Anthony Burton

The Men Behind the Industrial Revolution

Ten Engineers Who Made Britain Great

A Tale of Endeavour and Success

Great Western Society

The Coventry Option

John Scott-Morgan

First published in 1985 by Moorland Press, The Light Railways of Britain & Ireland has remained unavailable for more than twenty-five years, until now. Re-released by Pen & Sword, this is a thorough and engaging book that covers, in depth, the fascinating story of Britain's last railway development, the Rural light railways, constructed as a result of the Light Railways Act 1896.Rigorously detailed, it charts the overall history of the last great railway boom in Britain the light railway boom from 1896, to the beginning of the Great War in 1914. During this period a large number of narrow and standard gauge lines were constructed in both Britain and Ireland, in order to serve and open up areas in both countries that, at the time, lacked adequate transport links. This book tells the story of how these lines were constructed and why, in most cases, they eventually failed, due to post-First World War road competition.Authored by two highly acclaimed writers of transport history, this is a true testament to, and a timely reminder of, Britain's last railway development.

The Light Railways of Britain & Ireland

Richard Trevithick’s ‘Cornish engine’ was the world’s first self-propelled steam vehicle. His ‘Penydarren engine’ was the world’s first railway engine. But despite his towering historic achievements, fame and fortune obstinately eluded him. An often reckless yet truly brilliant engineer, he died in poverty and relative obscurity. Anthony Burton’s biography however rightly recognises him as one of the most remarkable figures in the history of the industrial revolution. His extraordinary and varied career, which took him from his native Cornwall to London, and then on to seventeen years of picaresque adventuring in South America, makes for wonderfully lively reading. Filled with dozens of illustrations and photographs, Richard Trevithick is a highly enjoyable, well researched biography that dissects the turbulent world of the industrial revolution.

Giant of Steam

Richard Trevithick

Most historians recognize the work of three engineers as being the men who developed the railways from slow, lumbering colliery lines into fast, inter-city routes. Two are very well known: Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The third was Joseph Locke, who should be recognized for having made a contribution just as great as that of the other two.The Locke family had been colliery managers and overseers for many generations and Joseph, once he had completed his very rudimentary education at Barnsley Grammar School at the age of thirteen, seemed set to follow in their footsteps. However, at the age of nineteen he was taken on as an apprentice by an old friend of his father, George Stephenson, and sent to the new locomotive works at Newcastle. His enthusiasm and willingness to learn soon brought promotion, and he became a highly valued assistant engineer on the prestigious Liverpool & Manchester Railway.During his time there he wrote a pamphlet with Robert Stephenson, arguing the case for steam locomotives and had the embarrassing task of having to correct calculations for a tunnel being built under the direct supervision of George Stephenson. After its opening, he moved on to work on the Grand Junction Railway, at the start working alongside Stephenson rather than as his assistant. But before long, they had quarrelled and the directors handed the whole works over to Lockes control. It was the turning point of his life.Locke was to continue as chief engineer on some of the most important lines in Britain, and his reputation grew to the point where he was also in demand for work in mainland Europe, building major routes in France, the Netherlands and Spain. He became a wealthy man, purchasing the manor of Honiton in Devon and sat in Parliament as the Liberal member for that constituency. He received many honors during his lifetime and died while on holiday at Scotland in 1860 at the age of fifty-five.

Civil Engineer and Railway Builder, 1805–1860

Joseph Locke

On Christmas Eve 1801, Cornish mining engineer Richard Trevithick tested the first steam locomotive on the road. Though it was short-lived, exploding four days later, this was the beginning of the railway age in Britain. By the end of the 18th century, there was a considerable number of railways across Britain with well established steam engines. This informative guide tells the story of these railways, beginning with the pioneers of locomotive engines and the navvies who built the railways themselves. A must for anyone interested in the history of the railways, industrial Britain and travel, this informative guide explores the lives of those on the railway. Train guards, station staff and passengers are all touched on, as well as underground railways and tragic rail disasters. Colour photographs and illustrations bring the golden age of rail in Britain to life. Includes a list of places to visit which specialize in railways, as well as a glossary of the key terms in the book.

Life on the Railway

For centuries, most textile manufacturing relied on people working in their own homes. All that changed in 1761 when Richard Arkwright began construction of the first water-powered cotton mill in Derbyshire. The complex woollen industry was transformed as mills spread cross the north of England and into Scotland, with tasks taken out of the cottage and into the factory. This informative guide tracks the development of the textile manufacturing industry, from industrial power looms meeting with Luddite resistance, to the distinctive silk weaving workrooms. Mill towns sprung up around places of work, including special apprentice houses for children. Conditions were harsh and often dangerous, both in the mills and in woollen towns living under permanent palls of smoke. Packed with photographs and illustrations, this is a classic Pitkin guide to the everyday lives of the workers in this mills and towns, from their work to their time off. There was a time when Britain sent textiles around the world: this is the story of the workforce, mainly women and children, who made this possible - and created the factory age. Includes a list of mills, museums and visitor centres to visit.

Life in the Mill

Jennifer Tann

Matthew Boulton, of the famous Boulton & Watt steam engine partnership, was an eighteenth-century designer and inventor. Before he partnered up with James Watt he was a successful industrialist manufacturing a range of silver and plated goods, buttons and buckles, and the sort of knickknackery known at the time as ‘toys’. He had a business network throughout continental Europe with travelling agents who represented his various interests. Without his commercial skills, Watt would probably have failed to bring his steam engine to market, but in due course Boulton started the process that would revolutionise the world of industry and transport: the engine was exported all over the world. Boulton was an affable man who enjoyed company and creative conversation. He was also a founder member of the Lunar Society and became a fellow of the Royal Society. This exciting new book, the first full-length biography of Matthew Boulton since H.W. Dickinson’s excellent publication in 1937, is the culmination of twenty years’ original research and brings to life one of the most colourful characters of the Industrial Revolution.

Industry's Great Innovator

Matthew Boulton

The Potteries: the name invokes images of a landscape of brick terraces, rows of back-to-backs from the midst of which the kilns poke up towards a smoke-streaked sky. Here are the Five Towns of Arnold Bennett's novels: here is a world we could, until recently, see for ourselves, but which is now fast disappearing. But is is not the world into which Josiah Wedgood was born in 1730. To attempt to understand that man and his achievements we must first look at an earlier world, one that he helped to change. -- pg. [11].

A Biography

Josiah Wedgwood

Malcolm Baker

'A Grand Design' brings together over 250 of the Museum’s treasures to celebrate the institution's history. The unrivalled collections span centuries of art in virtually every medium - ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, furniture, sculpture, textiles and paintings. The examples have been selected to illustrate how the V&A museum has always sought to establish a canon for the decorative arts, through the continuous acquisition of objects of superior craftsmanship and artistic merit from all over the world.

The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum

A Grand Design

Over a thousand years ago the Chinese discovered that the slender filaments that formed the cocoon of the silk moth, could be woven into beautiful shimmering fabrics. For centuries they were able to keep the process a secret, but eventually started to trade the valuable cloth with the west, along the silk road. Silk was a luxury item that bestowed prestige, so it was inevitable that the wealthy wanted there silks to be as elaborate as possible, beautiful designs were produced in the Islamic world and gradually a European industry developed. In the 19th century mechanisation of the time consuming hand weaving process, had resulted in products being produced using the Jacquard loom, which used punched cards to create a pattern. Silk remains the most beautiful woven material in the world, moving from its origins in ancient China to help transform the whole world.

Silk, the Thread that Tied the World

Neil Curtis

The Grand Union Canal Walk

Elizabeth Bonython

One of the eminent figures of the Victorian era, Henry Cole (1808-1882) was a visionary whose pioneering ideas helped create the magnificent London museum that is now called the Victoria and Albert. With Prince Albert (consort of Queen Victoria), "Old King Cole" also helped to make London's Great Exhibition of 1851 a rousing triumph. Yet Cole's important contributions to cultural history have largely been forgotten. The Great Exhibitor is the first full-length biography of this museum pioneer who also played a pivotal role in establishing the English postal system, in expanding the railway, and in art and science education. This detailed portrait captures the personality of a man who in his own time aroused both admiration and antipathy, and restores to his proper place in history a larger-than-life Victorian phenomenon.

The Life and Work of Henry Cole

The Great Exhibitor

This is the story of a thousand mile-long trip around England by canal. At times the journey took the author out into the beautiful countryside, and elsewhere the canal crept round the edge of old industrial towns.It is a journey that proved full of surprises, delights and rich variety, as the book clearly demonstrates. The book illustrates the great contrasts between travelling on the wide tidal waters of the River Trent and being overtaken by sea-going cargo ships, to meadnering along the sinuous curves of the Oxford Canal. The Leeds & Liverpool Canal brought magnificent moorland scenery and the drama of the great five-lock staircase at Bingley. London was seen from two very different perspectives. Travelling past the elegant houses of Little Venice and Regents Park and then turning back along the Thames to float past the Houses of Parliament. The author finds as much pleasure in the hidden corners of Birmingham as in the rural beauties of Shropshire.The book has become regarded as a classic of canal travel, and is reissued with previously unpublished color photographs taken by Phillip Lloyd, who shared the trip with the author.

1,000 Miles of Waterways

Around Britain by Canal

Biography of Henry Cole, extraordinary larger-than-life 'eminent Victorian', visionary civil servant and accomplished spin-doctor, who was the founding director of the Victoria and Albert Museum; with Prince Albert, he also created the Great Exhibition of 1851.

The eighteenth century saw the second Iron Age. Practically everything was made of iron: the machines of the Industrial Revolution; bridges and the ships that went under them; the trains running on their rails; and the frames of the first skyscrapers. But progress was bought at a price and the working classes paid it. The knife grinders of Sheffield were lucky to reach their 30th birthday before their ruined lungs gave up, women chain makers were described as ‘The White Slaves of England’ and, in a time before health and safety regulations, each advance in technology risked a new kind of deadly accident. Tracking both the brilliant innovation of the period and the hardship and struggle that powered it, this is the story of how iron changed the world.

The Workers Who Created the New Iron Age

The Iron Men

This is a new biography of two great British engineering pioneers, who did much to develop the world we now live in. George and Robert Stephenson, were at the forefront of early railways and were at the cutting edge of modern engineering history. Industrial historian Anthony Burton looks into these two giants of the late Georgian and early Victorian age, who were responsible for the development of much of the early railway map in both Britain and other parts of the world. The work examines the lives of the two men and their ability to overcome some of the most pressing engineering problems of their time. This is a new work, with newly researched material published here for the first time, which take a fresh look at both pioneering engineers and their achievements.

Pioneer Inventors and Engineers

George and Robert Stephenson

Thomas Telford's life was extraordinary: born in the Lowlands of Scotland, where his father worked as a shepherd, he ended his days as the most revered engineer in the world, known punningly as The Colossus of Roads. He was responsible for some of the great works of the age, such as the suspension bridge across the Menai Straits and the mighty Pontcysyllte aqueduct. He built some of the best roads seen in Britain since the days of the Romans and constructed the great Caledonian Canal, designed to take ships across Scotland from coast to coast. He did as much as anyone to turn engineering into a profession and was the first President of the newly formed Institution of Civil Engineers. All this was achieved by a man who started work as a boy apprentice to a stonemason. rn He was always intensely proud of his homeland and was to be in charge of an immense programme of reconstruction for the Highlands that included building everything from roads to harbours and even designing churches. He was unquestionably one of Britain's finest engineers, able to take his place alongside giants such as Brunel. He was also a man of culture, even though he had only a rudimentary education. As a mason in his early days he had worked alongside some of the greatest architects of the day, such as William Chambers and Robert Adams, and when he was appointed County Surveyor for Shropshire early in his career, he had the opportunity to practice those skills himself, designing two imposing churches in the county and overseeing the renovation of Shrewsbury Castle. Even as a boy, he had developed a love of literature and throughout his life wrote poetry and became a close friend of the Poet Laureate, Robert Southey. He was a man of many talents, who rose to the very top of his profession but never forgot his roots: he kept his old masons' tools with him to the end of his days. rn There are few official monuments to this great man, but he has no need of them: the true monuments are the structures that he left behind that speak of a man who brought about a revolution in transport and civil engineering.

Master Builder of Roads and Canals

Thomas Telford

Over 4,000 years of history lie in the seams of British mines. Large-scale coal mining in Britain developed during the Industrial Revolution, providing energy for industry and transportation in industrial areas from the 18th century to the 1950s. Life in the mines was hard, and working in confined spaces and breathing in stale air and coal dust was dangerous. Child labour was a normal part of Victorian life and it was not until 1842 that a law was passed that stopped women, and children under the age of 10, from working underground in mines in Britain. Whole villages grew up around the mines so that miners could easily walk to work from their modest homes, provided by the mining companies for their workforce. Close comradeship and tightly knit mining communities were created. Here is the story of what life was like for the people who worked the mines.

Anthony Burton

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