Hessle to York Great British Railway Journeys


Hessle to York

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'For Victorian Britons, George Bradshaw was a household name.

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'At a time when railways were new,

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'Bradshaw's guidebook inspired them to take to the tracks.'

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I'm using a Bradshaw's guide to understand

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how trains transformed Britain.

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Its landscape, its industries,

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society and leisure time.

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As I crisscross the country 150 years later,

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it helps me to discover the Britain of today.

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I'm in the historic county of East Yorkshire,

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continuing my journey towards Lindisfarne.

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Building a bridge or tunnel across the mighty Humber estuary

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defied even Victorian engineers.

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But on this part of my journey,

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I hope to learn about 19th-century figures of religious conviction

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who toiled to tear down injustices

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and to construct the rights of man.

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My journey started in a significant centre of the Industrial Revolution,

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continued on to Nottinghamshire

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and wended its way to Wakefield.

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It will now bear east to skirt a vast estuary

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and turn back inland to be tempted in Yorkshire's county town.

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Then it will then head up the coast

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to the industrial cities of the north,

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to end on Northumberland's Holy Island.

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Today's leg begins in Hessle, on the north bank of the Humber,

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makes a short hop to Hull,

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learns the tale of a bandit in Beverley,

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then takes in the sea air at Scarborough

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and finishes with the sweet treats of York.

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On this stretch, I step inside

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a record-breaking feat of engineering.

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Douglas, you people built a bridge on an extraordinary scale.

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This is a massive chamber.

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Learn of the conditions endured by a prisoner of conscience.

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The soldiers stole his bread and his water.

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He was treated something like an animal in a zoo.

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And brew up a Quaker-approved Victorian cuppa.

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Well, it looks as appetising as mud.

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Bradshaw's tells me that,

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"the River Humber, the main estuary into which the Ouse

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"and the Yorkshire streams with the Trent flow,

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"is here two-miles broad and widens to five or six miles

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"before it joins the sea.

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"The eastern portion of this elevated district

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"commands a magnificent view of that vast estuary."

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I wonder why it was that the Victorians, who conquered the Dee,

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the Firth of Forth and the Severn,

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were unable to master the Humber?

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Covering an area of over 75,000 acres,

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this is a tidal estuary on an epic scale.

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For the Victorians, it formed a barrier

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to effective trade and communication

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and they campaigned hard to have something done about it.

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But it wasn't until over 100 years later in 1973

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that construction began on the extraordinary structure

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that was finally to span the Humber's huge expanse.

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'I'm hopping out at Hessle,

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'which is a small town on the north bank of the estuary,

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'and the closest stop to the magnificent bridge.

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'With a dramatic view of it at the water's edge,

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'I'm joining regional historian, Richard Clarke.'

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Now, if I know my Victorians, they must have been itching

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to build a crossing, either a bridge or a tunnel across the Humber.

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There were schemes being talked about

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from the railway-mania age of the 1840s onwards.

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And so, by the late 19th century,

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the idea was to build a cantilever bridge

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and on the principle of the Forth Bridge, a rail bridge,

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but the cantilever bridge would've needed

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a lot of pillars into the bed of the estuary.

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And, of course, we have to remember that the time we're talking about,

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100 years ago, or so, this estuary would've had many,

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many more craft on it crisscrossing out to the North Sea.

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And so these pillars were always perceived

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to be a potential hazard to navigation.

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Now, evidently, you did eventually get a bridge.

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-Yes.

-How did that come about?

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Once you had the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco

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and examples like that of a very wide-span suspension bridge,

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it was realised that it was physically possible

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to bridge the Humber without having all these pillars.

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By the time work began

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on the long-awaited bridge in the early 1970s,

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the ascendancy of the car had put pay to Victorian dreams

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of a bridge for both railway and road.

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In 1981, when finally opened by Queen Elizabeth II,

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it was the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world.

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And remained so for 17 years,

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until surpassed by the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Japan.

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Douglas Strachan spent seven years as resident engineer

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during the bridge's construction.

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And today he's giving me the privilege

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of accessing parts that very few get to see.

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Douglas, I take it from the noise

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that we are underneath the traffic crossing the bridge.

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Yes. We're in the box girders.

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There are 124 of these boxes,

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and so you can walk from anchorage to anchorage

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through this tunnel of steel boxes.

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The anchorages at either end of a suspension bridge

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secure vast cables slung between the two towers

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to support the load-bearing deck below.

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Although the Victorians did build suspension bridges

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like Brunel's at Clifton,

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they didn't have the technology to span the daunting distance

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between the banks of the Humber.

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Later ingenuity unravelled the solution.

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Tell me about cable-spinning, which is the essence of this technology.

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We're taking thousands of wires

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five millimetres in diameter

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across the river, back and forward,

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and building up 15,000 parallel wires

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and then compacting them into one round cable.

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To see these cable-spun wires close up,

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Douglas is taking me to the anchorage on the north bank,

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constructed from a staggering 160,000 tonnes of concrete.

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Douglas, you people built a bridge on an extraordinary scale.

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This is a massive chamber.

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And if I understand it, these are the wires that support

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-the bridge arriving at their anchorage.

-Yes.

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And you can see behind me where the round cable is then split up

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into the strands that I've been talking about earlier.

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And these wires, what sort of weight are they?

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Well, the cables themselves are about 15,000 tonnes of wire

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and it's 70,000 kilometres in length.

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And that's about one-and-a-half times around the world.

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And so, what is the innovation since Victorian times?

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I suppose it's the stronger materials

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and using the wires are a major step forward.

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And so, cable-spinning was the technology

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that enabled 20th-century engineers

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to do what Victorians had not been able to achieve?

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Exactly.

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'Continuing my journey, I'm going to make a short trip

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'further east along the Humber

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'by re-boarding the train at Hessle.'

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My next stop is Kingston upon Hull.

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Bradshaw says that it's, "on the Yorkshire side of the Humber

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"in a very flat and uninviting spot.

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"But it is admirably fitted for trade."

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To our national disgrace, well into the 19th century,

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part of British trade involved a triangle

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that carried rum and sugar from the Caribbean to Europe,

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brandy and guns from Europe to Africa

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and cargoes of slaves from Africa to the Caribbean.

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Situated 25 miles from the North Sea,

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where the River Hull meets the Humber,

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Kingston upon Hull, from the 12th century,

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grew as a significant trading and seafaring hub.

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I love the station at Kingston upon Hull

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with its massive spans of glass.

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It's the end of the line

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and the station has a way of saying to you,

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"Why would you want to go any further, anyway?"

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'One man with firmly-rooted local loyalties was William Wilberforce.

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'Fervent social reformer and perhaps the city's most famous son.'

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"The African slave trade is contrary

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"to the principles of justice, humanity and sound policy."

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So begins the Act of Parliament

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carried by William Wilberforce in 1807.

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And here stands his column, which, according to Bradshaw's,

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"was erected on 1st August, 1834,

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"the day of Negro emancipation.

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"Wilberforce was born in Hull and died in 1833.

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"But not until he had the happiness

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"of knowing that the great work of his useful life was achieved."

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The abolition of the slave trade and then of slavery itself

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was the work of many decades

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and I'm here in Hull to meet an old colleague

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who well understands the tribulations of fighting

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a reluctant parliament.

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Born here in 1759 to a wealthy merchant family,

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Wilberforce was just 20 when he entered politics.

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His childhood home was opened as a museum in 1906

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and that's where I'm meeting one of his successors as a Hull MP,

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Alan Johnson, who also happens to be

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a regular on-screen political sparring partner of mine.

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-Alan.

-Michael.

-Good to see you.

-Welcome to Hull.

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Thank you very much and here we are with the great man.

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The great man himself.

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Is he a hero of yours?

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He is and he's a hero to the city.

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The reason that not a single slave was traded through the port of Hull

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was because of Wilberforce.

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He is probably the greatest person ever born in this city.

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Now, the abolition of the slave trade was a long old process,

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so Wilberforce had to show a lot of commitment to it.

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Yes, and from a very young age.

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Everyone was against opposition to the slave trade, virtually.

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It was a crucial part of the British economy,

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so it was like trying to abolish the automotive industry today.

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I read that at the height of the slave trade,

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it was 80% of Britain's foreign earnings

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and that's what Wilberforce was fighting against.

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We all like to have done something, made a difference.

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Wilberforce, above any other person sitting on the back benches

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of Parliament over these hundreds of years,

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can truly say he did that.

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I think he had a moment of conversion, didn't he?

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He did. He was a bit of a lad, was William. He liked his drinking,

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he liked his gambling and then had this moment of conversion

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when he decided that he would dedicate his life to greater,

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more Christian, more moral purposes

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and he did that for the rest of his life

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and brought all the different religions together in this city.

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For 30 years before Queen Victoria ascended the throne,

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the Royal Navy patrolled the Atlantic,

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stopping any ships suspected of what Parliament had decreed

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an illegal trade.

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Does the spirit of Wilberforce live on in Kingston upon Hull today?

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It does. We have the Wilberforce Institute,

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which is probably the world's leading expert in modern-day slavery.

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Desmond Tutu is its patron and one of its founders

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and Hull is in the lead in monitoring

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and trying to do something about modern-day slavery,

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because there are still 20-26 million people being traded for slavery,

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for prostitution, children being traded for mining

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all kinds of dangerous substances - it still goes on to this day.

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Might William Wilberforce be dismayed that 200 years

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after his achievement, we're discussing slavery again.

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He would be dismayed,

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but it doesn't detract one iota from his great achievement.

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We need the spirit of Wilberforce to reawaken to actually deal

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with modern slavery and I think if we do that, we do the great man justice.

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After a long but very inspiring day,

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I'm getting back on the train at the beautiful Hull Station

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to find a handy place to rest

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by wending my way north through the Yorkshire Wolds.

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My next stop, Beverley, has, according to my guide book,

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"a noble minster,

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"built on the spot where St John of Beverley was buried,

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"whose standard was carried by King Edward I

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"in his invasion of Scotland to encourage his soldiers."

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Those men stood and delivered,

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which was the command given in a different context by highwaymen.

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Intriguingly,

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the establishment where I'm planning to rest my head for the night

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has a connection to those infamous outlaws.

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This former coaching inn played host

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to one particularly notorious 18th-century bandit.

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I'm meeting up with manager Mark Coubrough to find out more.

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Well, now, the Beverley Arms is the only place

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in my Bradshaw's Guide that is recommended, so here I am.

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But I think it has a story to do with highwaymen, doesn't it?

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Yes, I believe Dick Turpin stayed here at the hotel

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and apparently checked in under an alias of the name Mr Palmer.

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During the course of his stay,

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there was an altercation with the landlord,

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due to the landlord's cockerel making all these noises

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in the early hours of the morning,

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at which point, our Mr Palmer turns around

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and shoots the landlord's cockerel,

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so the landlord gets the constabulary involved,

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who come and promptly arrest our Mr Palmer.

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Mr Palmer, while sat in the Beverley jails,

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decides he'll write to his brother

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and ask for a sixpence to be able to get him out of prison.

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Unfortunately, the postmaster is his headmaster from school,

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recognises his handwriting,

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then gets in touch with the Beverley constabulary and says,

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"You've not arrested a Mr Palmer.

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"You've actually arrested THE Dick Turpin."

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So when they did realise they had the famous highwayman Dick Turpin,

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what was his fate?

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At that point, I think the magistrates got together

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and said, "You know what, we'll get a much bigger audience

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"if we send him to York,"

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and that's where they eventually hung him

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and did all the ghastly things that they needed to do to him.

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Well, I hope it's not the fate of everyone

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-who hangs out at The Beverley Arms.

-I hope not! No.

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Well, after a thankfully uneventful night

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without even so much as a cockerel to interrupt my sleep,

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I've just enough time before I depart on my journey

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to take in the town's most famous landmark.

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According to my guide book, Beverley Minister is 333 feet long

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and I can well believe it.

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On this trip, I have seen some superb ecclesiastical buildings

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and it's a reminder that for most of the last 2,000 years,

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religion mattered to us much more than anything else.

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To reach my first destination of the day,

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I'm continuing north from Beverley and heading for the coast.

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I'll be leaving the train at Scarborough,

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about which Bradshaw's is enthusiastic.

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"Its situation is extremely beautiful and romantic,

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"being on the recess of a fine, open bay

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"and the town consists of several spacious streets

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"of handsome, well-built houses rising in successive tiers

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"from the shore in the form of an amphitheatre."

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But I'm going there to hear about one who was a prisoner of conscience

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and who might be forgiven, therefore,

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for not having very happy memories of Scarborough.

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Tickets and passes, please.

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Thank you very much, love.

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I'm on my way to Scarborough.

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-Does Scarborough still attract a lot of holidaymakers?

-Yes.

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They go off into Scarborough for day trips and everything.

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-And they're carrying picnic baskets?

-Yeah, everything.

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We're always busy.

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It's always nice to see all the kids being energetic and excited.

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When they're coming back, they're great, cos they're tired,

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and they're quiet on the train. Going there, they're loud.

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The immense popularity of this buoyant beachside town

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really took hold in 1845 when the Scarborough to York railway opened

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and brought with it waves of Victorian tourists.

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One of the attractions they flocked to

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was the town's evocative 12th-century castle.

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Built by a succession of medieval kings,

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this royal fortress endured countless attacks.

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In the middle of the 17th century,

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it served briefly as a prison

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and it's that period of the castle's history that interests me.

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What a wonderful view.

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Bradshaw's tells me that,

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"Scarborough Castle crowns a precipitous rock

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"about 300 feet above the waters.

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"As this old feudal stronghold looks down upon the sea on one side,

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"it has the town of Scarborough stretched below it.

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"In 1666 George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends,

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"was imprisoned in the castle,"

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and so here we find the beauty of nature

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and the ugliness of the conflicts of man in the name of God.

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Born in 1624,

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George Fox had a radical approach to Christianity

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that gained him popularity and persecution in equal measure.

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Society of Friends members, known as Quakers,

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relied on conscience as the basis of morality

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and believed in the equality of men and women.

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Many of the slave trade abolitionists

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who joined William Wilberforce's campaign were Quakers.

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So was George Bradshaw, so I can imagine this Scarborough site

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would have been significant for him.

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Rachael Holland is an historic properties steward,

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who I'm hoping will offer some more details

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on how George Fox came to be incarcerated here.

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What, as far as you know, was his crime?

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As far as I'm aware, his main crime was refusing to swear

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an oath of allegiance to Charles II.

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At this point, we've just finished the Civil War, Cromwell's just died,

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and we now have the Restoration. Charles II is now in power,

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but this is a time when religion and politics

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were very closely intertwined

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so for George Fox to be refusing to swear allegiance to the king

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and refusing to swear any allegiance to any sort of physical church,

0:20:160:20:20

it was seen as being very subversive.

0:20:200:20:22

What was Fox's objection to swearing an oath?

0:20:220:20:25

Basically, he says in his diaries that any hypocrite can swear an oath.

0:20:250:20:30

He says that loyalty is proven by deeds, not by words

0:20:300:20:33

and at that time, when everybody has already sworn one oath,

0:20:330:20:36

saying that they would uphold Cromwell's rule

0:20:360:20:38

and then to turn around and say,

0:20:380:20:39

"No, actually we are going to swear an oath to Charles,"

0:20:390:20:42

I can see where George Fox was coming from.

0:20:420:20:45

Their unconventional views

0:20:450:20:47

enraged the religious and political establishment

0:20:470:20:50

and between 1662 and 1670,

0:20:500:20:53

as many as 6,000 Quakers found themselves in jail.

0:20:530:20:57

Fox's spell at Scarborough Castle

0:20:570:20:59

was just one of eight prison sentences that he endured.

0:20:590:21:04

Rachael, I am trying to imagine the conditions of Fox's imprisonment.

0:21:040:21:09

Bradshaw's tells me that Fox speaks

0:21:090:21:12

of three different rooms that he successively occupied,

0:21:120:21:15

and "one of them faced the sea, and laying much open,

0:21:150:21:19

"the wind drove in the rain forcibly,

0:21:190:21:22

"so that water came over his head and ran about the room

0:21:220:21:25

"so that he was fain to skim it up with a platter."

0:21:250:21:29

Terrible conditions.

0:21:290:21:31

Very terrible conditions.

0:21:310:21:32

I believe as well that that was the last room that he was held in,

0:21:320:21:35

which many sources believe to be Cockhill Tower,

0:21:350:21:38

which he called "Purgatory".

0:21:380:21:40

Prolonged exposure to the elements caused Fox's fingers to swell

0:21:410:21:45

to double their size and his health suffered greatly,

0:21:450:21:49

but his faith never faltered.

0:21:490:21:51

In 1666, he was released from Scarborough Castle

0:21:510:21:55

and by the time of his death in 1691,

0:21:550:21:57

the Quaker movement had more than 50,000 followers.

0:21:570:22:01

How was he treated by those who were given charge of him?

0:22:010:22:04

It was atrocious.

0:22:040:22:06

The soldiers stole his bread and his water,

0:22:060:22:08

but worse was the fact that he was treated

0:22:080:22:10

something like an animal in a zoo.

0:22:100:22:12

They gawked at him, he says in his diaries,

0:22:120:22:14

and they tried to convert him back to the standard faith at the time,

0:22:140:22:17

but it seems that he converted more of them than they did of him.

0:22:170:22:19

I'd never thought of 16 months in Scarborough

0:22:190:22:22

as being the ultimate test of faith

0:22:220:22:24

My time here is measured in minutes,

0:22:270:22:29

because I have a train to catch,

0:22:290:22:31

taking me west to the final destination of today's journey,

0:22:310:22:35

which also has a Quaker connection.

0:22:350:22:38

SHE BLOWS WHISTLE

0:22:380:22:40

My next stop is what Bradshaw's calls

0:22:470:22:49

"the ancient capital of York and seat of the Primate of England.

0:22:490:22:53

"Situated at the junction of the three Ridings of Yorkshire

0:22:530:22:56

"on the River Ouse.

0:22:560:22:58

"Boots, shoes, combs and confectionary

0:22:580:23:01

"are the chief articles made here."

0:23:010:23:03

The men of chocolate, Joseph Rowntree -

0:23:030:23:05

who was a Quaker like George Bradshaw -

0:23:050:23:07

and Joseph Terry, have left sweet memories in York.

0:23:070:23:11

Its prime position on the rivers Ouse and Foss gave York easy access

0:23:140:23:19

to imported goods, including sugar and cocoa beans,

0:23:190:23:23

while the fertile Vale of York

0:23:230:23:25

provided many other essential confectionery ingredients.

0:23:250:23:28

When York also became a railway hub in the 19th century,

0:23:300:23:34

it had the perfect recipe for a lucrative sweet-making industry.

0:23:340:23:39

I'm here to meet Alex Hutchinson, who's the historian and archivist

0:23:430:23:47

for one of the companies that took full advantage.

0:23:470:23:50

Here we are surveying the vast estate that was Rowntree's.

0:23:510:23:54

How did this enormous business begin?

0:23:540:23:57

Well, in 1862, Henry Isaac Rowntree took over a local cocoa business

0:23:570:24:01

and he didn't do a very good job. His brother Joseph came to help him

0:24:010:24:04

and he turned it from a drinking cocoa business

0:24:040:24:06

into the huge sweet factory we know today.

0:24:060:24:09

That drinking cocoa, what was it like? Was it a good product?

0:24:090:24:12

Their first cocoa would have been quite unpalatable.

0:24:120:24:15

It was seen as a health food.

0:24:150:24:17

They were using very, very primitive manufacturing methods,

0:24:170:24:20

so it would have been quite astringent and gritty.

0:24:200:24:22

Quakers are strongly associated with chocolate making.

0:24:220:24:25

-Why?

-In 1860, we passed a law, the Food and Drugs Act,

0:24:250:24:29

which prevented people from putting anything poisonous

0:24:290:24:32

or hazardous into food.

0:24:320:24:33

Before that you could put in anything you liked

0:24:330:24:35

and so people tended to trust Quakers

0:24:350:24:37

if they were buying food. and with chocolate you would sometimes get

0:24:370:24:40

unscrupulous chocolate makers adding wax or paint. But a Quaker? Never.

0:24:400:24:44

At its peak, Rowntree's employed 14,000 people.

0:24:460:24:50

As Quakers given to philanthropy and social reform,

0:24:500:24:54

they built a public library, park and theatre for their workers,

0:24:540:24:58

and also created a model village,

0:24:580:25:00

providing affordable and decent homes

0:25:000:25:03

as an alternative to inner-city slums.

0:25:030:25:05

Known as New Earswick,

0:25:090:25:11

the village was built to include plenty of green space,

0:25:110:25:14

its own village hall...

0:25:140:25:16

but no pub, and it remains dry to this day.

0:25:160:25:20

There were three things that the Rowntrees really objected to,

0:25:200:25:23

which they called "concrete forms of sin"

0:25:230:25:26

and that was alcoholism, priestcraft and Toryism.

0:25:260:25:30

-Ah, in ascending order.

-Yes.

0:25:300:25:32

When the entrepreneurial Joseph stepped in to help his brother,

0:25:330:25:36

he set about expanding and modernising the company's output.

0:25:360:25:40

He developed a range of chocolate products

0:25:400:25:43

and his masterstroke was hiring a Frenchman to make fruit pastilles,

0:25:430:25:47

a trade dominated by the French.

0:25:470:25:50

Today, in the factory's development kitchen,

0:25:500:25:52

I'm going back to where it all began...

0:25:520:25:55

So we have the cocoa beans,

0:25:550:25:57

which are roasted and ground down into cocoa nibs.

0:25:570:26:00

..by helping head confectioner Vicky Geal

0:26:000:26:02

to try to replicate that original 1860s cocoa recipe.

0:26:020:26:06

Start grinding.

0:26:060:26:07

I'm just grinding these down,

0:26:070:26:08

-trying to get them into a powder, am I?

-Yep.

0:26:080:26:11

This takes quite a lot of effort, doesn't it?

0:26:110:26:13

It does, it's very labour intensive, which is why we're glad now

0:26:130:26:16

we've got the machinery to be able to do this

0:26:160:26:18

instead of doing it by hand.

0:26:180:26:19

You didn't tell me that!

0:26:190:26:20

Right, whoa!

0:26:230:26:25

What we need to do now is add your Icelandic moss.

0:26:250:26:29

Icelandic moss?

0:26:290:26:30

Why would you add moss?

0:26:300:26:32

In the 1860s, the Rowntrees added a kind of lichen called Icelandic moss

0:26:320:26:37

to their cocoa to improve the health benefits, also to absorb the fat.

0:26:370:26:40

Er...eurgh!

0:26:400:26:42

Bitter aftertaste.

0:26:420:26:44

For teetotal Quakers like the Rowntrees,

0:26:440:26:47

cocoa was a wholesome alternative to the alcoholic drinks

0:26:470:26:50

which they blamed for many of society's ills.

0:26:500:26:54

Well, it looks as appetising as mud.

0:26:540:26:57

How does it taste?

0:26:590:27:00

It's full of bits, but I don't know.

0:27:000:27:03

If you were a Victorian, it'd be new.

0:27:030:27:05

You'd probably be willing to pay for that.

0:27:050:27:07

If you thought it was doing you some good...

0:27:070:27:09

Yeah, well, it tastes bad enough

0:27:090:27:11

that you would think it was doing you some good.

0:27:110:27:13

Finishing today's journey with a nourishing Victorian elixir

0:27:130:27:17

seems rather fitting...even if it was a little lumpy and bitter.

0:27:170:27:22

During the course of my travels with Bradshaw's,

0:27:220:27:25

I've discovered how much we owe the Victorians

0:27:250:27:28

for our physical environment -

0:27:280:27:30

our railway network, our sewers, even our parliament in London,

0:27:300:27:34

but we also inherited many of their values.

0:27:340:27:39

By degrees, they built our parliamentary democracy,

0:27:390:27:42

abolished slavery and child labour, universalised education,

0:27:420:27:46

hugely enlarging the rights of man.

0:27:460:27:50

The rights of women, however,

0:27:500:27:52

in particular the right to vote,

0:27:520:27:54

were left over to be dealt with in the 20th century.

0:27:540:27:57

Next time, I'll feel the heat of a Victorian furnace...

0:28:050:28:08

Look at that, a nice little flambe for us.

0:28:080:28:11

..learn how investigative journalism was born...

0:28:110:28:14

He built the devil up, and just like any good newspaper man,

0:28:140:28:17

he took great delight in knocking the devil down.

0:28:170:28:20

..and hear how a remarkable Bible survived down the centuries.

0:28:200:28:25

-It's quite a large book to lose, actually.

-It certainly is!

0:28:250:28:29

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