Colonel Holman Fred Stephens (31 October 1868 – 23 October 1931) was a British light railway civil engineer and manager. He was engaged in engineering and building, and later managing, 16 light railways in England and Wales.
Biography
23 Salford Terrace, Tonbridge
Stephens was the son of Frederic George Stephens, Pre-Raphaelite artist and art critic, and his wife the artist Rebecca Clara (née Dalton). He was named after his father's friend and former tutor, the painter Holman Hunt, although the two later fell out. He was a great nephew of the naturalist, explorer and biologist, Charles Darwin.
The railways were planned, and some later run, from an office at 23 Salford Terrace in Tonbridge, Kent, which Stephens had rented in 1900 and purchased in 1927.
Many of his railways stayed independent of the larger systems created in the Grouping under the Railways Act 1921.
Stephens had no close relatives and never married. He had few interests outside of railways other than voluntary military service and Liberal Party politics, having befriended MP for Caernarfon David Lloyd George during Stephens' period as Manager of the Welsh Highland Railway and Ffestiniog Railway between 1925 and 1931. In 1916, during World War I, Stephens attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Territorial Army (TA) with which he had been associated since the 1890s. He continued to support the TA throughout most of the 1920s.[2]
When he died in 1931 aged 62, the management of his railways was taken over by his former "outdoor assistant" and life partner, W. H. Austen, who ran them until they closed or were incorporated into the national system in 1948.
A museum devoted to his life and achievements is at Tenterden Station in Kent.
The railways
There are several books about Col. Stephens's railways.[3] The railways in which Stephens was involved were:[4]
Originally a 3 ft (914 mm) china-clay carrier; Stephens engineered its reconstruction and extension; operated by Southern Railway at outset, remaining an independent company until nationalisation
Built by an independent company but operated by the London and South Western Railway as part of its main line The branch from Bere Alston to Callington was engineered by Stephens and opened in 1908 section to Gunnislake is still operating
Reconstructed from the long-closed Potteries, Shrewsbury and North Wales Railway in 1911. Regular passenger services ceased 1933. Taken over for military use during World War II and remained under military control until closure.
Stephens was involved in many projects that did not come to fruition, 18 of which reached the early, Light Railway Order, stage. Many were extensions to existing railways; one was the 1920s 'Southern Heights Light Railway', a single-track electrified railway from Orpington to Sanderstead.
