This book is the first of two which covers the history of the Great Eastern Railway and its predecessors from the first proposal for a railway in the eastern counties in 1811 for a railway from Islington to Wallasea Island and Mucking to its absorption into the London and North Eastern Railway under the 1923 Grouping of Railways. This volume covers the period from 1811 up to the formation of the Great Eastern Railway in 1862.The history is the first history of the GER since C