The Spread of Motor Vehicles Before 1914

Some of the most productive works of history are those which stimulate controversy from which greater understanding emerges. The Stages of Economic Growth started not one, but a number, of such discussions. It was largely responsible, for instance, for goading others into making much clearer to us all the limited, if nevertheless vital and keynote, role of railways in nineteenth-century economic growth. That spectacular new form of mechanical transport, so dazzling and impressive to contemporaries, introduced big business to many parts of the world, speeded inter-urban transport in already settled areas and helped to open up much of the rest of the globe; but it made very little impact upon local transport, passenger or freight, either in rural areas or in the rapidly growing towns which were at the very heart of economic growth.1 Throughout the world the number of horses grew enormously during the Railway Age. In Britain, the birthplace and natural home of steam railways, the number of transport horses, according to Professor Thompson’s calculations,2 rose from about half a million to a million and a half between 1851 and 1901, out of a total national horse population which grew from 1.29m. to 3.28m. during those years. (The comparable figure for the United States in the latter year was about 30 million.)