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George Hudson (probably 10 March 1800 – 14 December 1871) was an English railway financier and politician who, because he controlled a significant part of the railway network in the 1840s, became known as "The Railway King" – a title conferred on him by Sydney Smith in 1844. Hudson played a significant role in linking London to Edinburgh by rail, carrying out the first major merging of railway companies (the Midland Railway) and represented Sunderland in the House of Commons. Hudson’s success was built on dubious financial practices and he frequently paid shareholders out of capital rather than money the company had earned. Eventually in 1849, a series of enquiries launched by the railways he was chairman of, exposed his methods, although many leading the enquiries had benefited and approved of Hudson’s methods when it suited them. Hudson fell a long way becoming bankrupt and after losing his Sunderland seat he was forced to live abroad to avoid arrest for debt. His name is associated with financial wrongdoing although others were at least partially guilty of similar practices. He never named any of his co-conspirators although many of them turned their backs on him when the bubble burst. == Early life == George Hudson was born in Howsham, about 12 miles from York, to parents John and Elizabeth Hudson on 10 March 1800. His mother died at the age of 38 when George was six and his father two years later. He was brought up by older brothers William and John and after a cursory education he left Howsham at age 15. suggests that this may have been the result of the slump affecting agriculture in 1815, but there was also a payment of 12 shillings and 6 pence recorded in the Howsham poor book as being “received of George Hudson for bastardry”. Hudson was apprenticed to Bell and Nicholson, a firm of drapers in College Street, York. He finished his apprenticeship in 1820, was taken on as a tradesman, and given a share in the business early in 1821. On 17 July that year he married Nicholson's daughter Elizabeth. When Bell retired, the firm became Nicholson and Hudson. By 1827 the company was the largest drapery, indeed the largest business, in York. In 1827, his great-uncle Matthew Botrill fell ill and Hudson attended at his bedside. In thanks for this, the old man made a will leaving him his fortune of £30,000. In later years when exiled in France, Hudson acknowledged "it was the very worst thing that could have happened to me. It let me into the railways and all my misfortunes since". Hudson became a prominent member of the York Board of Health and when cholera visited the city in 1832 Hudson distinguished himself as a spirited public servant visiting the sick and reporting on their welfare.” From being a Methodist and a Dissenter,〔There seems to be disagreement here between who states he was a Methodist lay preacher and who states that "Hudson denied this act later in life when there would have been no harm in admitting it". suggests that this may have been an untruth printed in the ''Yorkshireman'' which was a Whig owned anti-Hudson newspaper.〕 Hudson changed his allegiance to become a High Church Tory and became treasurer of the York Conservative Party in 1832. He supported the unsuccessful candidature of John Henry Lowther in the general election of 1832 and again in an 1833 bye-election. Although York was primarily a Whig city the influence Hudson had on the campaigns was being noticed. In 1833 it became possible for joint stock country banks to conduct their business in the City of London and he took a leading part in the establishment of the York Union Banking Company with its agent in the city being George Carr Glyn. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「George Hudson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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