Underground Electric Railways Company of London
Collection record for the company.
Open the sourceThe topic has a clear London–US shape and a digitised company archive. The main risks are the technical finance, which needs plain explanation, and image licensing at the London Transport Museum.
1.The company, 1902
Yerkes formed the Underground Electric Railways Company of London in 1902 to finance electrification of the District Railway, the Lots Road power station and three deep tube lines that became the Bakerloo, Piccadilly and Northern. It raised an initial £5 million, later topped up with debentures and profit-sharing notes. Speyer Brothers helped arrange the finance, with New York and Boston interests.
Charles Tyson Yerkes
The Museum’s short biography.
Open the source2.Parliament and the Hampstead tube
The route that became the Hampstead tube needed private bills. The Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway bills came before Parliament in 1891, 1893 and 1901–02, and the Lords debated one on 27 January 1902. TfL’s research guides point to where the records are held.
Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (No. 2) Bill, House of Lords, 27 January 1902
Record of the bill’s progress.
Open the sourceResearch Guide no. 10: Development of Organised Transportation in London
Where to find the records.
Open the source3.The company’s own minutes
The first Board Minute Book of the UERL has been digitised by the TfL Corporate Archives. It lets us see decisions as the directors made them, which is better evidence of how the venture worked than later retellings. The National Archives also holds a record for the company.
UERL Board Minute Book 1
Digitised minutes of the company.
Open the sourceUnderground Electric Railways Co of London Ltd
Catalogue record.
Open the source4.From company to “Underground”
A pocket map issued by the company in 1908 shows the Hampstead tube, the Bakerloo extension to Paddington and the Piccadilly branch to the Strand, all of which opened in 1907. The Museum’s catalogue says the sunburst logo on its cover, designed in 1907 by W. J. Pawsey, was the Underground Group’s earliest logo, and that the distinctive UNDERGROUND lettering followed in 1908. Frank Pick and Albert Stanley, later Lord Ashfield, are the names usually attached to what came next.
Pocket Underground map issued by UERL, 1908 (ref. 2002/264)
Catalogue record with description. Image licensed by the Museum.
Open the sourceLord Ashfield: Creator of London Transport
Short biography.
Open the sourceWhy it matters now
Arguments about private money and public transport run through every fare rise and funding row. Yerkes gives the group a concrete start: a venture run for investors that nonetheless left London a network it still uses, with the question of who should bear the risk still unresolved.
Bibliography
- Franch, John, Robber Baron: The Life of Charles Tyson Yerkes (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006).
- Wolmar, Christian, The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground Was Built and How It Changed the City Forever (London: Atlantic Books, 2004).
- Halliday, Stephen, Underground to Everywhere: London’s Underground Railway in the Life of the Capital (Stroud: Sutton, 2001).
- Barker, T. C. and Michael Robbins, A History of London Transport, vol. 1 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1963).
- Green, Oliver, The London Underground: An Illustrated History (London: Ian Allan, 1987).
- Martin, Andrew, Underground, Overground: A Passenger’s History of the Tube (London: Profile, 2012).
Image credits
Tube map 1908.jpg, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tube_map_1908.jpg). Author unknown. Licence on the Commons page: public domain.
Charles Tyson Yerkes by Jan van Beers.jpg, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Tyson_Yerkes_by_Jan_van_Beers.jpg). Portrait by Jan van Beers, 1893. Licence on the Commons page: public domain.
The London Transport Museum’s own images are © TfL and licensed for a fee, so this site links to the Museum’s collection records instead of copying them.