n a
warm interest in the formation of tramroads. Acting as land-agent for
gentlemen of property in the mining districts, he had laid down several
tramroads in the neighbourhood of Birmingham, Gloucester, and Bristol;
and he published many pamphlets urging their formation in other places.
At one period of his life he was a large iron-manufacturer. The times,
however, went against him. It was thought he was too bold, some
considered him even reckless, in his speculations; and he lost almost his
entire fortune. He continued to follow the business of a land-agent, and
it was while engaged in making a survey for one of his clients in the
neighbourhood of Liverpool early in 1821, that he first heard of the
project of a railway between that town and Manchester. He at once called
upon Mr. Sandars, and offered his services as surveyor of the proposed
line, and his offer was accepted.

[Picture: Map of Liverpool and Manchester Railway. (Western Part.)]

[Picture: Map of Liverpool and Manchester Railway. (Eastern Part.)]

A trial survey was then begun, but it was conducted with great
difficulty, the inhabitants of the district entertaining the most violent
prejudices against the scheme. In some places Mr. James and his surveying
party even encountered personal violence. The farmers stationed men at
the field-gates with pitchforks, and sometimes with guns, to drive them
back. At St. Helen's, one of the chainmen was laid hold of by a mob of
colliers, and threatened to be hurled down a coal-pit. A number of men,
women, and children, collected and ran after the surveyors wherever they
made their appearance, bawling nicknames and throwing stones at them. As
one of the chainmen was climbing over a gate one day, a labourer made at
him with a pitchfork, and ran it through his clothes into his back; other
watchers running up, the chainman, who was more stunned than hurt, took
to his heels and fled. But that mysterious-looking instrument---the
theodolite---most excited the fury of the natives, who concentrated on
the man who carried it their fiercest execrations and most offensive
nicknames.

A powerful fellow, a noted bruiser, was hired by the surveyors to carry
the instrument, with a view to its protection against all assailants; but
one day an equally powerful fellow, a St. Helen's collier, cock of the
walk in his neighbourhood, made up to the theodolite bearer to wrest it
from him by sheer force. A battle took place, th