PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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THE INJUNCTION AND CLOSURE The end of the Plymouth, Devonport and District Tramways Company came swiftly. On Friday November 14th 1884, Devonport Corporation went to the Chancery Division of the High Court in London to ask Mr Justice Chitty to issue an injunction restraining the Company from opening or operating lines 1, 5, 6 and 7 until the whole of the system was complete. The injunction was granted. It appears that this was anticipated as the trams never ran that day anyway. However, the Company went to the Court of Appeal and their case was heard before Lords Justice Bowen and Fry on Saturday December 6th 1884. The appeal was dismissed with costs. Plymouth had enjoyed steam trams for just 10 days. It was not the Plymouth, Devonport & District Tramways Company which came in for criticism though but the members of Devonport Corporation and the people of that Town. Letters of condemnation abounded. Early in February 1885 the Company Secretary, Mr Frederick Bluett, called an Extraordinary General Meeting for Wednesday February 18th 1885 at 2pm, to be held at the Cannon Street Hotel in London. Its main purpose was to consider the future of the Company and to that end to discuss which course of action to take. Consideration was to be given to raising additional capital, the possibility of entering into an arrangement with the Provincial Tramways Company (who owned the Plymouth, Stonehouse & Devonport Tramway system) with a view to them working the tramway, or putting the PD&D into liquidation. The day after the notice of the meeting was published it was announced that the contractor, Mr John Freeman, had petitioned for the winding-up of the Company. The hearing was to be held on Saturday February 7th 1885 and on May 2nd 1885 the Court ordered that the Plymouth, Devonport and District Tramways Company be wound up. Mr Henry John Leslie was subsequently appointed as Liquidator. Finally, on Friday 9 December 1887 the Western Daily Mercury announced, under the heading "Plymouth Steam Trams", that 'some gentlemen from London, who arrived in Plymouth a few days since, have been engaged in making negotiations with respect to buying up the plant of the Plymouth Tramway Company, which they have secured for the sum of £4,000.' So Plymouth had a very brief encounter with steam trams but even as it did so, their days were numbered. Just a couple of days before the Board of Trade inspection there was a trial in Paris of electric traction for tramcars. This was to prove a lot more successful.
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