查爾斯·皮爾森

地下鐵政策

Recognising the increasing congestion in the City and its rapidly growing suburbs, Pearson published a pamphlet in 1845 calling for the construction of an underground railway through the Fleet valley to Farringdon. The proposed railway would have been an atmospheric railway with trains pushed through tunnels by compressed air. Although the proposal was ridiculed and came to nothing (and would almost certainly have failed if it had been built, due to the shortcomings of the technology proposed), Pearson continued to lobby for a variety of railway schemes throughout the 1840s and 1850s.[2][10]

皮爾森提議的鐵路中央車站，連接可以容納A、B、C、D、E五間鐵路公司。

In 1846, Pearson proposed with the support of the City Corporation a central railway station for London located in Farringdon that was estimated to cost £1 million (approximately £1.03億 today).[11][12] The station, to be shared by multiple railway companies, was to be approached from the north in a covered cutting 80英尺（24） wide.[13] Pearson's aim in promoting this plan was to facilitate the improvement of the social conditions of City workers by enabling them to commute into London on cheap trains from new residential developments of good quality, cheap homes built outside the capital.[4] The 1846 Royal Commission on Metropolitan Railway Termini rejected the proposal, preferring to define a limit around the centre of the capital into which no new railway lines could be extended.[13]

In 1854, a Royal Commission was set up to examine a number of new proposals for railways in London. Pearson made a proposal for a railway connecting the London Termini and presented as evidence the first survey of traffic coming into London which demonstrated the high level of congestion caused by the huge number of carts, cabs and omnibuses filling the roads.[14] Pearson's commentary on this was that:

the overcrowding of the city is caused, first by the natural increase in the population and area of the surrounding district; secondly, by the influx of provincial passengers by the great railways North of London, and the obstruction experienced in the streets by omnibuses and cabs coming from their distant stations, to bring the provincial travellers to and from the heart of the city. I point next to the vast increase of what I may term the migratory population, the population of the city who now oscillate between the country and the city, who leave the City of London every afternoon and return every morning.[15]

Construction of the Metropolitan Railway close to King's Cross station in 1861

Many of the proposed schemes were rejected, but the Commission did recommend that a railway be constructed linking the termini with the docks and the General Post Office at St. Martin's Le Grand. A private bill for the Metropolitan Railway between Praed Street in Paddington and Farringdon received assent on 7 August 1854.[16]

Although not a director or significant shareholder of the new company,[17] Pearson continued to promote the project over the next few years and use his influence to help the company raise the £1 million of capital needed for the construction of the line. He issued a pamphlet, A twenty minutes letter to the citizens of London, in favour of the Metropolitan Railway and City Station, encouraging investment and he even persuaded the City of London to invest on the basis that the railway would alleviate the City's congestion problems.[18] Once the railway was in operation, the City sold its shares at a profit.[19] By 1860, the funds had been collected and the final route decided. Work on the railway started; taking less than three years to excavate through some of the worst slums of Victorian London and under some of the busiest streets.[19]

1862年9月14日，皮爾森在旺茲沃思倫敦自治市的自宅中逝世[1]，無緣親眼見證大都會鐵路在1863年1月10日通車。皮爾森拒絕了鐵路公司的報酬[20]，不過在鐵路通車後不久，鐵路公司頒贈給瑪莉每年250英鎊的報酬[20]。1862年9月23日，他的遺體被葬在西諾伍德式公墓。[1]