George Landmann

 Greenwich, Greenwich proper, lives on its tourist trade.  Today, as ever, many visitors come by boat but, despite the newly added DLR, many of them still arrive by South Eastern trains to Greenwich Station.  Hardly any of them will know that they are travelling on what should be recognized as a big heritage asset to Greenwich.  The line between London Bridge and Greenwich, built in 1836, is the oldest powered railway in London and the first commuter railway in the world.  (Perhaps I should say – before anyone pulls me up on it - is that the stretch between Deptford and Greenwich was delayed a year or so and that Greenwich Station itself is a bit of a saga).  Passengers travel from London Bridge on a massive brick viaduct – there are lots of facts and figures about the numbers of bricks used and so on. It is claimed as the biggest brick structure in the world and it was built by a Royal Engineer.

 

Almost the first historical booklet I wrote was about George Landmann, the man who actually built the Greenwich Railway and its viaduct. This was in 1986 when there was a big festival at Cannon Street Station for the 150th anniversary of the Railway’sopening.  A booklet forgotten by everyone but me.I had been interested in Landmann for sometime, haddone some research and intend to carry on and write a proper book.  I had no idea then how difficult this would be and that 32 years later it would still remain unfinished.

 

Landmannis almost unknown although he is someone Greenwich should be proud of – he was a local lad as well as the builder of our railway.  I am also very aware that despite his achievements railway historians take no interest in him.  Try looking at a list of railway engineers –he’s not there.

 

He was actually born in Woolwich, in 1779, in the old Royal Military Academy building which still stands next to our sadly defunct Heritage Centre as one of a cluster of listed buildings by the riverside on the Royal Arsenal site.  His father,Isaac, was a Professor in what became the Royal Military Academy, and, I’m afraid, one of those European immigrants – he had been headhunted by the British government from the EcoleMilitairefor his expertise.  George was educated at the Academy and was then commissioned in the Royal Engineers. Still in his teens he built fortifications in Canada. Back in England his parents had moved to Crooms Hill, in the posh bit of Greenwich, and he both visited and lived there while they were still alive. 

 

As a Royal Engineer he was sent to Gibraltar and was then involved in the Peninsular War against Napoleon.  To be honest it is research on that which has frightened me off– there are lots of military historians out there who will always know more than me, and I will always get it wrong.

 

His autobiography ends after the Battle of Vimeroand I am not really sure about his military career in Portugal after that. He was certainly used as a linguist but I think he was really a spy – and thus almost impossible to research. He was eventually retired and returned to England as Royal Engineer in charge at Gravesend, Durham and then Ireland.  He sold his commission in 1821 when he was to be posted to Ceylon.  His official obituaries and his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography stops right there –clearly he had become a non-person.

 

I have more than a suspicion that the real problem was that he had left his wife and was living with a lady from Brandon in Suffolk (where her family produced flint for the Royal Ordnance).  He married her when his wife died and, interestingly, his three eldest children seem to have stuck with him rather than their mother. Confusingly both wives were called Harriett.

 

Having left the RE he set up as a civil engineer and became involved in the early gas industry travelling Europe with William Congreve (that’s Congreve of the Rockets who was also Comptroller of the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich).  I guess most people won’t be aware that the European gas industry was founded and funded by British interests. The Imperial Continental Gas Association was only wound up in the 1980s as part of Calor Gas.  Well, Landmannnegotiated and built many of the earliest gasworks forContinental cities.

 

The story of the Greenwich Railway is well known.  There is an excellent book ‘London’s First Railway’ published in 1986 by the late Ron Thomas.  Read it!!  There are a lot of things which could be said but in the short amount of space here can I come back to the viaduct which stretches between London Bridge and Greenwich – unprecedented in scale. It was built in the early 1830s and for 180 years it has carried trains of a weight, size and frequency which would have been unbelievable when it was built. I have been told by current railway staff that it just never gives any trouble. When it was built there was a parallel “boulevard” so you could walk to alongside it – difficult to do today but there is lots to see if you try. I also found, in theRoyal Artillery archive, drawings by George Landmann’sfather about arch construction in fortifications. ‘Interesting’, I thought.  The contribution of the Royal Engineers to the early railways has sometimes been noted but mainly in signaling technology, rather than viaduct building.

 

Landmann wanted to extend the railway on to the coast – and as is well known was not allowed to extend it through Greenwich Park by the Royal Observatory and like interests.  I am grateful to the Deptford Dockyard based Shipwright’s Palace blog for telling me that Payne’s Wharf in Deptford was probably built as part of a railway pier by Landmann.  The railway to the riverside though was never built.

 

Landman did build another railway – to the port of Fleetwood in Lancashire as it was being developed by Peter Fleetwood and Decimus Burton. I don’t think Landmann got on very well there– although I would love to find out more about it. I think is that he probably wasn’t a very easy person to work with.

 

He died      n  in Hackney in 1854.  I tried and failed to trace any descendants though there must be many. Did one of his daughters really marry a follybuilder?

 

Landmann is definitely someone Greenwich – and everyone else - should know more about and be proud of.  I’ve missed out a lot of important details of his life here.  I don’t suppose I will ever write that biography now – put off by scary military historians, his family background in the military elite of 18^th century Europe, lack of a publisher and much else. Perhaps someone else could take an interest………….??

A quick note on sources.   Clearly Rob Thomas’ ‘London’s first Railway’ is key, although there have been a number of other short books and pamphlet- many of them in the British Library ‘ Landmann himself wrote two volumes of autobiography as well as a description of his travels in Portugal anda gazeteer.  The Royal Engineer’s facility at Gillingham has archive material on his military career and there is more in the Public Record Office. The Royal Artillery archive has (or had!) original MS by his father, Isaac, and much more.  Thanks to a contact at Calor Gas I had sight of an unpublished history of ICGA. I understand that research has been done in Canada on his work there, and I met Barbara Tunis who had researched claims that he introduced the smallpox vaccine to