Crewe

Crewe, a municipal borough in the Crewe parliamentary division of Cheshire, England, 158 m. N.W. of London, on the main line of the London & North-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 42,074. The town was built on an estate called Oak Farm in the parish of Monk’s Coppenhall, and takes its name from the original stations having been placed in the township of Crewe, in which the seat of Lord Crewe is situated. It is a railway junction where lines converge from London, Manchester, North Wales and Holyhead, North Stafford and Hereford. It is inhabited principally by persons in the employment of the London & North-Western railway company, and was practically created by that corporation, at a point where in 1841 only a farmhouse stood in open country. Crewe is not only one of the busiest railway stations in the world, but is the locomotive metropolis of the London & North-Western company, which has centred here enormous workshops for the manufacture of the material and plant used in railways. In 1901 the 4000th locomotive was turned out of the works. A series of subterranean ways extending many miles have been constructed to enable merchandise traffic to pass through without interfering with passenger trains on the surface railways. The company possesses one of the finest electric stations in the world, and electrical apparatus for the working of train signals is in operation. The station is fitted with an extensive suite of offices for the interchange of postal traffic, the chief mails to and from Ireland and Scotland being stopped here and arranged for various distributing centres. Its enormous railway facilities and its geographical situation as the junction of the great trunk lines running north and south, tapping also the Staffordshire potteries on the one side and the great mineral districts of Wales on the other, constitute Crewe station one of the most important links of railway and postal communication in the kingdom. The railway company built its principal schools, provided it with a mechanics’ institute, containing library, science and art classes, reading rooms, assembly rooms, &c. Victoria Park, also the gift of the company, was opened in 1888. The municipal corporation built the technical school and school of art. The borough incorporated in 1877, is under a mayor, 7 aldermen and 21 councillors. Area, 2185 acres.

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