The dogs, the cat and the scandal at the heart of a seaside town's railway

But George Hudson saw its potential. In 1845, he took control of the railway, doubled its track, enlarged its tunnel, put steam locomotives on it and connected it to his other railways so that now you could travel from York, Manchester, Liverpool, Hull and London to Whitby.

Whitby was reborn from a fishing, whaling and shipbuilding outpost into a tourist town of daytrippers and holidaymakers.

To announce his arrival in Whitby, Hudson had his personal architect, GT Andrews, rebuild Whitby’s station so that it had two grand porticos – a main east entrance with five bays overlooking the wharves and the shipyards, and a fake northern one with two bays that just looked good.

Above: The main east entrance to Whitby station. Below: The northern 'entrance' which originally didn't have any doors. Pictures: Google StreetView

Whitby from the air in 1965 with the station below. Its main entrance looks east towards the river while its fake north entrance looks into the street

At the same time, Hudson created a company to build a new tourist settlement of hotels and lodging houses on West Cliff to guarantee a flow of passengers on his line – he had inherited property on the cliff from his great-uncle some years earlier, and there is still a Hudson Street named after him on West Cliff.

This was peak Hudson: in 1846, his companies owned a quarter of the railways in England, from Bristol to Newcastle, and that year, he applied to Parliament for permission to build another 32 railways with a staggering £10m of investment – that’s much more than £1bn in today’s values.

At the same time as they were developing Whitby, Hudson and Andrews were working on the line from Northallerton to Bedale which terminated in 1848 at the curiously grand Leeming Bar station, as Memories told a fortnight ago.

George Hudson in about 1850

But it was around this time that the enormity of Hudson’s “railway bubble” – his financial sleights of hand – was beginning to emerge.

By the end of the 1840s, Hudson was forced to relinquish control of his railway companies, and by the middle of the 1850s, he was spending much time abroad to escape his creditors.

In Whitby, work on West Cliff stopped in 1849 when Hudson’s bubble burst, but the townspeople did not turn against him. In fact, they had a soft spot for him as he had put their town on the railway map and boosted their tourist industry.

In 1859, the town’s Conservative MP, Robert Stephenson (son of George) died, and Hudson was sorely tempted to return in glory from his hideaway overseas and fight for the seat – but he judged it too unsafe.

The seat was won by a Liberal, Harry Thompson, whose campaign manager was George Leeman. These two men were the chairman and deputy chairman of the North Eastern Railway – men who had engineered Hudson’s fall from grace and had taken control of his railway.

So at the 1865 General Election, Hudson was desperate to take them on and seek vengeance. He returned from the Continent and such was the warmth towards him in Whitby, he seemed to have the election in the bag.

But two days before polling day, he was arrested in his lodgings over his alleged debts. He was put on the first train out of Whitby and placed in the debitors’ prison in York castle.

Although Thompson and Leeman denied any involvement, it seems certain that they engineered the arrest. Their railway, the NER, was pursuing Hudson for money and had taken out an arrest warrant against him some months earlier, and it was executed at a critical moment to kill his political chances.

The Conservatives quickly rustled up another candidate, Charles Bagnall, and, riding on a wave of Hudson’s popularity and public dismay at the apparent underhand tactics of the Liberals, he won the seat by 305 votes to 282.

From his prison cell, the victory must have given Hudson some satisfaction.

His plight touched many people and Sir George Elliot – a self-made mineowner from Gateshead known as “Bonnie Geordie” in the Durham coalfield – paid off his immediate debts, only for Hudson to be rearrested in 1866. The case took until 1869 with Hudson being judged to owe the NER £60,000, a sum so vast the railway had to accept it was never going to get its money back.

Hudson lived out his last months in straitened circumstances in London, although his friends – including many in Whitby – generously providing him with an income until he died in 1871.

This picture in The Northern Echo's photo-archive is dated April 1936 and says on its rear "old ticket office on Whitby to Pickering Railway". This was the horsedrawn line that opened in 1836, engineered by George Stephenson. Can anyone tell us anymore about the old ticket office?

The railway on the left following the Esk into the centre of Whitby on an undated photo

MARTIN BIRTLE in Billingham has a bundle of items that can transport back to the operation of Whitby station shortly after the death of the Railway King.

It is a bundle of counterfoils and bills that appear to account for the parcels that Whitby station handled on one day: May 5, 1878, which was a Thursday 144 years ago this month.

One box going to Whitby on May 2, 1878 from Ormesby station, on the Middlesbrough to Whitby line. Ormesby was renamed Marton in 1982, and you can still get trains to Whitby from there 

There are 36 bills showing that parcels were coming from near and far on the northern rail network: Blyth, Bridlington, Castleton, Danby, Driffield, Egton Bridge, Grosmont, Hartlepool West, (five came from) Hull, Lealholm, (four came from) Leeds, Levisham, Loftus, Ormesby, (four came from) Middlesbro’, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Pickering, Redcar, (three came from) Scarborough, Stockton North, Fawcett Street in Sunderland, and there were three from York.

However, for at least four of the senders who had entrusted their parcels to the railway and had the counterfoils to prove it, the consignments did not go as planned.

For example, a parcel that was sent from Leeds on the 4.05pm train has “rather loose order Whitby” written on its bill, suggesting that whatever was inside was rattling around by the time it reached its destination.

This parcel from Hartlepool West seems to have gone astray as it looks like G Danby notes on the bill that it is "not seen" (or do you think it means that the parcel was not seen at Danby station on the Esk Valley Railway?)

A parcel sent on the 4.55pm from Loftus by Mr Ridley is marked “not seen GS”, while one that was due to go on the 5.03pm train from Hartlepool West is marked “otherwise not seen by G Danby”, which suggests that neither of them arrived in Whitby.

One of the largest consignments of the day was three parcels sent from Hull for two shillings each – most parcels cost only a few pennies to send – but different hands scrawl on their bill “not seen Hull”, “not seen at Driffield”, “not seen Whitby”, so it looks as if the paperwork travelled all the way from Hull but the parcels did not.

This means that there were issues with 11 per cent of parcels sent that day.

A dog travelled from Ruswarp to Whitby on the Esk Valley Railway on May 2, 1878, for 3d, and was "recovered" from the guard's van by its owner

The bundle also includes a couple of tickets for dogs, which passengers placed in the guard’s van for the duration of the journey at a cost of 3d. One dog travelled on the 3.25pm from Ruswarp to Whitby and the guard neatly wrote on the ticket that it had been “recovered”. However, there is no such note on the ticket that enabled a dog to travel on the 5.03pm from Glaisdale to Whitby, so perhaps it is still there in GT Andrews’ grand station, loyally awaiting its owner for 144 years...

Mr Buchanan had sent a "lett" from Egton Bridge to Whitby on the 9.21am train for a cost of 3d - do you think it was a letter?

Looking across the river in May 1971 towards West Cliff which Hudson began developing in 1845 as soon as he'd taken control of the railway

WHICH brings us to Whitby station’s cat story, as told by the Echo’s former columnist Harry Mead. Apparently Arthur, a black and white stray with a lame back leg, took up residence in the station sometime in the mid-1960s without any by your leave.

“Staff and travellers made a great fuss of him, all the more because of his disability,” wrote Harry in 1990, “and he became a much-loved character.

“When Arthur died in 1975 station staff buried him at the end of the disused Platform 3, close by the buffers. As they were putting up a fragment of an old sandstone gatepost as his marker, a visitor suggested engraving the epitaph Morte D'Arthur, title of Tennyson's poem on the death of King Arthur. The railmen engraved the words neatly, within an elegant scroll. They added Arthur's date of death, 8.8.75. And they picked out the lettering in gold paint.”

In 1990, Platform 3 was dismantled so a Co-op supermarket could be built on its spot. The stone was saved and is now built into the supermarket’s boundary wall.

The stone dedicated to Whitby station's cat, Arthur, who died in 1975. Picture: Harry Mead