 The opening of the GNR defeated Hudson, but not Huish, who built an alliance of lines to try to undercut the GNR.The dispute went to arbitration under W. E. Gladstone, whose rulings mostly favoured Beckett, by awarding the GNR at least as high a proportion of the revenue as it claimed from most of the routes it contested with Huish's confederation.When Beckett retired in 1864 the GNR constituted, as it subsequently remained, the southern end of the fastest route from London to north-east England and Scotland.