Thomas Cook Railway Excursion, Loughborough, Leicestershire. UK - Blue Plaques on Waymarking.com

Mounted outside of Loughborough railway station to mark the first railway excusion by Thomas Cook from Leicester to Loughborough on 5th July 1841.

Thomas Cook would later become on the best known travel agencies.

Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) of Melbourne, Derbyshire, founded the travel agency Thomas Cook & Son (popularly nicknamed Cook's Tours) that became Thomas Cook AG before eventually becoming Thomas Cook Group in 2007.

The first-ever excursions

Cook's idea to offer excursions came to him while "walking from Market Harborough to Leicester to attend a meeting of the Temperance Society".

With the opening of the extended Midland Counties Railway, he arranged to take a group of 540 temperance campaigners from Leicester Campbell Street railway station to a rally in Loughborough, eleven miles away.

On 5 July 1841, Thomas Cook arranged for the railway company to charge one shilling (5p) per person that included railway tickets and food for this train journey. Cook was paid a share of the fares actually charged to the passengers.

This was the first privately chartered excursion train to be advertised to the general public, Cook himself acknowledging that there had been previous, unadvertised, private excursion trains.

Blue Plaque managing agency: Loughborough Junior Chamber Individual Recognized: Thomas Cook Physical Address: Loughborough Railway Station Station Boulevard, off Nottingham Road Loughborough, Leicestershire United Kingdom LE11 1HW Web Address: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/15/2017 SMacB visited it