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Plaque honour for railway pioneer

blackmorevaleDecember 22, 20200 Comment0

One of the main protagonists for bringing the railway to North Dorset is to be celebrated with a blue plaque in his home town of Shaftesbury.

John Rutter was an activist who campaigned tirelessly for the line to extend from Salisbury. Being a hilltop town, Shaftesbury was never going to be directly on a railway line – but Rutter argued in 1845 that the population of the area had a population of 25,000 that were “entirely neglected” as far as rail was concerned. Rutter’s life was researched by Sir John Stuttard, honorary president of the Shaftesbury & District Historical Society, and published recently as The Turbulent Quaker of Shaftesbury.

Says Sir John: “One of his many achievements was helping to persuade Parliament that the railway from Salisbury to Yeovil and the west should run through Tisbury, Gillingham and Sherborne. “The inhabitants of Gillingham were so grateful to Rutter for his efforts they presented him with a silver salver in 1848 – which is at Gold Hill Museum.” The plaque will be unveiled in Shaftesbury at the same time as a mural telling the story of the South Western Railway (SWR) is planned to be unveiled in Gillingham.

Sir John Stuttard at Gold Hill Museum (Picture: Hobnob Press and Barry Cuff)

Sir John’s book details the campaign by Rutter, the local agent for the then named L&SWR rail company, which competed with GWR to build the mainline to Exeter. GWR’s plan did not include a station (Semley) serving Shaftesbury and Rutter fought his case with an impressive array of statistics.

In the House of Commons in 1847, he listed the amount of agricultural produce transported out of the district within five miles north and south of his proposed line between Salisbury and Yeovil that would benefit from quicker access to London. Namely: “14,084 tones of butter, cheese, veal and pork; 241,200 sheep; 9,300 cattle; 6,000 hogsheads of cider and 50,000 tons of produce, including the manufacturing tonnage in the vicinity of Gillingham.”

In addition, said Rutter, there were 25 flour mills within 17 miles of the intended line from Salisbury to Yeovil with “ample water power to do twice or thrice their present amount of business, confined, as it is, for want of a railroad outlet”.

Parliament confirmed in July 1847 that the L&SWR plan was the winner, with an extension from Yeovil to Exeter also approved “compared to that put forward by GWR who regarded a line between Salisbury and Yeovil as being unnecessary”, says the book. The section of line from Salisbury and Semley and onward to Gillingham was opened in May 1859. An omnibus carried passengers for Shaftesbury up the hill from Semley to The Grosvenor Hotel. The entire 171-mile line from London to Exeter was completed a year later but Rutter died in 1851, aged 55. “He did not live to see the completion of the project for which he campaigned so vigorously and successfully,” said Sir John, a former Lord Mayor of London.

The blue plaque, to be erected on HSBC in The Commons, Shaftesbury, will read: John Rutter, printer, publisher, author, political and social reformer, abolitionist, public servant, philanthropist and lawyer.

Shaftesbury Town Council has agreed to pay half the costs up to £500, and the Historical Society will cover the rest.

As reported in the last issue, a grant of £13,000 from SWR is also being sought to build the Gillingham mural as a 5m long interpretation board.

*The Turbulent Quaker of Shaftesbury is published by Hobnob Press (£14.95). The book was co-researched by Ray Simpson, former archivist at Shaftesbury Gold Hill Museum. Net sales proceeds go to Shaftesbury Historical Society, which owns and runs the museum.