3-038-974 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late Mr. George Wilson, 1871. 'The sudden death, three weeks ago, in a railway carriage between Manchester and Liverpool, of Mr. George Wilson, the well-known chairman of the Anti-Corn-Law League, was mentioned by us at the time...It was...latterly in the management of railways, that his particular business occupations were laid...[He] was one of the most active promoters and directors of a new company for giving telegraphic communication to the country; as a director of the Electric Telegraph Company, so early as 1847, he was urging forward the laying down a line of electric wires from Manchester to Leeds...Mr. Wilson was invited to become managing director of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway...He also consistently opposed the war panic with regard, to France, and the war spirit, whether excited against Russia, China, or America...A reduction of our military and naval expenditure was strongly advocated by him. Having been chairman of the Leeds Conference, in 1860, upon the reforms needful in our representative system, Mr. Wilson naturally kept the lead when that movement was renewed in 1866, after the American Civil War and the distress in our manufacturing districts, which had caused its temporary suspension'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.