklava and the British camps on the Sapourne Heights. Conscious that it had been put together under extreme pressure in only four days, they were only too aware that there could well be errors or invalid assumptions which could be picked up by the Secretary for War the Duke of Newcastle or ultimately the Prime Minister the Earl of Aberdeen; in either case the project risked being quashed outright.

But in fact, the plan passed their scrutiny with flying colours. The very next day it was in front of the Duke of Newcastle, who took only the time to conclude that detailed planning had been done, to give it his support. It was then up to him to present it to the Prime Minister on Friday 1st December. Aberdeen surprisingly took plenty of time out to double check the detailed calculations but finally gave his approval. The project was up and running.

Recruiting the work force was the number one priority in lead time. There was no time for a national advertising campaign; Beatty knew that navvies between jobs tended to hang around together at favourite locations; one such in London was the York Hotel in Waterloo Road. So he hired a temporary office close by and placed a notice in the window:

Wanted. Skilled Men for Civil Engineering Corps in the Crimea. Peto, Brassey and Betts. Apply Within

Hopefully this would do the trick.

It did. When Beatty arrived at the office at 6am the following morning, he had to push his way through a jostling good humoured expectant crush of humanity. With relief he saw that the lights were on inside, and that the three potential key assistant engineers for the project who he had provisionally lined up were already there; Donald Campbell, John Kellock and Edgar Swan. Cambell, a great louring bear of a man, was arguably the company's top surveyor. Swann, short and beefy, was the mechanical engineer. The slim, restless Kellock had the longest supervisory service of the three, and James had him earmarked for his deputy.

After hearty greetings, James outlined the project to them. Their employment would be contracted for a minimum six month period for a salary of £500. The first shipload for the Crimea would leave within a fortnight. Were they interested? They surely were! So the base for the recruitment operation was established. They would need 550 quality men from two days interviews. This was not such a herculean task as it looks. The gangs tended to stick together and in the specialised world of railway construction, any navvy with the requisite experience would certainly have worked on at least one Peto Brassey and Betts project over the previous ten years or so.