Bust of Sir Samuel Morton Peto, Norwich Station

Sir Samuel Morton Peto was an entrepreneur and civil engineer in the classical heroic Victorian model.

Born in Woking Surrey, Peto was apprenticed as a bricklayer to his uncle who ran a London building firm. When his uncle died Peto and his cousin Thomas Grissell formed a partnership. Grissell and Peto built the Reform Club and Nelson's Column amongst other well known London monuments.

Peto saw the potential of railways early and built many of the early lines, including the South Eastern, the London Chatham and Dover and the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada.

The Norwich connection is that it was in May 1844 that the first railway in Norfolk opened from Great Yarmouth to Norwich. The Yarmouth and Norwich Railway company came into being in 1842, and George Stephenson was elected chairman at the first directors' meeting.

The line was single track, standard gauge, with no tunnels, following the course of the river Yare. Work began on laying the line in April 1843, at Postwick Hall Farm, near Thorpe Asylum, and a total of 1,500 men were employed in its construction. The contractors were Grissell and Peto, Samuel Morton Peto being the resident engineer, with offices at St Michael-at-Plea, Norwich.

Peto was elected Liberal MP for Norwich between 1847 and 1854. He built military railways in the Crimea during the War, and was rewarded with the baronetcy of Somerleyton Hall - his residence in Suffolk.

Peto became bankrupt in the financial crisis of 1866 and had to leave Parliament and was exiled to Budapest. Returning to England he tried to launch more railways but died in obscurity in 1889.

The bust of Sir Samuel Morton Peto was placed in Norwich station in 1989 to commemorate his role in early railways in Norfolk. The bust, by John Pooler, is under the clock on the main concourse, with his dates, 1809-1889, and the description "Baptist Contractor Politician and Philanthropist"