George Hudson

George Hudson (probably 10 March 1800 – 14 December 1871) was an English railway financier and politician who, because he controlled a significant part of the railway network in the 1840s, became known as "The Railway King" – a title conferred on him by Sydney Smith in 1844.

Hudson played a significant role in linking London to Edinburgh by rail, carrying out the first major merging of railway companies (the Midland Railway), developing his hometown of York into a major railway junction, and represented Sunderland in the House of Commons. Hudson’s success was built on dubious financial practices and he frequently paid shareholders out of capital rather than money the company had earned.

Eventually in 1849, a series of enquiries launched by the railways he was chairman of, exposed his methods, although many leading the enquiries had benefited and approved of Hudson’s methods when it suited them. Hudson fell a long way, becoming bankrupt, and after losing his Sunderland seat he was forced to live abroad to avoid arrest for debt, returning only when imprisonment for debt was abolished in 1870.

Hudson's name is associated with financial wrongdoing, although others were at least partially guilty of similar practices. He never named any of his co-conspirators, although many of them turned their backs on him when the bubble burst.

George Hudson was born in Howsham, about 12 miles from York, to parents John and Elizabeth Hudson on 10 March 1800. His mother died at the age of 38 when George was six and his father two years later. He was brought up by older brothers William and John and after a cursory education he left Howsham at age 15. Beaumont (2003) suggests that this may have been the result of the slump affecting agriculture in 1815, but there was also a payment of 12 shillings and 6 pence recorded in the Howsham poor book as being “received of George Hudson for bastardry”.

Hudson was apprenticed to Bell and Nicholson, a firm of drapers in College Street, York. He finished his apprenticeship in 1820, was taken on as a tradesman, and given a share in the business early in 1821. On 17 July that year he married Nicholson's daughter Elizabeth. When Bell retired, the firm became Nicholson and Hudson. By 1827 the company was the largest drapery, indeed the largest business, in York.

...
Wikipedia