The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was formally opened in the autumn of 1830, and the Duke of Wellington, then Prime Minister, was one of the few passengers who ventured on the trial trip.  The growth of this new mode of transportation was so rapid that in five years from that time London and the principal seaports were connected with the great manufacturing towns, while local steam navigation had also nearly doubled its vessels and its tonnage.

Later on (1844-1847), Stephenson might easily have made himself “rich beyond the dreams of avarice,”—­or at least of the avarice of that day.  All he had to do was to lend the use of his name to new and doubtful railway projects; but he refused on the ground that he did not care “to make money without labor or honor.”  Meanwhile the whole country became involved in a speculative craze for building railways.  Scores of millions of pounds were invested; for a time Hudson, the so-called “Railway King,” ruled supreme, and Dukes and Duchesses, and members of Parliament generally, did homage to the man whose schemes promised to cover the whole island with a network of iron roads, every one of which was expected to be as profitable as a gold mine.  These projects ended in a panic, second only to that of the South Sea Bubble (S536), and thousands found that steam could destroy fortunes even faster than it made them.

Toward the close of William’s reign (1834-1835) a humble invention was perfected of which little was said at the time, but which contributed in no small degree to the comfort and convenience of every one.  Up to this date two of the most important of all civilizing agents—­fire and light—­could be produced only with much difficulty and at considerable expense.

Various deviced had been contrived to obtain them, but the common method continued to be the primitive one of striking a bit of flint and steel sharply together until a falling spark ignited a piece of tinder or half-burned rag, which, when it caught, had, with no little expense of breath, to be blown into a flame.  The progress of chemistry suggested the use of phosphorus, and after years of experiments the friction match was invented by an English apothecary, who thus gave to the world what is now the commonest, and perhaps at the same time the most useful, domestic article in existence.

585.  Summary.

William IV’s short reign of seven years was marked (1) by the great Reform Bill of 1832, which, to a great extent, took Parliament out of the hands of rich men and “rotten boroughs” and put it under the control of the people; (2) by the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, and factory reform; (3) by the introduction of the friction match, and by the building of the first successful line of steam railway.

VICTORIA—­1837-1901

586.  The Queen’s Descent; Stability of the Government.

As William IV left no child to inherit the crown, he was succeeded by his niece, the Princess Victoria, daughter of his brother Edward, Duke of Kent. (See Genealogical Table, p.323.) In her lineage the Queen represented nearly the whole past sovereignty of the land over which she reigned.[1] The blood of both Cerdic, the first Saxon king, and of William the Conqueror,[2] flowed in her veins,—­a fact which strikingly illustrates the vitality of the hereditary and conservative principles in the history of the English Crown.