THE RAILWAYS AND AIR TRANSPORT IN GREAT BRITAIN, 1933–1939
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1965.tb00745.x |
| Published date | 01 February 1965 |
| Author | Derek H. Aldcroft |
| Date | 01 February 1965 |
THE
RAILWAYS AND AIR TRANSPORT
IN
GREAT
BRITAIN,
1933-1939
DEREK
H.
ALDCROFT
IN
view of the wealth
of
material available it is surprising what little
work has been done on the early history of air transport in Great
Britain. Apart from Higham’s book on Imperial Air Routes’ and
Birkhead’s excellent articles on the early pioneer companies in the
international field2 there is very little scholarly work worth speaking
of.
Internal aviation has suffered even greater neglect and
it
still
remains a virgin field for the student
of
aeronautics.
For a variety of reasons Britain’s internal air services were slow
to materialise after the First World War.
A
few attempts were made
in the
1920’s
to establish regular services but all of them ended in
failure. In the following decade conditions were more favourable for
the introduction
of
such services.
As
a result a large number of com-
panies were established and by the outbreak
of
the Second World War
Britain possessed
a
fairly elaborate network
of
air services.
A
par-
ticular feature of this development was the part played by the railways.
Their participation in air transport has been criticised from various
quarters on the grounds that the railway companies were merely
furthering or protecting their own interests. The purpose of this article
therefore is to examine in some detail the development
of
the railways’
air services and to try to determine exactly what contribution they
made to this new form of transport.
There can be no doubt that the entry of the railways into air
transport was determined
by
outside developments
in
the field. They
had obtained air transport powers in
1929
but made no attempt to
use them until the establishment of internal air services
by
private
operators in the early
1930’s
appeared to threaten their own interests.
Early in
1934
Sir Josiah Stamp, chairman
of
the
L.M.S.
railway
company, made it clear that the railways were not going
to
sit back
and let the airlines rob them of their traffic. ‘The matter’, he said,
‘has assumed some urgency with
us,
owing to the more recent
activities of certain established airway companies and their prepara-
tions for the inauguration
of
regular commercial services between
E.
Birkbead,
‘The
Daimler
Airway
,
Journal
of
Transport History.
Not
1958
and ‘The Financial Failure
of
British
Air Transport Companies,
1919-24
,
ibid.,
May
1960.
50
1
R.
Higham,
Britain’s Imperial Air
Rquies,
1918-1939
(1960).
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