Thomas Cook - Leicester, Leicestershire, UK - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

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.

During the following three summers he planned and conducted outings for temperance societies and Sunday school children.
In 1844 the Midland Counties Railway agreed to make a permanent arrangement with him provided he found the passengers.

This success led him to start his own business running rail excursions for pleasure, taking a percentage of the railway tickets.



The statue is by James Butler, who is also responsible for two other statues in Leicester. One of these is Richard III, in Castle Gardens.

The Thomas Cook statue was unveiled in 1991, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the historic Leicester to Loughborough excursion.
The site is appropriate, as it was from Campbell Street, where the present station now stands, that the journey started.

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