The early years were difficult. The third General Secretary, John Stopford-Challener, shot himself in Paris's Bois de Boulogne in 1906; it was only after his suicide that it was discovered that he had absconded with the union's money. After this came the era of A.G. Walkden, who as General Secretary for 30 years led the union to the peak of its influence; the head office in London, built in the early 1960s, was named after him. The railway companies refused to recognise the trade unions until after the strike of 1919, but after that time membership rose steadily, to a peak of some 91,500 in the early 1950s. The subsequent closure of uneconomic railway lines, the "Beeching axe", and especially the computerisation of railway offices led to large scale reductions in the eligible membership. Membership was around 75,000 in 1970, 71,000 in 1980, and 39,000 in 1990. There was a rapid loss of around 25% of its membership in the mid to late 1990s because the grades of staff covered by the union were the ones hardest hit when British Rail was broken up from 1994 onwards; however the Executive Committee adopted a policy of seeking to vigorously recruit additional members particularly in those areas such as travel agencies which had not been the principal focus of the union in the past. This has led to more stable membership figures, including a small increase at the turn of the century.