0:00:04 > 0:00:07In the story of the British people,
0:00:07 > 0:00:10we've reached the threshold of the modern age.
0:00:12 > 0:00:15Through civil war and revolution the nations of Britain
0:00:15 > 0:00:20emerged in the 18th century with their own identities
0:00:20 > 0:00:24while part of a union that made them all Britons.
0:00:25 > 0:00:30Their tale is one of creativity, resilience and invention
0:00:30 > 0:00:33and never more so than during the Industrial Revolution,
0:00:33 > 0:00:37when Britain became the workshop of the world.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42With their inherited skills and freedoms,
0:00:42 > 0:00:46the British became the world's first industrial nation,
0:00:46 > 0:00:51pioneers in engineering, science and knowledge.
0:00:53 > 0:00:56They laid a path that others would follow.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02In the next chapter of the Great British Story -
0:01:02 > 0:01:06the origins of Empire and the Industrial Revolution.
0:01:23 > 0:01:26Those who lived through the Industrial Revolution
0:01:26 > 0:01:29saw that it would reshape humanity.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32For some, that offered liberation.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36The poet Wordsworth marvelled how, "An inventive age
0:01:36 > 0:01:40"had given birth almost with the speed of magic
0:01:40 > 0:01:43"to a new and unforeseen creation.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49"Wielding her potent enginery to frame
0:01:49 > 0:01:54"and to produce, with rests not night or day."
0:01:54 > 0:01:57MACHINERY HUMS
0:02:02 > 0:02:06Others though saw enslavement to the machine -
0:02:06 > 0:02:10"Cruel works of many wheels I view", said the poet, William Blake,
0:02:10 > 0:02:16"with cogs tyrannic, moving each other by compulsion not in freedom."
0:02:16 > 0:02:19It was to be the issue of the age.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25In 1700 Britain was a small island off the edge of Europe,
0:02:25 > 0:02:29with less than 6 million people -
0:02:29 > 0:02:32nothing compared with the powerhouses of world history at that
0:02:32 > 0:02:36time - Ming Dynasty China, Mogul India, the Ottoman.
0:02:40 > 0:02:42But in the course of the 18th century,
0:02:42 > 0:02:47Britain became the world's first industrial nation and acquired
0:02:47 > 0:02:50an empire which eventually became the greatest in world history.
0:02:50 > 0:02:56And how it all happened is one of the greatest stories in history.
0:03:00 > 0:03:04The Industrial Revolution didn't come out of the blue.
0:03:04 > 0:03:06It was driven by deep social and economic forces
0:03:06 > 0:03:11working below the surface of society since the 13th century.
0:03:11 > 0:03:15Local industries meeting basic needs -
0:03:15 > 0:03:20heat, tools, clothing, but now accelerated by invention.
0:03:20 > 0:03:23William Clark came over
0:03:23 > 0:03:28from England 1736 and started making linen right here
0:03:28 > 0:03:29at this very spot.
0:03:29 > 0:03:33Beetling is where you hammer the cloth,
0:03:33 > 0:03:36make it into a continuous cloth as opposed to a warp and weft.
0:03:36 > 0:03:40That's before it's beetled only it's wet,
0:03:40 > 0:03:43run through a starch and it's wet.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46As I keep putting it on and turning it every day,
0:03:46 > 0:03:48it goes on until it comes to this stage.
0:03:52 > 0:03:54Across Britain and Ireland
0:03:54 > 0:03:57traditional industries began to mechanise.
0:03:57 > 0:04:01In the potteries, old manufacturers went into mass production,
0:04:01 > 0:04:05the growing middle and working classes who no longer wanted wood
0:04:05 > 0:04:07on their tables.
0:04:09 > 0:04:10'Almost everybody that you knew from this area
0:04:10 > 0:04:14'worked in the pottery industry.'
0:04:14 > 0:04:18These specialised industries gave rise to new skills
0:04:18 > 0:04:21and new communities.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24MACHINES WHIRR
0:04:24 > 0:04:25How long have been doing this?
0:04:25 > 0:04:28This particular job,
0:04:28 > 0:04:30- about 22, 23 years.- Wow!
0:04:36 > 0:04:40In the five towns of the potteries, they used local coal seams
0:04:40 > 0:04:45for the kilns, but the fine china clay came from Cornwall.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48Some of the most famous names in world pottery set up here -
0:04:48 > 0:04:52Doulton, Wedgewood, Spode and Minton.
0:04:53 > 0:04:59Founded in the 1780s, Dudsons are still thriving.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03They also made high-end pottery,
0:05:03 > 0:05:08reflecting the growing international reach of British society,
0:05:08 > 0:05:11depicting the ideals as well as the tastes of the new age.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15Tell us about this blackware here, Alison.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19This was originally fashionable in the 1770s
0:05:19 > 0:05:21but it had a renaissance in the 1870s
0:05:21 > 0:05:25when Queen Victoria went into mourning on the death
0:05:25 > 0:05:28of Prince Albert, so the potters obviously responded
0:05:28 > 0:05:29with a black range of pottery.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37In the Black Country, they've been makers of chains,
0:05:37 > 0:05:40nails, needles and blades since the 14th century.
0:05:40 > 0:05:46And now domestic production was organised on a new level
0:05:46 > 0:05:50through a huge network of cottage workshops with child labour.
0:05:53 > 0:05:56I'm just going to knock this into the shape of a U,
0:05:56 > 0:05:58now, hopefully.
0:06:00 > 0:06:02This work was still all done by hand.
0:06:06 > 0:06:10- How do you know if it's hot enough to get out of the fire?- By eye.
0:06:10 > 0:06:15You just watch the flames and it's like sparkly little bits.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18Then when you bring it out it's really fizzing
0:06:18 > 0:06:21and that's why you need to be standing back that far,
0:06:21 > 0:06:23because when I heat it, the sparks will fly.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31In the 18th century chains had many different uses.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39And children this age would have made them.
0:06:39 > 0:06:41Did you see what it was? Yeah!
0:06:46 > 0:06:51One of the key factors in the Industrial Revolution was coal.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56They've mined in Yorkshire and Durham since the Middle Ages
0:06:56 > 0:06:59and here in Gloucestershire, you can see another factor
0:06:59 > 0:07:01that helped the rise of industry -
0:07:01 > 0:07:03freedom.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07These are the free miners of the Forest of Dean.
0:07:09 > 0:07:13Nobody's ever found the actual physical charter,
0:07:13 > 0:07:16but the story is that Edward I or II,
0:07:16 > 0:07:20depending on which book you read, gave us our rights
0:07:20 > 0:07:22back in the 13th century or thereabouts.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28We obtained these rights by going to Berwick-on-Tweed
0:07:28 > 0:07:32and driving a tunnel underneath the walls of Berwick-on-Tweed
0:07:32 > 0:07:34and allowing the King to take the city.
0:07:34 > 0:07:38In his gratitude he gave us, the foresters, the right to mine
0:07:38 > 0:07:42coal, iron and stone in the Forest of Dean for evermore.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51The first mine I went down, they dropped me down a shaft
0:07:51 > 0:07:56in a 40 gallon drum with two hooks in the side on a hand winch.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58I was 13.
0:08:01 > 0:08:03The Forest of Dean actually
0:08:03 > 0:08:07was built on the minerals that are under the ground.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11Because at one time there was nothing here.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17It was just a hunting place for poor royalty. Nothing here at all.
0:08:17 > 0:08:20Tremendous amount of wealth that come out of the ground
0:08:20 > 0:08:24and that's how all the villages and towns and that, sprang up
0:08:24 > 0:08:25because of what is underground.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28HE SCRAPES
0:08:34 > 0:08:37# Follow me down. #
0:08:37 > 0:08:41Another key to the Industrial Revolution was Britain's
0:08:41 > 0:08:45mineral riches - copper, iron and tin from Cornwall.
0:08:45 > 0:08:49# This land is barren and broken
0:08:49 > 0:08:53# Scarred like the face of the moon. #
0:08:53 > 0:08:56Here at Levant Mine, these schoolchildren have come to
0:08:56 > 0:08:59see where their ancestors toiled deep below the seabed.
0:09:00 > 0:09:04This shaft is about 2,000 foot deep
0:09:04 > 0:09:10and under the sea, there are 70 miles of tunnels.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13# Will I find gold in the cave? #
0:09:13 > 0:09:18So, you were saying your nan worked in the mines. Is that right?
0:09:18 > 0:09:23- Yeah.- And how old is she now? - 94.- She's 94!
0:09:23 > 0:09:30# Where there's a mine or a hole in the ground
0:09:30 > 0:09:33# That's where I'm heading for... #
0:09:33 > 0:09:36South Crofty mine was first dug in Tudor times.
0:09:38 > 0:09:40Between the 18th century and the 20th,
0:09:40 > 0:09:43it's vast caverns were expanded to two-and-a-half miles across
0:09:43 > 0:09:47and 3,000 feet deep.
0:09:47 > 0:09:53Oh, that is just epic, isn't it? Look at that!
0:09:53 > 0:09:55So when was this dug out, do you know, Chris?
0:09:55 > 0:09:59I guess it was started at the beginning of the century.
0:09:59 > 0:10:03Would this have been all hacked out by hand then?
0:10:03 > 0:10:05Yes, this was all done by hand.
0:10:05 > 0:10:08We talk about the Industrial Revolution as if it was
0:10:08 > 0:10:12something that happened rather swiftly from the late 1700s onward,
0:10:12 > 0:10:16but these techniques existed for centuries here in Cornwall
0:10:16 > 0:10:21and what you see here is the product of a slow percolation of history,
0:10:21 > 0:10:25the endeavour of ordinary people working at a local level.
0:10:25 > 0:10:28It's just astounding.
0:10:31 > 0:10:37# Where there's a mine or a hole in the ground
0:10:37 > 0:10:40# That's where I'm heading for... #
0:10:40 > 0:10:44So the Industrial Revolution came out of the perfect convergence
0:10:44 > 0:10:49of ideas and industry with a skilled and adaptable workforce.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53Now we're always taught that the Industrial Revolution
0:10:53 > 0:10:57was an English phenomenon - Colebrookdale and Ironbridge
0:10:57 > 0:11:00and the Lancashire cotton mills and they were important.
0:11:00 > 0:11:05'But it all depends what you mean by origins.
0:11:06 > 0:11:08'As we've seen through this series,
0:11:08 > 0:11:13'our industrialisation was really a long, slow progress over time.'
0:11:13 > 0:11:17They were working metals in the Black Country and Sheffield
0:11:17 > 0:11:19back in the 13th century.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22So if you're going to look for a catalyst for these great
0:11:22 > 0:11:25events in the early 18th century,
0:11:25 > 0:11:28how about not looking in England,
0:11:28 > 0:11:31but here in Wales?
0:11:31 > 0:11:36This is Swansea Bay and they'd been smelting metals here,
0:11:36 > 0:11:39especially copper, since the 1600s.
0:11:41 > 0:11:43It was out of these deeper roots that the great leap
0:11:43 > 0:11:46forward in history began.
0:11:46 > 0:11:48From a long crystallisation,
0:11:48 > 0:11:52new technologies would remake society, leading to
0:11:52 > 0:11:56the fateful transformation of humanity across the globe.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59As Wordsworth had said, "At social industry's command,
0:11:59 > 0:12:04"how quick and how vast an increase."
0:12:04 > 0:12:07And there was hope, too,
0:12:07 > 0:12:09to build Jerusalem
0:12:09 > 0:12:12in these dark, satanic mills.
0:12:20 > 0:12:25It's a new birthplace for the Industrial Revolution,
0:12:25 > 0:12:28here in the world's first industrial nation -
0:12:28 > 0:12:29Wales.
0:12:32 > 0:12:33Originally, the copper works
0:12:33 > 0:12:37were importing their ore from Cornwall.
0:12:37 > 0:12:40In the late 18th century, from North Wales as well,
0:12:40 > 0:12:42from the mines on Anglesey.
0:12:42 > 0:12:44But when those reserves ran out,
0:12:44 > 0:12:49they turned their sights to Cuba, to Chile, to south Australia
0:12:49 > 0:12:51and shipped in huge cargos of copper.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57Some of the big uses of copper that made the industry take off,
0:12:57 > 0:12:59first of all, the Royal Navy
0:12:59 > 0:13:02used copper for sheathing the hulls of ships
0:13:02 > 0:13:06to protect them from degradation when they were at sea for long voyages.
0:13:06 > 0:13:08Shortly after that,
0:13:08 > 0:13:13the development of coinage and the use of copper in coinage.
0:13:13 > 0:13:17The Birmingham manufacturers Matthew Boulton were producing coins
0:13:17 > 0:13:20and needed, you know, good supplies of copper,
0:13:20 > 0:13:22reliable supplies of copper.
0:13:24 > 0:13:29So at its height, the Swansea Valley must have been an amazing sight.
0:13:29 > 0:13:32It wouldn't have looked pretty, I think we can safely say.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34The coal industry, of course,
0:13:34 > 0:13:37was what made smelting so profitable in this area
0:13:37 > 0:13:40so the availability of large volumes of coal
0:13:40 > 0:13:43near the surface that could be mined and used for smelting.
0:13:43 > 0:13:47Copper smelting was closely followed by zinc works,
0:13:47 > 0:13:48there was lead smelting,
0:13:48 > 0:13:51- there were iron foundries. - So where there was muck,
0:13:51 > 0:13:54there literally was brass, as we say in Lancashire?
0:13:54 > 0:13:56Yes, and there was a fair bit of muck, I think,
0:13:56 > 0:13:57or at least a fair bit of smoke.
0:14:01 > 0:14:06As capitalism expanded, it co-opted the world for its workforce
0:14:06 > 0:14:08and it didn't care how it got them.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11The chains were both invisible and real.
0:14:12 > 0:14:14And one link in the chain
0:14:14 > 0:14:17was the biggest unspoken in British history, slavery.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23In the 18th century, two thirds of all British slaving ships
0:14:23 > 0:14:26were registered here in Liverpool.
0:14:26 > 0:14:32It was Liverpool that opened my eyes to the horror of slavery.
0:14:32 > 0:14:36It was the most horrific period in the history of this country.
0:14:43 > 0:14:45You go down the list, and Harry was 55,
0:14:45 > 0:14:47that turns your stomach a bit,
0:14:47 > 0:14:49or Mary was 10 years old, but when you get down
0:14:49 > 0:14:52to Grace, who's just six months, you think...
0:14:54 > 0:14:55It's important that we
0:14:55 > 0:15:00talk about Africans as Africans and not as slaves.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03The people they kidnapped were Africans, and they kidnapped them.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06In conservative figures,
0:15:06 > 0:15:0812 million people, 12 million!
0:15:09 > 0:15:14If you think of Liverpool just by itself, conservative figures say
0:15:14 > 0:15:17Liverpool merchants were responsible for 1.5 million
0:15:17 > 0:15:20of the 3 million slaves taken on British ships that made it,
0:15:20 > 0:15:22that were able to be counted at the end of the voyages.
0:15:24 > 0:15:28Liverpool is THE classic 18th century boomtown.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34I think it's about putting in perspective what our history is
0:15:34 > 0:15:36and telling the truth about it.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40I think it's Martin Luther King who said the truth will set us free
0:15:40 > 0:15:42and that's both for black and white people.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45So it's about putting the slave trade
0:15:45 > 0:15:49as one of the main events to help to shape
0:15:49 > 0:15:53during the period when we become the first world superpower.
0:15:57 > 0:15:59Liverpool has to be
0:15:59 > 0:16:02the most splendid setting of any British city.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05But unlike others - London, for example
0:16:05 > 0:16:07or Glasgow, Newcastle, even Manchester,
0:16:07 > 0:16:10Liverpool owed nothing to its medieval past.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13It's really a creation of the 18th century,
0:16:13 > 0:16:16of commerce in sugar, tobacco,
0:16:16 > 0:16:19textiles and, of course, slaves.
0:16:19 > 0:16:22"Liverpool is one of the wonders of Britain,"
0:16:22 > 0:16:25wrote Daniel Defoe in 1715
0:16:25 > 0:16:30"and what it may grow to in time I know not."
0:16:40 > 0:16:44So Britain was also transformed by the expansion of empire,
0:16:44 > 0:16:49through the slave triangle between Britain, Africa and the Americas...
0:16:50 > 0:16:52..but above all by India.
0:16:55 > 0:16:58Here, the Mughal Empire was in decline.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01Once a world power with a quarter of the world's GDP,
0:17:01 > 0:17:04in 1759 they were defeated
0:17:04 > 0:17:07by a mercenary army of Britain's East India Company.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09The story of how a trading company
0:17:09 > 0:17:13became the greatest empire that the world had ever seen
0:17:13 > 0:17:16is long and full of strange twists and turns.
0:17:18 > 0:17:20But the key thing to remember is this -
0:17:20 > 0:17:24the British, although a small nation, were a sea power
0:17:24 > 0:17:28and through the 17th century, established a series of bases
0:17:28 > 0:17:29around the shores of India.
0:17:31 > 0:17:36The key was here in the rich and populous lands of Bengal.
0:17:38 > 0:17:42The market they were after was textiles, and their chief factory,
0:17:42 > 0:17:46here by the banks of the Hooghly River, a tributary of the Ganges,
0:17:46 > 0:17:50the little village which would become the great city of Calcutta.
0:17:54 > 0:17:55CAR HORNS BLARE
0:17:55 > 0:18:00"I was born in the year 1757 in Norwich in the county of Norfolk.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03"My father was a blacksmith but drawn by desire to see the world,
0:18:03 > 0:18:05"I enlisted with the honourable East India Company."
0:18:09 > 0:18:12"My whole stock on board was the jacket and trousers I wore,
0:18:12 > 0:18:14"plus half a guinea from the company."
0:18:19 > 0:18:22"India is a land of thousands and thousands of merchants.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24"The abundance of very curious
0:18:24 > 0:18:26"and valuable manufacturers
0:18:26 > 0:18:29"is sufficient for the use of the whole globe."
0:18:33 > 0:18:37So the British people began to spread across the globe,
0:18:37 > 0:18:43sons of Cornish miners, Scottish crofters and Norfolk blacksmiths,
0:18:43 > 0:18:45taking the risk, the profit
0:18:45 > 0:18:47and the loss.
0:18:48 > 0:18:50"I'm exceedingly sorry to acquaint you
0:18:50 > 0:18:52"of my dear brother Patrick's death."
0:18:52 > 0:18:55"I cannot think of informing my dear father and mother.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59"Good God, what distresses are accumulated on their heads."
0:19:00 > 0:19:04Survive two monsoons, they said, and you had a chance.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07"Nothing could be more disagreeable
0:19:07 > 0:19:10"than the weather here at present. It is very hot,
0:19:10 > 0:19:12"with scarcely a breath of air."
0:19:12 > 0:19:16"But we cannot expect a good breeze until the monsoon changes."
0:19:27 > 0:19:28So the British people
0:19:28 > 0:19:31became part of a world system of commerce and industry -
0:19:31 > 0:19:34a system of their own devising.
0:19:37 > 0:19:42At home, their manufacturers invested in a new transport network
0:19:42 > 0:19:43to meet the challenge.
0:19:46 > 0:19:48This was the great age of canals,
0:19:48 > 0:19:52taking goods to and from the centres of manufacture.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57The Leeds and Liverpool, the Grand Union,
0:19:57 > 0:19:58the Forth and Clyde.
0:19:59 > 0:20:014,000 miles of canal
0:20:01 > 0:20:05were created in the 18th century by private companies,
0:20:05 > 0:20:10going right into the hearts of the new industrial cities.
0:20:13 > 0:20:18The canal age engineers also led technological innovation,
0:20:18 > 0:20:19especially the steam engine,
0:20:19 > 0:20:23invented in England in the early 18th century...
0:20:24 > 0:20:26..and perfected by James Watt.
0:20:26 > 0:20:30This is the oldest working steam engine in the world.
0:20:30 > 0:20:35It was put to work in May 1779.
0:20:36 > 0:20:37It was designed by James Watt,
0:20:37 > 0:20:43ordered from James Watt by the Birmingham Canal Company
0:20:43 > 0:20:46and used for recirculating water on the canals.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51It is, in engineering terms, maybe a bit over-designed
0:20:51 > 0:20:53but it'll survive.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06What steam did was allow you to have your factory
0:21:06 > 0:21:10convenient for your manufacture, convenient for your raw materials
0:21:10 > 0:21:13if there wasn't adequate water power available.
0:21:13 > 0:21:15It was a flexible source of power.
0:21:20 > 0:21:22One of the heartlands of the Industrial Revolution
0:21:22 > 0:21:24was Birmingham.
0:21:26 > 0:21:29A city of small workshops,
0:21:29 > 0:21:33there were over 500 different specialised trades and crafts here
0:21:33 > 0:21:36with an incredible range of skills.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43Nowhere in Europe or the Americas, it was said,
0:21:43 > 0:21:47lacked some product of the Birmingham manufacturer.
0:21:49 > 0:21:53Here gathered some of the most brilliant people of the time -
0:21:53 > 0:21:57the Lunar Men, blending the inherited skills of local craftsmen
0:21:57 > 0:21:59with a new imagination.
0:22:01 > 0:22:04Pioneers in chemistry, engineering and medicine,
0:22:04 > 0:22:07they were people with political and social ideals
0:22:07 > 0:22:09and scientific curiosity.
0:22:13 > 0:22:16Led by Matthew Boulton, the group cut across class,
0:22:16 > 0:22:20a key factor in Britain's leap ahead of the rest of the world.
0:22:21 > 0:22:25The Lunar Society, who met here at Soho house,
0:22:25 > 0:22:30they would take on subjects like philosophy, natural history,
0:22:30 > 0:22:32astronomy, physics,
0:22:32 > 0:22:34chemistry, medicine.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38They were also designing things, inventing things,
0:22:38 > 0:22:40and they began to take on philosophical questions
0:22:40 > 0:22:42as well, around the dinner table.
0:22:42 > 0:22:46So an astounding bunch. Hard to summarise them easily, really.
0:22:46 > 0:22:47And coming up from the grass roots.
0:22:47 > 0:22:51This is not given knowledge from the upper classes, is it?
0:22:51 > 0:22:56This is coming out of practical experience, manufacturing.
0:22:56 > 0:22:59I mean, Boulton had been on the shop floor.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03Yeah, absolutely. The son of a manufacturer, not a baronet.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08Joseph Priestly was the son of a Yorkshire wool dyer.
0:23:09 > 0:23:14Josiah Wedgwood was the 12th child of a master potter.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17James Watt was born on Clydeside,
0:23:17 > 0:23:19the son of a ship's chandler.
0:23:19 > 0:23:22Erasmus Darwin was the son of a Nottinghamshire lawyer.
0:23:22 > 0:23:24Matthew Boulton was the son
0:23:24 > 0:23:27of a Birmingham buckle-maker.
0:23:27 > 0:23:28And as Matthew Boulton said...
0:23:28 > 0:23:31"I sell here what the whole world desires -
0:23:31 > 0:23:33"power."
0:23:36 > 0:23:41And in the 18th century enlightenment, power was knowledge.
0:23:41 > 0:23:45Here in Armagh, the public library was founded in 1771
0:23:45 > 0:23:50by an English clergyman as part of a plan to found a university here.
0:23:53 > 0:23:56Hi, Carol. Just looking at your treasures here.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59- Incredible.- Yes.- Beautiful edition, isn't it, of Voltaire?
0:23:59 > 0:24:01Well, I was keen for you to see this,
0:24:01 > 0:24:04one of Robinson's own books which he chose to donate to us.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08And there you see his book plate.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11- Philosophical dictionary of Voltaire.- Yes.- In French.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13And although he's a churchman,
0:24:13 > 0:24:17- the works of the great sceptic. - Exactly.- Isn't that great?
0:24:17 > 0:24:20Many people think because he was a clergyman,
0:24:20 > 0:24:23that this library must only have books on theology
0:24:23 > 0:24:26and I would always be very keen to explain
0:24:26 > 0:24:27it's a breadth of subjects
0:24:27 > 0:24:30because, of course, it was to be a university library
0:24:30 > 0:24:33so Robinson was buying very, very widely in his choice
0:24:33 > 0:24:38and he wanted there to be a second university in the island of Ireland.
0:24:38 > 0:24:40So he chose Armagh.
0:24:40 > 0:24:44It's astonishing to encounter a library from the 18th century,
0:24:44 > 0:24:47school from the 18th century, an observatory from the 18th century.
0:24:47 > 0:24:50It's as if there's another story to Armagh
0:24:50 > 0:24:53which isn't just St Patrick, is it? This is the enlightenment city.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56Yes, I love to think that he was looking at that
0:24:56 > 0:25:00and thinking, "Let's build on that." Yes, there have been centuries go by
0:25:00 > 0:25:02where there wasn't that sort of success
0:25:02 > 0:25:04but look what he was doing now in the 18th century
0:25:04 > 0:25:06and looking at the age of enlightenment,
0:25:06 > 0:25:08all that was happening throughout Europe
0:25:08 > 0:25:11and I love the idea he didn't want Ireland to be left out of that
0:25:11 > 0:25:14and he didn't want Armagh to be left out of that.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17So even though he was an Englishman, I think he was great!
0:25:24 > 0:25:30This is the Troughton Equatorial Telescope, manufactured in 1795.
0:25:30 > 0:25:33Quite a small telescope by modern standards, of course.
0:25:34 > 0:25:39It's the oldest telescope in the UK still in its original housing.
0:25:39 > 0:25:43You can still see through it. That's the original lens at the other end?
0:25:43 > 0:25:44That's right, yes, it is.
0:25:46 > 0:25:50The universe was literally opening up before their eyes,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53old certainties replaced by new questions.
0:25:56 > 0:26:00Through newspapers, books and learned societies,
0:26:00 > 0:26:03these ideas passed into mainstream British society -
0:26:03 > 0:26:06science, geology, evolution,
0:26:06 > 0:26:08and through them,
0:26:08 > 0:26:12reflections on the place of humanity itself in the cosmos,
0:26:12 > 0:26:15the very idea of universal human rights.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19Josiah Wedgwood was in the anti-slavery movement
0:26:19 > 0:26:23alongside black Britons like Olaudah Equiano.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31But once technology drives social change, there's no looking back.
0:26:31 > 0:26:35If you travelled across Britain in the last years of the 18th century,
0:26:35 > 0:26:39you would have seen the signs everywhere in every region
0:26:39 > 0:26:44of the accelerating transformation of societies and cultures,
0:26:44 > 0:26:49as a still predominantly agricultural population
0:26:49 > 0:26:52became an industrial urbanised workforce,
0:26:52 > 0:26:56a wage-earning landless proletariat.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00Nowhere was untouched, from the booming industrial cities
0:27:00 > 0:27:04to traditional, isolated rural communities
0:27:04 > 0:27:07in the farthest reaches of the British isles.
0:27:09 > 0:27:11Out in the Scottish highlands,
0:27:11 > 0:27:15after the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745,
0:27:15 > 0:27:17the rural poor went through a painful uprooting -
0:27:17 > 0:27:19the Highland Clearances.
0:27:24 > 0:27:29Recently, the Scottish Rural History Project has begun mapping villages
0:27:29 > 0:27:31depopulated in the 18th and 19th centuries.
0:27:37 > 0:27:41The Highland Clearances were carried out by hereditary landowners.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44People were driven out, their villages abandoned
0:27:44 > 0:27:46and their sites forgotten.
0:27:46 > 0:27:49Gavin and myself went on a two-day training course
0:27:49 > 0:27:52and were taught how to do surveys using a plane table,
0:27:52 > 0:27:56how to use a GPS and photography.
0:27:58 > 0:28:00And after that two-day course,
0:28:00 > 0:28:03then we just came back and started surveying.
0:28:03 > 0:28:06Between 1700 and 1850,
0:28:06 > 0:28:09a way of life lived here since prehistory largely vanished.
0:28:09 > 0:28:13I suddenly realised that the landscape was full of archaeology
0:28:13 > 0:28:16and we'd been walking here for years.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21We walked past this and it just looked like a lump of a hill
0:28:21 > 0:28:25but with that training, we could see it wasn't just a lump of hill.
0:28:25 > 0:28:27It was part of the history of the landscape.
0:28:30 > 0:28:33- What do you prefer? - What are my options?- You hold a pole
0:28:33 > 0:28:36or you're at the table here.
0:28:36 > 0:28:40This township above Camus Croise had 50 families,
0:28:40 > 0:28:43300 people who went in a few years in the 19th century
0:28:43 > 0:28:48to work in the pits and factories of Glasgow and in Australia and Canada.
0:28:48 > 0:28:52Only the foundations are left below the bracken.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55What the team are discovering
0:28:55 > 0:28:58is the down side of the Industrial Revolution.
0:28:58 > 0:29:01One of the countless rural communities
0:29:01 > 0:29:05across the British isles and Ireland that suffered a similar fate.
0:29:06 > 0:29:08People who had lived the subsistence life
0:29:08 > 0:29:12of our upland and island ancestors since prehistory.
0:29:14 > 0:29:17Yep. The one thing there isn't here,
0:29:17 > 0:29:19quite often you find a midden at the front.
0:29:19 > 0:29:21OK, so we can do the doorway now.
0:29:22 > 0:29:26There's a wall creating an enclosure for vegetables
0:29:26 > 0:29:28and stacking the corn.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31Over there, there's a little, very small building
0:29:31 > 0:29:34that was either for storing hay or potatoes.
0:29:34 > 0:29:38And then just over there, there's what I reckon is a cattle fold.
0:29:41 > 0:29:43They maybe had a boat. You can see
0:29:43 > 0:29:46there's a good little bay just down there.
0:29:46 > 0:29:49- The first doorway is here.- Oh, right. So it's really far up the end?
0:29:49 > 0:29:52- And the wall's a metre thick. - Right.- So inside...
0:29:52 > 0:29:54So because it has two doors,
0:29:54 > 0:29:57they would have had the animals in one end
0:29:57 > 0:29:59so it's not a big area for so many people.
0:29:59 > 0:30:03- What's the size of it? How many metres long?- 12.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06- 12 metres by...- 12 metres by...
0:30:06 > 0:30:08- about four.- Four metres
0:30:08 > 0:30:11and half of that would have been occupied by cattle.
0:30:11 > 0:30:14We found about 40 habitable...
0:30:14 > 0:30:17well, what would have been habitable buildings, here in Barabhaig
0:30:17 > 0:30:19and it's now completely empty.
0:30:19 > 0:30:21This huge area that had 40 or 50 families living there,
0:30:21 > 0:30:25- possibly...- Yeah, depopulated. - Completely empty.
0:30:27 > 0:30:32# Far an d'fhuair mi greis dhe m'arach... #
0:30:32 > 0:30:34So from the 18th century, the story
0:30:34 > 0:30:38for the inhabitants of the Highlands and islands was emigration -
0:30:38 > 0:30:41to industrial Scotland, to Australia and to the Americas.
0:30:41 > 0:30:46# 'N uair a bhiodh na h-armuinn cruinn
0:30:48 > 0:30:52# Far am biodh na h-oighean guanach... #
0:30:52 > 0:30:56'It's a song called Thoir Mo Shoraidh Thar An t-Saile,'
0:30:56 > 0:31:00one of the hundreds of songs that refer to emigration.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03# Agus bodaich coire... #
0:31:03 > 0:31:07All these songs have the same feeling of deep sadness
0:31:07 > 0:31:09and of separation from their people
0:31:09 > 0:31:12and from the land where they grew up.
0:31:12 > 0:31:16# Far am faighte crodh... #
0:31:16 > 0:31:18But in this particular song, they sing that
0:31:18 > 0:31:20hopefully, the wheel has turned now,
0:31:20 > 0:31:23the landlords will be not tolerated
0:31:23 > 0:31:26if they don't play fairly with people.
0:31:37 > 0:31:41And up here, migration is in everybody's family story.
0:31:41 > 0:31:44Cathy MacAskill from Govan in Glasgow
0:31:44 > 0:31:47has come back to Skye to pursue her own family journey.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52Ship-builders on the Clyde in more recent times,
0:31:52 > 0:31:55her ancestors were Gaelic speakers from Skye.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02Cathy's come back here to trace the story.
0:32:02 > 0:32:06- It's a very remote area, isn't it? - It's quite remote!
0:32:06 > 0:32:11I'd imagine in the winter, it would be a bleak place to live in
0:32:11 > 0:32:13and then if they lived off the land,
0:32:13 > 0:32:15they would be out in this all the time.
0:32:20 > 0:32:25Looking at it from nowadays, however bleak it seems to us,
0:32:25 > 0:32:28this was where they were born and brought up,
0:32:28 > 0:32:31so they'd have a more emotional pull to here
0:32:31 > 0:32:34and they would have seen this in a different light, probably,
0:32:34 > 0:32:36to what I see it in.
0:32:45 > 0:32:48To understand these vast social changes,
0:32:48 > 0:32:52the government undertook huge statistical enquiries
0:32:52 > 0:32:56- into the state of the poor. - The great thing about Scotland
0:32:56 > 0:33:00is that they have something called the Statistical Account
0:33:00 > 0:33:04and the first one was produced in the 1790s.
0:33:04 > 0:33:09Sir John Sinclair, he wrote to every single parish minister in Scotland
0:33:09 > 0:33:14and asked them to fill in a questionnaire, 160 questions
0:33:14 > 0:33:17so you can imagine what that would be like
0:33:17 > 0:33:19- landing on your desk!- Not good.
0:33:19 > 0:33:23But even so, he got over half of the parish ministers replying.
0:33:23 > 0:33:27- This is the Bracadale.- Here, Cathy's hoping to find her ancestors.
0:33:28 > 0:33:32And he talked about the poverty of the people
0:33:32 > 0:33:34and how some had hardly any clothes
0:33:34 > 0:33:36and they couldn't do this and they couldn't do that
0:33:36 > 0:33:38because of their poverty.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41"Regarding their comforts as to clothing,
0:33:41 > 0:33:43"it may be sufficient to mention
0:33:43 > 0:33:47"there were 140 families found in the parish
0:33:47 > 0:33:50"who had no change of night or day clothes.
0:33:50 > 0:33:53"From the above remarks as to food and clothing,
0:33:53 > 0:33:57"it must appear evident that the people are far from enjoying
0:33:57 > 0:33:59"the ordinary comforts of society
0:33:59 > 0:34:02"and if their complaints are not more loudly heard,
0:34:02 > 0:34:06"one great reason is that the system of farming pursued
0:34:06 > 0:34:09"has placed them in such absolute dependence on the tackmen
0:34:09 > 0:34:12"as to preclude any hope of amelioration."
0:34:14 > 0:34:16He's writing this in something that's going to be published
0:34:16 > 0:34:20and he's really saying it quite strongly.
0:34:20 > 0:34:23- So he could lose his job? - He could, perhaps, yeah.
0:34:23 > 0:34:24But who owned the land?
0:34:24 > 0:34:28- Who was the actual...?- McLeod owned the land.- He owned all of it?
0:34:28 > 0:34:32But it had been let out on a tack, which is a lease.
0:34:32 > 0:34:35- And that was the MacAskills', was it?- Yes.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38It's the tacksmen doing the clearing as opposed to the landlord.
0:34:38 > 0:34:41These tacksmen decided that
0:34:41 > 0:34:46you could get more money for renting a farm to a single sheep farmer
0:34:46 > 0:34:49rather than a group of crofters
0:34:49 > 0:34:51and so the area would be cleared.
0:34:53 > 0:34:57Cathy's ancestor, it turned out, had worked as an agent of the landlords.
0:34:59 > 0:35:02"He cleared Carbost Beg for himself
0:35:02 > 0:35:05"for the purpose of erecting a distillery in Carbost."
0:35:05 > 0:35:10"The same widow's daughter told me she saw her father's corn
0:35:10 > 0:35:14"shovelled out into the river when seeking a place for the distillery."
0:35:15 > 0:35:16Yeah.
0:35:18 > 0:35:20That can't come of MacAskills.
0:35:20 > 0:35:22LAUGHTER
0:35:22 > 0:35:24I hope not! I hope not.
0:35:29 > 0:35:33So the transforming powers of industry and capitalism
0:35:33 > 0:35:36reached the farthest corners of Britain.
0:35:39 > 0:35:43In the 19th century, in the last stages of their existence,
0:35:43 > 0:35:46the old ways of life were documented in reports and photographs
0:35:46 > 0:35:49in the same way that they recorded primitive tribes
0:35:49 > 0:35:51in the remotest parts of the world.
0:35:52 > 0:35:55By then, the British people and their way of life
0:35:55 > 0:35:57had changed forever.
0:36:02 > 0:36:06For several million people through the Industrial Revolution,
0:36:06 > 0:36:08the only way out was emigration.
0:36:11 > 0:36:13Take the real-life Downton in Wiltshire.
0:36:16 > 0:36:19In the 1830s, with rural employment collapsed,
0:36:19 > 0:36:22the village hired a ship to cross the Atlantic...
0:36:24 > 0:36:27..so that the young and the poor could settle in Canada.
0:36:30 > 0:36:33"Notice is hereby given that all fathers of families
0:36:33 > 0:36:36"and all single persons who wish to emigrate to Canada
0:36:36 > 0:36:38"are to attend a meeting tomorrow
0:36:38 > 0:36:40"at three o'clock at the church
0:36:40 > 0:36:43"for the purpose of securing their passage."
0:36:49 > 0:36:55In August 1836, the King William took 279 people
0:36:55 > 0:37:00from Downton and its neighbours to a new life on the Great Lakes
0:37:00 > 0:37:04with help from the impoverished community that they left behind.
0:37:07 > 0:37:11"For the use of the poor about to emigrate from Downton Parish,
0:37:11 > 0:37:14"25 pairs of men's shoes to lace,
0:37:14 > 0:37:16"25 pairs of women's shoes,
0:37:16 > 0:37:18"100 girls' and boys' shoes
0:37:18 > 0:37:21"from three years old to 15."
0:37:28 > 0:37:32The Downton migration came at a time of acute tension in the countryside.
0:37:32 > 0:37:36The increasing mechanisation of agriculture
0:37:36 > 0:37:39had driven many of the traditional rural workforce out of work
0:37:39 > 0:37:41and off the land.
0:37:47 > 0:37:50The enclosure of common fields everywhere
0:37:50 > 0:37:51was depriving the poor of work
0:37:51 > 0:37:54and of their traditional share in the land.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58In the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire,
0:37:58 > 0:38:02the resistance of the Free Miners to attacks on their rights
0:38:02 > 0:38:04is still remembered today.
0:38:04 > 0:38:06It wasn't like agricultural enclosure,
0:38:06 > 0:38:09but actually, these enclosures were put up for the growth of trees
0:38:09 > 0:38:12so it's a slightly different story in the Forest of Dean,
0:38:12 > 0:38:16but it was happening all over the country at that time.
0:38:18 > 0:38:21Their leader was a miner called Warren James.
0:38:24 > 0:38:27The whole bone of contention was that the Crown said
0:38:27 > 0:38:30that after so many years, the enclosure would be thrown open
0:38:30 > 0:38:33because the trees would be above where the animals could damage them.
0:38:33 > 0:38:37Now, despite various petitions to London and to Parliament,
0:38:37 > 0:38:39they refused to reopen the enclosures
0:38:39 > 0:38:42and that was really where the trouble started.
0:38:43 > 0:38:46Warren encouraged people then to take things into their own hands
0:38:46 > 0:38:50and to throw the enclosures down and fill in the ditches
0:38:50 > 0:38:54and that's where the 1831 rising stemmed from.
0:38:59 > 0:39:01Warren James, he was a miner,
0:39:01 > 0:39:04a Free Miner. He would have worked in a pit exactly the same as this,
0:39:04 > 0:39:07very similar to the way we work today.
0:39:07 > 0:39:09Actually, Warren ended up
0:39:09 > 0:39:14on the same trip as a lot of the Swing rioters and Luddites
0:39:14 > 0:39:18that went out to Tasmania at the same time.
0:39:18 > 0:39:20He was in the same boat, so to speak.
0:39:26 > 0:39:29In the 1830s, there were rural riots right across England,
0:39:29 > 0:39:33protesting against increased mechanisation and unemployment.
0:39:33 > 0:39:37These were the last of the peasants' revolts.
0:39:37 > 0:39:39In the South and the Southwest,
0:39:39 > 0:39:43they were led by the legendary, and fictitious, Captain Swing.
0:39:47 > 0:39:51In Swing's name, the protesters issued their letters and threats
0:39:51 > 0:39:53to the hated landowners.
0:39:53 > 0:39:56"Revenge for thee is on the wing,
0:39:56 > 0:39:59"from thy determined Captain Swing."
0:40:00 > 0:40:06"Sir, your name is down amongst the black hearts in the black book.
0:40:06 > 0:40:09"This is to advise you, and the like of you, to make your wills.
0:40:11 > 0:40:13"You have not yet done as you ought."
0:40:23 > 0:40:26Faced with the threat of starvation or transportation,
0:40:26 > 0:40:30the rural workforce's only course was to organise into unions.
0:40:30 > 0:40:34DRUMMING AND WHISTLING
0:40:38 > 0:40:40BRASS BAND PLAYS
0:40:40 > 0:40:42And the most famous union in our history
0:40:42 > 0:40:46was formed in Dorset in the 1830s.
0:40:46 > 0:40:49BRASS BAND PLAYS
0:40:52 > 0:40:57The Tolpuddle Martyrs - still a landmark in British labour history.
0:40:59 > 0:41:03During the Napoleonic wars, the conditions of the workforce
0:41:03 > 0:41:06in the countryside had really declined gravely
0:41:06 > 0:41:10with growing mechanisation, surplus labour and so on.
0:41:10 > 0:41:14But with the lifting of the laws against assembly in 1825,
0:41:14 > 0:41:18what we would call trade union movement, was possible.
0:41:18 > 0:41:21And in 1832,
0:41:21 > 0:41:25only two years after the great rising of Captain Swing,
0:41:25 > 0:41:28a group of six Dorset men formed
0:41:28 > 0:41:31the Friendly Society Of Agricultural Labourers
0:41:31 > 0:41:36to protest against the decline in agricultural workers' wages.
0:41:36 > 0:41:41Only six men, but nobody could have guessed where it would lead.
0:41:41 > 0:41:46# Union forever defending our rights
0:41:46 > 0:41:50# Down with the blackleg all workers unite
0:41:50 > 0:41:53# With our brothers and our sisters... #
0:41:53 > 0:41:55Convicted for forming a union,
0:41:55 > 0:41:58the martyrs were transported to Tasmania,
0:41:58 > 0:42:02but public outcry saw them returned as heroes.
0:42:02 > 0:42:06THEY SING
0:42:10 > 0:42:13It's a reminder that the rights of the British people were not
0:42:13 > 0:42:17handed down from on high, but won by the people themselves -
0:42:17 > 0:42:18at a cost.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21# The watchword liberty
0:42:21 > 0:42:26# We will, we will, we will be free. #
0:42:30 > 0:42:34I lay this wreath on behalf of the TUC and the trade unionists
0:42:34 > 0:42:39of today, who continue to be inspired by the courage
0:42:39 > 0:42:42that was shown by James Hammett and the other Tolpuddle Martyrs.
0:42:42 > 0:42:45I lay this wreath on behalf of the rural and agricultural
0:42:45 > 0:42:47members of Unite
0:42:47 > 0:42:51at a time when rural and agricultural workers are under attack again.
0:42:51 > 0:42:53I lay this wreath on behalf
0:42:53 > 0:42:57of the International Trade Union Confederation.
0:42:57 > 0:43:00I lay this wreath on behalf of our youth and the future.
0:43:00 > 0:43:03And for James Hammett's descendants
0:43:03 > 0:43:07this history is also a family affair.
0:43:07 > 0:43:11# Starve all our children
0:43:11 > 0:43:14# In chains they can bind us
0:43:14 > 0:43:17# And steal all our land
0:43:17 > 0:43:21# They can mock our religion
0:43:21 > 0:43:24# From our families divide us
0:43:24 > 0:43:28# But they can't break the oath
0:43:28 > 0:43:32# Of a Tolpuddle man
0:43:32 > 0:43:37# No they can't break the oath
0:43:37 > 0:43:43# Of a Tolpuddle man. #
0:43:46 > 0:43:47I'll never forget the night that I found out.
0:43:47 > 0:43:52I just kept repeating it over and over. "I can't believe this.".
0:43:52 > 0:43:54"Phil, look at this. I can't believe this."
0:43:54 > 0:43:56Did you know the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs
0:43:56 > 0:43:58before you ever knew about your connection?
0:43:58 > 0:44:01No and it's quite shocking because I was brought up in Dorset.
0:44:01 > 0:44:04I went to school in Shaftesbury.
0:44:04 > 0:44:10If it wasn't for the unions at that time, he'd never have come home
0:44:10 > 0:44:13and we wouldn't be here.
0:44:13 > 0:44:18- So it really is that important. - For you!- Absolutely, yes.
0:44:24 > 0:44:27In the years after the Napoleonic wars,
0:44:27 > 0:44:31the British working class had also begun to mobilise
0:44:31 > 0:44:34in the industrial cities for fair wages,
0:44:34 > 0:44:38for franchise and even women's rights.
0:44:39 > 0:44:43The key turning point had come in 1819
0:44:43 > 0:44:47with an attack by an armed militia on a crowd of 60,000 people
0:44:47 > 0:44:50demonstrating for workers' rights.
0:44:50 > 0:44:55The Peterloo massacre inspired new forms of social action.
0:44:55 > 0:44:56"Shake off your chains",
0:44:56 > 0:44:59the poet Shelley said to the British people,
0:44:59 > 0:45:03"You are many and they are few."
0:45:07 > 0:45:12And it happened in the shock city of age - Manchester.
0:45:12 > 0:45:16The city was the phenomenon of the age and famous writers
0:45:16 > 0:45:20and journalists and novelists came here to see the future -
0:45:20 > 0:45:22the world's first industrial city.
0:45:22 > 0:45:25When the great French commentator Alexis de Tocqueville came here
0:45:25 > 0:45:29in 1835, he was just appalled by what he saw,
0:45:29 > 0:45:30the sheer anarchy of it.
0:45:30 > 0:45:34"No sign of the directing hand of society", he said.
0:45:36 > 0:45:40"Here modern civilisation works its miracles
0:45:40 > 0:45:44"and modern man is turned back into a savage."
0:45:51 > 0:45:56Manchester just exploded as a centre of commerce.
0:45:56 > 0:45:58All these people were flooding in from the countryside
0:45:58 > 0:46:00over from Ireland particularly, when the potato famine hit
0:46:00 > 0:46:05Ireland in the 1830s, so they built the world's first industrial suburbs.
0:46:06 > 0:46:09And the most famous slum of the industrial age -
0:46:09 > 0:46:13Angel Meadow - is now being uncovered by the archaeologists.
0:46:15 > 0:46:19These little workers housing, back-to-back rows,
0:46:19 > 0:46:22they could pack the housing in really tight.
0:46:22 > 0:46:24These were dark, dingy places.
0:46:24 > 0:46:27We can see clearly today, very damp,
0:46:27 > 0:46:30no ventilation, no light.
0:46:30 > 0:46:32Each floor was a separate family unit, so one family
0:46:32 > 0:46:34would have the cellar,
0:46:34 > 0:46:36a slightly better-off family would have the ground-floor
0:46:36 > 0:46:40- and another family would have the first floor. - How would they have toilets?
0:46:40 > 0:46:44Those early stages, there'd probably be one privy
0:46:44 > 0:46:48in a yard, shared between five to ten houses, each with three families
0:46:48 > 0:46:52in each house, so you'd probably have one toilet for about 100 people.
0:46:55 > 0:46:57The most famous account from the time was written by Friedrich Engels
0:46:57 > 0:47:02who shone a powerful light on the ravages of industrial capitalism
0:47:02 > 0:47:04which attracted the greatest philosopher of the age -
0:47:04 > 0:47:07Karl Marx.
0:47:09 > 0:47:13Engels had already brought out The Condition Of The Working Class
0:47:13 > 0:47:17and Marx came up to work with Engels.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20The idea was that Engels would support Marx.
0:47:20 > 0:47:24He worked so that Marx didn't have to and Marx could write.
0:47:24 > 0:47:26Marx was really an academic.
0:47:26 > 0:47:29He gets his head down and that's all he does all day.
0:47:29 > 0:47:30A driven intellectual, isn't he?
0:47:30 > 0:47:34Would Marx have actually seen things outside his window here?
0:47:34 > 0:47:36He would have had to, even just walking
0:47:36 > 0:47:40from here to the train station, or to wherever they were staying.
0:47:40 > 0:47:42This was at the time really one of the shock areas
0:47:42 > 0:47:46in Manchester along with Little Ireland -
0:47:46 > 0:47:48Angel Meadow - this was a shocking area.
0:47:48 > 0:47:51Together they ploughed through the great government statistical
0:47:51 > 0:47:55enquiries, trying to understand the effect of the capitalist
0:47:55 > 0:47:58system on humanity.
0:47:58 > 0:48:01They look at society in detail and they amass data as well
0:48:01 > 0:48:03and statistics is perfect for them.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13Engels' insights came from his own experience,
0:48:13 > 0:48:14walking the streets of Manchester.
0:48:28 > 0:48:32"The lowest, most filthy, most unhealthy
0:48:32 > 0:48:38"and most wicked locality in Manchester is called Angel Meadow."
0:48:40 > 0:48:45"If one wants to see in how little space a human being can move,
0:48:45 > 0:48:47"how little air he can breathe...
0:48:48 > 0:48:52"..it is only necessary to travel here."
0:48:58 > 0:49:03This is where Engels came in 1844, led by his lover, Mary Burns,
0:49:03 > 0:49:05the Irish patriot who was his guide,
0:49:05 > 0:49:08the Virgil to his Dante, taking him
0:49:08 > 0:49:15on this journey into the inferno, the underworld of the Victorian age.
0:49:19 > 0:49:21Here in 30 squalid acres,
0:49:21 > 0:49:27lived 30,000 poor workers from Britain, Ireland and further afield.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31Most peoples ancestors were in this immediate area?
0:49:31 > 0:49:36- ALL: Yes. - 1830.- In 1830?
0:49:36 > 0:49:401830, came across from Ireland, they were living in a cellar dwelling
0:49:40 > 0:49:44and they were still there on the 1851 census.
0:49:45 > 0:49:501855 from Germany and he was a musician.
0:49:52 > 0:49:54Which seems a bit out of step with the area.
0:49:54 > 0:49:57Really, when they described it as,
0:49:57 > 0:50:00"the lowest of the low lived here".
0:50:00 > 0:50:02That's what Frederick Engels said.
0:50:04 > 0:50:07The absolute poverty and the contrast
0:50:07 > 0:50:12between, obviously Britain thriving as an industrial power
0:50:12 > 0:50:18on the backs and sweat of its people, it's quite upsetting really.
0:50:25 > 0:50:31Engels was convinced revolution was inevitable and would happen soon,
0:50:31 > 0:50:34that the British working class as a whole would rise up
0:50:34 > 0:50:36and overthrow the system.
0:50:36 > 0:50:40Of course, it didn't happen and it didn't happen,
0:50:40 > 0:50:42as Engels himself later recognised,
0:50:42 > 0:50:46because the working class here were able to gain a share,
0:50:46 > 0:50:51a share of the profits of their labours and of the Empire.
0:50:54 > 0:50:59From the 1850s, Victorian England entered an incredible phase
0:50:59 > 0:51:04of social progress that really made us what we are today.
0:51:04 > 0:51:08And the key to it was local government.
0:51:08 > 0:51:13The mosaic on the floor, busy bees, a symbol of Manchester.
0:51:13 > 0:51:15It's just fabulous, isn't it?
0:51:15 > 0:51:20Only 40 years after de Tocqueville's terrifying vision of the brutality
0:51:20 > 0:51:24and squalor of the streets of the town,
0:51:24 > 0:51:28with no sign of the guiding power of society,
0:51:28 > 0:51:31and now there's this.
0:51:34 > 0:51:38Here was directing power writ large.
0:51:38 > 0:51:41Manchester Town Hall is a cathedral of civic order.
0:51:41 > 0:51:46The industrial revolution may have caused massive social problems
0:51:46 > 0:51:49but they were confident in their ability to solve them.
0:51:51 > 0:51:54The city fathers, the Corporation commissioned these paintings
0:51:54 > 0:51:57from a famous painter of the day, Ford Maddox Brown.
0:51:57 > 0:52:01And they're a kind of semi-mythical history of Manchester,
0:52:01 > 0:52:07the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings,
0:52:07 > 0:52:11and then all the way round through the civil war to the industrial age.
0:52:16 > 0:52:17As the Manchester Guardian said,
0:52:17 > 0:52:22it's "a visible reminder to all citizens of the labours
0:52:22 > 0:52:27"and the responsibilities of the community to which they belong."
0:52:31 > 0:52:34In the last decades of the Victorian age,
0:52:34 > 0:52:39the British people saw tremendous social progress through civic government.
0:52:40 > 0:52:43And the machine did indeed become a source of liberation,
0:52:48 > 0:52:53with trains even to take the workers on the great British summer holiday.
0:52:59 > 0:53:04In a mere 50 years, Education and Health Acts raised the children
0:53:04 > 0:53:07of the poor of Angel Meadow out of their poverty.
0:53:15 > 0:53:18The workers in the mills and factories,
0:53:18 > 0:53:23though not yet with a vote at the ballot box, enjoyed better housing and sanitation.
0:53:26 > 0:53:31The establishment of police forces removed the anarchy de Tocqueville had seen in Manchester.
0:53:40 > 0:53:42There was much to celebrate.
0:53:44 > 0:53:48At the opening of this great town hall in 1877,
0:53:48 > 0:53:52the key speech was made by John Bright,
0:53:52 > 0:53:57famous anti-Corn Law agitator, free-trader.
0:53:57 > 0:54:00The Victorians' achievements in local government,
0:54:00 > 0:54:05he said, would be talked about in generations, indeed in centuries.
0:54:06 > 0:54:09But he added a note of caution.
0:54:09 > 0:54:13He asked his audience here to imagine a time in the future
0:54:13 > 0:54:16when this great building was in ruins.
0:54:18 > 0:54:23"We must be aware," he said, and you can imagine it in his rich,
0:54:23 > 0:54:28rolling, Rochdale 'R's, "but great cities have risen before in history,"
0:54:28 > 0:54:34before Manchester and Liverpool, the symbols of his age,
0:54:34 > 0:54:39"so we must not for a moment imagine that we stand upon
0:54:39 > 0:54:45"a foundation which is absolutely sure and absolutely immovable."
0:54:49 > 0:54:52As Bright spoke, there was a shadow on the horizon.
0:54:52 > 0:54:55The world was already catching up.
0:54:55 > 0:54:58The new industrial powers of the USA and Germany.
0:54:58 > 0:55:02In the 1870s came the first Great Depression,
0:55:02 > 0:55:05the first crisis of capitalism.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09And in Britain, this triggered another wave of emigration.
0:55:16 > 0:55:18# Follow me down... #
0:55:18 > 0:55:22With all their skills, the Cornish and the Irish,
0:55:22 > 0:55:25the Welsh and the Ulstermen, Scots and English,
0:55:25 > 0:55:30had each created their own Empire of labour, mining and engineering.
0:55:30 > 0:55:34And now they began to migrate once more,
0:55:34 > 0:55:37as if it was a condition of the British story.
0:55:37 > 0:55:41# And our tongue is no longer spoken
0:55:41 > 0:55:44# These towns are a round-faced ruin. #
0:55:44 > 0:55:47I wanted to write about where I was from.
0:55:47 > 0:55:50# Will there be work in New Brunswick? #
0:55:50 > 0:55:52And there's nothing bigger than the emigration
0:55:52 > 0:55:54of hundreds of thousands of people.
0:55:56 > 0:55:58# If I tunnel way down... #
0:55:58 > 0:56:01You worked your passage because in theory there were always jobs
0:56:01 > 0:56:03for deep rock miners all around the world
0:56:03 > 0:56:06and the Cornish were extremely good at digging very difficult mines.
0:56:06 > 0:56:11# Where there's a mine or a hole in the ground
0:56:11 > 0:56:14# That's where I'm heading for. #
0:56:14 > 0:56:17It's true of Australia, it's true of South America, North America.
0:56:17 > 0:56:20Whatever there is mining, you will find Cornish people.
0:56:20 > 0:56:23# And I'm not coming back
0:56:23 > 0:56:27# So follow me down, Cousin Jack. #
0:56:28 > 0:56:31This is the album of the Veale family,
0:56:33 > 0:56:35a mining engineer called Jervis Veale.
0:56:35 > 0:56:37And this is the album that he kept
0:56:37 > 0:56:42when he journeyed all over the world as a mining engineer.
0:56:42 > 0:56:45He went to some extraordinary places. Here he is in South Africa.
0:56:45 > 0:56:47God, that's Cecil Rhodes there, isn't it?
0:56:47 > 0:56:49That is Cecil Rhodes, indeed it is.
0:56:49 > 0:56:53We think this is Jervis Veale here, so they moved, some of them,
0:56:53 > 0:56:56in high circles. And then he goes off to Argentina.
0:56:56 > 0:57:01This is in fact a little earlier, this is 1888. So he's a busy boy.
0:57:01 > 0:57:03He goes around the planet.
0:57:03 > 0:57:07So David, have we got any sense of how many people
0:57:07 > 0:57:09migrated from Cornwall in the 19th century,
0:57:09 > 0:57:11say up to the First World War?
0:57:11 > 0:57:13It's quite a difficult question to answer,
0:57:13 > 0:57:18but you can say that several teens of thousands went.
0:57:18 > 0:57:23The population of Cornwall in 1861 was bigger than 1961.
0:57:26 > 0:57:29Since the 1700s, the British people had lived through
0:57:29 > 0:57:32an adventure unparalleled in history.
0:57:32 > 0:57:38They'd made their country the workshop of the world, and for good or ill, created a great empire.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42And I love the way it starts, because it says "Out on the ocean deep sailing.
0:57:42 > 0:57:44And he spells sailing "C-E-A-L-I-N-G".
0:57:47 > 0:57:50"This morning, me and a Welsh chap was up on deck walking about
0:57:50 > 0:57:54"and forgot the breakfast until it was too late.
0:57:54 > 0:57:57"About 10 in the morning, we had preaching along with an English chap
0:57:57 > 0:58:01"called Burriss from Quenchwell," which was another Cornish village.
0:58:02 > 0:58:07Resilient, inventive, adaptable, they'd made our modern world.
0:58:10 > 0:58:13And the daughter and the captain
0:58:13 > 0:58:16could force them to dance every night.
0:58:16 > 0:58:17Force them?!
0:58:19 > 0:58:25But little did they know what lay in store for them in the 20th century.
0:58:25 > 0:58:30# Somewhere over the rainbow
0:58:32 > 0:58:36# Bluebirds fly
0:58:36 > 0:58:41# And the dreams that you dreamed of
0:58:41 > 0:58:46# Dreams really do come true
0:58:47 > 0:58:50# Oh-oh-oh
0:58:50 > 0:58:53# Someday I'll wish upon a star
0:58:53 > 0:58:55# Wake up where the clouds
0:58:55 > 0:58:57# Are far behind. #