steam which drives locomotives or urges on the
progress of practical railway construction. Ever since 1844, reliance
had been placed in the possibility of assistance from one or both of the
great lines which already had access to the Welsh border. Hope was first
centred in the North Western, which had designs on a line from Shrewsbury
into Montgomeryshire, but, in the Oswestry area, wistful eyes turned
towards Paddington, and in propitiation of expected favours to come, four
men with Great Western interests,--Mr. W. Ormsby-Gore, who became its
first chairman; Sir Watkin, who later succeeded him in the chair; Col.
Wynn, M.P., and Mr. Rowland James Venables,--were placed on the Oswestry
and Newtown Board. The Earl of Powis, though a "North Westerner," was
found to be not without ready desire to look at things all round. He was
for a line to Shrewsbury, and also a line to Oswestry, but not to
Oswestry alone. Even the line to Oswestry, according to North Western
notions, was to be a branch either from Garthmyl or Criggion, according
to whether the Shrewsbury and Montgomeryshire line went by the Rea Valley
or by Alberbury, and that was not at all to Oswestrian taste. In the
end, however, his lordship agreed to support the Oswestry project, and to
take the value of his land,--some 10,000 pounds,--in shares, provided the
possessor of Powis Castle was allowed to nominate a director, as the
owner of Wynnstay was on the Great Western Board. The condition was
readily granted, and the Oswestry and Newtown Bill, freed from North
Western opposition, was allowed to pass. It obtained Royal Assent on
June 26th, 1855, and the first general meeting was held at Welshpool on
July 21st of that year.

Local rivalries, however, were not so easily dispelled. Welshpool's
impartiality as between the Shrewsbury and the Oswestry lines was
anathema at the latter town, where Mr. Whalley, speaking for nearly an
hour and a half, readily persuaded a great meeting to register its
insistence on the Oswestry scheme as an extension of the Llanidloes and
Newtown, and so form another link in the chain that was to bind
Manchester and Milford. Anyhow, Oswestry must be made "the initial town
and not Newtown." In support of this the local promoters looked for
substantial aid from the Great Western. But that company proved
singularly unready to render any assistance. "Not only," said Mr.
Abraham Howell, in giving evidence before Lord Stanley's Committ