LSE Library Archives 2002-11-07
Arrived around noon, requested four files. 16/1 turned out to be repeat. Others were 16/2, 5/7, and 5/19. Contents descriptions follow.
16/2
Basically three items, which are
Post-War Roads and Traffic: A memorandum issued by the royal automobile club, the automobile association, and the royal scottish automobile club, on roads and road traffic policy in relation to post-war planning and evelopment. July 1944. 16 pp, advocates motorways as top tier of road system, requiring cyclists to use cycle tracks where provided, etc.
Speeches at the BRF's 1943 exhibition on motorways/new road design standards. Worth p'copying.
Documentation concerned with a 1943 meeting, called by BRF, held at RAC offices in Pall Mall, to discuss general tenor of post-war road proposals and possibilities of building County Surveyor Society's road plans. Entire thing is worth p'copying.
Correspondence between Rees Jeffreys and his Sussex CC contact, Arthur Floyd (Co surveyor), re new road design standards being discussed by MoWT. Probably not worth p'copying.
5/7
Miscellaneous articles relating to road design.
RJ letter in 'Highways, Bridges and aerodromes', 10/8/1949 (basically KH book blurb)
London trip notes--mostly handwritten and very cursory, nothing worth p'copying
RJ speech (not given in person due to "unavoidable absence") at RIA, 2/6/1949. Major themes: delay of roadworks, treasury stranglehold, centralization, railway influence, state as largest road transport user . . . Not worth p'copying. It was read at RIA mtg by Killick.
EB Hugh-Jones, Safety as a factor in road design, construction & layout, Town Planning Institute (pamphlet) 1949--1st RJ triennial lecture
Press cuttings relating to RJ speech of 2/6/1949.
5/19
Mostly reprints of RJ's own stuff.
Times, 5/4/1927--"Special motor roads - pressing need of to-day - appeal to the government"--worth p'copying.
Times, same date--"New arterial roads - penalties of delay - gaps in the programme"--worth p'copying.
Telegraph, 2/5/1930--"Breaking-up of roads - menace to London's traffic - a rental for use"--worth p'copying.
Observer, 8/4/1928--"Road upheavals - the cost of traffic delays - rights of the 'underground user' - need for official inquiry" regarding street works; worth p'copying.
Telegraph, 25/8/1928--"Road dangers - growing peril of blind corners - need for reform"--not worth p'copying.
extra copies of RJ's autostrada article.
Roads and Road construction, 1/10/1930--"The international association of road congresses: its story, purpose, and achievements"--worth p'copying.
RIA press release regarding special motor roads--(drafted by RJ, apparently, and released 9/1926)--dealing with the motor road resolution at 1926 road congress.
Municipal journal and public works engineer, 6/1/1928--"Road corners and junctions - their design and lay-out - how to reduce congestion and accidents"
Same, 24/8/1928--"Sixth international road congress. Meeting at WAshington, October 1930: an attractive programme"
Country life, 21/8/1928--"The lay-out of roads - how to plan a corner - designs for road curves - carriage entrances."--worth p'copying, but for general interest and a description of problems encountered in safe design of country lanes, not as thing likely to promote better understanding of m'ways.
Requested additional folders.
8/5: a treasure trove on German autobahnen. Includes photos (mailed by Todt to RJ) and the 'Road Construction' version of Clements' contribution to GRD report, with extensive photo illustrations not in the GRD version. More detailed catalogue as time permits.
FOLLOWUPS ELSEWHERE
Do the RAC have an archives? Montagu presented the 1923 London-Birmingham-Liverpool road scheme at the RAC. It included models, conceptual plans, etc.
In addition to 1906 private bill for London-to-Brighton motor road, there was a PB in 1922 for a Bournemouth-to-Swanage motor road, a Motorways Bill in 1923 (JR Clynes) and 1924 (Leslie Scott). 1926--PBs for Coventry to Manchester and London to Brighton schemes. (Info for this comes from another article by GP Blizard.)
The problem of compensable blight inhibiting town planning.
Folder call list for second tranche:
5/14, 5/15, 6/3, 6/14, 8/5.
New code word for p'copiable: P.
Probably want 8/5--which appears to be the main Autobahn folder--kept till the next time, probably Tuesday of next week. 8/5 asset list:
Times, 7/10/1937--article by Lord Wolmer on "Motor Roads in Germany."
Surveyor and municipal and county engineer, 10/6/1938. Frank T Davis, Motorway Construction or Trunk Road Improvement? (Extracts only) (successful thesis for Pickering prize of 1938)
Same, Geo. S. Barry, Some aspects of highway engineering and administration.
Brochure, autographed by Todt, with map of Autobahn network as of 1937 (finish of 2000 km), listing the stretches (9) and conveying best wishes for the new year.
The photo envelope, addressed to Herrn Rees Jeffreys, c/o RIA, 180 Clapham Rd. Brief descriptions of pictures as follows:
[landscape]
AB exit paved with granite setts (19581)
AB stretch through piney woods, showing kinky vertical and horizontal curves
AB stretch through clearing, showing fairly graceful curve
Car on AB through piney woods (kinked V curve in distance)
Workman with wheelbarrow looking over newly finished AB
[portrait]
AB stretch toward terminus visible from underneath bridge, with kinks in V alignment. Terminus appears temporary in character.
Sepia: AB crossing clearing, kinky V alignment
[landscape]
Car parked on AB hardstrip/RH lane
Same, looking in front of car (rather than behind car) (in both pictures, car too close to the corner)
Bridge shot of Darmstadt-Frankfurt/M AB
[end of pix]
German Roads Delegation. Report upon the visit of inspection and its conclusions. 1937. 120, Pall Mall, London SW1, Hon Sec'y R. Gresham Cooke. 30 pp. P.
DDAC, map of the Autobahn network, 1938 2 sides. P.
German Roads: preliminary report by the members of the parliamentary road group on the German Rods Delegation on the subject of their visit to Germany, 9/11/1937. 16 pp. P.
Times, 18/11/1937. Dr. Todt visits London.
Modern Transport, 6/11/1937. RJ on: "Failur eof government's road policy. Transport minister's impossible task. Suggestions for future organisation." 2 pp. Uses Western Ave as case-example of how not to plan & build roads.
Geographical Magazine, January 1938. Alan H Brodrick, "The New German Motor-Roads." Extensively illustrated with photographs of new ABs, ABs in course of construction, typical interchanges, etc.
Miscellaneous AB photographs, in a folder entitled "Insanity Fair" (name of a book by Douglas Reed--connections with ABs are ambiguous).
Indian Concrete Journal (Road Architecture section), has a reprint of Clements' description of AB features but with PICTURES. Pictures include construction, bridges, and author's roadside pictures (apparently--they all have a car, with the same BI nationality identification and N.140 numberplate). They are sign pictures: fork for Frankfurt M/Langen-Morfelden, deer warning sign (standard pattern, but with reflective buttons adhered to the surface--and it appears to be constructed of extrusions), another fork (Munich/Chiemsee-Bernau, but nonstandard pattern), advance sign for gasoline. Also, another supplement from the same journal has the same car (BI/N140) in pictures from Belgium, Italy, etc. Obviously these are an Indian road engineer's vacation pictures.
extracts from 'The House that Hitler Built', by Stephen H Roberts, a description of the Autobahn network and life in Germany generally.
Telegraph, 15/9/1937: articles on German Rds Delegation visit.
News Chronicle, 24/9/1937: "Germany can teach us a lot about roads."
8/5 is worth requesting again, to investigate reprographics and make sure we get copies of the unknown Indian roadgeek's pictures.
6/14: a file on London-Brighton road. This was apparently a widening rather than a motorway as subsequently proposed by GP Blizard and C Carkett-James and the other principals of LSCM. Incl:
Map.
"Brighton Road Scheme." 11 pp. P?
"The London-Brighton Road"--notes by Mr. AH Carpenter. 4 pp.
RIA. "Scheme for the improvement of the Brighton Roads." 15 pp. First Draft. 23/1/1923.
6/3
Sole contents:
(confidential) "A" Ring Proposal, County of London, report of the technical sub-committee of officers of the London County Council and ministry of transport. August, 1948. 35 pp.
5/15
Contains mostly correspondence and paper scraps dealing with "Special Motor Roads." Incl corresondence with Dixon Davis and Lord Montagu of Beaulieu in 6-7/1923 dealing with London-Liverpool road scheme.
Undated blurb for advantages of motorways, clipped to announcement of Maybury's retirement.
Cox's Pottery Annual and Glass Trade Year Book, 1926. GP Blizard, "Midlands to the Mersey: Big Motorway Scheme. Route via the Potteries." 2 sides, and advocates construction of motorways in the pottery country in the Midlands. Autostrade are shown as the design examples: Varen, Milan termini, and stretch under construction near Vergiate. (Autostrade as proposed WERE built--but with cycle tracks, and publicly funded--such as the E Lancashire Road. It's dualled now; was it so when it was built in the 1930's?)
Times, 16/5/1932, "New Rhineland Motor Road - Pedestrians excluded" from "our Correspondent." FULL text:
bERIN, mAY 15
One of the most modern motoring thoroughfares in Europe is about to be opened between Cologne and Bonn.
The existing roads, although sufficient for weekday traffic, are inadequate at the weekends, when multitudes of the 10,000,000 inhabitants of the great Rhineland industrial area pour southward to the Seven Hills, the Lorelei Headland, the Dragon's Rock, and other places of attraction. At weekends 1,000 cars use these roads every hour, and of these at least one, as statistics show, does not return. There are several danger points, like the notorious "death curve" between Hersel and Widdig, and this prompted the construction of the motor road, at a cost of some £11m.
It is 59ft wide, and has but one level crossing in its 15 miles. Pedestrians and all non-motorists are strictly excluded, and on its specially prepared surface the motorist, having a clear field of view for several hundred yards and no fear of hidden curves and crossings, may drive at 75 mph along a most picturesque stretch of the valley of the Rhine.
2 maps for Birmingham-Birkenhead Road (76 miles from Wolverhampton to Birkenhead), estimated cost £4m.
"Proposal that State should build arterial Roads."
Correspondence (mostly 10/1929) concerning plans for a MR which one Arthur Schofield, consultant, drew up for someplace in Sussex and submitted to the Arundel, Lilttlehampton, E Preston, and district joint town planning committee. RJ lent a copy of the report by George Kepler, Ministry of Health, who asked for it back and indicated that the road was being recommended for inclusion in the unemployment programme for the county.
