A Journey Through the Industrial Revolution-6-6-15 · 2020-01-14 · 1 A Journey through the...
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04062015, June 2015
A Journey through the Industrial Revolution Tim Barmby University of Aberdeen
1
A Journey through the Industrial Revolution
Tim Barmby PrefacePrefacePrefacePreface
The following booklet stems from a discussion that Professor Peter
Kenyon and I had in the rear courtyard of his and his wife Jan’s house in
Perth, Australia, in November 2011. Peter had been ill but at that time
was in remission from cancer. We were talking about Economic History
and in particular the events and linkages of events pertaining to the
Industrial Revolution in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. Peter was
intending to take early retirement, and he and Jan had already planned a
trip to the UK for the summer of 2012.
Peter expressed a desire to see some of the places where key events
in the Industrial Revolution had taken place. This desire struck a real
chord with me as being very similar to the thoughts which might have
occurred to the enquiring mind of a 17th/18th century scholar who would
want to go and take a look and see what could be learnt. Peter was
having difficulty drawing the information together so I said I would
draft a proposed schedule for him. I am glad that I didn’t leave this too
long; as the cancer returned over that Christmas and Peter died in
February 2012. He read some of the following text in hospital as he
underwent chemotherapy.
2
I suggested the idea of writing my notes up as a short pamphlet to
Jan and this is the result. Jan made some part of tour in the summer of
2012.
IIIIntroductionntroductionntroductionntroduction: Looking at the past: Looking at the past: Looking at the past: Looking at the past
It is a difficult but fundamentally important question to ask how
effectively we see the past, Carr (1961), and how we can use that
perception to put our modern experience into context. Humphrey
Jennings’ book “Pandemonium” used the written impressions of the great
industrial changes which were seen from the end of the 17th century
onwards which people at the time felt the need to record to do this. Emma
Griffin’s more recent book “Liberty’s Dawn” in a similar way draws on
autobiographical writings from the late 18th into the 19th century to try
and form a picture of the changes which were occurring.
As we look back from our 21st century position, we can also use
remains of now defunct industrial locations to interpret the past. This
tradition is possibly strongest in local history and, of course, industrial
archaeology, W G Hoskins’ “The Making of the English Landscape”
being a seminal work in this regard. Hoskins used the term “palimpsest”
to try and give a framework to the process of interpreting what we see
now, and what it tells us about the past. The Marxist historian E J
Hobsbawm comments that Hoskins teaches historians to walk and see as
well as read. Palimpsest is a parchment which has been used repeatedly,
3
so previous writings are hidden under the surface, so in this way we think
of the landscape as being reused for different purposes; movement and
travel, trade, industry and agriculture.
The great historian of the English Village Maurice Beresford
demonstrates this way of looking at the landscape in startling clarity as
he interprets, in his inaugural lecture as Professor of Economic History at
Leeds in 1961, the way in which back-to-back houses in Leeds were built,
and sometimes the way the row would abruptly stop, in terms of how
enclosed fields were bought up and developed. The edges of things are
always there; many of the roads that you would drive along in Britain
today are, of course, following the lines of old drove roads which before
the canals and the railways were one of the main ways of travelling and
moving things around. In 1806 George Stephenson, to whom we will refer
to again later, took a job in Scotland, and although not exactly a poor
man, he walked from Killingworth to Montrose to take up this job
presumably along well-trodden ways known to working men.
Hobsbawm’s 1964 essay entitled “The Tramping Artisan” suggests that
mobility of labour was more prevalent than modern perception might have
it.
The early 18th century was a period poised for change. It was a
period of enquiry, not just among those instigating the change but also
amongst others, for whom human development, either their own, or as a
general objective, was important. In the early part of the century Daniel
Defoe, perhaps driven by his journalistic instinct, made a number of tours
4
around Britain. His instinct was, of course, quite right. There was a big
story breaking. The incentives for enterprise were fundamentally altering,
and the activity which flowed from this was everywhere to be seen.
Esther Moir (1964) documents the 18th century traveller seeking out
instructive visits to lead, copper and tin mines. People were keen to see,
and also had the resources to fund this curiosity because of the wealth the
very same activity was imparting. The question as to why there were so
many seeking to instigate change in Britain at this time is still an open
question, Mokyr (1985) remarks that, “There was a certain hard-nosed
practical knack among British inventors, engineers, and businessmen that
is harder to spot on the Continent at this time .. (with) .. not only the
ability to generate new ideas but, equally important, the ability to
recognize and value somebody else’s.” Many important innovations
originated outside Britain but were exploited within Britain during this
period, silk making and the Jaquard loom perhaps being two such
examples.
Mokyr (2009) developed the idea that what we saw, in particular
in Britain in the 18th century, was an emphasis on practical knowledge so
that “pure” scientific enquiry was more likely to have a practical focus.
This can be seen as a continuation of the approach expounded by Francis
Bacon in the 16th century. Recent research by Kelly, Ó Gráda and Mokyr
(2013) suggests that labour productivity and the potential for further
growth was particularly high in Britain during this period, and this can
possibly be traced back to the superior diet of the British worker at the
5
time. Peter would have been interested in this as an accomplished chef
himself and founder of a business1 giving cooking lessons.
The interplay of political and economic views and pressures were
causing people to think about work and the relation of the human spirit
to it. Humphrey Jennings’ parents were influenced by the 19th century
ideas of William Morris and Jennings’ documentary instinct produced the
book “Pandemonium” which records the coming of the machine age by
contemporary observers. E P Thompson in his biography of Morris make
clear how many early socialist thinkers saw something in the idea of
earlier pre-industrial societal values that the new industrial capitalism
was destroying. Thompson suggests in his “Making of the English
Working Class” that in this pre-industrial world a different moral
economy existed
Artists such as Thomas Hair were
also looking to depict the changes that
were taking place, in his case in a very
detailed way allowing for a very clear
view to be formed of actual operations.
So, for instance, in this picture we can see
very clearly how coal would be loaded from waggonways to colliers on the
River Tyne. Hair was recording what he saw but often casting our gaze
backwards, we need to try and reconstruct in our minds what would have
been happening. Mark Sorrell, the son of the famous reconstructional
1 This business still survives http://www.thecookingprofessor.com.au/
Collier boats being loaded at Wallsend drops. Drawing by Thomas Hair
6
artist Alan Sorrell (1981), describes how his father would build up the
details he would need to inform his paintings and drawings. The minute
attention paid to all aspects of the historical situation parallels, and I am
sure in many cases surpasses, the research needed for an academic paper.
Sorrell devoted much of his attention to Roman and Ancient Britain. Had
he focused his attention more on the 18th and 19th centuries, our industrial
archaeology would certainly be the richer for it.
One of the most enigmatic studies (by another Marxist!) of the way
in which art and artistic depiction is bound up with the social and
cultural changes which were seen in the Industrial Revolution must be
Francis Klingender’s “Art and the
Industrial Revolution”. Klingender,
through his discussion of the artistic
representation of the new industrial
landscape, opens up new layers of how the
changes were perceived, and maybe how
those in positions of power might want
the changes to be perceived. The pride and verve of the achievement of
Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western Railway just leap out from
John Cooke Bourne’s drawings of the GWR, and indeed they were meant
to, the architectural splendour and the breathtaking span of the roofs. Of
course the ascetic appeal was heightened by Brunel’s 7’ gauge. In the first
series of Michael Portillo’s recent “Great British Railway Journeys”,
Michael seemed distinctly saddened to see Brunel’s first station in Bristol
depicted here (not the present bigger Temple Meads) empty though in
J C Bourne – inside Brunel’s first Bristol Station 1846
7
surprisingly good condition. I believe it is now used as an enterprise
centre, which seems fitting.
Other feelings can be picked up in other artistic representations.
The depiction of the semi idyllic scene outside a Wigan cotton mill by
Eyre Crowe is difficult to interpret; it would seem that the mill girls have
plenty of time for relaxed interaction,
and although it is true that the new
industrialisation did ultimately mean
improved material wellbeing, and some
economic independence for women, the
artist is going out of his way to avoid
any depiction of the harsh conditions of
the mills.
The Victorian male psyche had any number of difficulties coming to
terms with what the Industrial Revolution might mean for women. Karl
Marx had shown a rather moralistic side to his character in his apparent
disapproval of Fredrick Engels’ love for Mary Burns, an Irish factory
girl. It was Mary Burns that showed Engels parts of Manchester to
which he wouldn’t otherwise have had easy access and on which he based
much of his “Condition of the Working Class in England”. Of course, as is
well known, Engels unstintingly supported Marx financially as he
worked on Das Kapital, but reading this the idea of the corrupting
influence of industrialisation, and especially factory work on women’s
morals certainly comes to the surface in places, in part IV on the
Dinner Time at Wigan– Eyre Crowe
8
production of relative surplus value, Marx describes how factory girls
will “…during meal times... lie at full length in the fields, or watch the
boys bathing in the neighbouring canal” and then maybe later on “…..
put on better clothes and accompany the men to the public houses” !
Similar conflicts, but perhaps less moralistic, may be
seen in Arthur Munby’s concern with Wigan’s
female colliery workers. He seemed to caught
between some confused concern for their loss of
femininity and a fascination with their strength
and maybe what we would today call
empowerment.
The Tour: Coalbrookdale to Sunderland
One of Munby’s Pit Brow Lasses
A Map of the Journey
Chronology of Events 1709 Iron smelted by coke at Coalbrookdale 1761 Brindley builds the Barton Aqueduct 1771 Arkwright’s First Mill at Cromford 1774 James Watt moves to Birmingham 1779 The first iron bridge at Ironbridge 1796 First iron bridge over River Wear 1802 Richard Trevithick builds first engine at
Coalbrookdale 1813 “Puffing Billy” at Wylam 1825 Stockton and Darlington Railway 1893 Barton Aqueduct replaced by swing
aqueduct for the Manchester Ship Canal
9
A) CoalbrookdaleA) CoalbrookdaleA) CoalbrookdaleA) Coalbrookdale
Nowadays Shropshire seems to conjure up rural images but in the
18th century it was right at the heart of the
Industrial Revolution, one reason being that
the river Severn was navigable right up to
Welshpool, so products could be moved down
to Bristol. It was here, in Coalbrookdale at
the beginning of the 18th century that
Abraham Darby I developed new methods of smelting iron by coke. This
essentially provided the building material for the Industrial Revolution –
Iron.
A problem in technique which had existed before was that smelting
iron by coal (which was in plentiful supply) resulted in weakness in the
metal. Coal has impurities in it, sulphur for instance. If you smelt iron
using coal these impurities are transferred to the metal and it is this will
result in weakness, especially in castings which are needed for large
constructions such as bridges, etc. It had always been possible to produce
smaller items (swords etc) by smelting iron ore using charcoal but this was
simply impractical on an industrial scale as you would have had to burn
whole forests to build even modestly sized constructions. It is interesting
to note that, as is the case with many new technologies, it took time for
the techniques to be refined, as Trinder (1973) discusses, but the incentive
to do so was really very strong, as the supply of coal for coking was
certainly more readily available than were supplies of charcoal. The
The Old Furnace at Coalbrookdale Photograph Tim Barmby
10
solution was to burn coal in a controlled way restricting the oxygen.
Initially this would be done by just burning the coal in heaps, the outer
layer of coal would burn off but in doing so would create a sort of shell
restricting the supply of oxygen to the inner
core creating coke, the technique was
subsequently improved and the burning
took place in what were know as
“beehive”(because they looked a bit like
beehives) coke ovens which was sufficient to drive off the impurities. The
technique was not too dissimilar to the way charcoal was made. The
picture above is from the former Inkerman iron works near Tow Law in
the North East of England
The Darby ironmasters improved this
method sufficiently in the 18th century so that
Abraham Darby III could demonstrate the
potential of this innovation by constructing
over the River Severn the world’s first iron
bridge, at what would naturally come to be known as Ironbridge, in
Shropshire in 1779. For a fuller discussion of the first iron bridge see
Cossons and Trinder (2002). Bridges were, of course, important as a way
of connecting activity. Abraham Darby III was
not only improving the industrial infrastructure
of Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge by building the
bridge, but also advertising the potential of the
The Ironbridge Photograph Tim Barmby
A “Beehive” Coke oven photo Tim Barmby
The Ironbridge by Michael Angelo Rooker
11
burgeoning industry; perhaps because this was before photography, artists
were very quickly producing detailed pictures of the bridge this by Rooker
for example. The importance of the actual demonstration was clear.
Thomas Paine returning from the American War of Independence, and
before the French Revolution would take his full attention, was thinking
about bridges of even greater span than Darby’s Ironbridge. One reason
for this was that American economic development would be accelerated by
being able to build a single span bridge over
rivers which would experience ice-floes in the
winter, such as the River Schuylkill in
Philadelphia. His thinking would eventually
have some reflection in the 240 foot span of
the bridge over the River Wear in Sunderland
as we will see, but would people believe it possible ? To overcome this a
demonstration bridge was built in Lisson Grove an area in London. This
process of demonstration was also followed by Richard Trevithick with
one of his first railway locomotives “Catch-me-who-can” being
demonstrated on a circular track in London in 1808 near what was to be
Euston Station.
It is one of the more curious aspects of modern industrial heritage
that many of these key objects have been
brought back to life by enthusiast groups. The
group Trevithick 200 has reconstructed a
replica of “Catch-me-who-can” for the two
The “Catch-me-who-can” at Bridgenorth
The Euston Arch
12
hundredth anniversary of its running on the circular track. There are also
plans to reconstruct the famous Euston Arch which would be built at the
London Terminus of Robert Stephenson’s London to Birmingham
Railway. The arch was destroyed in an act of modern state vandalism at
the start of the 1960’s despite the opposition of many including Sir John
Betjeman.
Coalbrookdale also has another
connection to the story of innovation in the
Industrial Revolution. It was here in 1803
shortly before his famous Pen-y-Darren
locomotive that Richard Trevithick built his
first locomotive (three years after the lapse
of Boulton and Watt’s patent) see Raistrick
(1953) Parts of a Trevithick engine appear to
still exist in Cooalbrookdale’s Museum of
Iron, as in the photograph to the right . This is apparently from a slightly
later engine circa 1815.
B) BirminghamB) BirminghamB) BirminghamB) Birmingham
“I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have – Power”
This confident declaration was apparently made by Matthew
Boulton in 1776 at his Soho works in Birmingham, where in partnership
with James Watt, Boulton-Watt steam engines were manufactured
Trevithick’s Coalbrookdale Locomotive
Parts of a Trevithick Locomotive in Coalbrookdale’s Museum of Iron. Photo Tim Barmby
13
firstly to pump the mines of Cornwall (and elsewhere) more efficiently
and then as the problem of converting linear to circular motion was
solved, Boulton-Watt engines could power anything which had
previously been driven by water, and in the late 18th century this
essentially meant cotton mills.
Birmingham was possibly one of the most likely places in 18th
century England to make money. The money making ethos of the period
has already been referred to but Birmingham had the added advantage of
being less shackled by trade rules from the old craft guilds. Many of the
dissenting groups such as Quakers in the words of Jenny Uglow (2002)
“….infused the place with energy..” In her book “The Lunar Men” she
describes the force of scientific curiosity of people like Erasmus Darwin
(Grandfather of Charles Darwin), Josiah Wedgewood, Matthew Boulton,
and later on James Watt and their constant search to turn new
knowledge into human betterment and also money.
Jim Andrew (2009) describes how Watt and Boulton first met in
Birmingham when , in 1768, Watt broke a journey from London back to
Glasgow. Watt and Boulton had been corresponding for some years.
Boulton was keenly interested in Watt’s ideas, especially regarding the
separate condenser for a Newcomen type engine. Watt was at this time
funded by John Roebuck, who was connected with the Carron Ironworks
but Roebuck was having some financial difficulties. Boulton saw the
opportunity to buy out Roebuck’s interest, persuaded Watt to move to
Birmingham in 1774 to continue his work and proposed a business
14
partnership the following year. It seems to have been a very effective
matching of skills, Boulton saw uses for the new portable power source
which was the steam engine and was able to encourage Watt who
reputedly could be quite cautious.
Boulton also knew who to go to when the developing steam
technology needed steam cylinders machined to finer tolerances. John
“Iron Mad” Wilkinson had been developing ways of machining cannons
and these same techniques could be applied to the machining of steam
cylinders.
C) CromfordC) CromfordC) CromfordC) Cromford
Richard Arkwright set up the first mechanised cotton spinning mill
in the world in Cromford, Derbyshire, in 1771. The building is still there
and being restored and conserved by the Arkwright Society. The original
mill had 5 storeys (two were lost in a fire) and
was extended during its life (the nearest 4
windows were added) so the first 3 floors of
the original mill are windows 5 onwards in the
picture to the left. The original waterwheel
was on the side of the building the hole for the
axle being visible where the 9th window on the ground floor would be.
Arkwright, a Lancastrian born in Preston, had been a wigmaker
and travelled the country buying hair. The market for hair continues to
Arkwright’s Cromford Mill Photo – Tim Barmby
15
this day, and in Victorian times long female hair could bring up to £1 an
ounce. There would be ‘hair harvests’ in poorer Italian villages and
Wilson (2002) reports that 200,000 lbs of hair would be traded annually
on markets in Paris. Arkwright visited Cromford, possibly arranging to
buy hair from (mainly) servant girls who needed money. If we conjecture
that a full head of hair might weigh 3 or 4oz this would imply that by
selling her hair a servant girl could perhaps get her hands on almost the
equivalent of a month’s earnings of a male skilled worker.
Arkwright was also involved in developing mechanisms for
spinning, collaborating with a clockmaker John Kay in what was later to
be known as Arkwright’s water frame. The
picture to the right is of a water frame which
is in the Museum of Science and Industry in
Manchester. Spinning was the bottleneck in
textile production at this time as
improvements in weaving had placed great
demands on spinsters.
Arkwright saw that Cromford was an ideal place for a water
powered mill as it had two water supplies, one being a drainage adit from
a nearby lead mine. This was of some importance as while lead mines were
not necessarily very deep, they were deep enough that the drainage water
would have been sufficiently warm so as not to freeze so readily in the
winter; ideal for running a mechanised cotton mill.
An 1775 Arkwright water frame Photo – Tim Barmby
16
DDDD) Manchester) Manchester) Manchester) Manchester
Many Economic Historians consider the growth in the cotton
industry to be the spark which initiated the growth experienced during
the Industrial Revolution, this may be so but why Manchester ? It is
miles inland and yet its main raw material, cotton, was imported from
overseas. In the 18th century much of the cotton came from the Levant
and India. As the industry reached its peak in the 19th century, the
southern states of America became the principle source. However, coming
from overseas it had to be brought inland, and while not as heavy as some
raw materials, methods for compressing bails were developed, to ease
transportation which did increase the weight. Although transport in the
mid 18th century could be problematic, the source of power was the main
issue at the start of the industrial revolution the power for cotton mills
was supplied by water wheels, and the edge of the Pennines had any
number of fast flowing rivers.
Ultimately the location of mills became less dependent on location
as, now as Boulton and Watt had continued the development of steam
engines to produce rotary motion power which could drive textile
machinery wherever it was located.
Manchester was also the destination of one of the first commercial
canals. The Duke of Bridgewater’s canal ran from his coal mines in
Worsley, which were to the north west of Manchester into Manchester
itself; the terminus being just near Liverpool Road which was to be the
17
first railway station in Manchester for the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway in 1830, and now part of the Museum of Science and Industry.
The Bridgewater canal was built by one of the
most famous canal builders of the time, James
Brindley, in the mid 18C. Brindley didn’t like
canal locks, so when he had to cross the river
Irwell he built an aqueduct. Unfortunately the
Barton aqueduct no longer exists, at least in its
original form, however it exists in spirit as later in the 19th century the
Manchester merchants seeking to improve the transport times built the
Manchester Ship Canal and audaciously sidestepped Liverpool’s spatial
monopoly on the landing of raw materials. The line of the River Irwell
was part of the Ship Canal, so they replaced the original Barton aqueduct
canal with a swing aqueduct, which pivots
(full of water !) to allow the ships to pass –
James Brindley himself would have been
truly impressed. The line of the canal was
slightly altered as, of course, the canal had
to be keep in operation while the swing
aqueduct was constructed, as the
photographs above make clear. The position
of Brindley’s original Barton aqueduct is
closer to the present road bridge.
James Brindley’s Barton Aqueduct over the river Irwell 1761
1893 photographs showing the original Barton Aqueduct and the swing aqueduct that was to replace it behind
18
E) Glasgow E) Glasgow E) Glasgow E) Glasgow
Glasgow, the heart of Scotland’s central industrial belt, where a
young Adam Smith matriculated to the University at 14, the normal age
in the 18th century. He was apparently fascinated by all the trade, driven
primarily by the tobacco trade, he witnessed. The swirl of enlightenment
thinking which would have been all around him would ultimately find
distillation in the “Wealth of Nations”.
Later James Watt in his reminiscences recorded in the
Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society 1859 remembered
earlier years in Glasgow before he moved to Birmingham to go into
business with Matthew Boulton:-
“I had gone for a walk on a fine Sabbath
afternoon. I had entered the Green by the Gate at the
foot of Charlotte Street – had passed the old washing
house. I was thinking upon the engine at the time and
had gone as far as the Herd’s house when the idea came
into my mind, that as steam was an elastic body it
would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication
was made between the cylinder and an exhausted
vessel, it would rush into it, and might there be
condensed without cooling the cylinder… I had not
walked further than the Golf-house when the whole
thing was arranged in my mind”
19
The story of James Watt illustrates many of the subtle influences
at play on innovative activity by the mid 18th century. This was the
period after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when the last Stuart King
,James II, was ousted and the “Immortal Seven” members of the Whig
and Tory aristocracy issued an invite to William of Orange to invade and
assume the throne with his wife Mary, the daughter of the ousted James.
This process undoubtedly received support from powerful merchants.
At this time many changes were taking place in terms of property
rights and intellectual property rights in particular. The links between
Holland (or as it would have been known at the time, the United
Provinces) and Britain were very strong. The two were competitive in
trade but scientific advances flowed back and forth with the individuals
involved. It is often remarked that there was a ready supply of skilled
mechanics in Britain, the type of people who were moving back and forth
between Britain and the United Provinces give a clue as to why this may
have been.
Take for example Ahasuerus Fromanteel, born in 1607 in Norwich,
the Fromanteel family were in Britain to escape life under Spanish
occupation of the United Provinces at this point of the 17th century.
Ahasuerus was a clockmaker and mechanic, as was his son, John who we
see in Amsterdam in 1648 talking to Benjamin Worsley about the making
of microscopes, the fine engineering of the tubes and the grinding of
lenses. Worsley was one of those who felt that Dutch trade was becoming
20
so dominant that he became one of the chief promoters of the Navigation
Acts, see Leng (2008). In 1657 John was back in Amsterdam learning
more about pendulum clocks as recently invented by Christiaan Huygens,
as Jardine (2008,9) describes
Returning to the story of James Watt. Watt though not an
academic scientist was clearly possessed of a huge natural intelligence,
driven by a strong practical curiosity but he was also thinking about
making money ! The picture below is of Professor Anderson’s
demonstration Newcomen pumping engine. Watt had completed his
apprenticeship as an instrument maker in London. On returning to his
native Glasgow he was faced with restrictions
on trade due to the declining, but still present
power of the trade guilds. Since he had’t been
apprenticed in Glasgow Watt had difficulty
working at his trade in the city. The only place
outside the power of the guilds was the
University.
Here other aspects of 18th century Scotland came into play, apart
from having more Universities than England, by the beginning of the 18th
century it would have had 5 Universities (King’s College Aberdeen,
Marishal College Aberdeen, St Andrews, Edinburgh and Glasgow) to
Englands 2 (Oxford and Cambridge) the curriculum was more in tune
with the scientific advances of the time. Glasgow was giving lectures on
what we would call natural history or science. One of the hot topics of
Professor Anderson’s Engine. Photo – Tim Barmby
21
the day was that atmosphere had weight. Professor Anderson
demonstrated this in Glasgow’s lectures by a small scale Newcomen
engine. James Watt was employed to maintain this engine, in what was a
sort of 18th century science park !
Thomas Newcomen had developed atmospheric pumping engines
predominately for the Cornish tin mining industry in the early part of the
18th century. Pumping water out of these mines was a real problem as tin
is found relatively deep in the ground.
These weren’t exactly “steam” engines, in the sense that steam was
pushing pistons in cylinders. These were
atmospheric engines, steam was injected into a
cylinder, and then cold water was sprayed into the
same cylinder, condensing the steam which then
created a vacuum, whereupon the weight of the
atmosphere pushed the piston down creating the
pumping stroke. This was tremendously inefficient
in terms of energy. The main cylinder was first heated up by the steam
and then immediately cooled down by the cold water. Eventually the
piston could also weaken and crack. Watt’s genius was to conceive of a
separate condenser, where the steam from the main cylinder would be
drawn away and in which the vacuum would be created without cooling
the main cylinder. This achieved a massive increase in the efficiency of the
engine, and effectively paved the way for modern steam engines.
Watt’s separate condenser Photograph Tim Barmby
22
F) WF) WF) WF) Wylamylamylamylam
Moving across the country and down towards Newcastle, we enter
an area rich in stories of innovation. In the early 19th century coal was
increasingly needed to power the continuing Industrial Revolution.
London was growing and the North East had ample and easily won
sources of coal, but coal was heavy and needed to be got to where it was
needed. This was achieved by getting supplies to the banks of navigable
rivers like the Tyne/Tees or Wear and then outward to London and
elsewhere by coastal barge.
George Stephenson’s cottage is on the banks of the Tyne near
Wylam. Its location on the banks of the River Tyne, just says it all;
between the cottage and the Tyne would have been the Wylam Colliery
waggonway, which would have taken coal from Wylam Colliery the few
miles down to the river staithes at Lemington and thence by keel boat to
Newcastle. The coal would have hauled by horse in chaldron wagons. The
first waggonways were made of wood. There were miles of these
waggonways in this area, the young Stephenson would have seen these
and it seems likely also the first experiments in steam traction.
The Napoleonic wars had increased the relative price of (real)
horsepower, and so the incentive was to substitute capital. Christopher
Blackett, the owner of Wylam colliery, responded to these incentives. He
was keen to mechanise the movement of coal. He placed an order for a
locomotive from the Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick to operate on his
23
waggonway (although he didn’t eventually take delivery, due to the
weight of the engine, the technology for the rails still lagging a little) .
This engine was constructed at the
foundry of John Whinfield, in
Pipewellgate in Gateshead late
1804/early 1805, under the supervison of
John Steel, a North-Easterner who had
worked with Trevithick previously
according to Trevithick’s biographers Dickinson and Titley (1934).
Although the engine was used as a stationary engine at Whinfield’s
foundry, the seeds for the idea for a functioning railway were almost in
place, in the North East of England in the first decade of the 19th
century.
It is interesting to speculate on how public this construction may
have been. As we have seen in other contexts, industrial experiments
could become something of a tourist attraction, but on the other hand
there was a recognition that secrecy also had its place, see
Henderson(1966) who describes a visit to Boulton and Watt’s Soho
works in Birmingham in 1814. In this case, the view of Tomlinson (1914)
and much more recently Smith (2012) is that it is very likely that certain
individuals, such as George Stephenson, who would subsequently play a
key role in railway development, would have seen the building of the
Trevithick engine. James Hodge who was for many years chairman of the
Trevithick Society, seems certain that he did.
Threvithick’s “Newcastle” engine
24
George had obtained the post of brakesman at West Moor Colliery
at Killingsworth. Although after George’s wife Fanny died in May 1806,
George took a job for a year supervising a Boulton-Watt steam engine
which drove a flax mill in Montrose in Scotland, as Ross (2010)
chronicles he was in the North-East of England during the period the
Trevithick engine was being built. On his return to Dial Cottage in
Killingworth, he continued to be interested in all aspects of steam, and it
is known that John Steel, who had supervised the building of the
Trevithick engine in Gateshead, was a visitor to Stephenson’s cottage.
Trevithick was also instrumental in
developing engines with higher boiler pressure
and this enabled more powerful, and smaller,
engines to be imagined and then built. A short
span of years starting around 1813 was absolutely
pivotal, Stephenson was at Killingworth and his
huge talents were becoming overwhelming
apparent to his employers. In this year he was
given the go ahead to build a locomotive engine to
haul coal at West Moor colliery. We have already
seen the interest that Christopher Blackett had
shown a few years earlier , and now the race was on; William Hedley,
who was the viewer at Wylam colliery, working with Timothy
Hackworth to build an engine known as “Puffing Billy”. Also at
Wallsend Colliery William Chapman and John Buddle in the following
year built an engine which is known now as the “Steam Elephant”
Chapman and Buddle’s Steam Elephant 1815
The gearing of Stephenson’s first Killingworth engine
25
So in this early period of the 19th century we had a number of
colliery engines being developed, a full
10 years before the Stockton and
Darlington Railway opened in 1825
and 15 years before the Liverpool to
Manchester opened. Replicas of
Chapman and Buddle’s “Steam
Elephant” and William Hedley’s
“Puffing Billy”, which was even older
being designed about 1813/14, run on the Pockerley Waggonway at
Beamish Open Air Museum which is near Consett in County Durham.
Jarman (2007) discusses Beamish’s approach this invoking of the past
through the creation of replicas. Beamish is undoubtedly worth a visit,
even if just for the Waggonway. Travelling along the short length of
track there it is easy to imagine you are really in the early 19th century at
the very start of the railway revolution.
The oldest original engine of this group still in existence is the
“Puffing Billy” which is in
the Science Museum in
London. This is due to the
activity of Bennet Woodcroft
who was involved in the
Patent Office in the mid 19th
century, and the Patent Office Museum which became the Science
The author and his son Tom driving a replica of the Steam Elephant at Beamish’s Pockerley Waggonway
Puffing Billy in the Science Museum and her sister Wylam Dilly in the National Museum of Scotland– Photographs Tim Barmby
26
Museum. He sought out early locomotives and secured for exhibition the
“Puffing Billy” and also the Liverpool and Manchester locomotive
“Rocket”, winner of the Rainhill trials. Woodcroft also secured the
workshop of James Watt which has only recently been redisplayed at the
Science Museum. Hewish (1980) refers to a description published in ‘The
Engineer’ in 1877 of Woodcroft visiting Watt’s workshop at the Watt
family house at Heathfield in Birmingham in 1864. The workshop had
been sealed since Watt’s death in 1819, and Woodcroft was keen to put
this on display, in London, exactly as it appeared. This was first done in
1924.
The sister engine to “Puffing Billy” the “Wylam Dilly”which also
worked at Wylam Colliery but 20 years longer than “Puffing Billy” until
1882, is also preserved and is to be found at Scotland’s National Museum
in Edinburgh, presented by William Hedley’s sons2.
The original “Locomotion No.1”, which was the engine which
pulled the first train on the Stockton and
Darlington railway, still exists and is in the
North Road Railway Museum in
Darlington. The development of the business
model of the Stockton and Darlington
Railway, is interesting in many ways. The
way in which it outsourced any of the activities involved, has a very
2 Though the two still exist in spirit in Wylam in the form of two excellent models in the small, but beautifully conceived, museum in Wylam’s library.
Peter’s wife Jan beside a replica of Locomotion No.1 at Beamish Museum
27
modern feel to it, but initially this was taken to, what in modern eyes,
would seem an extreme. So, for instance, anybody could, at a payment of
a fee, use the rails, and with really no effective timetabling !
Outsourcing also extended to the operation of engines. The driver
wasn’t paid by the company to just drive the engine, he would be
financially responsible for employing the fireman and for other aspects of
maintenance like a self-employed contractor. He was paid in the same
way as men who had operated the horse drawn waggonways in the area;
that is by piece rate, usually so much per ton per mile. This piece rate
made sense for a colliery owner who wanted a big pile of coal moved from
the colliery to the staithes on the Tyne where it could be moved out by
keelmen, down to Newcastle and then by coastal barges down to, almost
certainly, London.
However, continuing this piece rate system when the first steam
locomotive engines started to replace horses in the second decade of the
19th century resulted in some quite high payments to the early engine
drivers. William Gowland received £37/8s/11d in the single month of
March 1828 for driving “Royal George”, Timothy Hackworth’s very
successful engine design for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, at a
time when a coal miner would perhaps receive £4 for the month. Now
Gowland would have certainly been a skilled driver and general engineer,
so part of his pay would have reflected that. However, the usually very
“canny” owners of the Stockton and Darlington Railway seem to have
miscalculated the productivity gain which the Royal George imparted.
28
The evidence does suggests this, as by the 1830’s drivers like Gowland
would have been normal salaried employees of the company.
From our current perspective, performance pay and when it might
be deemed appropriate seems another very modern concern. The financial
crisis of the early 21st century is, in some part, related to poorly
constructed incentives. It is the proverbial double-edged sword. It is good
to give people incentives but if the remuneration structure isn’t designed
well enough the outcomes are not so good in an overall sense. Many of the
discussions of the Industrial Revolution can be traced back to a
fundamental alteration in the productivity of labour. Modern economic
theory, I think, has undeniably shown that correctly structured incentives
lead to increased productivity, much of the work of Ed Lazear (1995) and
onwards has given us a body of theory to think about these effects.
It is still an active research question as to why the Industrial
Revolution occurred first in Britain ? It is certainly the case that almost
wherever you look in description of how 18th and 19th century labour
markets worked in Britain you will see piece rates of some sort. It would
be an interesting research question to tabulate accurately how widespread
piece rates were in Britain as opposed to their other competitors to be the
first to industrialise.
These early years of the development of the business of building
railways contain any number of interesting economic stories. George
Stephenson’s son, Robert, was the first of what we would now call
managing director of the first locomotive works in South Street (even
29
though they are called the Forth Street works) behind the present station
in Newcastle. He was only 19 at the time, but clearly he had been brought
up with a good grasp of the economics of business. George had made sure
that Robert received the education which he hadn’t. He attended school
in Newcastle and as a member of the
Literary and Philosophical Society in
Newcastle (still there beside the station)
would borrow books to take home for he
and his father to read. For a period
Stephenson’s Forth Street works had at
least some monopoly and when the
Bedlington Iron Works, which had been one of Stephenson’s suppliers
decided they might be able to build locomotives as well, some
consternation was caused amongst the financial backers of the Forth
Street works, Robert showed a good grasp of the notion of a competitive
market in his letter to Joseph Pease, one of the Quaker backers, of the 12th
of April 1836
“… the concern is now I believe, doing tolerably
well, but the high prices we are getting is bringing
others daily into the field, and though I do not doubt
that we may keep some ascendency over others for a
few years, I am not so sanguine as to expect anything
like extraordinary profits…”
Stephenson’s Locomotive works
30
G) ShildonG) ShildonG) ShildonG) Shildon
Timothy Hackworth was another native of Wylam whose name
has a significant link to the successful development of steam railways.
His crucial contribution came in the late 1820’s as he developed his role as
what was effectively the first chief engineer
of a railway company. The company was, of
course, the Stockton and Darlington
Railway founded in 1825. In more popular
discussions of the Stockton and Darlington
Railway, the fact that it was the first to carry passengers draws
attention away from its main purpose which was to move coal. For the
business to succeed a reliable steam freight engine was a key requirement
and it was this which Timothy Hackworth supplied in the form of his
engine the “Royal George” built in Shildon in 1827.
It is sometimes forgotten that the steam technology, which was to
become so central to the transportation of people and movement of freight
did go through a period when the re-introduction of horses as the main
form of traction was considered as Kirby (1993) discusses. Kirby also
gives some support to the notion that it was Timothy Hackworth and his
efforts at Shildon in this crucial transition period which put the modern
steam railway on a firm footing; the rest, as they say, is history.
TimothyHackworth’s Royal George 1827
31
H) SunderlandH) SunderlandH) SunderlandH) Sunderland
The story of the first bridge over the River Wear in Sunderland in
1796 draws together so many elements of interest it is difficult to know
where to start. As mentioned earlier, bridges were a tremendous boost to
the industrial infrastructure of any growing city. We have seen that the
first bridge at Coalbrookdale was built in 1779. This had a span of 100
feet, and was certainly considered as one of the wonders of the age.
Sunderland was in a similar situation to Newcastle; its position
next to one of the richest coal fields of late 18th century England, was
key. Waggonways were daily bringing coal down to staithes on the banks
of the River Wear. Rowland Burdon was the prime local mover in the
affair; he was a member of a wealthy
local family involved in banking. It
was his business connections which
brought in Walkers, the Rotherham
Ironmasters. As is often the case the
local geography was important. Many
of the coal staithes were further up the
river, beyond the obvious place to cross the river which was relatively
near the mouth. This dictated that the bridge had to be sufficiently high
for ships to access the staithes, and a single span was imagined.
As we have already discussed Thomas Paine was also thinking of
large single spans in the context of bridging the River Schuylkill in
Wearmouth Bridge 1849 before Stephenson’s first rebuilding watercolour by James Wood
32
Philadelphia. Between the American War of Independence and the
French Revolution, Paine had to turn his mind to making some money.
He had donated any profits generated by his political pamphlets to the
American military. This may have been pivotal as it seems that the
military almost ran out of money several times at crucial points of the
campaigns. So back in Britain, he was thinking about the idea of long
single span bridges. He approached the bridge business a little more
realistically than his pamphleteering and patented designs for a large
single span bridge. He sought out one of the most advanced, and famous
ironmasters of the time, Walkers of Rotherham whose foundry the artist
JMW Turner had sketched in the late 18th century.
Although Paine was not in Britain at this time, the French
revolution was underway, it is arguable that some elements of Paine’s
design were to found their way into the Sunderland Bridge, even if it was
just the ambitious 240 foot span.
The story of the Sunderland Bridge provides one further interesting
piece of economics, which I am sure Peter would have been curious about.
In 1806 Rowland Burdon went bankrupt, and his interests in the
Sunderland Bridge were to be disposed of by lottery ! which is an unusual
means, at least to the modern mind, to realise the value of an asset. This
however, ultimately seems to have led to a good deal of financial double
dealing, not involving Burdon himself, which the modern mind,
witnessing the financial crisis of the early 21st century would certainly
recognise !
33
Postscript: The summer of 2012
Jan outside George Stephenson’s Cottage
Culinary Postscript
Peter Kenyon was an accomplished chef. Founding his own
business as the “Cooking Professor”, which, as has already been
mentioned, still exists. I know he would have been interested in what
people were eating and drinking during the 18th and 19th centuries. I have
already mentioned this as one of the elements of the narrative on the
Industrial Revolution and Allen (2015) returns to this idea in a recent
restatement of the case for the high wage economy argument. In this short
postscript, I try to give some idea of this and also the relationship of diet
to economic development.
34
In terms of what people ate a good place to start is to think about
the staples; oats, wheat and potatoes. Griffiths (2006) cites a quote from
a John Bailey in 1810, who was reporting on agricultural labourers in
County Durham:-
“The food and mode of living of the labouring classes are
very simple: the bread used is made of maslin, leavened
and baked in loaves, called brown bread; the most usual
breakfast is bread and milk and in winter when the latter
is scarce, hasty pudding or crowdy is substituted for it;
for dinner, pudding, or dumpling and potatoes, with a
small portion of animal food, or bread and cheese, with
milk and very often bread and milk only; for supper, bread
and milk, or potatoes and milk and when the latter is
scarce, treacle beer is used in its stead”
To the modern ear some of the words are now unfamiliar, maslin
was mixed grain flour; hasty pudding is essentially boiled down porridge.
crowdy was porridge. Bread and potatoes appear quite a lot in a standard
diet, so high prices which would be caused by the Corn Laws, and potato
blight, which could affect potato crops, were life threateningly serious.
Though Salaman (1949) points out that the potato was adopted only
slowly, not attaining a significant proportion of working people’s diet
until the late 18th century. The reason for this was that the knowledge of
how to grow them disseminated slowly as there were no similar staples
which grew from tubers.
35
Crowes’ mill girls would have certainly know how to prepare Hot
Pot which combines meat and potatoes as in Bailey’s quote; it was a dish
whose preparation fitted in with the time discipline imposed by the
industrial day. It could be slow cooked on ranges during the day, giving a
warm meal on completion of the shift. There are a number of dishes which
show adaption to working requirements, Cornish Pasties with their heavy
crimping allowing metal miners to minimise ingestion of copper or tin.
Lancashire Lamb Hotpot
2tbsp plain flour 2 ¼ lb lamb neck fillet, cut into cubes 2-3 tbsp oil 1 tsp dried herbs 1 ½ lb sliced onions 2 ¼ lb potatoes peeled and sliced into rounds 18 fl oz lamb or vegetable stock 2 oz butter Salt and pepper i) Season flour with salt and pepper, and coat diced lamb ii) Fry lamb in pan with some oil iii) Fry onions with the herbs and add to meat iv) Layer the potatoes over top and pour over the stock. Dot the
butter over top and add some final seasoning. v) Cook slowly. When cooked move to hotter part of oven to
brown off Serve hot from the oven with pickled cabbage
Jan sampled this with some Eccles cakes; when she made part of
the tour in 2012. Eccles is on the route of the Liverpool to Manchester
Railway and very close to the Barton Aqueduct.
36
References Introduction M W Beresford (1984) “Time and Place: An Inaugural Lecture” reprinted in Time and Place The Hambleton Press. E H Carr (1961) “What is History?” Pelican Books Daniel Defoe “A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain” Penguin Classic Edition 1986 Emma Griffin (2013) “Liberty’s Dawn: A People’s History of the Industrial Revolution” Yale University Press E J Hobsbawn (1964) “Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour” Weidenfeld and Nicholson W G Hoskins (1977) “The Making of the English Landscape” Folio Humphrey Jennings (2012) “Pandemonium” Icon Books Francis Klingender (1968) “Art and the Industrial Revolution” Adams and Dart Tristram Hunt (2009) “The Frock-Coated Communist:The Revolutionary Life of Friedrick Engels” Allen Lane Karl Marx (1974) Capital Lawrence Wishart Edition Kelly Morgan, Cormac Ó Gráda and Joel Mokyr (2013) “Precocious Albion:A New Interpretation of the British Industrial Revolution” University College Dublin School of Economics working paper 13/11 Esther Moir (1964) “The Discovery of Britain: The English Tourists 1540-1840” Routledge and Kegan Paul Joel Mokyr (1985) Editor “The Economics of the Industrial Revolution” George Allen Unwin Joel Mokyr (2009) “The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850” Yale University Press Alan Sorrell (1981) “Reconstructing the Past” Edited by Mark Sorrell Book Club Associates E P Thompson (2011) “William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary” Merlin Press E P Thompson (1968) “The Making of the English Working Class” Penguin Books
37
A) Coalbrookdale Barrie Trinder (1973) “The Industrial Revolution in Shropshire” Neil Cossons and Barrie Trinder (2002) “The Iron Bridge: Symbol of the Industrial Revolution” Phillimore and Co Arthur Raistrick (1989) Dynasty of Iron Founders B) Birmingham Jim Andrew (2009) “The Soho Steam-Engine Business” in Matthew Boulton: Selling what the World Desires edited by Shena Mason Birmingham City Council/Yale University Press Jenny Uglow (2002) “The Lunar Men”Faber C) Cromford A N Wilson (2002) “The Victorians” Hutchinson London R S Fitton (1989) “The Arkwrights: Spinners of Fortune” Manchester University Press D) Manchester Michael Nevell (2013) “Bridgewater: The Archaeology of the First Arterial Industrial Canal” Industrial Archaeology Review Vol 35 pp1-21. E) Glasgow Adam Smith “The Wealth of Nations” Bantam Edition 2003 Thomas Leng (2008) “Benjamin Worsley 1618-1677” Boydell Press Lisa Jardine (2008) “Going Dutch” Harper Lisa Jardine (2009) “Accidental Anglo-Dutch Collaborations: Seventeenth-Century Science in London and the Hague” The Sarton Chair Lecture at the University of Ghent 2009 F) Wylam
38
H W Dickinson and Arthur Titley (1934) “Richard Trevithick: The Engineer and the Man” Cambridge University Press John Hewish (1980) “The Indefatigable Mr Woodcroft” The Britsh Library W O Henderson (1966) “J C Fischer and his Diary of Industrial England 1814-1851 Frank Cass & Co James Hodge (2010) “Richard Trevithick: an Illustrated Life 1771-1833” Shire Books Jarman Paul (2007) “The Earlier the Better” Heritage Railway, Issue 98 May pp 40-45. Ed Lazear (1995) Personnel Economics MIT Press Evan Martin (1974) “Bedlington Iron and Engine Works” Frank Graham Newcastle. David Ross (2010) “George and Robert Stephenson: A Passion for Success” The History Press George Smith (2012) “Wylam, 200 Years of Railway History” Amberley Publishing William Weaver Tomlinson (1914) “The North Eastern Railway, Its Rise and Development” Andrew Reid and Company Ltd Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Longmans, Green and Company London. G) Shildon Maurice Kirby (1993) “The Origins of Rail way Enterprise: The Stockton and Darlington Railway, 1821-63” Cambridge University Press Robert Young (1923) “Timothy Hackworth and the Locomotive” reprinted 1975 Athenæum Press, Gateshead H) Sunderland J G James (1986) “The Cast Iron Bridge at Sunderland (1796)” Occasional Papers in the History of Science and Technology No.5 Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic
39
Culinary Postscript References
Robert C Allen (2015) “The High Wage Economy and the Industrial Revolution: A Restatement” Economic History Review Vol (68):1 pp 1-22 Redcliffe N Salaman (1949) “The History and Social Significance of the Potato” Cambridge University Press Bill Griffiths (2006) “Stotty ‘n’ Spice Cake: The Story of North –East Cooking” Northumbria University Press Acknowledgements of images used I would like to try to give acknowledgment for images used in the most appropriate way possible. If it is felt that this hasn’t been done I would be pleased to try and rectify this. Page 5: Collier boats being loaded at Wallsend drops. Drawing by Thomas Hair. Hatton Gallery, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Structural Images of the North East. Page 7: Dinner Time at Wigan Painting by Eyre Crowe. Manchester Art Gallery
40
Tim Barmby has held the Jaffrey Chair of Political Economy at the University of Aberdeen since 2004. He would like to acknowledge the help of Meg McHugh, Curator of the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Manchester for questions about Arkwright’s Water Frame, Mike Nevell of Salford University for putting me right about the location of the original Barton Aquduct, Matt Thompson of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust for information on the pieces of the Trevithick engine in the Museum of Iron, Darren O’Connell and John Skåtun for reading an earlier version and making valuable suggestions, and also Siobhan Austen and Peter Dawkins. The secretarial staff of the Business School at the University of Aberdeen (Julia Braik , Anne Mcpherson and Anne Cook) and Elena Mente for considering the question of the weight of female hair, Peter Bartlam for help with the map. Thanks also to another Jan, my proofreader, for her thoroughness and encouragement. Text © Tim Barmby 2015 Peter was a great supporter of the Big Issue. If you have enjoyed reading this short pamphlet, any support of the work of the Big Issue would be appreciated.
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