One of the great engineering marvels of the nineteenth century. One railway in particular enthralled the general public: the GWR or Great Western Railway. Soon to be known as God’s Wonderful Railway. And it was considered the crowning achievement of its young engineering chief: Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Rory McGrath, Industrial Revelations s5e6: Transport Systems
The Underground: no-one had done it before ... In 1863 the world’s very first subterranean railway opening linking Farringdon to Paddington. ibid.
Soon an extraordinary canal network, the most extensive in the world, fanned out creating a new industrial Britain. ibid.
The golden age of canals was short-lived. By the mid-nineteenth century a new invention had revolutionised transport: the steam engine. ibid.
The magnificent steam locomotives of the Great Western Railway: a combination of elegance and raw power. They still evoke a spirit of adventure. Great Railway Adventures with Dan Cruickshank: Brilliant Brunel
Brunel was obsessed about every detail, building wonderful stations to suit his great enterprise. Nothing deters him. The Great Western Railway was just part of his steam-driven revolution. ibid.
The construction of the Great Western Railway between Bristol and London was inspired by Brunel’s vision to bring speed and comfort to the experience of travel. ibid.
It was the coming of the railway that led to Britain adopting a standard time across the country. ibid.
Brunel would eventually lose the battle of the gauges. ibid.
When the Great Eastern was launched its paddles were driven by the biggest marine steam-engine of its day. ibid.
After a journey of just fifteen days and five hours his Great Western steamship made a triumphant entry into New York Harbor. ibid.
Brunel had produced two of the finest ocean steamers in the world, but the city of Bristol failed to take advantage of his genius. ibid.
I sell here what the whole world desires – power. Matthew Boulton
I have been branded with folly and madness for attempting what the world calls impossibilities. Even the great engineer Mr James Watt said that I deserve hanging for bringing into use the high-pressure engine. Richard Trevithick
The parties adjourned to the hotel. And comforted their hearts with a roast goose and proper drinks. Richard Trevithick
Richard Trevithick: to get round Watt’s patent, Trevithick began to build his own engines. This was his greatest achievement: the Puffing Devil. All eight horse-power of it. And unlike Boulton & Watt’s engine it moved. Trevithick’s genius was he built high-pressure steam-engines. Michael Mosley, The Story of Science: Power, Proof and Passion, BBC 2010
London Underground is 150 years old this year. The City would be unthinkable without it. The Tube: An Underground History, BBC 2013
Farringdon is prone to flooding. The track is built along the bed of a river. ibid.
The first underground lines were built just under the surface using a technique called Cut & Cover. ibid.
The Greathead Shield was the tunnelling machine pioneered by Brunel that made it possible to dig through the clay deep under London. ibid.
One other innovation drove this extraordinary expansion: Electricity. ibid.
Britain’s greatest engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel and East London’s shipbuilders created vessels that were bigger, faster and tougher than ever before. Brunel’s Last Launch: A Time Team Special
A hundred and fifty years ago Brunel created a ship five times bigger than anything that had gone before. The most revolutionary vessel the world had ever seen: the SS Great Eastern. ibid.
Launching such a big vessel proved to be a disaster. ibid.
The only option was a relatively untested sideways launch. Nothing on this scale had ever been attempted before. ibid.
Having already built two smaller transatlantic steamships – the Great Britain and the Great Western – Brunel believed it could be done. ibid.
East London shipbuilding had grown into a vast industry. ibid.
So well-built was the Great Eastern that it apparently took two years to dismantle. ibid.
Three million rivets. ibid.
He [Brunel] was constantly pushing the boundaries of what was possible. ibid.
Human error and muddy conditions had caused one slip to be steeper than the other. The ship’s weight was evenly distributed and it stuck fast. ibid.
From this day in 1830 nothing would be the same again. This is where the modern world begins. Locomotion: Dan Snow’s History of Railways
One billion passengers still travel these lines each year. ibid.
By the early 1800s British was at the centre of a world-wide trading web. ibid.
The people fell in love with them. ibid.
The Stockton & Darlington became world famous. ibid.
The Railways came along and changed everything. ibid.
In the late 1830s a great swathe of Victorian London was ripped apart. The railway had arrived in the capital. Locomotion: Dan Snow’s History of Railways II
Hills were being mined and blasted, valleys were being bridged. ibid.
Trains could already hit fifty miles an hour. ibid.
The working classes got their first taste of the railway … cheap excursions were being offered. ibid.
As the investors vowed never to gamble on the railways again, the whole banking system teetered on the edge. The government had to step in. ibid.
Britain begins to export the railways to the rest of the world. ibid.
Lancaster 1768 ... They are trying to build a machine to stretch and spin cotton perfectly. The British V: Superpower, Sky Atlantic 2012
The Luddites are now doomed: they cannot resist the power of the state or the advance of the machine. ibid.
Lancashire’s cotton mills will employ 120,000 people. ibid.
By 1830 Britain is producing four-fifths of all the coal sold anywhere in the world. And from coal you can make steam. ibid.
Britain leads the world in manufacture, trade and engineering. But at a terrible human cost. The British VI: Tale of Two Cities
The US is gaining ground. Spreading out across North America. The economy is booming. In the south there’s cotton. In the north industry. But the new nation is divided. In a land where all men are created equal, four million black Americans live as slaves. And it’s tearing the nation apart. America: The Story of the US e4: Division, History 2010
Cotton: but its rapid spread will plant the seeds of war. Tropical cotton flourishes in American southern states. Its valuable soft fibres are easy to grow. But processing cotton is labour-intensive. By hand separating seeds from fibre in a couple of kilos of raw cotton could take a whole day. A simple patent filed on the 4th March 1794 changes that: the cotton gin. By automating the process it deeply divides the country. ibid.
By 1830 America is producing half the world’s cotton; by 1850 it’s nearly three-quarters. Cold white gold, cotton supports a new lavish lifestyle in the south. ibid.
With the cotton explosion, slavery becomes critical to the economy of the south. Slaves are now up to five times more valuable than before the invention of the cotton gin. ibid.
But over-production is destroying the land. So cotton heads west in search of fertile soil, bringing slavery with it. ibid.
The boom is powered on a new machine: the power loom. Raw cotton comes in; finished cloth goes out. All under one roof. The modern factory is born ... 85% are single women between fifteen and twenty-five. Harriet Robinson is ten. ibid.
The mills also revolutionised how Americans dressed. ibid.
And together they begin to make their voices heard. In October 1836 women from the Lowell Mills gather after work and organise. Their protest against wage cuts is one of the first strikes in US history. And they will win. The mill bosses backed down. A generation of young women go on to become teachers, writers and college graduates. Harriet Robinson would become a leading suffragette. ibid.
[Andrew] Carnegie is the first ever to mass produce steel. In America prices plummet by over 80%. Output rockets from a few thousand tons in 1860 to eleven million by 1900. America: The Story of the US e7: Cities
– An inventive Age
Has wrought, if not with speed of magic, yet
To most strange issues. I have lived to mark
A new and unforeseen creation rise
From out the labours of a peaceful Land
Wielding her potent enginery to frame
And to produce, with rests not night or day,
Industrious to destroy! William Wordsworth, The Manufacturing Spirit