Event    From 10/1/1863 

First underground passenger railway - Metropolitan

Categories: Transport

Event

Between Paddington and Farringdon. A grand opening on the 9th preceded the opening to the public on Saturday 10 January 1863.

“That afternoon Hetta trusted herself all alone to the mysteries of the Marylebone underground railway, and emerged with accuracy at King’s Cross. She had studied her geography, and she walked from thence to Islington.” This description of an early underground journey, by a woman alone, comes from the 1875 ‘The Way We Live Now’ by Anthony Trollope (p.385 in vol.2, Penguin 2001). Living in Welbeck Street Hetta probably got on at (Great) Portland Street.

See Metropolitan Railway Company for more information.

It's interesting that, in 1829, George Shillibeer had launched the first omnibus service on a quite similar route: Marylebone Road to the Bank. Both services were catering to the middle classes who lived to the west and worked in the City.

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
First underground passenger railway - Metropolitan

Commemorated ati

Baker Street Station Restoration

The walls of both platforms are adorned with information boards giving the hi...

Read More

First underground passenger railway - LT plaque

London's roads were heavily congested, the railways stopped on the fringes of...

Read More

First underground railway - red plaque

Metropolitan Railway The world's first underground railway opened from Paddin...

Read More

Regents Park Station

Great Portland Street  is a London Underground station on the Circle, Hammers...

Read More

Other Subjects

Kindertransport

Kindertransport

10,000 unaccompanied mainly Jewish children fled from Nazi persecution in 1938 and 1939. This was organised mainly by World Jewish Relief, but many Quakers helped the children at stations on the jo...

Event, Children, Transport, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland

2 memorials
Private Arthur Edwin Still

Private Arthur Edwin Still

Arthur Edwin Still was born in Southampton, Hampshire, one of the seven children of Edwin John Still (1861-1945) and Selina Still née Stickland (1863-1928). His birth was registered in the 4th quar...

Person, Armed Forces, Transport, France

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
Camden Roundhouse

Camden Roundhouse

Built to service trains using Euston, London's first railway terminus. It became obsolete by 1855 when locomotives outgrew its turntable. It then became a warehouse for Gilbey's Gin. In the 1960s t...

Building, Music / songs, Theatre, Transport

1 memorial
Samuel Plimsoll

Samuel Plimsoll

Born Bristol. "The sailors' friend", whose Load Line prevented ships becoming dangerously overloaded.  Sand shoes were renamed for him since the lower section is rubber and the upper is canvas: dry...

Person, Politics & Administration, Transport

1 memorial
Asquith Xavier

Asquith Xavier

Asquith Camile Xavier was born in the West Indies. One of the Windrush generation who migrated to the UK after WW2. He died Chatham, Kent. In 1966 Xavier successfully fought to become the first bl...

Person, Race Issues, Transport, Caribbean Islands

1 memorial