Northampton to Nuneaton Great British Railway Journeys

In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain.

His name was George Bradshaw,

and his railway guides inspired the Victorians to take to the tracks.

Stop by stop, he told them where to go,

what to see and where to stay.

Now, 170 years later, I'm aboard for a series of rail adventures

across the United Kingdom to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.

The British Empire reached its zenith under

Queen Victoria, and mechanisation boosted its industrial output.

But as technology spread to other countries,

no British industry could rest on its laurels.

As I continue my journey north towards Leeds

across the Midlands, I shall be interested to see

how British manufacturing adapted to prosperity and competition.

All this week, I've been travelling away from the capital

and its metropolitan sprawl,

heading north on Stephenson's London to Birmingham line.

I'll explore the Victorian manufacturing hub

of the East Midlands

before ending my journey in the Yorkshire city of Leeds.

On this leg, I'm riding the tracks into the Midlands,

to Northampton and Rugby

and onto the city of Coventry before changing lines for Nuneaton.

Today I discover a tradition unaltered since Victorian times.

It's like most things in life - you can learn it in two weeks,

but it takes you a lifetime to be any good at it.

I hear about the man who changed education around the world.

These were people capable of running the British Empire.

Very much so, and that was part of Arnold's great reform.

And I see how a city rode out the economic cycles.

This is the forerunner of all modern bicycles, known as a safety bicycle.

-For the good reason that everything that came before was not!

-Exactly!

My first stop today is Northampton, which Bradshaw's tells me

has an industrious population, some thousands of whom are engaged

in boot and shoe manufacture, which has been here for centuries.

Northampton, known as the land of the shoe makers, has been

producing shoes since the 15th century,

thanks to a plentiful supply of wood, water and cattle.

In 1642, a group of shoemakers won a contract to supply the army,

and by 1841,

fuelled by the arrival of the London to Birmingham railway line,

the shoe industry had grown to nearly 2,000 shoemakers.

Today, although the skills have changed little over the centuries,

there are only five firms left.

Keeping traditions alive is Crockett and Jones, founded in 1879.

The process starts with the leather being cut by a skilled cutter,

called a clicker.

David Mains oversees the factory's 21 clickers.

So clicking is cutting, is it?

It is cutting, yes, and it's not the actual cutting that's the skill.

The skill is getting the sections on the right areas of the leather.

-Avoiding defects?

-Avoiding the defects, yeah.

Anybody can come and cut a piece out.

It's knowing where to put the pieces, that's where the skill is.

Cutting all the parts of a shoe from the skins is done by hand,

using a pattern and a knife.

The key thing is to create as little waste as possible.

In Victorian times, the patterns would have been

made from cardboard edged with brass, and the knives

clicking against their wooden blocks gave the cutters their name.

-Ooh.

-Moved my pattern there.

You said this was the easy bit. It isn't!

LAUGHTER

It's nice round the curve there.

Not too bad.

I've got a little bit of a rough edge there, haven't I?

Just missed a bit. How many years' practice have you had?

Well, I've been here 20 years now.

I'll talk to you again in 20 years! Thank you so much, David.

-Thank you.

-Bye-bye.

The striking thing about this factory is that the process has

stayed essentially the same for 134 years.

One of the managers, James Fox,

is taking me onto the factory floor to the closing room,

where all the leather parts are stitched together.

This room seems to be entirely filled with women.

Do you practise segregation here?

We don't, we don't, it's more of a natural occurrence.

The skills that are involved in the closing room

tend to be more delicate operations, there's less manual labour involved.

Still extremely highly skilled.

I think there's about 110 people in here,

100 of which are women, and about nine or ten gents

that you will see dotted around the room.

I have seen them dotted around. All the time I've been in your factory,

I've had this kind of Victorian feel.

You know, the wooden panelling and the shape of the windows

and all that sort of thing, and then to come into a room that's entirely

filled with one gender is also a very Victorian feel.

And as in Victorian times,

many of these workers are second or third generation shoemakers.

-Hello. I'm Michael.

-Pleased to meet you.

-What's your name?

-My name's Lisa.

And what is it that you're doing to the shoe?

I'm eyeleting the shoe. I'm only doing half a shoe.

It's just, erm, putting the holes in for the laces.

Quite a skilled job. You've got to get them in the right place

or else that's that sort of ruined and it's got to be re-cut again.

How long have you been here?

I've been here 23 years now.

Did you have any family here before?

My mother used to work here, yeah, and my grandfather worked in the clicking room upstairs.

Your mother, how many years was she here?

Erm... All her life, as well. She's 75 now.

-Thank you, Lisa.

-You're welcome.

-Lovely to see you.

-Thank you. Bye.

-Bye.

It takes nearly three hours of continuous hand-stitching

to sew the leather uppers. James wants to show me

a machine that radically reduced how long it took to make them

and changed the way in which they could be repaired.

The Goodyear welting machine was invented in America

in the late 1860s,

mechanically fastening the sole to the shoe.

A strip of leather - the welt - was stitched to the upper.

Then the sole could be easily attached.

Michael, this is David, our Goodyear welter.

-Hi, David.

-Pleased to meet you.

I've just been hearing that this Goodyear welting changed shoemaking,

-why is that?

-Before Goodyear welting was actually introduced,

the bottom of the shoe was flat

and then you covered it with a full sheet of leather, which had to

-be either riveted or stapled right through.

-Yes.

So it used a lot more leather, a lot more time, a lot more labour.

They came up with a process of putting a rib round the bottom of the insole,

to which we then sew a welt.

That's approximately 80 stitches.

And how long did that take them when doing it by hand?

-Two hours to a pair.

-No!

-Yeah, still does in Scandinavian countries,

where they still do them by hand.

You've added this leather strip, that's called the welt,

and then you're going to put the sole on there

and you're going to sew through the welt into the sole

-and that's going to hold the whole shoe together?

-Yes.

How many years did it take you to achieve that level of skill?

I've been welt sewing about 40 years, I suppose.

It's like most things in life - you can learn it in two weeks

but it takes you a lifetime to be any good at it.

Extraordinary. I take my hat off to you.

-Thanks very much.

-Thanks very much.

A hand-sewn pair of these quality shoes

could cost from £350 to £4,000.

What makes them so special is that they're made in

the traditional way, which has never been bettered.

To step into this factory is to be transported back through time.

A Victorian could have seen similar tools

working the fine-smelling leather.

My journey from Northampton to Rugby

is on the London-Midland line and takes 20 minutes.

As I approach Rugby, Bradshaw's draws attention to the

place of learning that put the town on the map.

'By the exertions of successive masters,

'especially the late Dr Arnold,

'it ranks as one of the best grammar schools in the country.'

As a grammar school boy myself, I'm anxious to learn more about

Thomas Arnold, a man who left his fingerprints on British education.

The school was founded in 1567 by a local philanthropist,

Lawrence Sheriff, who wanted to provide an education

for the boys of Rugby.

400 years later, the school retains a far-flung reputation

as one of the country's leading public schools.

The buildings conjure up the spirit of Dr Arnold.

I'm meeting the school's archivist, Rusty Maclean, to find out

more about the school's most celebrated head.

Hello, Rusty.

Very pleased to meet you.

Now, Dr Thomas Arnold has gone down in history

as a great educational reformer.

What was it that he was reforming here at Rugby?

Well, when Arnold arrived here in 1828, he arrived at a school

which, in common with most other schools of the day,

was an institution where boys were regarded as empty vessels

to be filled with facts and then flung out into the world.

Arnold, through his subtle reforms, remodelling of existing practices,

transformed the whole idea of education,

and his influence spread not only through the rest of England

but throughout the world.

Rusty is taking me to the classroom where Arnold used to teach.

What were Arnold's principles of education?

Well, in one of the first meetings he had with his sixth form,

he laid out three principles. First, religious and moral principles,

second, gentlemanly conduct,

and third, intellectual academic ability.

He was far more concerned with educating the whole person.

It wasn't just about facts. It was about developing character.

So he was training these young men of the school for what?

Well, he was training them for just about everything,

and boys went out from here into all walks of life -

the military, the church, politics, the arts.

But a big emphasis on administration.

These were people capable of running the British Empire.

Very much so, and that was part of Arnold's great reform.

I see you have a handsome collection of graffiti.

-These are desk lids, little tabletops, they were called.

-A-ha.

And this in a sense is not graffiti because the boys were actually

permitted to carve their name on the desk lid before they left school.

Anyone that I would recognise?

You may recognise the name Chamberlain.

-This is Neville, our Prime Minister at the beginning of World War II.

-It is.

An intriguing reference in my Bradshaw's.

"The fagging or monitor system prevails at the school..." -

this is in the mid-1860s -

"..but has somewhat been mitigated by Dr Arnold."

What does that mean?

Well, fagging originally was a mentoring system.

If you think that boys as young as six were entering this school,

probably their first time away from home

into a completely alien environment,

senior boys would take them under their wing,

show them where everything was,

and in return, the boys would provide menial tasks. Perhaps popping across

the road to get a bowl of baked potatoes

or polishing the senior boy's boots.

Trouble is, by the time Arnold arrived,

this had effectively become institutionalised bullying.

He made it a somewhat kinder place, did he?

Very much so. It was an environment of trust.

Dr Arnold most certainly left his mark on Victorian schooling,

while one of his pupils left his boot-print

on the sporting field of dreams.

Ah, William Webb Ellis, the boy who invented rugby football.

And when were the rules of rugby football formalised?

The sport was first codified officially in August 1845 by a group

of three Rugby school boys, one of whom was one of Thomas Arnold's sons.

When they were codified, they were actually produced...

printed in a little book...

Why so small?

In those days there were no referees, the boys didn't need them,

so they would take this booklet out on the pitch with them.

As the game developed, the rules changed to allow faster play.

It made matches more exciting for both players and fans.

It also meant that a referee on the pitch eventually became

compulsory, in order to settle disputes.

The game's roots have not been forgotten.

The Rugby World Cup is known as the Webb Ellis Trophy.

If Webb Ellis were watching now, I'm sure he'd be chuffed to see

how his game is being played today, pretty much as he invented it.

I have to admit that I'm not very sporty, but in for a penny...

Crouch, touch, set.

It's only a short trip up the London to Birmingham mainline

to my next stop, Coventry.

After a game of rugby, an early bath is called for,

and Bradshaw's is ever helpful.

"Coombe Abbey, belonging to the Earl of Craven, has abbey ruins,

"with a gallery of paintings by van Dyck." It sounds perfect.

Coombe Abbey was founded as a monastery by Cistercian monks

in the 12th century.

Following the dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s,

in the early 17th century it became a Royal property,

home to Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of King James I.

Today it's a hotel, where I'll break my journey.

It may be my paranoia as a former politician,

but I find I sleep most soundly when secure behind a moat.

There is a moat, but I haven't found any van Dycks.

Still, it's a good place to rest my sporty legs.

A beautiful new day sees me heading into the manufacturing heartland of Coventry.

As far back as Roman Times its central location made it

ideally situated for trade.

And the arrival of the train helped to fuel its commercial ambitions.

-Hello.

-Hello, good morning.

-I'm using this rather old guide book...

-Bradshaw, yes.

Bradshaw! And it sounds to me that Coventry is well known for watchmaking.

Now, I didn't know that, is Coventry well known for watchmaking?

-Yes, it's known throughout the world.

-What sort of watches?

They do what they call, Half Hunters, the big ones the chaps wore across here with the Albert chain.

Yes, they're very prized and very expensive.

-When does that go back to?

-Erm, in the 1800s.

What do you know about watch making?

Erm, they used to have top shops, they lived in the two floors then they lived in the top shops

with big windows at the top and that's where they used to do the watches.

-Quite proud of all that, are you?

-Oh, God, yeah - we are, aren't we?

-Of all the industries we've had and lost, aren't we?

-Yes.

At its peak, in the 1850s, Coventry's watch-making industry employed 2,000 people.

And one of the biggest firms, Rotherhams, was producing 9,000 watches per year.

But by the 1860s, the industry was in decline

because of cheap imports of Swiss and American watches.

So generations of craftsmen learnt to adapt their skills to survive.

I'm meeting Steve Bagley, from Coventry Transport Museum at his rather special lock up.

Steve, what an amazing sight. An Aladdin's cave.

-Yeah, cars and bikes made in Coventry.

-Absolutely glorious.

So how did Coventry get from watches to bicycles?

There was a slump in the watch-making industry and a few entrepreneurs

opened up sewing machine factories,

because the skills of making a watch was very similar to making a sewing machine.

And then there was slump in the sewing machine manufacturing industry.

Again, these entrepreneurs decided to build some of these French-build boneshakers,

velocipedes as they were also known.

So in 1868, these were brought to Coventry and the sewing machine factory began to manufacture these.

What comes next?

What they began to do, was to make the front wheel on the velocipede bigger,

so we ended up with what's now known as the penny farthing.

Or to call it its right name, the Ordinary.

But it is nicknamed penny farthing because we had a coin called a penny

and a much smaller coin called a farthing.

Exactly. Getting on and off is an issue.

They were made for athletic gentlemen to ride.

But the penny farthing was lacking one vital ingredient...

..a bicycle chain.

The Eureka moment came in 1885 with the invention of the Rover safety bicycle.

This is the modern bicycle as we know it today.

A fella called John Kemp Starley in Coventry,

he owned the Rover Cycle Company, that became the Rover Car Company,

still existed till very recently, and he developed this bicycle

in the mid-1880s and it is the forerunner of all modern bicycles.

And known as a safety bicycle.

-Er...for the good reason that everything that came before was not?

-Exactly.

During the 1890s, Coventry became the cycle capital of the world,

and companies like Rover were producing thousands of these a year.

So much so that factories grew up all over the city.

From about seven companies in the 1870s

to about 50-odd companies by the 1890s.

It just exploded on the back of this safety bicycle.

And yet, I think of Coventry as being associated with motors?

-That's right.

-So how was that transition made, from bicycles to motors?

Again, same old story, slump in the cycle industry.

So the businessmen and the entrepreneurs who were making cycles

decided to try these new-fangled motor cars that were being developed,

mainly in Germany and France on the Continent.

The bicycle bubble burst in the late 1890s.

Only 20 years later, the car industry was booming.

By 1939, engineers had developed super-fast production lines

and 38,000 people were employed in making cars.

The average price of a family car was around £150.

This lock up is an education to me, I had no idea

so many different types of cars were made in Coventry,

you've got Jaguar, Triumph, Standard, Alvis, Hillman. It's incredible, isn't it?

It is, isn't it? And we've actually recorded 142 car companies

have been registered in the city over the years.

Ranging from small companies like Hillman, who made small...like the Hillman Minx.

Very large cars like this fantastic Jaguar Mark VIII. Top of the range.

What a lovely car that is, isn't it?

It's beautiful, isn't it? It's got a column gear change so you can have a long bench seat in the front.

It has nothing separating the two seats, which for safety,

is not the best idea!

-Stick three people on the front bench. And of course no seat belts.

-That's right.

-Are you going by the station?

-Why not?

-Give you a lift in this, if you like.

-Thank you!

By the 1960s and '70s, the glory days of making cars in Coventry, like this Alvis,

were over and manufacturing was in decline.

Foreign imports swept the market.

But thanks once more to the adaptability and the tenacity of the people of Coventry,

the re-invention continues.

Along with making London taxis,

Coventry's engineers now make high-end parts

for Land Rover and Jaguar,

highly successful products in the luxury car market.

Thank you, Steve.

Bye.

For the next part of my journey, I'm leaving Stephenson's

London to Birmingham main line and heading east.

Tickets and passes, please.

As far as Nuneaton.

-That's lovely. Thank you very much.

-Thank you very much indeed.

I'm travelling across Warwickshire towards Nuneaton to visit

the childhood home of a great 19th-century author, Mary Ann Evans,

who had one thing in common with Bradshaw...by George, she did.

Mary Ann Evans, or George Eliot, as we know her,

lived in Nuneaton for the first 21 years of her life

before moving to London to become an essayist.

Her success is the more remarkable because women writers in the 1850s were very rare.

And while Britain underwent the Industrial Revolution, women's equality was scarcely on the agenda.

I'm keen to find out from John Burton, who's chairman of the George Eliot Fellowship,

why Mary wanted to keep her female identity a secret.

Why did she take a man's pen name?

Well, by the time her first work of fiction came out, she was living,

the Victorians would have said "in sin" with George Henry Lewis.

She couldn't marry him because he was already married.

And so the first work of fiction, I think they used George Eliot

in order to cover the fact that

the press would have made a lot of the fact this was George Henry Lewis' common-law wife,

rather than concentrating on the literary qualities of the novel.

What perception does she bring to her work, why is it she's so remembered?

I think she's so remembered because of the wisdom and the compassion,

actually that she shows when you read her.

She pulls you up short with her pre-Freudian, but psychological insights into human nature,

which I still find quite extraordinary.

I also feel that her humour is wonderful.

It's not laugh-out-loud humour, but it's wonderful, subtle, very understanding, human nature,

really, I think is at the core of what she's writing.

Eliot started writing in the 1850s.

I'd like to know what today's generation thinks.

I'm joining readers from a Nuneaton book club.

As a young person, do you think George Eliot is very challenging?

Yes, definitely.

Although she's a challenging writer, it doesn't mean it's impossible to read.

You've really got to persevere with it, though, because she does really go into detail.

When you can see it for what it is,

you then start to enjoy it and appreciate what she's written.

How would you rank Middlemarch amongst the novels that you've read?

It's up there. I actually prefer some of her other novels.

I think The Mill on the Floss is one of her best.

When you read George Eliot, can you tell that it's a woman who's writing?

I think so, yes, when we read Silas Marner,

the detail she put in about the emotion,

and describing the feelings.

She published anonymously, her very first work of fiction

and people assumed, a bit like the Brontes, really,

that it was a clergyman writing.

Except Charles Dickens, and he was the one person who tumbled to her identity and he commented

on the range of emotional intelligence, we would say today.

You've got a text over there, what are you reading about at the moment?

It's a passage from Middlemarch about when the railways came in.

"In the hundred to which Middlemarch belonged,

"railways were as exciting a topic as the reform bill,

"or the imminent horrors of Cholera and those who held the most

"decided views on the subject were women and landholders.

"Women both old and young regarded travelling by steam as

"presumptuous and dangerous and argued against it by saying

"that 'nothing would induce them to get into a railway carriage'."

Very good, a lovely social observation. Of course,

I think was largely true

until Queen Victoria was persuaded by her husband to travel by train,

at which point it became respectable for women.

So, George Elliot, George Bradshaw, two wonderful

reflections of the Victorian age.

One difference is George Bradshaw's got a train to catch. Bye-bye.

Watch makers in Coventry had to adapt to manufacturing first bicycles and then cars.

Shoe makers in Northampton had to adapt to survive.

Thomas Arnold, of Rugby School,

believed in fashioning young gentlemen with adaptable minds.

But George Eliot demonstrated that an educated woman could take

her place amongst the most eminent Victorians.

On the next leg of my next journey, I swap hats and view life from the other side of the tracks.

All aboard, all aboard.

I discover an astronomical invention that gave Hollywood a facelift.

-Am I on the dot?

-Yes, you are.

-Yay!

I never expected to get that right.

And my mettle is tested at the world's largest bell foundry.

To say I'm out of my comfort zone is to put it mildly.

There is molten metal leaping around in the room.