Private Owner Wagons: A Sixteenth Collection

Once again, the authors have joined together to create a volume covering a widely diverse selection of Private Owner Wagons. Coverage is across England and Wales and from beer to salt via coal. Each wagon operator is written up as fully as possible and illustrated with all known views of their wagons. The businesses range from the highly successful to the very short-lived, from large companies to the ‘one man band’. Once again, the volume gives an insight into the period when ‘king coal’ reigned. It was collieries, coal merchants and coal factors that made up the largest section of wagon owners. It adds yet more detail to the social history of a group of tradespeople, often overlooked, who played a huge part in the fabric of society with many coal merchant’s having a big part to play in local politics and some rising to quite high office as documented in other volumes in this series.