About the year 1840, the Park Gate Iron Manufacturing Company was in active operation at Rotherham, near Sheffield. Most of the shares were held in Birmingham, and the directors, with one exception, were Birmingham men. They were Joshua Scholefield, Joseph Gibbins, Henry Van Wart, Thomas Pemberton, Samuel A. Goddard, and Samuel Evans, of Cradley. For a time the company was prosperous, but about 1842 came a revulsion, and iron rapidly fell in price from L10 to L5 per ton. The company became greatly embarrassed. Most of the directors became sick of the concern, and lost all interest in it. The business was neglected by all the directors except the two last named. At one period the company was in such straits that their bills would have been dishonoured had not Mr. Goddard given his private cheque on the Bank of England for L3,000. At this period Mr. Geach was consulted, and after some negotiations he bought the whole concern for an old song. The nominal purchaser was Mr. Joshua Scholefield, but, somehow, Mr. Geach had secured for himself the largest share. The business was now carefully looked after, and began to recover itself. All at once came the "railway mania" of 1844 and 1845, when all England went mad for a time. George Hudson, the linen draper of York, from whom I once took an order in his little shop near the Cathedral, was then the most notable man in the country. He soon became known as the "Railway King," and, as he was presumed to have the faculty of transforming everything into gold, he was _feted_ and almost worshipped by all classes of society. Under the excitement created by visions of untold wealth derived from making railways, iron rapidly rose in price to double its recent value. Mr. Geach at this time, I am able to state upon competent living authority, "took three orders for 30,000 tons of railroad iron, at L12, which did not cost over L6 per ton." This laid the foundation of Mr. Geach's marvellous success, and from this period he commenced to identify himself with large enterprises, until at length he was associated with some of the most important mercantile transactions of the period.