George Hudson, railway promoter and fraudster, 1800 –1871. whose success in financing railway companies led to him being known as the Railway King - a title conferred on him by Sydney Smith in 1844. Hudson made a great fortune by means of corrupt dealing in railway shares but lost it in the crash of 1847. Hudson was the son of a farmer and so considered to be the social inferior of the upper classes, many of whom took great pleasure in his downfall

Reference: Williams, F. S., Our Iron Roads: Their History, Construction and Administration, Third Edition (London, Bemrose & Sons, 1883) p51