work James first became interested in the potential for railways and planning possible routes in 1799. As early as 1806 he had realised that the horse-drawn railways that had been a common means of transporting goods in and around collieries for almost two centuries could form the basis of a national system of public transportation. Uniquely among early railway pioneers, he saw the value of railways in rapidly transporting passengers as well as freight and minerals. It seems likely that in 1808 James attended the demonstration running of Richard Trevithick's steam locomotive Catch me who can in London; certainly at this time he began to consider the long-term development of this means of transport, although he recognised that something more durable than cast iron would be needed for the rails themselves. For example, at the time of the Napoleonic Wars of 1815, he wrote to the Prince Regent proposing a railway link between the two principal naval dockyards at Chatham and Portsmouth which in peacetime could be used for passenger traffic; and in 1820/21 he promoted a Central Junction Railway from Stratford-upon-Avon to Paddington in London. In 1821 he made several trips to inspect railway developments in the Northumberland coalfield and met George Stephenson of Killingworth Colliery, his son Robert and the ironfounder William Losh. This resulted in an agreement for James to market the Stephenson/Losh patent locomotive (which James branded as the Land-Agent type) in England south of the Humber-Mersey line, with a supplementary agreement for Stephenson and Losh to use the patent for multitubular locomotive boilers taken out by William Henry James, William James's son. In 1822 James, with his brother-in-law Paul Padley as chief surveyor, began on behalf of Joseph Sandars, a Liverpool businessman, and others to survey a route for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in Lancashire; and in 1823-4 he surveyed three possible routes for the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway in Kent. He was also during this period advocating railways as an extension to the Grand Surrey Canal and as an alternative to the (never-built) London and Cambridge Junction Canal; and steam locomotives for the Surrey Iron Railway. Stephenson, however, was never prepared to produce locomotives for James to demonstrate to potential clients and no sales were made through his agency. Misfortunes In 1822–3, James spent time in the King's Bench Prison in Southwark for debt (during which time he wrote a scheme for a