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William Cauchi and the Ratty, c1919-23


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In issue 154 of the the R.& E.R. Magazine (Sep 1999) appeared an article by John W.E. Helm entitled "More light on Cauchi and the early years 1922-23". This was based on a file in the National Archives at Kew (ref. MT 6/3462) about complaints of dangerous working on the railway at that time. Having now seen the file for myself, and copied most of the key documents, I present here a slightly different interpretation, with some more quotations, plus (in belated answer to a request John made in the article) local newspaper accounts of the accident which began the unpleasant business.

Cauchi's business card, 1922Among the many colourful characters responsible for the rise of "La'al Ratty" from the ashes of "Owd Ratty", one of the oddest is William V. Cauchi. According to the General Register Office index, William Vincent Cauchi was born in the Croydon Registration District in the September quarter of 1877 (vol.2a page 181, if anybody wants to order a copy of the birth certificate). The 1901 census has William (age 23, born at Anerley in Surrey, no declared occupation) living in Eastbourne with Michael (age 63, born in Valletta, Malta, now living on independent means) and Catherine (age 52, born in Dover). It's possible that William was then studying for his eventual career. After some years of practical railway experience he set up as a consulting engineer, and in that capacity was hired by Narrow Gauge Railways Ltd., parent company of the R.& E.R. (straying somewhat from his business card, he would often style himself "Engr. & Loco. Supt." when signing letters). As the railway's historians record, largely on the basis of recollections by then-apprentice Peter le Neve Foster (see R.& E.R.P.S. Newsletter 9, or page 41 of "The Bedside Ratty", compiled by W.J.K. Davies, 1974), Cauchi was utterly out-of-place in the happy-go-lucky Ravenglass environment- he even chose to stay at Barrow-in-Furness rather than Ravenglass when he visited the area. Arguably it was a good idea to have a responsible person among all the boys tinkering with their toys- but for all his seriousness and safety-consciousness, Cauchi simply did not have authority. His dire warnings were ignored, even after Easter 1922 when this happened:
The Times, 15 Apr 1922
HOLIDAY TRAIN ACCIDENT
TWO CROWDED CARS OVERTURNED

A serious accident occurred to a train near Ravenglass, on the Eskdale Railway, yesterday. A train of 12 open carriages was travelling down an incline when a coupling snapped. Two cars crowded with passengers were derailed and overturned, and many passengers were injured, three seriously.
Miss Vail, Hulton-street, Brooksbar, Manchester, was crushed under a car, and her condition is critical. Miss Davey, Wellington-street, Millom, and Mr. Cox, of the same address, had their legs injured.
The railway is a miniature one, which runs from Ravenglass up the Eskdale Valley. The majority of the people in the train were holiday-makers.

[The above was, surprise surprise, the only account that made it into the Whitehall files (although the curiously posed photograph shown later in this page, from another unknown paper's report of the incident, was also included for some reason); then again, all things considered, that may have been a stroke of luck for the railway:]

Whitehaven News, 20 Apr 1922
ACCIDENT ON THE RAILWAY

An unfortunate accident occurred on the Eskdale Railway on Monday and somewhat marred the holiday. As the train, drawn by two engines, with a full complement of passengers was travelling round the corner near Long Yocking a coupling broke and one of the coaches overturned. Some of the passengers jumped clear, but two ladies- Miss Vail, of Manchester, and Miss Davy, of Millom, were pinned underneath the coach and rendered unconscious, and Mr. Cocks, brother-in-law to Miss Davy, was hurt less seriously. Aid was quickly forthcoming, and the injured passengers were conveyed to Millom in Mr. Gainford's motor, and were on Tuesday night reported to be progressing favourably. This is the first accident to any passengers since the R. and E. Railway commenced running. Mr. James McGowan, J.P., C.C., with Mrs. McGowan, his wife, with ambulance man and others, rendered ready assistance, and the injured ladies were assisted to the residence of Mrs. Hartley, where Mr. and Mrs. McGowan were staying. The services of Dr. R. Todd and Nurses Batten and Docker were quickly forthcoming, and under their skilled attention made steady progress, and yesterday (Wednesday) had recovered to a considerable extent, although the effects will not wear off completely for some weeks probably. A young girl from Barrow-in-Furness had a miraculous escape from serious injury, and visitors from Barrow, Dalton, and other places were amongst those who also sustained cuts and bruises.


Millom Gazette, 21 Apr 1922
Accident on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway

A regrettable accident occurred on the Ravenglass and Eskdale miniature railway on Easter Monday, owing to one of the carriages becoming derailed. Several of the passengers sustained injuries, the most seriously hurt being Miss Vail, who is on a visit to Millom from Manchester, and is staying with Mr. J. Cocks and Miss Davey in Wellington street. Mr. Cocks and his sister-in-law accompanied Miss Vail on Easter Monday, and in describing his experiences, Mr. Cocks said:-

"We left Millom by the 10.28 train, joining the Eskdale train at Ravenglass. Everything went on all right until we got about midway between Irton Road and Eskdale Green, when I noticed there was something wrong with the third coach from the engine. I felt sure from its appearance that it had left the rails, and I stood up and shouted to the people in the coach, which was next to the one I was in. I may say the coaches were the open ones. The people in the coach evidently did not hear my warning, at all events they took no notice, and I jumped out of the coach and tried to reach the engine driver, but was unable to do so. Just then the coupling of the derailed coach broke, resulting in the overturning of two or three of the coaches, including the one from which I had jumped, and in which were my sister-in-law (Miss Davey) and Miss Vail (who is on a visit from Manchester). Miss Davey and Miss Vail were pinned underneath the overturned coach.
It is strange the driver did not feel the effects of the coach leaving the rails, and had he noticed the derailment of the coach and immediately stopped the train the accident would probably have been prevented. However, he did not seem to know that a coach was bumping over the sleepers, and it was this coach which, when the coupling broke, caused our coach, which was next to it, to upset. The driver did not even know when the coupling broke that there were twelve coaches left behind, and proceeded for almost five minutes.
When removed from under the upturned coach, Miss Vail was unconscious, and considerable time elapsed before she revived. Mr. and Mrs. James McGowan, of Whitehaven, who were on the train, did all they possibly could for Miss Vail, Miss Davey, and others suffering from shock or injuries. Brandy, hot coffee, smelling salts, etc., were soon provided, and eventually Miss Vail recovered sufficiently to be able to reach Miss Jackson's residence, which is close to the scene of the accident, and where, by the way, Mr. and Mrs. Hocking are staying. A messenger was sent to Mr. Gainford requesting use of his motor-car, and in this we were conveyed back to Millom. During the journey Miss Vail appeared to be suffering acutely from the shock and injuries, and had completely collapsed before she reached Wellington street. Dr. Todd and two nurses were summoned, and eventually Miss Vail was restored to consciousness.
Miss Davey is badly bruised, but is doing well at present, although she is very sore. Miss Vail, under the careful attention of Dr. Todd and the district nurse, is also progressing satisfactorily. In jumping from the train I injured my leg, but not seriously.
Mr Needham (of Barrow) also helped Mr. McGowan to attend to the injured. I consider that each coach would have three or four compartments, and if, as I understand, there were 15 coaches, each compartment containing eight persons [NB: this calculation is utter nonsense], the load which the two little engines were taking to Boot would be one of the heaviest that had ever been tackled by those miniature machines. Men jumped from the different coaches, and we did our best to retard those remaining on the rails, and in this I believe we were effective, as they were brought to a standstill. Another gentleman who gave valuable aid was Mr. James, agent for Mr. Campbell, the Liberal candidate. I understand there is a notice on the tickets of the Eskdale line that passengers travel at their own risk, but it is so small as to be barely discernible."

Fortunately there were two Millom ambulance men on the train- Messrs. Crellin and Thornbarrow- who rendered first-aid to the injured.


La'al Ratty c1920[The article continues with a look back over the railway's quirky history, quoted here, and the following week's issue has this brief note:]
"Miss Davey and Miss Vail, who were injured in the recent railway accident on the Eskdale Railway, are, although still confined to their rooms, making good progress towards recovery, and expect to be able to be about again during the next week."

This was a long time before the rise of the ambulance-chaser, but even so, the railway reportedly had to pay £150 (the equivalent of a year's wages for many workers at that time) to one of the injured passengers, presumably Miss Vail. Still, the R.& E.R. shrugged off the problem and, thanks to continued investment in local prosperity by the line's key backer Sir Aubrey Brocklebank, went ahead with developments such as the quarrying and granite crushing business. Another engineer, Henry Greenly was invited to design both a new locomotive and the crushing plant itself, perhaps as recompense for the troubled development of the line's last new loco "Sir Aubrey Brocklebank"- a modification of Greenly's design for the earlier "Colossus"- in 1919. The fact that Cauchi, rather than Greenly, was responsible for much of the modification may partly explain why (a) the project nearly ended in court; and (b) "Sir Aubrey" was not built by Bassett-Lowke & Co., a firm directly connected with both Greenly and the R. & E.R. In 1921, Henry had finally paid his first visit to Eskdale, and was a guest of Sir Aubrey, who (according to the railway's superindendent, Robert Hardie) also personally hired him for the 1922 projects.

In mid-September, a head-on collision was only just avoided, and Cauchi, fed up of being ignored by the lads, decided to get tough. On 25 September 1922, he visited the Railway Inspectorate in London, on a "purely personal mission" to get official backing. Although the Inspectors themselves were in a meeting, he explained the situation to a member of staff, Mr C.T. Smith. He claimed there was "local anxiety" about the state of the line, and some surprise that no official inquiry had been held following the Easter accident. He himself, in his official capacity, had declined to certify the permanent way as safe for running (though he did admit that, following his condemnation of one particular underbridge at Ravenglass, it had been re-timbered at a cost of £140). He advised the Government official that the railway had no signalling system, no communication system, and no train control system, despite having "as many as 5 engines in steam at the same time", thanks to the new stone business (this was before significant quantities of stone began leaving the quarry, and before Greenly's massive new goods locomotive joined the fleet- but Cauchi may have omitted to mention the practice highlighted in the above Whitehaven News article, of using the underpowered locomotives in pairs for busy passenger trains). N.G.R. ticketAlthough the railway's tickets included a note that the Company was not liable for accidents to passengers, Cauchi was also, quite naturally, worried that as his job included considerable responsibility for safety, he might be held personally liable by a litigous accident victim. He gave an idea of the numbers of passengers carried on the line- 500 were expected on one day the following week, and through tickets for Eskdale stations were available on both the L. & N.W. and Furness main-line railways, which included the R.& E.R in their timetable booklets (he provided the latest Furness timetable, showing 4 trains each way on weekdays- including the experimental 11.20 non-stop with slip coach for Irton Road- with one extra train on Thursdays and two extra on Saturdays; however, there were only two trains each way on Sundays).

As Cauchi could not wait, Mr Smith kindly interrupted the meeting and asked Colonel Pringle's opinion about the most pressing concern- personal liability. The Colonel's advice was that so long as Cauchi had reported the safety problems to the Company in writing, and made sure to keep a copy of his report, the responsibility would lie with the Company. Cauchi had, of course, already done this, but he proposed to make a further report, with witnesses. So off he went, somewhat reassured, while the report of his visit was typed up and passed, the next day, to Sir William Marwood, the Ministry of Transport's Director General of Public Safety. Marwood wrote on it "Seen", but declined to take any action.

Another alarming situation arose a few weeks later, again attributable to the lads' casual attitude to health and safety issues. In May 1920, the railway had received planning permission to convert four of the derelict Dalegarth Cottages, between Beckfoot and Boot, into tearooms, with a kitchen and toilets. For this purpose, a new septic tank was installed near the west end of the cottages- but over the next couple of years, the other six cottages were brought back into residential use, and connected to the same sewer and tank. Apparently a wash-house for the residents was also built- for convenience sited directly over the sewer. But the sewage system had been designed only with the tea-rooms in mind, and in October 1922 an apoplectic Cauchi scribbled (on graph paper!) a memo to the District Council's Sanitary Inspector, Mr Britton-Jones:

"Will you go and see drains at Boot Cottages at once- the whole lot are stopped up end to end- fact is they are not large enough for load & unless seen to at once there will be a fever break out. You know more about this job than I as I did not do it."


That seems to have been just the right way to approach a man accustomed to dealing with slum landlords. The Inspector called, and the company was forced to redesign the sanitary facilities at the cottages from scratch, using professional architects [the plans and surviving correspondence are all at Whitehaven Record Office, original Bootle R.D.C. refs. 352 and 371; incidentally ref. 372 is Cauchi's 1922 plan for the bungalow at Ravenglass Station]. On 15 May 1923, Cauchi tried Whitehall again, writing a letter to Colonel Pringle from Colchester, where he was checking on the new locomotive [I wonder how much influence he had on that project- the River Esk]. Although he enclosed his business card, he made it clear that he was writing in a private capacity- about what he now called the "very dangerous" state of the railway. His main concern was the lack of train control- since the granite business got under way there were up to 6 engines running on the line at a time, still with no staff-and-ticket authorisation system, lockable points, or even lineside telephones. As a postscript he also mentioned that the bridges both over and under the line were decaying to the point of being unsafe.

He presumably hoped that the Railway Inspectorate would make contact with the R.& E.R fairly urgently, but it must have been a huge shock to be shown this item from the Barrow local newspaper a few days later, with the advice from Furness Railway officials in Carnforth and Barrow (under the astonished gaze of Mr Manning, the Davy Paxman representative who was accompanying him back up to Eskdale) that he had been sacked:
North West Daily Mail (Barrow) 19 May 1923
ESKDALE RAILWAY
MR. HENRY GREENLY APPOINTED ENGINEER

The Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway have appointed Mr. Henry Greenly, A.I.Loco.E., as engineer to the company. Previously, Mr. Greenly has been acting as consulting engineer to the railway, and during the progress of new work has been resident at Ravenglass. He has designed all engines that have been built for 15in gauge railways (as used at Margate, Rhyl, and other pleasure resorts, as well as those at Eskdale), that have been built during the last twenty years, and is known to the model engineering public as the author of several books on the subject.
The designs for the new engine for Eskdale Railway goods traffic have just been approved and the order placed with Davy, Paxman and Co., Ltd., a well-known engineering firm at Colchester. It will be fitted with their patent valve gear. If reproduced in a size suitable to the full main line gauge, the engine would be the largest engine in the country, as well as the only one of its type. While entirely British in character, the design, in relative size, would approach that of many of the American mammoth freight engines.
The weight of the new Eskdale 15in. gauge engine will be approximately five tons, and on the level it will pull a load of 70 tons. The length will be 22ft., height 46in., and width 3ft. 2in. The cab will be large enough to entirely house the driver. Turntables are now being erected at the Ravenglass and Dalegarth termini, and this will obviate the present necessity of engines having to descend the valley tender foremost.

[This way to a couple more news articles of about the same time, indicating the sort of public relations effort the railway was making.]

Actually, the Board of Trade and Ministry of Transport were somewhat discomfited by Cauchi's letter, for the simple reason that as far as they were concerned, the line was Not Their Business. La'al Ratty was not created under the Acts of Parliament which had sanctioned the creation of the original line, Owd Ratty, and the new company had been advised by the Board in 1915 of their "non-statutory" status- their trains were classed as entertainment, not transport. The fact that Colonel Pringle had found a timetable for the line on page 591 of the current "Bradshaw" railway guide suggested that Whitehall had some catching-up to do. The Board did not even know anything about the new company's lease of the route- and there was some concern that the more they involved themselves, the more they would put themselves in a "false position" of "recognising the present management as having any rightful status". On 24 May, they wrote to the Treasury Solicitor, asking for clarification of the legal position.

The reply, the very next day, by E. Welby-Everard, was detailed and- for the railway- potentially disastrous. For a start:
"Section 13 of the Eskdale Railway Act 1909, provides that the re-opening of the railway or any portion thereof for the public conveyance of passengers shall be subject to the provisions of Sections 4 to 6 of the Regulation of Railways Act 1842"- which meant that the old Eskdale Railway Company should have applied for an inspection before the new line opened to passengers, to ensure that it complied with conditions imposed after the previous inspection, by Colonel Druitt in June 1912, which had sealed Owd Ratty's fate.

Next- the legal owners of Owd Ratty had no power under their two Acts of Parliament to lease the route to anybody else. On this matter, Mr Cauchi had some information, revealed during a visit to the Solicitor's office on 24 May- that the lease had not been granted by the old company, but by a single one of its former directors, Mr E.V. Dawson, who had since died so £100 yearly was paid to his executors, who had an account in the name of the old company. Legally, it seemed, this lease was "merely waste paper", unless the £100 could be viewed not as a rent but as a toll. In that case, the new railway would be entirely subject to the 1842 Railway Regulation Act- and the old company would still be legally liable.

The Board of Trade decision to deny the new railway the inspection the new company applied for in July 1915, on the grounds of its reduction of gauge (to less than the 2ft 9in lower limit set in the original R. & E. R. Act of 1873) was puzzling to the solicitors. The reduction was in clear contravention of the Gauge of Railways Act, 1846- and the representatives of the old Eskdale Railway Company should have been penalised accordingly for allowing it. Because the Board of Trade had not done this when notified of the illegal gauge change, such legal action would now be "difficult". Worse: "If a really bad accident were to occur questions might be asked why the Ministry have not taken steps for securing the public safety".

Welby-Everard's tentative suggestion was "to waive the question of the unauthorised gauge, and to write to the Solicitors for the Eskdale Railway Company informing them that the attention of the Ministry has been called to the dangerous conditions of working now prevailing, and that the Ministry now propose to hold an inspection of the line under the Act of 1842." Mr Cauchi had helpfully provided them with the relevant address...

Cauchi now also revealed that he had for some months been in direct contact with a Whitehaven solicitor, Mr J.R. Musgrave, who had formerly been a director of the old Eskdale Railway Company under the 1909 Act, but had resigned. In a letter to the Treasury Solicitor on official R. & E. headed notepaper, dated 26 May (to be replied to via an addressed envelope enclosed with it) he enclosed a copy of Musgrave's complaint, dated 5 October 1922 in reply to a letter from Cauchi on 1 October that Mr Dawson, though chairman of the old company, had had no legal right to issue a lease to the new company on his own. Apparently Musgrave had only refrained from taking action himself because the railway appeared to be operating at a loss, but was willing to assist Cauchi. Stirring it as much as possible, Cauchi informed the Treasury Solicitor about further issues- the inherent danger (in his expert opinion) of the 15 inch gauge for passenger traffic, and the diversions made by the new line from the route sanctioned by the 1873 Act [this would probably refer in particular to the use of the old mineral branch route to the new Dalegarth Cottages terminus].

To the general manager of the R. & E.R., Robert Proctor Mitchell, Cauchi had written both official and unofficial letters on 23 May. The former suggested that the appointment of Greenly as engineer seemed to amount to wrongful dismissal, but that while consulting solicitors he would continue his duties. The latter, in very forthright language, warned that he was going to do all he could to smash the R. & E.R., and that Mitchell should take immediate steps to save any money he had personally invested. Later the same day, he sent a telegram from London, advising that he had instructed his solicitors to seek damages; then on the 25th he sent Mitchell personally another telegram, advising of his discussion with the Treasury Solicitor and again urging him to save his own investment. When Mitchell himself got to his London home a day later, he found another note from Cauchi, who had by then left for Paxmans again. Although it was clear that the Barrow article (and a similar piece in the Railway Magazine) had been the last straw, he had already been suffering under Mitchell's policy of letting Greenly and Bob Hardie "go their own way unchecked". Again he made it clear that his grievances were not really against Mitchell, or even the parent company Narrow Gauge Railways Limited, but against staff of the R.& E. Company who had effectively s**t on him, and against Sir Aubrey for bringing in Greenly. Cauchi was well aware that Brocklebank had thousands of pounds invested in the line- but he wasn't about to warn him to save it. He advised Mitchell that the Gauges of Railways Act 1846 would be used against the line just as soon as his affidavit, already drafted, was formally signed by him and presented to the Treasury Solicitor. Once a court order was made, the line would be physically severed to prevent trains running, and the company's assets seized. A new company would then be formed under the 1909 Act- Cauchi even suggested that there would be nothing to prevent Mitchell taking a seat on the board.

Meanwhile, back in Whitehall- various legal advisers were attempting to stave off hysteria, because they knew rather more about the real legal situation than Cauchi. A handwritten commentary from "A.W." on Welby-Everard's opinions, dated 30 May, suggested that as the new company had applied for an inspection in 1915, any action on the grounds that the old company had not applied for the inspection would be of limited use. He did, however, agree with his colleague that belated legal intervention on the grounds of the gauge alteration was equally unsatisfactory. The good news was that there were clear precedents for non-intervention by the Board of Trade in non-statutory railway lines- for example the Board had declined to take part in coroners' inquests following fatal accidents on the electric railway between the Aquarium and Black Rock in Brighton. Apparently the Board's decision not to inspect non-statutory railways had been made under the 1871 Railways Act, following an accident in 1898 on the Snowdon Mountain Tramroad.

So, the Board of Trade was not legally responsible; because of its declared non-statutory status the new R.& E. Company was not legally responsible; because of the ultra vires lease to the new company, the old Eskdale Railway Company was not legally responsible; and their former chairman Dawson who had made that lease was not legally responsible either, being dead. Mr Welby-Everard's plan of simply writing a letter to the old company's solicitors, proposing an inspection, seemed indeed to be the least-worst way forward, even if it would potentially break the 1898 principle.

Cauchi had also indicated to Mitchell that he felt there had been no trouble before Greenly was brought in- but he was almost certainly as wrong about that as he was about the legal prospects. Robert Proctor Mitchell allied himself absolutely with Sir Aubrey, handing over to him all the engineer's correspondence referred to above and writing personally to the Treasury Solicitor explaining the personal motivation behind Cauchi's action. As for Sir Aubrey Brocklebank himself- he was, for all his generosity, the sort of man you just do not mess with, ever. Here is his letter to the First Commissioner for H.M. Office of Works, Sir J.L. Baird, CMG, DSO, MP, dated 28 May, from the Cunard Building in Liverpool, headquarters of Thos. & Jno. Brocklebank Ltd.- the Anchor-Brocklebank Line of Calcutta Steamers:
"Dear Baird,
I am going to renew an acquaintanceship which dates back to the days of R.C. Radcliffe, not because I want something done, but because I would very much rather that your Department exercised or rather failed to exercise its powers under the Railway Gauges Act of 1846, which I believe are permissive and not mandatory. I don't know if you have ever heard of a little undertaking near my place in Cumberland called the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, which has violated this Act since its inception. When we started we approached the Board of Trade, not knowing that Public Works also had a say in the matter, and they were quite emphatic that we were not a railway under the meaning of the Acts, but rather an Entertainment, and they had no intention of interfering with us in any way, the line being a sort of glorified toy.
Since then I have spent some thousands on it to encourage the district, and have opened a quarry up the line, on which it is entirely dependent to get its stone to the main Line, so naturally I am not anxious that eight years hard work should be thrown away by the malice of a bad man whose correspondence I enclose for your edification.
Besides my own pocket, any interference with the Line would throw 30 or 40 men out of employment, and seriously affect the whole of the residents of Eskdale who depend on the Line for their Summer visitors and for their supplies, road transport being a desperate affair in that district. I saw Douglas Hogg the other day and we compared notes how Radcliffe's had been distinguishing themselves in various walks of life. The beggar put me in the witness box, but was very kind to me.
Yours very truly
Aubrey Brocklebank"


So there you have it. Everything from old school tie to economic interest of depresssed areas, in one neat little package- plus copies of all Cauchi's private letters and telegrams to Mitchell, in full without asterisks. The civil servants decided that those documents showed Cauchi was "not acting in the public interest"; no court order came from Whitehall, and the line wasn't severed and seized- but Cauchi's work was not entirely without consequence. A formal letter was sent to Narrow Gauge Railways Ltd. on 11 June, notifying them of the complaint of unsafe working and recommending that the line should be "properly equipped" to standards acceptable to the old Eskdale Railway Company (who were still, of course, the actual owners of the route), but when Mitchell asked for a copy of the letter of complaint, the Board of Trade felt obliged to refuse, so the discussion fizzled out in a half-hearted exchange of corrrespondence. However, this business was the first warning to the surviving directors of the old Company that they could be in a vulnerable position, and over the next couple of years, Sir Aubrey had to take firm action to regularise the legal standing of La'al Ratty. Conveniently, both Greenly and Hardie found alternative work on the new Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway project. Mitchell, though he did attempt to improve train control on the line, was quietly sidelined as part of Sir Aubrey's deal, when the Eskdale line became a sort of unofficial subsidiary of Cunard.

As for Cauchi- he wasn't seen much around Eskdale after that, though he did continue to supervise work on River Esk in Colchester, and he kept in touch enough to be able to pop in to the Ministry of Transport in February 1925 to report Mitchell's resignation, effective from 31 January, and to provide the name of the new manager and the address (Cunard House of course) of the reconstituted company. Some day, we're going to have to find out more about how Mr Cauchi spent the rest of his life; he seems to be the William Cauchi who died in the Bournemouth area, aged 69, in the last quarter of 1946.