George Hudson was a Victorian fat cat who swindled people out of their cash and heaped shame on the good name of York. George Hudson was the far-sighted entrepreneur who single-handedly transformed York into a thriving, modern city.

Two views of the Railway King. Which is accurate? Neither, of course; the real man lies somewhere in between these caricatures. But York residents today, if they are aware of Hudson at all, know more about his villainous reputation than his remarkable achievements.

The author of a new biography of George Hudson wants to redress the balance. Robert Beaumont strongly believes that the Railway King was a visionary, albeit a flawed one, to whom the people of York owe a great debt.

Robert has long held an interest in Hudson. "Having been a journalist on the Evening Press for 20 years, I was always fascinated by George Hudson, because he seemed a towering figure in York's history," he said.

"It was almost as if the city was ashamed of him: the city that dare not speak his name."

When publishers Hodder Headline invited Robert to write a book for its new historical series called Review, he jumped at the chance to properly explore Hudson's turbulent life.

"I have always been fascinated by people who are flawed," he said. "People who have achieved great things despite great character defects."

In his book The Railway King: a biography of George Hudson, railway pioneer and fraudster, Robert examines this contradictory man.

It is a hugely entertaining read, which charts Hudson's wildly fluctuating fortunes with the energy and enthusiasm of the Railway King himself.

Hudson didn't take long to find controversy. Born to a farming family in Howsham in 1800, he was drummed out of the community aged 15 for fathering an illegitimate child.

That put him on the road to York, and, ultimately, to fortune. Hudson found a job as an apprentice at Nicholson and Bell's drapers' shop on the corner of Goodramgate and College Street, now owned by the National Trust.

When Hudson came of age in 1821, he was made a partner by shop owner Richard Nicholson, and married his sister Elizabeth.

Much later in his life, Hudson was to reflect that this was the happiest part of his life. "My ruin was having a fortune left to me," he said.

That fortune was left to him by Hudson's great-uncle and friend Matthew Bottrill. An extremely wealthy man, with properties in Monkgate, Osbaldwick and Huntington, Bottrill died in 1827, leaving George Hudson about £30,000.

He and his wife moved into the Monkgate townhouse. And while Elizabeth busied herself with raising a family - they had four children who survived - her husband threw himself into a political life.

It was as an active campaigner for the York Tories that York began to "sit up and take notice of this rich, young and pushy" young man, Robert writes. And in 1833 he was awarded the post as treasurer of York Railway Committee.

Other members of the committee wanted to build nothing more than a horse-drawn railway to bring cheap coal to York. But it was Hudson, writes Robert, who had the vision to see the true potential of this new form of transport.

His interest was awakened by a chance meeting with the brilliant railway engineer George Stephenson. Once they teamed up, the two Georges - one with the genius to design and build engines and lines, the other with the entrepreneurial zeal to turn dreams into reality - were an unstoppable force.

It was Hudson who suggested that the proposed York-Leeds line should connect to George Stephenson's Leeds to Derby project. The railway committee needed no persuading to agree to this brilliant plan; thus the historic York and North Midland Railway was born.

This was the first of a series of Hudson rail companies. In the 1830s and 40s railway mania charged across the country like a runaway train, and George Hudson was up at the front blowing the whistle.

"George Hudson was ideally suited to running and dominating the railways in their infancy in Britain," Robert writes. "This was a cut-throat, greedy and unstable world, which needed a leader with vision, decisiveness and drive.

"The new railway companies, springing up at an alarming and uncontrolled rate, attracted the capital of the rich and the famous, the landed gentry and middle-class tradesman and, on occasions, the poor and the needy.

"There were plenty of people who were prepared to enjoy a company dividend of ten per cent without lifting a finger to earn it, but there were precious few who were prepared to devote their whole lives to making those companies work.

"Hudson was one of those precious few, none of whom were beyond moral reproach."

Robert paints a picture of a man who threw himself into the railway revolution, and who created a northern rail network almost from scratch through sheer force of will as much as anything.

For this he was amply rewarded. He amassed riches beyond avarice, buying estates in Yorkshire and a five storey mansion in Knightsbridge, London, which today is the French Embassy.

He became Lord Mayor of York three times, and an MP, and found himself hob-nobbing with the likes of the Duke of Wellington and royalty.

Society's snobs had some fun at Hudson's expense. The poorly-educated son of a yeoman farmer, his social graces, and those of his wife, left something to be desired. She was given to embarrassing conversational gaffes; he could be boorish and argumentative when drunk - which was often.

It is probably not surprising that this extravagantly rich and imprudent character made enemies, and they jumped at the chance to bring him down when it arose.

In the latter half of the 1840s, Britain was plunged into deep depression. Fewer people could afford to travel by rail and Hudson's huge financial gambles were exposed.

It became apparent that he had been paying shareholders from capital, and numerous inquiries into Hudson's dealings were initiated.

His downfall was even more abrupt than his rise. By 1853 he had been forced to sell his three main homes to cover his liabilities. His bankruptcy led to the suicide of his brother-in-law Richard Nicholson and to the broken engagement of his daughter Ann. As a committed family man he would have felt those tragedies keenly.

He was reduced to living in penury in miserable exile in France; and on his return to York he was imprisoned for three months. Hudson died in 1871, and was buried in Scrayingham, near Malton.

It was an ordinary death after an extraordinary life, a life which now divides historians. Robert sees him as a noble man, who accepted his fate with dignity and was ever loyal to his friends and family.

Meanwhile Dr Alf Peacock, a noted York authority on Hudson, remains the Railway King's fiercest critic. In his book Robert attacks Dr Peacock for censuring another Hudson biography under a pseudonym. That, says Robert of Dr Peacock, "completely destroyed his credibility as a historian".

Whether or not Robert's campaign to raise a statue in York to George Hudson succeeds, two things are certain.

Hudson's life will always provoke debate. And Hudson's legacy, making all the railways come to York, will never be forgotten.

The Railway King: a biography of George Hudson, railway pioneer and fraudster by Robert Beaumont costs £14.99. It is published by Review on March 4, but copies are available in Waterstone's and Borders in York this week

Updated: 10:29 Monday, February 25, 2002