Note 144 — Chapter VIII · George Stephenson Engineer of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.

Middlesborough does not furnish the only instance of the extraordinary increase of population in certain localities, occasioned by railways. Hartlepool, in the same neighbourhood, has in thirty years increased from 1330 to above 15,000; and Stockton-on-Tees from 7763 to above 16,000. In 1831 Crewe was a little village with 295 inhabitants; it now numbers upwards of 10,000. Rugby and Swindon have quadrupled their population in the same time. The railway has been the making of Southampton, and added 30,000 to its formerly small number of inhabitants. In like manner the railway has taken London to the sea-side, and increased the population of Brighton from 40,000 to nearly 100,000. That of Folkestone has been trebled. New and populous suburbs have sprung up all round London. The population of Stratford-le-Bow and West Ham was 11,580 in 1831; it is now nearly 40,000. Reigate has been trebled in size, and Redhill has been created by the railway. Blackheath, Forest Hill, Sydenham, New Cross, Wimbledon, and a number of populous places round London, may almost be said to have sprung into existence since the extension of railways to them within the last thirty years.