[BITList] Career track

[John Feltham]

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Huish,  Mark  (1808-1867), railway manager, was born on 9 March 1808 at Nottingham, the elder son of Mark Huish, a hosier, and Eliza, the daughter of John Gainsford of Worksop. His father was for many years deputy lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, and a staunch member of the congregation of the Church of Protestant Dissenters in High Pavement, Nottingham. Mark was educated in the classical tradition at Mr Taylor's school in Castle Gate.

In 1823 Huish became a cadet in the East India Company army, and in the following year ensign with the 67th regiment, Bengal native infantry in Calcutta. Promoted to lieutenant with the newly created 6th extra regiment (later known as the 74th) in 1825, he was personal escort to Lord Amherst, the governor-general of Bengal from 1826 to 1830, and then spent five years at Chittagong as quartermaster and acting interpreter for the regiment. All this provided an invaluable, if somewhat arduous, training in administrative management, at a time when there were few training grounds for managers. In 1834 he returned to England on leave, and although promoted to captain in his absence he showed no inclination to return to India. Finding himself in Liverpool at the time of the 'railway mania' he looked for work in the industry, and in 1837 he was appointed to the post of secretary of the Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway, with a salary of £200 p.a.

Within a decade Huish progressed from modest official of a minor railway in Scotland to the highly paid chief executive of the largest company in the world in 1846. This astonishing rise demonstrated the opportunities which the railways in their pioneering stage provided for ambitious, energetic, and charismatic figures. Four years in Scotland gave him a thorough grounding in railway management at a formative stage; then in 1841 he was approached by the Grand Junction Railway, which was dissatisfied with its existing managers and was looking for both a competent administrator, and a skilful negotiator with other companies. On returning to Liverpool, Huish became secretary and general manager, and was plunged into, and clearly relished the cut and thrust of, English railway politics. He engineered the merger with the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1845, and also that with the London and Birmingham in the following year which created the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), a giant company, which formed a continuous route from London (Euston) to Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester. Huish was a natural choice to lead its executive as general manager. His salary of £2000 p.a. made him the supreme railway manager of his day. In the late 1840s and 1850s he was the lion of railway diplomacy.

Huish's managerial abilities were notable, making him one of the leading railway executives of the nineteenth century. Known for his interest in rail safety, cost accounting, and financial management, he contributed to key debates about freight traffic management, permanent way costing, and telegraphic communication. He was, above all, a highly skilled traffic manager, who established the early railway cartels, dominated by LNWR. A master strategist of 'railway diplomacy' he found it difficult to delegate and became the scapegoat for the collapse of his cartel agreements in 1857. His Achilles' heel was undoubtedly an unscrupulous and often crude, bullying approach to business dealings. However, his manoeuvring and tendency to ride roughshod over officials of minor companies, and directors of major ones, finally caught up with him. He was forced to resign in November 1858 after a directorial coup led by Richard Moon, Edward Tootal, and George Carr Glyn. He then retired to the Isle of Wight, where he acted as a director of the Isle of Wight Railway, and chairman of two non-railway concerns, the Clifton Suspension Bridge Company and the Electric and International Telegraph Company. A somewhat disgraced figure in the 1860s, he nevertheless acted as arbitrator in a number of inter-railway disputes, and gave evidence to the royal commission on railways in 1867. He died on 18 January 1867 at his home, Combe Wood, Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, and was buried in St Boniface's graveyard there. He was survived by his wife, Margaret, but nothing else is known about his family life.

While recent scholarship has placed Huish in his context-that of traffic manager in the pioneering stage of railway development-closer inspection reveals a thoughtful executive who contributed much to a broader understanding of the challenges of railway management. He was the general manager par excellence of the early railway age, who demonstrated managerial capitalism at the proto-corporate stage of Britain's history.

Terry Gourvish 

Sources  T. R. Gourvish, Mark Huish and the London-North Western Railway (1972) + T. R. Gourvish, 'Captain Mark Huish: a pioneer in the development of railway management', Business History, 12 (1970), 46-58 + PICE, 27 (1867-8), 600-02 + ILN (4 Dec 1858) + d. cert. + CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1867)
Archives BL OIOC, East India MSS + NA Scot., Glasgow, Paisley, and Greenock Railway MSS + TNA: PRO, Grand Junction and London and North Western Railway MSS
Likenesses  W. H. Mote, stipple, pubd 1848 (after A. Wivell), NPG [see illus.] · photograph, British Railways Board, London
Wealth at death  under £40,000: administration with will, 9 March 1867, CGPLA Eng. & Wales



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