Sir Henry Oakley was a British railway administrator. He spent most of his working life with the Great Northern Railway

Great Northern Railway (Great Britain)

The Great Northern Railway was a British railway company established by the Great Northern Railway Act of 1846. On 1 January 1923 the company lost its identity as a constituent of the newly formed London and North Eastern Railway....

 (GNR), joining in 1849. He was chief clerk in the Company Secretary's office until taking over as Secretary in 1858. He became General Manager of the company in 1870.

He proved adept at the politics and negotiations required in railway management, and had taken on an additional role as Honorary Secretary of the Railway Companies' Association

Railway Companies' Association

The Railway Companies' Association was a co-ordinating body for British railway companies from 1867 until nationalization in 1948. Its purpose was to protect the interests of the companies and their shareholders, chiefly against parliamentary interference...

 by 1873. He retained these extra duties until the Association was restructured on a more permanent basis in 1900. His national role was a factor in his receiving a knighthood in 1891.

Oakley was elected to the GNR board in 1897 and retired as General Manager in 1898. In June 1900, a C1 class locomotive was named in his honour by the company; after its withdrawal from service in 1937 it was preserved, and survives at the National Railway Museum

National Railway Museum

The National Railway Museum is a museum in York forming part of the British National Museum of Science and Industry and telling the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It has won many awards, including the European Museum of the Year Award in 2001...

. After leaving the GNR he became Chairman of the Central London Railway

Central London Railway

The Central London Railway , also known as the Twopenny Tube, was a deep-level, underground "tube" railway that opened in London in 1900...

, one of the new tube railways.

Oakley died on 8 February 1912 at his London home aged 88.

Sources

• Alderman, Geoffrey, The railway interest, Leicester, Leicester University Press, 1973, ISBN 0-7185-1111-5
• Harris, Michael, 'Oakley, Henry (1823–1914)' in Simmons, Jack and Biddle, Gordon (eds), The Oxford companion to British Railway history: from 1603 to the 1990s, Oxford, New York: OUP, 1997, ISBN 0-19-211697-5, page 356