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3 unusual facts about Edward Betts


Edward Betts

Peto, Betts and Brassey built at great speed the Grand Crimean Central Railway which enabled supplies, particularly heavy ammunition, to be transported from Balaclava to the British troops engaged in the siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War.

After his bankruptcy, Betts was forced to sell Preston Hall (to his friend, Thomas Brassey) and moved to The Holmwood, Bickley Park, near Bromley, Kent "... where he could still maintain a carriage." For the sake of his health he was sent by his doctors to Egypt in 1871 but he died the following year in Aswan.

Morton Betts

He was the son of Edward Betts, a civil engineering contractor, who married the sister of the railway entrepreneur Samuel Morton Peto, which is how he was given his name.


Medway Valley Line

The extension was built by the railway contractor Edward Betts, who lived locally at Preston Hall and through whose estate the line partially passed.

Peto, Brassey and Betts

Peto, Brassey and Betts was a civil engineering partnership between Samuel Morton Peto, Thomas Brassey and Edward Betts.

Toronto and Nipissing Railway

The line was constructed by the English contractors Peto, Brassey and Betts, who undertook to raise the capital required in London if they obtained the contract.


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