No opposition, no difficulties ever daunted
him. His nature was bold and fitted to command, and to him is due, in a
large degree, the proud position the Midland holds to-day. It was not
until late in life, 1884 I think, when he had reached the age of seventy-
two, that his great qualities were accorded public recognition. He then
received the honour of knighthood but had retired from active service and
become a director of his company.
There was another personality that loomed large, in those years, on the
Midland--Samuel Swarbrick, the accountant. His world was finance, and in
it he was a master. So great was his skill that the Great Eastern
Railway Company, which, financially, was in a parlous condition and their
dividend _nil_, in 1866 took him from the Midland and made him their
general manager, at, in those days, a princely salary. Their confidence
was fully justified; his skill brought the company, if not to absolute
prosperity, at least to a dividend-paying condition, and laid the
foundation of the position that company now occupies.
His reputation as a man of figures stood as I have just said very high,
but, whilst I was at Derby, and before he moved to the Great Eastern, he
was prominent also as the happy possessor of the best coloured meerschaum
pipes in the county, and this, in those days, was no small distinction.
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