THE history of the Advertizer is entwined in Oswestry's rise as a railway town in the Victorian Age.
Indeed the newspaper owes its entire origins to the coming of the railway revolution as much as Oswestry owes its rise as a Victorian town of importance to the pioneering founders of the publication.
The Oswestry Advertiser and Railway Guide was first published in January 1849, just days after the opening of the Oswestrry-Gobowen branch line which had connected the town to the Chester-Shrewsbury Railway for the first time.
However there had been many in the town, including the founders of the Advertiser, who had felt Oswestry needed to be on a main line.
The opposition of landowners had prevented the Great Western Railway coming to Oswestry just years earlier.
Even after the opening of the branch line to Gobowen the Advertizer had advocated and championed for Oswestry to be placed on a main line and the Manchester-Milford Haven Railway would become the dream of many readers in the years to come.
It would be fair to say the earliest editions were not a newspaper by even mid-Victorian standards with the few which had existed at this time badly hampered by the Stamp Duty Bill which charged publishers for printing news.
As such the Advertiser's pages were dominated by railway timetables and circulation surpassed 1,000 copies within the first year as the railway revolution allowed Oswestrians to explore the rest of the country while also opening the town to visitors and trade.
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A letter to the newspaper in September insisted ‘many towns have suffered from the proximity of the railroad; Oswestry, hitherto has reaped nothing but benefit.’
A curious letter from Tony Smuggins was printed in December 1850 when he championed the idea of dismantling the town railway and sending it to be exhibited in the Great Exhibition in London.
Apparently he had received this instruction from a ghost who had shared Mr Smuggins’ desire to make Oswestry famous.
An editorial in August 1852 which informed readers of two projects to link Manchester with Milford Haven.
The first proposed a line between Shrewsbury and Aberystwyth with a branch line to Oswestry from north of Welshpool while the other proposed to build a main trunk line through Oswestry to Newtown.
‘No person who will take the trouble of inspecting a map of England and Wales can for a moment question that the most advantageous communication for all parties must provide that the main trunk line shall pass through Oswestry.’
The Montgomeryshire Railway Bill passed the House of Commons in the summer of 1856.
The Oswestry Advertiser stated that should the line from Oswestry to Newtown via Welshpool be built ‘we could look forward to seeing a railway station at Oswestry which will no longer be the ugliest in England, or, considering the amount of traffic the least convenient in the world.’
In 1856 it was proposed a line be built between Welshpool and Shrewsbury but progress was painfully slow, in particular for the Advertiser which had expanded into Wales as the newly branded Oswestry Advertiser, Montgomeryshire Mercury and Local Journal for the Borders of Wales.
A new press had been purchased and an editorial in October 1856 justified the decision, writing 'When the railway is taken from Oswestry to Newtown, Oswestry will be, more than present, the connecting link between England and Montgomeryshire, so we intend to dedicate a considerable portion of space to evens transpired in this county.'
A year had passed without work on the proposed railway link to Newtown and the question was posed in the newspaper whether 'some secret influences were at work to cause the vexatious delays that had occurred.'
Finally in July 1857 the first sod was cut near Welshpool Bowling Green by Lady Watkins Wynn.
The following month the newspaper reported 'Our readers will be gratified to know wok has actually commenced and that on Monday two waggon loads of planks and barrow loads were transported from Oswestry Railway Station to Pant. In a few days we may expect an inundation of navvies and confidently hope our prophecy will be fulfilled of seeing a railway to Llanymynech by Christmas.'
The new Oswestry Railway Station was built on Beatrice Street while the Great Western Railway branch line station stood on Leg Street with the town now home to two stations and on the cusp of an exciting new age.
However the town would remain on the cusp for years and the slow progress of the railway became a common theme in the pages of the newspaper which reported in August 1859 'there is every prospect this line will be completed in the present, or at any rate, the next century.'
Work finally stepped up under the guidance of David Davies and Thomas Savin and the line between Oswestry and Llanymynech was finally completed while work between Welshpool and Buttington began.
By October 20th the line reached Pool Quay, just four miles from Welshpool.
The newspaper championed the arrival of the three locomotives to serve the line with the Wynnstay, Glansevern and Montgomery introduced.
However a reminder of the dangers of the rail age was reported in the same year.when a passenger train and an engine pushing empty cattle trucks collided below the railway bridge on Whittington Road.
The Oswestry-Welshpool line was completed in 1860 and an editorial read 'This gives us a foresight into the future, when not only two isolated towns in one county should be united, but when every principal town in the country should be brought within a few hours ride from the metropolis of the kingdom.'
Now Oswestry was connected to Montgomeryshire as far as Llanidloes the exponents of the rail revolution had sought further expansion with a line connecting the town to Ellesmere and Whitchurch.
The independent line had overcome a rival proposal from the Great Western Railway whose cause had not been helped by memories of the company long overlooking the town and one of its barrister's describing the town as 'the wretched little town of Oswestry.
Thomas Savin had been greeted with a hero's welcome upon his return to Oswestry.
In contrast to the Oswestry-Welshpool line, the sod had been cut on the new line to Ellesmere just days later and by 1862 the Cambrian Railway Station was completed..
The newspaper continued to champion Savin and Oswestry and fought to ensure the works of the newly amalgamated Cambrian Railway Company remained in the town in 1864.
'Our town is now on what will one day doubtless become a most important railway line and Mr Savin is to be congratulated on the progress the Ellesmere portion is making.
'The huge workshops built on the Shelf Bank field hold out a glorious promise of future prosperity to the town. Mr Savin might have made a better bargain by placing these works elsewhere but he has showed himself a true friend to his native parish and built his workshops in Oswestry.'
Remarkably Thomas Savin, the man who had made Oswestry a railway town, was declared bankrupt in 1866 when his efforts to build a line on the Cambrian coast failed.
The Rednal Railway Disaster of 1865 had stunned the region with 13 people dead and more than 30 injured after a GWR passenger train from Chester had left the track at Babbin's Wood Bridge.
However, Oswestry had now arrived as a railway town and would remain so for the next century until the tragic closure under the Beeching cuts.
The legacy of the town's railway history remains and even today there are those who champion the restoration of the town's lost status as a railway town while others, just like some of our Victorian forefathers, remain opposed.
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