The 1847 British financial crisis caused by railway speculation and bank failures was called the Panic of 1847.
Britain experienced a railway investment boom during the 1840s. Investors committed large sums to railway companies, often through highly leveraged arrangements, while expectations of rapid profits drove share prices upward. When confidence weakened, railway securities fell and financial institutions faced pressure from withdrawals and losses.
The crisis intensified in October 1847, when several major financial firms failed or approached failure. The Bank of England’s reserves became dangerously low. The government temporarily suspended the Bank Charter Act, allowing the Bank to issue additional notes beyond its normal statutory limit and helping calm the emergency.
The event is sometimes folded into accounts of the broader nineteenth-century railway mania. Railway speculation was central, but the precise historical name for the 1847 financial crisis is the Panic of 1847, not simply Railway Mania.