I WAS saddened to see that two such illustrious commentators as Bernard Ingham and Stephen Lewis failed to choose George Hudson as one of their "Great Yorkshiremen". Both, I fear, have been blinded to Hudson's huge achievements by his perceived defects.

There is no doubt that George Hudson - by creating Britain's modern railway network - laid the foundations of York as a modern railway city.

He was three times Lord Mayor of York, and the city basked in his reflected glory as it became the leading railway centre in the north of England.

His fall was as spectacular as his rise - and he ended up first in a debtors' prison and then in France, forlorn and penniless. He died a broken man and was buried only a couple of miles away from his birthplace.

York, busily rewriting history, has tried to remove all trace of the railway king from its civic annals. Our city, it appears, has conveniently forgotten that it owes its position as the railway capital of the north primarily to Hudson.

Robert Beaumont,

Minskip,

Boroughbridge,

York.

Updated: 09:57 Friday, October 21, 2005