Upminster a number of windmills in Upminster and one of which, a smock mill built in 1803, remains. Local industry included a tannery, gravel extraction and a brick works that was connected to the railway station by a tramway in 1895. The London, Tilbury and Southend Railway from Fenchurch Street was extended from Barking to Upminster in 1885. The underground Whitechapel and Bow Railway opened in 1902 and allowed through services of the District Railway to operate to Upminster. The District converted to electric trains in 1905 and services were cut back to East Ham. Delayed by World War I, electrified
Wimbledon and Sutton Railway any construction and so extensions to the earlier acts were granted each year from 1918 to 1922 to give a final date of 26 July 1924 for completion of the compulsory purchase. In November 1922, notices of new bills to be placed before Parliament were published by the W&SR, and by the UERL's subsidiaries the London Electric Railway (LER) and the City and South London Railway (C&SLR, now part of the London Underground's Northern line). Taken together, the bills brought significant changes to the plans for the Wimbledon to Sutton line. The C&SLR was an underground railway running in deep