Thomas Brassey and the railways of Italy

Abstract

The acquisition by the Institution of Civil Engineers of the letters and other papers of Charles Jones, a long-serving agent of the outstanding contractor Thomas Brassey, has shed light on the terms embodied in several of Brassey's railway building concessions and the methods used to manage and finance his work outside Britain in places as widely dispersed as western France and southern Poland. Among Brassey's numerous assignments in the 1860s, the final decade of his life, were contracts for the construction of two major railway lines, the Maremma and Meridionali, on the Mediterranean and Adriatic coasts of Italy respectively. The Charles Jones archive shows how Brassey subcontracted much of the work to Italians and, as a result of his immense reputation, was able to attract financial support from his fellow British contractors. A huge quantity of documents must have passed through the hands of Brassey and his staff but, to the frustration of those interested in his achievements today, comparatively little primary evidence is extant. The papers of Charles Jones show that much of this evidence was systematically destroyed.