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I turn my eyes to the Schools and Universities of Europe,
And there behold the Loom of Locke, whose Woof rages dire,
Wash’d by the Water-wheels of Newton: black the cloth
In heavy wreaths folds over every Nation: cruel Works
Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic,
Moving by compulsion each other; not as those in Eden, which,
Wheel within wheel, in freedom revolve, in harmony and peace. William Blake, Selections from ‘Jerusalem’
A young girl who grew up to reign over the widest empire in the history of the world. Empires: Queen Victoria’s Empire I: Engines of Change, PBS 2001
Britain had pioneered the age of Steam. ibid.
Like her people she was a mass of contradictions. ibid.
Prince Albert had won the hand of the Queen but he would have a hard fight to win the hearts of the people. ibid.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel – he was the most famous engineer in the world. ibid.
He had conceived of the SS Great Britain as the first all-iron steamship. ibid.
Disraeli’s opportunism earned him many enemies in parliament. ibid.
A lifelong feud between the two politicians – Disraeli and Gladstone. ibid.
Paxton’s beautiful building won the hearts of the nation ... the Crystal Palace ... The Great Exhibition was Britain’s show. ibid.
The British would now embark on the greatest period of expansion in their history. But their attempt to export Victorian values around the world would provoke a clash of cultures and convictions. Empires: Queen Victoria’s Empire II: Passage to India
A great army of servants who catered to the needs of the British in India. ibid.
Crimea: it had been forty years since the British army had fought a major war. It was ill prepared and worse led. ibid.
The Great Mutiny had begun. At first it was confined to one area in the north. ibid.
The beleaguered British garrisons held out week after week under constant bombardment. ibid.
Death robbed the Queen of her beloved Prince Albert. Empires: Queen Victoria’s Empire III: The Moral Crusade
They had pioneered the age of steam. They made more than half the world’s industrial goods, and three-quarters of the world’s trade was carried in British ships. But despite this success Victoria’s cities were pits of poverty and deprivation. ibid.
Disraeli treated her not only as his monarch but as a woman and a woman of intelligence. ibid.
The powers of Europe conducted a brutal race for colonies, a race that would become known as the Scramble for Africa. Empires: Queen Victoria’s Empire IV: The Scramble For Africa
The Wild West was tame compared to Kimberley. Here there was a bar for every sixteen men. And shootings were an everyday occurrence. But Rhodes thrived as a diamond digger. ibid.
Rhodes: ‘Does this House think that it is right that men in a state of pure barbarism should have the vote? Treat the natives as a subject people. Be the lords over them. The native is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise.’ ibid.
Gold was discovered in the Transvaal. ibid.
Richard Trevithick ... He was a natural talent. A natural engineer. A problem solver. But even so no-one at the time imagined this was the man who would build the first high-pressure steam-engine, the first car, and the world’s first railway locomotive. Mark Williams, On the Rails s1e1: Cornish Steam Giant, Discovery 2004
It’s called the Puffing Devil ... The steam goes up the chimney. Chuff, chuff, chuff. ibid.
The destruction of his first locomotive didn’t seem to worry Trevithick. ibid.
His most ambitious project yet – a machine to run on rails. Britain’s first railway locomotive was about to be born. This locomotive was built over the winter of 1802. And its steam trials were kept highly secret. ibid.
Trevithick’s engine was a technological breakthrough. It was now clear the future of the high-pressure steam-engine was not on the common road but on the railroad. ibid.
The brittle cast-iron tram-tracks at the time smashed under the weight of the Loco. ibid.
In 1829 Rocket won the Liverpool & Manchester Railways competition to find the best steam locomotive. ibid.
The Founding Father of the Railways – but that title rightfully belongs to the Cornish genius Richard Trevithick. ibid.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century steam-engines were on the move. But they were unreliable, dangerous and smashed the rails they ran on. Steam was out of control. Mark Williams on the Rails s1e2: Rocketmen
George Stephenson is remembered as the Father of the Railways. After all, his son Robert designed Rocket, the most famous steam locomotive ever built. ibid.
It was in 1801 that the genius Cornish steam engineer Richard Trevithick made the quantum leap from this – a massive engine used to haul oar out of mines – to this – the world’s first self-propelled engine. His road locomotive. And just two years later Trevithick was experimenting with steam-engines on rails. ibid.
Coal mines were using steam engines to bring men and coal to the surface. The pits were the place to become a steam engineer. ibid.
Wrought iron made for much stronger lighter rails. ibid.
Like many of his contemporaries George Stephenson was a semi-literate self-made man. But that was no reflection on his engineering ability or his ambition. And his next project was huge – an intercity line – the first – between Liverpool and Manchester. ibid.
GWR – the Great Western Railway. It crossed over rivers, was blasted through hills, and hundreds died in its construction. And this gigantic wonderful radical piece of engineering was conceived and designed as a whole by one man – Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Mark Williams on the Rails s1e3: Brunel
The Clifton Suspension Bridge ... It was a mathematical masterpiece. ibid.
It took him nearly two years to complete his plans. ibid.
In the Railway Act he hadn’t mentioned what type of gauge he was going to use. He was ready to put forward his big idea ... Just because George Stephenson had started using a gauge of four-foot-eight-and-a half inches, it didn’t mean that all railways would have to be built to that dimension. So Brunel chose a broad gauge – seven feet from rail to rail. ibid.
Land was purchased at great expense from the Bishop of London at Paddington – the Terminus of the Great Western Railways. ibid.
His wide lines caused total devastation to the surrounding countryside. ibid.
Box Hill. Couldn’t go over it. Had to go through it ... He [Brunel] was going to drive two seven-foot broad-gauge lines through this hill. This is Box Tunnel – at nearly two miles long it was the greatest railway tunnel ever attempted, and an infamous piece of engineering if ever there was one. ibid.
Over a hundred men lost their lives, and many many more were seriously injured and maimed. ibid.
An engineering triumph: the Maidenhead Viaduct ... He flattened the arches. Brunel’s secret was in the maths. His pages of sketches are surrounded by detailed calculations. He had projected the force on every part of the bridge with great accuracy. Brunel had worked out how to design arches stronger and flatter than any ones built before. ibid.
He worked it all out by hand. ibid.
By 1892 the battle was lost – the standard gauge prevailed across the whole system. But just imagine what our railways would be like if Brunel had won! ibid.