Great Eastern Railway

Great Eastern Railway
Dates of operation	1862–1923
Predecessor	Eastern Counties Railway Eastern Union Railway and others
Successor	London and North Eastern Railway

The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923.

Overview

The GER was formed in 1862 by amalgamation of the Eastern Counties Railway with smaller railways: the Norfolk Railway, the Eastern Union Railway, the Newmarket and Chesterford Railway, the East Norfolk Railway, the Harwich Railway, the East Anglian Railway and the East Suffolk Railway among others. In 1902 the Northern and Eastern Railway was absorbed by the GER, although it had been worked by the Eastern Counties Railway under a 999-year lease taken on January 1, 1844 whereby the Eastern Counties would work the Northern and Eastern in return for an annual rent and division of the profits.

Memorial at Liverpool Street station to GER staff who died during World War I, unveiled in 1922 by Sir Henry Wilson, who was assassinated by IRA gunmen on his way home from the unveiling ceremony.

Among the towns served were Cambridge, Chelmsford, Colchester, Great Yarmouth, Ipswich, King's Lynn, Lowestoft, Norwich, Southend-on-Sea, and East Anglian seaside resorts such as Hunstanton (whose prosperity was largely a result of the GER's line being built) and Cromer. It also served a suburban area, including Enfield, Chingford, Loughton and Ilford. This suburban network was, in the early 20th century, the most heavily used steam-hauled commuter system in the world.

The original London terminus was opened at Shoreditch in east London by the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) on 1 July 1840 when the railway was extended westwards from an earlier temporary terminus in Devonshire Street, near Mile End. The station was renamed Bishopsgate on 27 July 1847.

The Great Eastern attempted to obtain a West End terminus, alongside the one in east London, via the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway, formed by an Act of Parliament of 28 July 1862. Plans to extend the western end of this line via a proposed 'London Main Trunk Railway', underneath Hampstead Road, the Metropolitan Railway (modern Circle line) and Tottenham Court Road, to Charing Cross, were rejected by Parliament in 1864.

A new London terminus at Liverpool Street was opened to traffic on 2 February 1874, and was completely operational from 1 November 1875. From this date the original terminus at Bishopsgate closed to passengers, although it reopened as a goods station in 1881. (The Bishopsgate goods station was destroyed by a fire in 1964 which claimed the lives of two people.)

The majority of the Great Eastern's locomotives were manufactured at Stratford Works, on the site of today's Stratford International station. The GER owned 1,200 miles of line and had a near-monopoly in East Anglia until the opening of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway in 1893.

In 1922, a large marble memorial was installed at Liverpool Street station commemorating GER staff who had answered the call of duty to fight but died in action in World War I. The memorial was unveiled by Sir Henry Wilson, who was assassinated by two IRA gunmen on his way home from the unveiling ceremony. A smaller memorial to Wilson was later placed adjacent to the GER memorial, alongside one to Charles Fryatt, a British mariner who was executed by the Germans for attempting to ram a U-boat in 1915.

The Great Eastern name has survived, being used both for the Great Eastern Main Line route between London and Norwich, and also for the First Great Eastern train operating company which served much of the old GER route between 1997 and 2004.

Ships

The GER also operated a number of ferries.

Ship	Launched	Tonnage (GRT)	Notes
SS Adelaide	1880	969	Sold for scrapping in 1896
SS Amsterdam	1894	1,745	Scrapped in 1928
RMS Antwerp	1920	2,957	Scrapped in 1951
SS Archangel	1910	2,570	Bombed and sunk off east coast of Scotland in 1941
SS Avalon	1865	670	Sold in 1888 to Earle's Shipbuilding, Hull
SS Berlin	1894	1,745	Sank at Hook of Holland, 1907 with loss of 112 lives
SS Brandon	1871	718	Scrapped in 1905
Brightlingsea	1925		Launch used between Harwich and Shotley and Felixstowe Dock
SS Bruges	1920	2,949	Bombed and sunk at Le Havre in 1940
SS Brussels	1902	1,380	Captured by Germany 1916, scuttled 1918, repaired 1920, scrapped 1929
SS Cambridge	1886	1,196	Sold in 1912 to Anglo-Ottoman Steamship Company
SS Chelmsford	1893	1,635	Sold in 1910 to the Great Western Railway and renamed Bretonne
SS Claud Hamilton	1875	922	Sold in 1897 to the City of London
SS Colchester	1899	1,160	Captured by Germany in 1916, grounded at Kiel in 1918 and scrapped in 1919.
SS Copenhagen	1907	2,570	Torpedoed and sunk in the North Sea in 1917
SS Dresden	1897	1,805	Requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1915 and renamed Louvain. Torpedoed and sunk in the Aegean Sea in 1918
Epping	1914		Small launch used between Harwich and Shotley
PS Essex	1896		Sold in 1916
SS Frinton	1903	1,419	Previously Kilkenny
Hainault	1914		Small launch used between Harwich and Shotley
SS Ipswich	1864		Withdrawn 1873
SS Ipswich	1883	1,067	Sold in 1906 to Shah Steam Navigation Co, Bombay.
SS Kilkenny	1903	1,419	Purchased in 1917 from City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, renamed Frinton in 1919.
SS Lady Tyler	1880	995	Sold in 1893 to Earle's Shipbuilding, Hull
SS Malines	1921	2,969	Laid up 1945, scrapped 1948
SS Munich	1908	2,570	Requisitioned in 1918 and renamed St Denis, retaining that name on return to GER.
PS Norfolk	1900		Withdrawn 1931
SS Norwich	1883	1,062	Sold in 1905 to Channel Drydock & Shipbuilding Company, Harwich
SS Orwell	1873		Sold in 1890 for scrapping.
Pinmill	1912		Small launch used between Harwich and Shotley. Withdrawn from ferry service in 1925, converted to work boat. Still in service in 1985.
SS Princess of Wales	1878	1,098	Scrapped in 1896
SS Richard Young	1871	718	Renamed Brandon in 1890
SS Roulers	1894	1,753	Scrapped in 1930
SS St Denis	1908	2,570	Scuttled in 1940 at Amsterdam. Salvaged by the Germans and repaired. Scrapped 1950.
SS St George	1906	2,456	Purchased from the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1919. Scrapped in 1929.
SS Stour	1864		Withdrawn in 1878
SS Stour	1878		Sold in 1900
SS St Petersburg	1910	2,570	Renamed Archangel in 1916.
PS Suffolk	1895		Withdrawn 1931
SS Vienna	1894	1,753	Renamed Roulers in 1920
SS Zealous	1864	613	Scrapped in 1887

See also

• Locomotives of the Great Eastern Railway
• Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway

References

Map dated 1914, showing, on the right, the north London branches of the Great Eastern Railway

Further reading

• Allen, Cecil J. (1955). The Great Eastern Railway. London: Ian Allan. 

External links

• Great Eastern Railway Society
• Archived copy of a page containing comprehensive details of those railways
• Shipping interests of the company
• Manningtree Rail Users Association