Bøker av Matthew Wells

George Hudson was the greatest British railway entrepreneur of the 19th century. In 1848, he controlled over 1,000 miles of railway and, when it came to railway promotion, it seemed he could do no wrong. However, in early 1849 it came to light that some of his business methods had been less than ethical and he was forced to relinquish the chairmanship of each of his companies. His fall from grace was spectacular and his detractors, of whom there were many, were quick to denounce him as a fraudster, a charlatan and a crook. Even today, when the name George Hudson is mentioned, these same insults are often levelled at him. This new biography takes a fresh look at HudsonâEUR(TM)s extraordinary life, from his humble beginnings as a farmerâEUR(TM)s boy, to becoming Lord Mayor of York before catching the railway bug. He was MP for Sunderland between 1845 and 1859\. After his fall from grace, Hudson endured a 20-year court battle with the York and North Midland Railway (subsequently the North Eastern Railway) for outstanding debts. Hudson made many mistakes in creating his railway empire, but did he deserve all the vitriol that still accompanies his reputation? In seeking to answer this question, Matthew Wells looks at the evidence, including what was said about Hudson during his lifetime and what Hudson himself had to say about the actions he took.

Architectural models made nineteenth-century London. As the city grew it became the global centre of finance, industrial capitalism, and the British Empire. New buildings, urban spaces, and networks of infrastructure were demanded, constructed, and rebuilt. Models were a crucial medium of communication that enabled architects, politicians, and the wider public to conceive the city's expansion of buildings and spaces.Based on extensive research in archives, museums, and period publications, Modelling the Metropolis addresses not just architectural models but also an eclectic range of images and objects - from technical products to sculptures, diagrams to engravings, maps to photographs - that dramatize the politics and aesthetics of London architecture in the nineteenth century.

This book explores the history of the architectural survey drawing and its multiple forms in order to understand how the methods of recording what already exists can also be used to imagine what might be.