Private Acts were so named as they passed powers or benefits to individuals or bodies rather than the general public. Parliament's role was to arbitrate between the promoters of these Private Acts and ...

Who was Charles Stanhope, third Earl Stanhope? Charles Stanhope, third Earl Stanhope (1753-1816), was a scientist, inventor and politician. He was MP for High Wycombe between 1780 and 1786 and sat in ...

Proceedings on railway Bills were far from a foregone conclusion. Many of the best-known railway projects failed at their first attempt. These included the Liverpool and Manchester in 1824 because ...

One of the earliest railway Acts was passed in 1801 for the horse-drawn Surrey Iron Railway between Wandsworth and Croydon. The number gradually increased, including pioneering lines such as the ...

The dawn of the railways marked a new age of quicker, cheaper communications. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway had established the idea that mail could be carried by train, and other railways ...

Turnpikes have been called "one of the central pillars on which the industrial revolution was based". The quality of roads was vital, because many industries producing light high-value goods, notably ...

A private notice question (PNQ) gives a member of the House of Lords the opportunity to ask an urgent and important question to the government on any sitting day. A member of the Lords can apply to ...

From early times, transport petitions have been submitted to Parliament about roads. For example, the Parliament Rolls record of 1290 has Walter Goodlake of Wallingford seeking permission to levy ...

Kenneth Morgan, ‘Mercantilism and the British Empire, 1688-1815' in Donald Winch (ed.) The Political Economy of British Historical Experience, 1688-1914, (Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 165-92 ...

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