ABSTRACT
Although the railway became an integral part of the nineteenth-century urban landscape it would be difficult to claim that its impact was any less significant in the rural areas which still accounted for a su bstantial proportion of the population even in 1921. While 26.3 million people lived in towns with a population exceeding 25000, 20.9 million (44.4 per cent of the total) lived in smaller settlements (Table 7.1). The essentially rural population, as indicated by the rural districts of England and Wales and the landward areas in Scotland (totalling 9.39 millions) accounted for only 22.0 per cent of the total population of Great Britain but in 50 of the 84 counties the proportion exceeded 40 per cent (and was greater than 60 per cent in 20 of these cases). The rural areas were very weil provided wirh railway faciliries when the route mileage is considered in relation to area and population. With a relatively high density of settlement, South England's rural population amounted to 620 persons per mile of railway (excluding the most highly urbanized counties of Essex, Middlesex and Surrey) while the area per mile of railway was only 2 820 acres. Scotland and Wales had fewer people per mile of railway (460 and 550 respectively) but greater areas (6910 and 4140 acres) (Table 7.2). This favourable situation was the result of incidental benefits arising from the construction of inter-city railways (increased in number by the duplication which occurred after 1870), but there was a great deal of building by local companies (many of which were subsequently taken over by the larger organizations) and the territorial instinct was also a stimulus to the main-line companies. Government encouraged railway extensions in many remoter districts through the Light Railway legislation and subsidies for parts of Ireland and Scotland.
