The early life of Edward Banks focussing on his work in Merstham

Introduction

Edward Banks rose from humble origins to become one of Regency Britain’s great entrepreneurs. Between 1807 and 1834 he controlled Jolliffe & Banks, the civil engineering contractors that undertook a large number of infrastructure projects, the most famous of which were the construction of London’s Waterloo, Southwark and ‘new’ London Bridges.   He was knighted for this work, the first civil engineer to be recognised in this way, and he died a very wealthy man.

There were a number of reasonably discrete phases to Banks’ career. Initially he was involved in constructing canals in Cumbria, Lancashire and Derbyshire. He then encountered the Jolliffe brothers and moved to Surrey to help them develop their quarries in Merstham. In 1807 Banks formed a partnership with the Rev. William Jolliffe that undertook increasingly large public works involving the construction of prisons, dock facilities and bridges. The final phase of his career involved undertaking massive drainage projects largely in The Fens.

This article focuses on Bank’s time in Surrey. More about Bank’s astonishing life can be read in the Bourne Society’s book ‘Sir Edward Banks – The man who constructed Rennie’s London Bridges’ written by Jon Grant and Ron Williams.

Between 1807 and 1816 Banks lived near the village of Chipstead in north-east Surrey and developed a strong attachment to it. Two of his sons (George and Delamark) were christened at St Margaret’s Church, Chipstead and he, his two wives and three of his sons (William, George and Edward) were buried in a tomb in its churchyard. Inside St Margaret’s there is a marble bust of Sir Edward and a memorial stone decorated with arches from his London bridges and with a long testimonial extolling his virtues.

Banks’ early years

Edward Banks is thought to have been born in the hamlet of Hutton Hang, near Richmond in Yorkshire on 4 January 1770.

Nothing is known of Banks’ early life or education. A suggestion that the young Edward may have been involved with sheep stealing cannot be confirmed but it appears that he left the country for two years by becoming a merchant seaman.

Early canal work

On his return to England in 1789, Banks worked as a day labourer, on various sea banking and drainage projects in the Holderness division of the East Riding of Yorkshire. He was clearly ambitious and saw his future lying in becoming a contractor that employed navvies rather than remaining one. In 1791 he gained his first small contract on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. Banks must have gained experience rapidly and with ‘Canal Mania’ being at its height there were numerous opportunities for him.

Between 1795 and 1800 Banks became a contractor building canals to the south east of Manchester working for the engineers William Jessop (1745-1814) and Benjamin Outram (1764-1805). These included the Peak Forest Canal, the Ashton-under-Lyne Canal and probably the Huddersfield Canal, which was beset with difficulties. In 1799 the Huddersfield Canal was damaged by serious flooding and Banks was hired to repair it.

Banks’ relationship with Jessop and Outram must have flourished as in 1800 Banks moved to Butterley Park in Derbyshire and started working closely with them. Initially he worked on the construction of the Nottingham Canal under Jessop. In 1802 he commenced work on the Pixton Branch of the Cromford Canal and is likely to have been involved in the construction of a plate railway at the coal mine at Pixton. In 1802 he won the contract for the construction of the 14-mile Alfreton to Derby Turnpike.

ButterleyPark, in Derbyshire, was the home of Benjamin Outram. Outram was a canal engineer who, when constructing the Butterley Tunnel on the Cromford Canal, discovered iron and coal. In 1792 this prompted Outram and William Jessop to established an ironworks nearby which was originally called Benjamin Outram and Co. but was later renamed the Butterley Company. Within a few years the company had expanded to include a limestone quarry, brickworks and further collieries and ironstone pits.

At this time plate railways were just starting to be used. Plate railways involved horses pulling wagons along tramways variously made from wood, metal or stone. Outram and Jessop built a plate railway for their own use between the Cromford Canal and their lime quarry at Crich and became strong advocates of this new form of transport.  In the 1790s Jessop (as engineer) and Outram (as contractor) were involved in constructing a number of other plate railways in the north of England using, of course, iron rails manufactured by the Butterley Company.

As well as simply digging trenches, Banks’ canal work is likely to have given him experience in the construction of locks, bridges, tunnels and perhaps aqueducts (although the famous aqueduct at Lune on the Lancaster Canal was constructed by direct labour). These early projects also gave him many contacts that would serve him well throughout his life. While his relationship with John Rennie (and after Rennie’s death in 1821 his sons John and George) was to be an important source of work throughout his career it was most likely to have been Banks’ connections with Jessop and Outram that led to his move to Surrey.

Banks moves to Surrey

By the age of 35 Edward Banks had established himself as a reliable contractor having worked closely with eminent engineers such as John Rennie, Benjamin Outram and William Jessop. He also had experience in a variety of different types of construction which would prove extremely useful to him in the next stage of his career in Surrey.

Jessop and Outram’s links to the Surrey Iron Railway (SIR) and, from that, with the Jolliffe family were almost certainly the reason for Banks moving to Merstham in Surrey probably in 1805.  Jessop was the engineer for the SIR which was built between 1801 and 1803. Outram’s tender to construct the SIR had not been accepted but the railway was constructed using iron rails made by his Butterley Company. A few years later the Butterley Company was appointed the contractor for the SIR’s extension to Merstham – the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway (CM&GIR).

The Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway

England was at war with Napoleon and some visionaries saw the SIR being extended to provide a link between London and the naval dockyards at Portsmouth. However, the first, and, in the event the only part of the extension to the SIR, was the eight-mile Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway. The CM&GIR was built between 1803 and 1805 linking Merstham with the SIR in Croydon. The railway was supported, and partly financed by Col. Hylton Jolliffe, a wealthy landowner who owned quarries in Merstham.  Jolliffe would have seen the potential the railway had for reducing the cost of transporting stone and lime from his quarries to buyers in London.

The CM&GIR was a separate company from the SIR but its directors were the same save for the addition of Col. Hylton Jolliffe and his brother the Rev William Jolliffe. The engineer was William Jessop and his son, Josias Jessop, was his assistant. The Butterley Company successfully tendered to construct the CM&GIR for £36,360 including all materials, equipment and labour (the eventual cost was £41,800). The CM&GIR was more expensive per mile than the SIR as there was a need for more cuttings and embankments. There was a two-mile cutting between Hooley and Merstham which was at places over 26 feet deep. The painting below shows a high embankment with a bridge at Lion Green, Coulsdon. The bridge was demolished after the line was closed and the embankment largely flattened.

CM&GIR embankment at Lion Green, Coulsdon. A single horse pulls five fully loaded wagons of coal.

After 1809, when the Croydon Canal to New Cross was opened, much of Merstham’s stone and lime was transferred to barges in Croydon rather than using the SIR. Despite the volumes transported the CM&GIR was not profitable and in time the technology used was superseded by steam railways. The line was bought by the London and Brighton Railway Company and was closed in 1839. Seven years later, in 1846, the SIR itself was closed. There is a memorial to the iron railway in Rotary Field, Purley alongside some of the original iron rails and stone sleepers.

Memorial to the iron railway in Rotary Field, Purley. The opening ceremony of this full-size replica took place in February 2020.

Banks meets the Jolliffes

It is not known what role, if any, Banks had with the construction of the CM&GIR. Local folklore has it that Banks was a navvy on the construction of the plateway and, while working on the stretch in Hooley, fell in love with the nearby parish of Chipstead. This is clearly fantasy – Banks’ days of digging were long behind him. Some involvement is however plausible through his strong links to the Butterley Company. The Butterley Company, the contractor of the CM&GIR, will have known that Banks had relevant expertise as he was concurrently working for it constructing a plateway at the Pixton colliery. However, Banks is unlikely to have had time to play a major role in the construction of the CM&GIR as during this period he was responsible for several other projects in Derbyshire.

It is possible that, after Outram’s unexpected death in May 1805, Banks took responsibility for the completion of the project. He certainly seems to have been in Surrey two months later at the line’s opening as the story is told of him winning a wager about whether a single horse could haul a substantial load over six miles in a set time.

It seems likely that Banks met Col. Hylton Jolliffe at the opening of the CM&GIR and that they discussed how best Banks could apply the knowledge he had acquired in Derbyshire to their mutual advantage. If indeed the first meeting between Banks and Jolliffe was at the CM&GIR opening on 24 July 1805, things moved very rapidly.

On 31 December 1805, Edward Banks, George Andersen and George Eades signed a 30-year lease for the land comprising the Merstham stone mines and lime quarries from Col. Hylton Jolliffe. The following day Banks formed a partnership with Col. Hylton Jolliffe and Andersen and Eades becoming co-partners and joint traders ‘in the business and employment of chalk and lime stone miners and lime businesses’. The partnership ran what became known as the Merstham Limeworks Company.

The lease imposes a number of restrictions on both the lessor and lessees and the calculation of the rent payable is quite sophisticated. The rent was an annual amount of £100 together with an additional amount payable for each ton of stone or lime shipped. For the initial 10 years this was twopence per ton with a minimum amount of £83. Both the amount per ton and the minimum amount payable increased for the second 10 years and again for the final 10 years.

Merstham Limeworks (later known as the Merstham Lime & Stone Company)

The land acquired by the Jolliffes in 1788 included a medieval sandstone quarry but this was largely inactive because of flooding. Higher up the hillside there was chalk but it was difficult to access. Banks’ knowledge gained at Butterley will have helped deal with these challenges and, with the completion of the CM&GIR, the Merstham quarries had become financially viable. Indeed, in the next decade Merstham Limeworks flourished becoming a major supplier to London builders of lime and Reigate ‘firestone’.

It is not known how long the original four partners remained involved in the Merstham Limeworks business as Andersen and Eades were involved in a separate partnership which went bankrupt in 1810. It is possible that Banks, and probably William Jolliffe, increased their involvement at this stage. What is known is that a new 25-year lease for the quarry was signed in February 1813. This was between Col. Hylton Jolliffe as the land owner and William Jolliffe and Edward Banks, as individuals (rather than in the name of their partnership). The annual rent was £1,000 plus an eighth share of the value of the stone and chalk shipped. An additional amount was payable for any bricks made from clay that was extracted.

D Wolstenholme’s painting ‘Full Cry, Hounds crossing the Brighton Road, Mersham’ [sic]. The painting shows the Merstham Lime quarry in the background

It is unclear how long Jolliffe and Banks remained involved with the Merstham quarries. At some stage George Hall took over the lease. CG Dobson’s book about the history of Hall & Co, which became a builders’ merchants of national significance, states that Hall acquired the lease in 1824. This seems unlikely as during the 1820s the Jolliffe & Banks accounts show ‘the amounts of stock in Merstham Works’ as an asset which suggests that they retained ownership.

Little remains today of the Merstham stone quarries as the construction of the M23 has greatly changed the area. What can be seen is a large building that was once an inn known as the Jolliffe Arms, a row of quarrymen’s cottages and a heavily wooded chalk spoil tip.

Jolliffe & Banks Public Works Contractors

In 1807 Col. Hylton Jolliffe retired from business affairs and Banks formed a partnership with his younger brother the Rev William John Jolliffe thereby forming Jolliffe & BanksPublic Works Contractors (‘Jolliffe & Banks’).  Jolliffe & Banks was to thrive for the next 27 years bringing fame and fortune to the partners.

Initially the work effort was directed towards improving the productivity of the Merstham quarries and linking them to the CM&GIR terminus. Within a few years the terminus area was transformed into an extraordinarily active industrial site – more characteristic of England’s industrial north than leafy Surrey. Innovations at the quarries included internal plateways linking working sites to the CM&GIR terminus, a stationary steam winding engine and inclined planes (plateways laid up a slope with wagons being hauled up or lowered down by means of a stationary steam engine). Not surprisingly, the iron plates for the plateways and the steam engine were supplied by the Butterley Company.

Sophisticated mine-drainage was constructed to drain the flooded stone mines and steam pumps installed. The drainage schemes seem to have been successful in draining the stone mines but impacted on the environment and the partners had to pay compensation to a local mill owner for lowering the water table and reducing the flow of water.

Croydon and Reigate Turnpike Trust

In 1807 Hylton and William Jolliffe were involved in obtaining parliamentary approval for a long-anticipated turnpike road between Croydon and Reigate. The road was constructed by Jolliffe & Banks on behalf of the Croydon and Reigate Turnpike Trustwhich had been formed by Banks and the Jolliffe brothers.

Built in 1808, the turnpike road largely followed the track used by the workers of the iron railway between Croydon and Merstham and then crossed Wray Common to Reigate. Much of this is today’s A23. The Croydon and Reigate Turnpike Trust was a relatively late turnpike because for many years it had been opposed by the MPs for Reigate (Lord Hardwicke and Lord Somers) who had invested in the nearby Sutton to Reigate turnpike.  Financial accommodation was eventually reached between them and the Jolliffes.

The new road to Reigate initially appears to have been profitable benefitting from the number of Londoners wishing to visit the newly fashionable Brighton. From 1810 the Royal Mail coaches used the route and after 1816 about 50 public coaches a day ran on it. After 1839 the turnpike was to suffer from competition from the London and Brighton Railway and the Trust was finally dissolved in 1871.

Banks’ family and his death

Despite his humble origins, over his life Sir Edward Banks amassed a considerable fortune. His wealth has been estimated at £250,000 (over £18 million in today’s terms).

In 1793 Banks married Nancy Franklin, in Colne, Lancashire. It is unclear how Edward and Nancy met. While being a Yorkshire lass she was probably born in Hayton which is some distance from Hutton Hang.

Edward and Nancy Banks had seven children. Two were to die in infancy and in February 1811 Edward and Nancy had the tragic experience of burying two of their sons (William, aged six and George, aged just three days) within a week of each other at St Margaret’s Chipstead. Another son, Edward, also died young. Nancy Banks died in 1815 aged 40.

In 1821 Banks married again. His second marriage was to Amelia Pytches, daughter of Sir Abraham Pytches of Streatham. The wedding took place at St Marylebone Church, Westminster and was clearly a high society event. Amelia was the sister of William Jolliffe’s wife, Julia, and William Jolliffe was one of the witnesses. At about this time, perhaps influenced by his new well-bred wife, Edward Banks started to live a life-style that reflected his business success. In the 1820s Banks and his wife lived in the prestigious new Adelphi Terrace (off the Strand) and had his portrait painted by William Pattern RA. He also acquired two substantial country properties – Oxney Court,  near Dover, and Sheppey Court, near Sheerness.

At the end of 1833, or early in 1834, with both partners being in their sixties, the decision was made to wind-up the Jolliffe & Banks Public Works partnership. Neither of the partners was to outlast it long. William Jolliffe died on 31 January 1835, some six months before Edward Banks.

Sir Edward died at his daughter Margaret’s house, Tilgate Lodge in Sussex on 5 July 1835. Amelia, his second wife, died the year after. Sir Edward, both his wives, and the three children who predeceased him (Edward, William and George) are buried in a vault in the churchyard of St Margaret’s Church, Chipstead. Above the vault is an imposing stone chest with curved corners and a funerary urn on top. It was carved by James Colecom of Merstham.

Inside St Margaret’s there is a fine white and black marble memorial which comprises his bust (dressed in a loose Roman toga), delineations of one arch from each of London, Waterloo and Southwark Bridges, his coat of arms and a long inscription recounting his public works and extolling his character. The memorial is marked ‘Smith, fecit, Savoy, London’.

Several theories exist as to why Sir Edward chose to be buried in Chipstead. One, that he fell in love with Chipstead while working on the iron railway in Hooley, is plausible only if Banks ever did work on the CM&GIR. An alternative theory, that Banks chose to be buried at St Margaret’s because of his close relationship with the Jolliffe family, suffers from the fact that the Jolliffes had a much closer relationship with nearby St Katharine’s, Merstham and his partner Rev. William, and William’s brother and father, are all buried there. It seems most likely that Banks had invested in a family tomb between 1811 (when he lost two sons) and 1815 (when his first wife died) and he just wanted to keep the family close together.

This material has been extracted from the Bourne Society’s book ‘Sir Edward Banks – The man who constructed Rennie’s London Bridges’ written by Jon Grant and Ron Williams.