The effect of the railways on the growth of the economy of England and Wales, 1840-1870

Although historians have usually acknowledged the importance of the railways for economic growth in England and Wales in the mid-nineteenth century, little research has been specifically devoted to this subject. Historians have investigated other aspects of railways, and writers whose interests centred on railways rather than on economic or historical development, have provided a large literature on technical matters and on inter-company rivalries. The economic impact of the railways has been relatively neglected. Until recently, the position was similar in the U.S.A. although historians or the economic development of that country had given the railways a more central role in the process of growth and generalised judgements about their impact were more common. Professors Fogel and Fishlow have however re-examined the role of the railways with a more modern economic approach and have advanced substantial revisions of the orthodox interpretation. Fogel, for example, has suggested that the U.S. economy in 1890 depended on the existence of railways to a much smaller extent than is generally supposed. This American work has important implications for the historical problem of to what extent economic growth in England and Wales in the nineteenth century depended on railways, and on the related and more general problem of to what extent economic growth depends on specific innovations. [Continued in text ...]