Search our website Search Discovery, our catalogue. View full image. Lesson at a glance. Potential activities: Creative writing for a newspaper report on the first railway murder in ; research other original sources which illustrate the social impact the railway network. Did they create more crime? Use this lesson to explore sources relating to criminal activity based around railways. Who has written it? What is the report is about? What happened to the women involved in the crime when they went to court [Middlesex Sessions]?
What do you think of their sentence? Why do you think these women were punished like this? Why would a railway station offer opportunities for crime? Why do you think the Home Office kept a criminal register? How could this type of source be used by historians studying 19 th century crime? What was age of the boy concerned? Why do you think he carried out this theft? Does this source give any insight into police methods at the time? Why do you think this boy was punished like this?
Can you think of other reasons why people turned to crime in the 19 th century? What other sources could you use to find out? Sources The following sources taken from police files at the time, concern the first railway murder in of a man called Thomas Briggs. What type of document is it? What does this document suggest about public reaction to the crime?
What does the report reveal about the way the police have carried out their investigations? What are the similarities and differences with how a similar crime might be investigated today? What does it show about police methods of investigation? Are you surprised by any of the information supplied by the witness?
The evolution of rail travel, especially in its infancy, is surprisingly very well documented. Railways fueled the industrial revolution throughout the world, and helped shape the modern day. Rail transport around the globe changed the way people lived, traveled, and shipped goods. The earliest railways consisted of small coal wagons being hauled by horses, and were located in England in the 17th century, which served the purpose of hauling coal from the collieries to the canals.
These early railways only traveled as fast as the horses would take them, however, were efficient during the time. During the 19th century, railways began to evolve throughout the world.
Beginning in England, locomotive pioneers developed and perfected the design, which then spread throughout the world. Throughout the 19th century, rail networks throughout the world began to materialize. As technology and infrastructure improved, speeds and reliability increased. In the early days of rail travel, much debate centered around which type of rail infrastructure would be used. Deciding which type of rail to be used greatly affected train speeds. Initially, railways were nothing more than iron plate ways with flanges on either side, with a smooth gauge in the center to allow for the horses passage.
Running gear on these early wagons consisted of flat, un-flanged, metal wheels. As railways evolved and speeds increased, cast iron rails began to be utilized, however, these rails were weak,and prone to cracking under the immense weight of a steam locomotive.
While using cast iron rails, speeds were generally no quicker than 20mph, however, it is difficult to determine exact speeds. These cast iron rails usually used the fish belly design, in which the bottom of the rail was bowed out.
Speeds then increased to an average of 30 mph. It was not until the steel rail was implemented in , that trains began traveling at speeds of up to 60 mph in both the U.
The steel rails were much more durable and capable of high speeds, and is what is used today across the globe. Prior to the invention of the truck or bogey, running gear on trains was nothing more than an axle mounted directly to the frame of a piece of rolling stock.
This limited speeds, as the rough ride and wear on the wheels and rails was prevalent. Meanwhile, the growth of excursion trains and the Great Exhibition of stimulated vast numbers to use the railways for the first time. By the end of the s, passenger numbers had risen beyond all expectations. In alone, 92 million journeys were made in England and Wales alone, on a network stretching 6, miles. The magic of train travel had caught the public imagination and the rapid expansion of the iron road left few aspects of life in Victorian Britain untouched.
Aware of the importance of the day, crowds clustered around the newly-constructed line in anticipation. Ever the showman, George Stephenson hit speeds of 15mph in his steam locomotive, Locomotion — outpacing the local horses in the process.
Conceived primarily to transport coal from collieries to the river Tees at Stockton, this was the first venture in the world to employ steam engines for hauling goods. But the railway also leased out the rights to run passenger services to various operators, including two female innkeepers.
Located on the original route of the railway, the Head of Steam museum encompasses three of the original 19th-century buildings — North Road Passenger Station, the Goods Shed and Hopetown Carriage Works. Early railway promoters understood the allure of the spectacle. As expected, the Rainhill Trials captured the public imagination and around 15, spectators took their places on specially erected grandstands for the inaugural day of the week-long event.
After the more madcap inventions had been eliminated — including Cycloped, which consisted of a horse running on a treadmill that pulled the wagons — four realistic contenders emerged. With the challengers listed like runners and riders in a horse race, the final day promised much. The prize, and the adulation, was his. Bigger and better locomotives would arrive soon enough, but the spectacular success of Rocket was a critical moment because it showed the world the immense potential of steam locomotives.
It is from Rainhill station that the locomotives set off toward Lea Green in October Rainhill is a Grade I listed building, and still a working railway station. Such unsavoury scenes marred the festivities but the promoters of the railway were pleasantly surprised when passengers quickly warmed to the train in the following weeks, attracted by the fact that the journey took just a couple of hours, less than half the time it took in a stagecoach.
For the first time a double-tracked, steam-powered railway hauled passengers and goods between two major cities. As the world awoke to read reports of this pioneering achievement in the north-west of England, the railway age was born. Visitors can step into the first-class booking hall to see what it would have been like in the s and learn about the people who worked and travelled on the early locomotives. Having pulled out of Liverpool, the celebratory procession made good progress, reaching Parkside, 17 miles down the track, in under an hour.
Ignoring warnings to stay inside the carriage, a group of notables including the Duke of Wellington and Liverpool MP William Huskisson, took advantage of the stop to stretch their legs. Huskisson approached the duke, but as they shook hands a shout alerted them to an approaching train, the Rocket. While everyone else shuffled to safety, Huskisson panicked and struggled to clamber into the carriage.
As he thrashed around for a hold the door swung open, knocking him into the path of the onrushing locomotive. Stephenson rushed him to Manchester, reaching record speeds of 35mph along the way, but Huskisson died in agony later that evening. There is a memorial tablet at the scene of the accident, alongside the line at the former site of the Parklands station, near Newton-le-Willows.
George Stephenson — is lauded as the father of the railways, but the gruff engineer is a figure that stimulates as much controversy among historians today as he did among his peers in the first half of the 19th century. But it was precisely that grim-faced determination that made Stephenson such an iconic pioneer of the railway age.
Sparing no expense in his pursuit of perfection, Brunel not only decorated his stations, like Bristol Temple Meads, with great panache, he also overcame considerable engineering challenges. Maidenhead Bridge, at the time the widest in the world, is a good example of his genius, but the 1.
Despite protestations that it was impossible to take the train straight through the hill, work on the project began in September It was a monumental task, with 4, labourers employed to blast out the limestone with explosives, and excavate with pickaxes and shovels.
By the time it was finished five years later, the project had claimed the lives of men, with many more injured while working by candle-light deep underground. One probably apocryphal story goes that Brunel aligned it so that every year on his birthday, 19 April, the rising sun is visible through the tunnel. When it finally opened in , Box Tunnel proved the doubters wrong and marked a watershed in the history of the GWR.
Its striking west portal is easily visible from the A4, but walkers setting out from nearby Colerne will be rewarded with the best views. Although rival schemes for a railway to Falmouth, Cornwall, were proposed as early as the s, the line only got parliamentary consent in , with the Act stipulating that the ferry across the river Tamar at Saltash be replaced by a railway bridge. On 1 September , watched by thousands of expectant spectators, the first truss was floated out into the centre of the river supported by two barges.
Gradually raised at a rate of six feet a week with hydraulic jacks, the truss reached its final height, feet above the water, on the first day of July Some six years after the foundation for the first pier was laid, a south Devon locomotive crossed the bridge for the first time in April Brunel was too ill to attend the official opening and the great engineer died that September.
A few months later, his name was spelled out in vast metal letters at either end of the bridge — a fitting memorial to his achievement there. As majestic today as it must have appeared for the first time in , the Royal Albert Bridge is best appreciated from one of the many vantage points on the banks of the Tamar river. The rivalry between the biggest train companies — by now the largest companies in the world — had intensified by the second half of the 19th century.
With millions taking advantage of cheap trains to the capital, the Great Exhibition of was a real money-spinner for some. But the Midland Railway had failed to profit like its rivals because it lacked direct access to London.
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