Description: Thomas William Hammond 1854-1935. Born in Philadelphia of Nottingham emigres, and orphaned at the age of four, he came to England with his younger sister Maria and lived for a short while with his grandparents in Mount Street. In 1868 age 14 he enrolled in the Government School of Art. On the 1871 census he is described as a lace curtain designer, and in 1872 he was awarded the 'Queen's Prize for a Design of a Lace Curtain'. Other prizes followed and in 1877 he was again awarded the Queen's Prize, this time for the design for a damask table Cloth. Hammond was an indefatigable worker, and soon began to use his skills as a draftsman to record aspects of the changing town. He began showing his work at local venues in 1882 and in 1890 exhibited for the first time at the Royal academy. His real hobby was black and white sketching in charcoal. He drew about 350 pictures all together mainly scenes of a Nottingham he knew but which has largely passed away today. Extracted from 'The Changing Face of Tom Hammond's Nottingham' by John Beckett which is the introductory essay in 'A City in the Making Drawings of Tom Hammond'. This view of the old Midland Station as it stood in Station Street will recall many happy memories. The line which connected Nottingham with Derby was opened on the 30th May, 1839 and the original station still stands incorporated with the goods offices on the west side of Carrington Street. When the line was extended to Lincoln a new station, the subject of this drawing, was erected; this was opened for traffic on the 22nd May, 1848 and remained in use with all its inconveniences, but with all its happy memories until the construction of the present Midland Station in Carrington Street in 1904. One is so used to the word 'railway' that its origin is almost forgotten. Benjamin Outram was the first to make a metal trackway upon which to draw wheeled loads. He placed plates of metal upon sleepers and turned up their outward edges, and in the groove so formed he ran his wheels; later he found it more convenient to sink grooves in his metal plates and to provide his wheels with Ranges; this system was called the 'Outram Way', and it became shortened into the modern name 'Tram Way'. An improvement of this method was eventually achieved when the plates were set on edge, and the Ranged wheels were made to run along the upper edges of these plates or rails; this system was called the 'Edge Rail Way', and was quickly shortened into 'Rail Way'- hence our modern term. Image and descriptive text taken from 'Nottingham Past and Present', published in 1926.