David Waddington (Essex MP) (original) (raw)

David Waddington (1810 – 12 October 1863) was an English Conservative Party politician. He was born in Manchester the son of an iron founder. By 1836 he was running his own mill. Between the years of 1845-49 Waddington was Vice-Chairman of the Eastern Counties Railway and Chairman from 1851 to 1856. He negotiated agreements to work most of the lines (that had been built by this point) in East Anglia creating a network of 565 miles by 1854. He was responsible for the takeover of the Eastern Union Railway in 1854 where his ability to drive a hard bargain caused the EUR chairman J Cobbold to remark "a strong minority of our Board consider that you have done us". Waddington however was exposed in a scandal on the ECR as forced to resign in 1856.