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Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by S.A.C. Martin, May 2, 2012.

  1. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    These authors whom you accuse of lying are conveniently dead so are in no position to defend themselves nor justify their remarks with the evidence they had. Nor can they sue for defamation. ;)
     
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  2. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Does that mean we should never question authors who are dead? Think you may run into problems with that...
     
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  3. RalphW

    RalphW Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Administrator Friend

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    Question yes, but accuse of lying just because their take on a subject does not fit with yours?
     
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  4. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    I did not say that but there is a difference between questioning an author and calling them a liar.
     
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  5. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    If you've got the evidence to prove it, why not? That said, to prove a historian was actually lying, not only do you have to prove they were wrong, but also that they saw the evidence that proved they were wrong. If it was accessible but they didn't see it, that would make them a bad historian, but not an active liar, and if the evidence wasn't available to them, then they're merely speaking of their time.
     
  6. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    What exactly was the advantage of the A2/1s over the V2s? Presumably better riding with a bogie instead of the (originally poor) pony truck, but was that all? Was that the reason for building as Pacifics one batch that would have been V2s? Did Thompson build any more V2s after that?
     
  7. RalphW

    RalphW Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Administrator Friend

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    The quote was;

    I hate to use the word "lies" - but some authors clearly have lied in railway history where the LNER and Thompson is concerned
    .

    The question must be why would not one, but several authors lie and to what end?
     
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  8. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    That was indeed the quote, and I stand by what I said in terms of what makes a historian a liar. The answer to your question is probably in many cases is simply because it's easy. As @S.A.C. Martin has found, writing to argue that Thompson wasn't this awful figure against the tide is really quite tricky, you have to put in quite a lot of effort to convince people.
     
  9. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    Here's the thing gents. What else would YOU call it?

    Multiple authors have made dozens of erroneous claims about Thompson's personality, his behaviour, his decision making, his designs, his motives, and more.

    What else would you call the claim "Thompson picked Great Northern to be rebuilt" - a lie? Fabrication?

    Perhaps you would prefer the term "inaccurate" rather than lie?

    The problem is gents, we've had the evidence all along. It has been there, in the archives, for all to see. It has been found in the statistics, in company job structures and reports, committee meetings, board minutes, the lot.

    If you were coming to this with a fresh eye and you see that someone has made a claim which is based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever - and moreover, we have the evidence to show the exact opposite of the claim - what else would you call what has been written?

    Thompson was dead when many of these claims were written. He wasn't in a position to defend himself from what literally is defamation. Yet here we are: mock outrage and faux anger because someone has deigned to rock up and go "these writers don't actually know what the hell they're on about".

    If you read Cecil J. Allen's British Pacific Locomotives, you are left with a story about Thompson's Pacifics designs that is short, derisory, lacking in primary evidence, and removed from reality. If you read Colonel Rogers tome on Thompson and Peppercorn, you are left with a vision of Thompson and his work of someone inept, bordering on evil, and miserly. If you look at O.S. Nock's changing opinions on Thompson, as he got older and the time lengthened from Thompson's death, his reporting of Thompson got more and more ludicrous.

    O.S. Nock gets quoted at length in my book because the contemporary work he did for the LNER when Thompson was alive paints a very different picture from the books he wrote twenty years later. The question remains why? Why have so many authors not done their homework? Why have so many people produced books and texts and articles that paint this man to be an absolute villain?

    Further to that - why is that several railway societies got involved in this groupthink? Why did one society publish an article that "a measure of his unpopularity was that nobody attended his funeral" - basic research explains why this isn't true!

    (Thank heavens, by the way, for the Gresley Society and RCTS - both have supported my work and I am very grateful for that).

    You're getting angry at me for showing up that so much of the things written on Thompson and his designs aren't true. Why are you not more angry at the writers who should have done their homework and done a better job in the first place?
     
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  10. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    A good question Ralph. Why would they? The more down that particular rabbit hole you go, the more you tend to think that - actually - it comes from a small select group of people, all with specific ties to one another, and all - uncomfortably - close to Thompson himself at various points and actually had a hand in the decisions he took.

    Like for example, E.S. Cox. Why would he state in Locomotive Panorama that "he [Thompson] conducted a Machiavellian campaign against all things Gresley" when he himself wrote the report on the conjugated valve gear that gave Thompson the authority with the LNER board to make the changes to new locomotive design?

    Does that not bother you? How we can read the words of one man who it can reasonably and cogently argued had more of an effect on LNER locomotive policy at that point than even the CME he is accusing of trying to destroy another CME's legacy?

    Some legacy though! Out of thousands of Gresley locomotives, just 20 engines were rebuilt. 20!!!

    How do we sit here and debate this day after day and let not a single word of criticism pass towards those authors who - frankly - created this mess?

    One gentleman at my lecture to the Gresley Society at their AGM in 2019 said to me a something which has stayed with me. "You have seen the man for who he was, not what he is reported to be".

    I hope I have done that, and done a good job of it. It's not going to be perfect first time around but it will damn well be better researched than that which went before.
     
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  11. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    No more V2s or A2/1s were built after those last four engines - which were the final four lots of the final V2 batch built for the LNER under Thompson (who sensibly, continued with the order given parts had been manufactured).

    The main advantage of the A2/1s was found in the riding, better steam circuit (due to the double chimney setup and draughting arrangement) and the fact they used standard parts from across the V2s and the A2/2s. The A2/1s are not amazing locomotives; but they certainly could fly in the right hands and their availability and mileage figures speak for themselves when you look at the engine record cards.

    Would you have rather had A2/1s than V2s? Likely not, the V2 was a more compact machine. Would you have wanted an A2/1 over an A2/3? Again no. A double chimney V2 with separate cylinders and better maintenance regime later on in BR days was probably the best of all worlds. But Thompson wasn't looking to rebuild the V2s, and was looking ahead to a time for a small pool of classes with standardised parts, and looking at retaining the original V2s unmodified as part of that future.
     
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  12. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    I am suggesting that Colonel Rogers exercised a degree of editing that I would not be comfortable with in my book.
     
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  13. jnc

    jnc Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, I think so, for a couple of reasons.

    First, using the latter is to dive into a semi-infinite morass of motivations. So somebody made a grossly inaccurate statement? But how/why? Were they a poor researcher, and just made a mistake? Were they just gullible, and believed someone they shouldn't have? Did they have a (perhaps subconscious) axe to grind, and that led them astray? Or did they deliberately and knowingly report something they knew to be incorrect (which is my definition of lying)? The thing is that unless one finds an old letter which says something like 'I hate that #$% and I'm going to say xyz, which is not true, and will make him look bad', it's really hard to unavoidably prove the latter; usually the remaining record does not let you decide among them all, including the others.

    Look, I know it's upsetting and all that; 'been there, done that' myself. Look at this comment I wrote some decades ago about someone else's published research (on a historic Lotus Indycar) "I'm not quite sure which was more prominent in the mind of the person who wrote this article; extremely wishful thinking and unconscionably shabby research seem to have run a close race. The number of errors, many of which a simple check of easily available documentation would have shown up, is mindboggling." I'm not sure why that writer got so far off track, but I think the fact that he was trying to sell the car, which he had restored, played a significant role.

    Anyway, back to this: the second reason is that it can only distract from the main goal, which should be to set the record straight. You can get distracted into all sorts of mud-pits like 'you're attacking Mr. X's character', etc, etc, etc. And people can throw the same charge - 'you don't have the evidence to absolutely prove this very serious charge you're making' - back at you.

    Some previously published works are wrong, and there's copious, strong evidence for that? Fine, list the things that are wrong, lay out the evidence, and be on your way. You don't need to do anything about the writer(s); when people see the errors, and the evidence proving those errors, that will be a lot stronger than anything you can say about them. Just let their own words convict them.

    (Sorry I went on at length, all, but it's a subject I care deeply about.)
    If that's all you said, I don't think many (most?) people would object. it's when you start to make assertions about how/why they made those errors that people get uncomfortable.
    Extremely good questions. Alas, we may never find out the complete answers.

    Noel
     
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  14. Hermod

    Hermod Member

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    There is a lot of money in hero,villain,hero (Gressley,Thompson,Peppercorn) stories from when Britain was Great.
    I read a lot about Battler Britton in my youth,but today I am not sure it is a true historical view of WW2.
    People like me,loving steam locomotives,is ready to pay for fairy tales.In my long life I must have bought at least five shelf meters.
    When I wake up in the morning my first wish is that the new Webb four-cylinder compound book (Peter Davis) is ready for sale.

    A writer writing a critical review of the LNER management that tolerated,admired Gressley can sell me a copy before printing.
     
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  15. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    I think the old saw of 'never ascribe to malice what may be attributed to incompetence' comes into play. There's misinterpretation, groupthink, peer pressure, wishful thinking, sloppy acceptance of received wisdom, embellishment of a good story to make the book more interesting, all sorts of things that are more likely than deliberate falsehood. Ken Cook, who actually sat in Gresley and Thompson's chair, talks about 'discord brought in by Edward Thompson' s tragic desire to obliterate Gresley', and what a pity it is he never wrote up his days as E & NE CME. But whatever value one may place on the accuracy of Cook's interpretation, I think at the least it must be accepted that there were very strong emotions about Thompson's record within the ex LNER hierarchy, and that must have affected the work of contemporary chroniclers.
     
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  16. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Out of interest, did you get to see the letter(s) from Harrison to Rogers?
     
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  17. Victor

    Victor Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    Long enough to listen to you trying to justify calling 3 decent men liars.
    Such statements do you no credit.
     
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  18. Kylchap

    Kylchap Member

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    It seems to me that calling earlier writers/commentators liars falls into the same category as dismissing Edward Thompson as malicious. Our society is very fond of trying to encapsulate people with one word labels. I am looking forward to reading the book that is the subject of this thread because it aims to provide a fair and objective view of Thompson and his work backed up by extensive research and evidence. I sincerely hope its author can manage to maintain the same standards.
     
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  19. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    An excellent couple of posts that sums up the issue well. The Ken Cook statement is - I am afraid - ridiculous. It's that sort of comment that infuriates the historian in me. There's no evidence for that at all.

    Look - I do also feel very passionately about this. There are moments where it bubbles over for me. It can be so, so frustrating. Maybe there was an element of that bubbling over last night.

    So you have my apologies for that.

    This is part of the problem. Those letters haven't been made available publicly and Rogers never quoted directly from them at all in his book. Go and read it and you will find zero citations. This presents a problem - because now we are not sure what the source material actually says, and whether Rogers exaggerated or similar.

    Some statements are easily cross-referenced with Richard Hardy's accounts and found to be inaccurate, as it happens. But the damage has been done by Rogers book.

    I refer you back to my statement above Victor.

    I will try harder, in future, to do so.
     
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  20. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    I want to echo and agree entirely with what @jnc has argued.

    Fundamentally, I don't think you gain anything from criticising the methods or motives of those who have gone before. I would say to treat others as you'd like to be treated. (No one wants or needs personal BS). They have done their work, it can stand and fall on its own merits, and maybe your work will help people to revise their views on those earlier works.

    You know where you stand on their work, and you can certainly make the point that say the Harrison correspondence has not been made available, or that Nock focussed on x, or Allen y. ie focus on the legitimate criticism. (Some good points are made here about critiquing others in the field)

    Your work is your work. You want the focus to be on your research, what you have found, the evidence and the arguments. What you don't want is for the focus on your work to be on your motives. By questioning others, I think you open up space for critical reviewers to ask the same questions of you.

    Reviewers in Backtrack etc have it seems around 200 words to make their points. What you want the reviews to say is 'innovative approach, changing our views' what you don't want are reviews that focus on you rather than your work.

    My view is that critical reviewers will often miss the point of a work or become fixated on something that you didn't argue. The less you give them to fixate on the better. What you don't want is your work to be bogged down and obscured by questions of motives etc.

    Just an example - I dealt with a well known writer (now dead), he had written a biography (he wrote a lot of biographies) of someone, this subject had had an interesting life and part of it had not been fully explored in the biography, but the biography did make extensive use of an unpublished memoir. I wrote to the writer asking if he had either the memoir or a copy of it because I was interested in this other aspect for professional reasons. Back came the reply that no he didn't have the memoir because he had returned it to the family, no he wouldn't put me in contact with the family or provide any details for contacting the family, no he couldn't find the copy of the memoir and if I wanted to find anything about what the memoir said I should read his book. Now to me that was bad form as a historian and it calls into question his professionalism and I tend to read his work now with more than a bit of caution. However, there is absolutely nothing to gain by criticising him, here or elsewhere. A poorer historian than I thought, not the sort of attitude towards sharing material that I'd adopt, not the approach I'd take towards documents. But their work is done, it serves me as a starting point, and a starting point for doing things differently.

    As the Wedding Present once said 'It's not the kind of job I'd do myself but then I'm not him.'
     
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