- há 1 dia
Categoria
📚
AprendizadoTranscrição
00:00:02just imagine you had all the money in the world while your poor neighbor down
00:00:08the road is struggling to make ends meet in this series I'm teaming up with
00:00:14historian Ruth Goodman to discover how some of history's most famous events were
00:00:19experienced by the rich and by the poor will your fortunes be down to luck
00:00:25resilience or cold hard cash this time we're heading back to Victorian times
00:00:32when over just a few wild years railway fever swept the nation Romeo Romeo
00:00:39where's my bloody train I'll be following the wealthy Victorians who got caught up
00:00:44in it all and poured their fortunes into these new inventions
00:00:50and I'll be looking at the hard graft behind the boom to investigate the poor people who built and
00:00:58worked the railways the trains would redraw the lines between rich and poor some people
00:01:04could be looking at catastrophe and for some life would never be the same again
00:01:31I'm on my way from London to York rattling along at a speed that was unthinkable 200 years ago
00:01:37and it's all thanks to one of the most important inventions of the modern world
00:01:46the steam train
00:01:51this is cutting-edge Victorian tech
00:01:56and in the 1800s it changed everything sending Britain's rich and poor into a frenzy
00:02:05by 1844 Britain is railway mad everyone is getting in on the act whether they're farm workers moving
00:02:13away from their hometown for the first time or rich businessmen on their way to the capital to make
00:02:19even more money tickets please never mind about that where's the dining card oh hasn't been invented yet
00:02:27next stop York
00:02:33new lines are getting the green light almost every week and one man in particular George Hudson is making
00:02:43a fortune from the railway craze
00:02:49George Hudson was born into a lower middle-class family in a small town on the outskirts of York he
00:02:54spent a few years working in a cloth shop but in 1827 his fortunes took a dramatic turn he was
00:03:02left a few million in today's money by his rich great uncle and he used that money to make a
00:03:07name for
00:03:07himself Hudson was a hustler with a gift of the gab and he climbed the ladder fast first getting into
00:03:15banking then becoming the mayor of York and he wasn't going to stop there he saw the potential in the
00:03:24railway straight away and wanted in on the action he wanted to make himself even richer
00:03:32George used his cash to snap up small railway companies all over the country shutting out anyone who dared to
00:03:39compete soon his empire stretched from the northeast right down to the west midlands and was growing
00:03:47every month he became known as the railway King by July 1844 George Hudson had jumped from middle-class
00:04:01draper to becoming one of the richest men in Britain and with it all the trappings are states across
00:04:06Yorkshire a plush nine-bed house in York complete with hot and cold running water and not one but two
00:04:13toilets all looked after by at least seven servants and today's an especially good day for George I can
00:04:21see that on the fourth of July Parliament has just approved 14 new railway lines and five of them are
00:04:27for
00:04:27George's company Midland Rail it's all very well planning these new railway lines and footing the bill but
00:04:39someone's got to actually roll up their sleeves and build them out on the remote moors of the Peak District
00:04:48work had begun on one of the longest railway tunnels the world had ever seen it was called the Woodhead
00:04:55Tunnel
00:04:56now the men who did the actual work were known as navvies which is short for navigators there had been
00:05:03for
00:05:03decades gangs of men digging the canals moving from job to job wherever the work was now they turned
00:05:11their attention to the railways the one thing that they all had to have in common was an ability for
00:05:20hard
00:05:21graft turning up for work at Woodhead was 46 year old Thomas Eaton Thomas was a seasoned navvy he'd been
00:05:32doing
00:05:32this work for over 20 years now but for him and the 1100 other navvies building this new tunnel it
00:05:40would
00:05:40be a challenge on a whole different scale the Woodhead line was closed in the 1980s but this tunnel nearby
00:05:48gives an idea of the sheer amount of work it must have taken jeepers this is a hard rock how
00:05:57would you even
00:05:58begin to dig a tunnel like this it's a bit of a challenge you'd have two teams working at each
00:06:05end and they would slowly be sort of working into each of their and then at the top you would
00:06:10have
00:06:11another group who are building shafts and how much were the men expected to shift in a day about 20
00:06:19tons of rubble a day that's seven days a week you know not even getting Sundays off no and what
00:06:24about
00:06:24the technology they're using it was absolutely very basic 1840 the good old pickaxe a shovel and some
00:06:33dynamite you had to be strong you had to be physically fit you couldn't be injured or ill because you
00:06:41had
00:06:42to get through this with constant explosions ringing in their ears and the dark cramped conditions in the
00:06:49shafts life for Thomas Eaton was pretty grim it's really hard to imagine being in a wet hard cold hole
00:07:02in
00:07:03the downs you've got this dampness in the air you've also got the powder from the explosives it was
00:07:10absolutely brutal when Thomas staggered home after working a tough 10-hour day conditions weren't much
00:07:19better he and his wife Martha traveled from job to job with the other navvies and their families which
00:07:26meant they were setting up camp wherever they found themselves people are having to make their own
00:07:33shelter out of whatever they can find and we we've got a report here the huts are a curiosity they
00:07:40are
00:07:40mostly of stones without mortar the roof of thatch or of flags they're taking apart dry stone walls and
00:07:48trying to sort of turn them into some sort of habitation there's also the business of food there's
00:07:55no shops it's a full five miles to the nearest small market town so food has to come from Tommy
00:08:04shops shops set up deliberately by their employers to feed them now these were notorious for overcharging
00:08:14so the cost of living up here with next to no facilities was actually really high this was not an
00:08:23easy place to
00:08:28live while Thomas and his wife struggled to scrape together a makeshift home on the moors 70 miles away
00:08:36in North Yorkshire the aristocracy of Britain were living in the lap of luxury this breathtaking stately
00:08:45home is Castle Howard it's about 15 miles from York and it's been in the Howard family for 350 years
00:08:52they
00:08:53still live here today but 180 years ago this was the home of Lord Morpeth British aristocrat and serious
00:09:05railway enthusiast on the 7th of November 1844 he'd just returned from a stroll around his estate and was
00:09:16putting his feet up by the fire in his fabulous country pad Chris Rob gosh welcome to Castle Howard
00:09:26this is magnificent
00:09:31this is the long gallery well it's long isn't it it's 160 feet long so if you walk up and
00:09:38down it 33 times
00:09:39you've walked a mile I mean that's the way I'd like to do my exercise back in 1844 Lord Morpeth
00:09:46had the run of
00:09:47the place over a hundred rooms all lavishly decorated and of course below stairs plenty of space for the help
00:09:54this would have been the servants hall in Morpeth
00:09:57Castle Howard was the perfect private getaway but it was isolated it was over two hours walk to the nearest
00:10:11market town and half a day from the city of York but was all that about to change
00:10:20one of George Hudson's new railway lines between York and Scarborough needed to run through the Castle
00:10:26Howard estate
00:10:29so Rob this is a map of the area all of this area here is the estate in in that
00:10:34time it was about 13,000
00:10:36acres it has five villages in it which are still on the estate today gosh if George was going to
00:10:43build
00:10:44his new line through their estate he'd need the Howard's permission but a lot of the British
00:10:49aristocracy hated the idea of trains cutting through their land so how was George going to close the deal
00:10:58well building Morpeth his very own station so he didn't have to trek to York by coach
00:11:02may have done the trick just like that George got the green light
00:11:09it's quite forward-thinking to agree to put a train track on your beautiful pristine land he felt
00:11:17that they would add to convenience of travel for people to come here guests family so he was very
00:11:23pro the railways he was really into it yeah in fact Lord Morpeth went one step further he caught
00:11:30the railway mania bug and decided to start investing himself he wasn't the only one anyone could get a
00:11:38slice of the railway boom if they had the money the rich were splashing the cash with one in four
00:11:44MPs
00:11:44investing their money into the railways but like all investments then just as now there's money to be
00:11:51made but it's a huge financial risk while poor Thomas Eaton struggled to build the railways George
00:11:59Hudson and Lord Morpeth were playing a dangerous game betting their money on the future of them
00:12:06but would they make a fortune or lose one
00:12:15by the start of 1845 Britain was gripped by railway fever
00:12:26in just four years investment in trains had completely skyrocketed
00:12:32everyone wanted to make a quick buck and for ordinary working families in the rural areas
00:12:39of Britain this new network was offering opportunities in ways they'd never expected
00:12:47to Mary Argyle and her husband John
00:12:54in 1845 Mary and John were living in a tiny little hamlet in Leicestershire called Mary Lee's with just a
00:13:01couple of houses either side of the road they were both 29 years old and had been married for six
00:13:08years
00:13:08but the arrival of the railways had handed them a life-changing opportunity a brand new line had
00:13:17reached the Argyle's doorstep in Mary Lee's and to Mary and John's delight they had both landed jobs at the
00:13:24local station the biggest perk of the role was a house of their very own provided completely rent-free
00:13:37unfortunately it no longer exists but this set of railways workers cottages it's very much the same
00:13:46sort of thing isn't it small though the house was it was perfectly formed this has all the mod cons
00:13:55that are up-and-coming working-class family could possibly ask for there's sinks there's drains there
00:14:01are fireplaces so you can heat the place and of course being a railway family you have access to cheap
00:14:07coal other working-class people in the 1840s were in much worse conditions than this overcrowding was
00:14:16rife and many of the buildings people were in were old decaying and infested with lice fleas and bed
00:14:24bugs some of them had to cram their entire family with four or five children into just one room for
00:14:32Mary and John to have a place like this to themselves was a huge step up and they'd do almost
00:14:37anything to
00:14:38hang on to it on top of that they now had steady jobs John as a plate layer maintaining the
00:14:44railway
00:14:44track and Mary managing the new station life was looking pretty rosy it was likely to be a job for
00:14:54life too maybe even a route into the middle classes well so long as the railways lasted
00:15:04but it wasn't just Mary and John using the railway boom to try and climb the social ladder
00:15:11entrepreneur George Hudson had spent the last year hustling for more and more investors
00:15:15to buy into his rail network and with every deal he struck his public profile grew this is mansion
00:15:27house in York and it's been the residence of the Lord Mayor in the city since the 1730s now George
00:15:33Hudson who'd been dubbed the railway king in the press was not only a rail tycoon but at this point
00:15:40he'd been
00:15:40Lord Mayor of York not once but twice and in 1845 he turned his attention to becoming an MP it's
00:15:48clearly
00:15:48got big ambitions for himself and of course that involved having a lot of rich and a lot of very
00:15:54powerful friends but maneuvering your way into the Victorian upper classes took more than just cash to
00:16:04really belong you had to make a good impression on the social scene George's wife Elizabeth was in
00:16:12charge of hosting duties she and her husband were totally determined to schmooze their way into high
00:16:21society back then it was standard for parties to begin at 10 o'clock at night the guest arriving for
00:16:27champagne maybe a bit of punch and a lot of hobnobbing an hour later at 11 perhaps Elizabeth would start
00:16:35the
00:16:35dancing there'd be polkas and waltzing and fun and only then when that had been finished they'd sit down at
00:16:43one o'clock in
00:16:43the morning to a massive feast yeah we're not talking about finger food lobster volavons and
00:16:50turtle soup all washed down at the end with raspberry cream this was party till dawn I think I'd been
00:16:59mates
00:17:00with the Hudson's but fancy canapes can only get you so far Elizabeth Hudson would soon learn that to
00:17:07really fit in you needed to dress to impress but sadly it seemed the one thing her newfound money
00:17:15couldn't buy her who was taste so this is a dress that Elizabeth might have worn to a party that
00:17:24she
00:17:24threw and unfortunately it was a bit outdated when she was wearing this for example these sleeves these
00:17:30are called like a mutton sleeves they were totally outdated by that point these little ribbons and
00:17:35these finances she would have stood out like a sore thumb what's this so this is a more fashionable
00:17:42version of what she should have worn the color is more appropriate and it's a little bit more refined
00:17:47there's less garish less sort of flancy if we see what I mean yeah so in Elizabeth's case it was
00:17:53her ball
00:17:54yes everybody was coming yeah but for some reason she didn't quite get it no so much so that people
00:18:01are commenting on it oh really yeah what would they say well they were saying she just wasn't
00:18:05hitting the mark she is nouveau riche she's new money and she doesn't really know how to act and
00:18:11everybody can sniff that out immediately people did not like her and when they didn't like someone
00:18:17these high society ladies weren't afraid to get their claws out
00:18:23so this is a journal written by lady charlotte guest she was at a dinner in which Elizabeth was
00:18:30also attending and it says conceive the horror of seeing a fat woman sit opposite to one in a yellow
00:18:36gown and an amber cap with red flowers and there's still greater horror of that fat lady claiming to be
00:18:43an acquaintance I mean not very body positive no no no it's horrible this aristocratic person yeah
00:18:52you know really being not just judgmental but sort of turbo bitchy and really awfully bitchy she's
00:18:59going in they might have teased Elizabeth behind her back but the rich were still perfectly happy to
00:19:06come calling for her extravagant parties but those parties came at a price they were funded by the
00:19:14blood sweat and tears of navvies like Thomas Eaton out on the moors on Saturday the 8th of June after
00:19:23a
00:19:23grueling shift in the tunnel he'd sat down to a much more basic dinner it's 11 weeks now since Thomas
00:19:31was
00:19:32last paid and it's hard heavy hungry work the sort of food that is available to the navvies is pretty
00:19:41basic we're talking flour oatmeal potatoes and when they've had a decent delivery there might also be
00:19:49bread cheese and bacon but not everybody can afford that all the time it was hardly enough to fuel
00:19:57Thomas's punishing hours pressure was on to finish the woodhead tunnel the men were being worked into
00:20:06the ground and accidents kept on happening I've got Tommy's own description here look two men are going
00:20:14down in a shaft in a bucket there literally there's a rope and a big bucket the two men are
00:20:18stood in the
00:20:18bucket and they're being lowered down the shaft and he says the pricker catched in the shaft and turns the
00:20:24bucket over and the men fell out and they're dropping 600 feet so obviously they're both killed he's
00:20:33seeing lots and lots of injuries on an almost daily basis and a fair few fatalities into the bargain
00:20:43considering the horrors they were witnessing it's no surprise that navvies like Thomas had a reputation for
00:20:50hitting the bottle so as a usual thing they're drinking about eight pints of beer a day which is about
00:20:58that much some men are supposed to have reportedly drunk as much as 34 pints in a day God knows
00:21:07what
00:21:07state they were in the local barkeepers happily took advantage they'd water down their beer then add other
00:21:16ingredients to make up the difference the most popular in use was unfortunately something called
00:21:23cocculus berries well these are a poison but they also have hallucinogenic properties so if you put it
00:21:30into something like gin or whiskey people thought that they were drunk when in fact they were being poisoned
00:21:36another of the things that got used quite regularly was to strychnine rat poison I always think how unfair
00:21:44it is that that people were so sneery about navvies and their drinking I mean wouldn't you ever
00:21:54dram in those situations when you think of the conditions how else do you get through
00:22:03up and down the country there were men like Thomas working day in day out to get the railways built
00:22:12it was a tough but essential job and thanks to the navvies sheer muscle power George Hudson's new line
00:22:20between York and Scarborough cutting through the Castle Howard estate had just been completed in record time
00:22:32it was time for the grand unveiling
00:22:39so on the 7th of July 1845 at about 10 30 in the morning a gorgeous sunny day Lord Morpeth
00:22:47leaves in
00:22:48horse and carriage with his mum his brother and his sister down to his very own personal train station
00:22:54and what a day he has we know because we've got his diary he writes how incredible it was at
00:23:01the line
00:23:01from York to Scarborough a distance of 50 miles had been completed within a year such is the wonder of
00:23:08Hudson he was clearly very very impressed with the man when Lord Morpeth pulled up at Castle Howard
00:23:17station to take the train for the very first time itching with anticipation he was greeted with a
00:23:23first-class service
00:23:25hello welcome to Castle Howard station thank you very much if you'd like to come this way to the office
00:23:32today it's a private residence but this unique station house was originally built to serve the Howard
00:23:39estate Lord Morpeth had no intention of sitting with the riffraff this bedroom was built as his personal
00:23:47waiting room so here we are this is your private space there's also yeah here a balcony so she could
00:23:59go
00:23:59out and see the train see it coming yeah but if we dive out right so look at this now
00:24:12the day the line
00:24:13opened this place was absolutely seething Lord Morpeth comes down he's going to have the first ride on the
00:24:19train you know but all the locals turn out too
00:24:28most of these people have never seen a train they're ringing the bells they've got banners out
00:24:36it's a really big community thing so obviously on this the first day that the first train runs
00:24:44there's no second or third class it's first class all the way oh that's fine you know me i don't
00:24:49turn
00:24:49right on aircraft i'm certainly not doing it on a train Romeo Romeo where's my bloody train
00:24:58Lord Morpeth had not one but 35 first class carriages to choose from when he boarded the train that day
00:25:16no doubt he and his good pal George Hudson spent the journey to Scarborough back drinking and toasting
00:25:22their success cheers to my millions before finally disembarking at the guild hall in York for a fabulous
00:25:31dinner for 600 people when Lord Morpeth raised his glass for yet another speech his passion for the new
00:25:39line couldn't be clearer he talks about how this new enthusiasm for railways will change society for
00:25:47good how it'll bring rich and poor closer together and of course to some extent he's absolutely right
00:25:53goods and news travel far more quickly and people get to go to places that they never dreamed of
00:25:59but as for spreading the wealth not quite the railways did give the poor a chance to travel
00:26:08and some started making day trips for the very first time but for others that freedom was just out of
00:26:15reach men like Thomas Eaton who were risking their lives to get the railways built and for him and
00:26:22other navvies disaster was about to strike
00:26:32by the autumn of 1845 railway mania was still in full swing business was booming money was flooding in
00:26:41and new stations were springing up everywhere you looked on the 15th of october the small station at
00:26:49mary lee's in leicestershire was keeping busy with trains ferrying coal for the upcoming winter for
00:26:56mary argyle who was managing the new station the world was opening up mary lee's station is now long
00:27:04gone but this one that survives from the 1840s gives me a chance to step into mary's shoes i have
00:27:12to say it
00:27:12does feel a bit like coming home because when i was a young woman i became a station manager working
00:27:16for british rail way back in the mists of time so this is somebody who was doing the same thing
00:27:22right back in the 1840s can we go on in yes let's after you but would mary's day have looked
00:27:31anything
00:27:32like my time as a station manager oh the smell of a paraffin lump first stop the ticket office
00:27:42as a first class passenger would you like to sell me your tickets please oh right we're still
00:27:47on handwritten still on handwritten oh this will be slow won't it oh yeah i've got fill in loads of
00:27:53stuff on it about the ticket number so i'm going for 007 i bet she had better writing than that
00:28:01mary would need to fill out each and every ticket not just once but twice for the station's records
00:28:08and some passengers weren't exactly thrilled to be buying a ticket at all the idea of paying for a
00:28:17ticket will have been a shock to the aristocracy ordinary people are accustomed to having to fit in
00:28:23the system yes but this is a completely new experience for the rich it's a democratization
00:28:28of travel everyone has to work to the railway rules and railway regulations but tickets weren't
00:28:34the only thing on mary's to-do list she handled lost property dealt with all the finances and managed
00:28:41everything out on the platform even the signaling system to tell drivers it was safe to approach
00:28:47this is quite a big job it's a big job and one railway company says that it
00:28:52expected station masters in their speech character and deportment to be that of a gentleman so she
00:28:59is a lady or a gentlewoman yes and for someone who is a working-class lady that's a huge jump
00:29:05up the
00:29:05social ladder so it's a new industry and there are new opportunities for completely unexpected people
00:29:10yes including women
00:29:14in fact mary was the first ever salaried station mistress on britain's railways
00:29:21she likely worked a seven-day week but when people like the argyles did get a rare day off it
00:29:27was
00:29:27their turn to enjoy the new rail network for the first time ever a day trip wasn't just for the
00:29:36rich
00:29:37many of britain's poor were off to the seaside if you had been here in 1845 you would have seen
00:29:46the most
00:29:46enormous excursion train arriving with 42 carriages carrying 2 000 people
00:29:56it was the beginning of a new era in holiday travel for the working classes
00:30:01with the fare just five shillings for a trip from york to scarborough roughly what a maid could earn in
00:30:07a
00:30:07week it was now a treat more people could afford i'm not sure i fancy an ice cream on the
00:30:15beach today
00:30:16though
00:30:18shall i do mother
00:30:20so i'm sort of wondering in the 1840s
00:30:25people generally wouldn't be used to any sort of travel
00:30:29no there wasn't really this opportunity to to see more than the sort of local area where you grew up
00:30:35most people wouldn't even been on a horse no most people will have only ever been on foot the fastest
00:30:40they've ever been is as fast as they can run absolutely the journey itself would have been
00:30:45something to be highly anticipated and when the working class passengers got off the train and wandered
00:30:52down to the beach it looked pretty different to what we'd expect today the destinations aren't
00:30:58necessarily ready to accommodate these people so somewhere like scarborough you didn't have the
00:31:04amusements and not fish and chips it hadn't been invented you know there's no punch and judy because
00:31:09that came much later so really once you got here the destination was about seeing the sea
00:31:16and hearing the seagulls and feeling the sand on your feet these are totally new experiences for
00:31:22a lot of people and it opens up a whole vista of opportunity the growing popularity of the railways
00:31:30for rich and poor meant one man's fortunes were going from strength to strength george hudson
00:31:38as 1846 rolled around it was looking like a great year for the rising star of the railways
00:31:45not only did he have 39 applications for new lines in front of parliament he'd also been elected mp for
00:31:53sunderland and what does a loaded politician need most well a fancy new london pad of course
00:32:02george and elizabeth splash out 14 000 pounds on pretty much the most expensive address in london one
00:32:10albert gate where else but knightsbridge with hyde park just on their doorstep this is the address
00:32:18of a railway king
00:32:21today it's a french embassy but in victorian times it was one of the biggest private houses in the
00:32:28whole of london after snapping it up in january 1846 elizabeth reportedly forked out another 14 000
00:32:37pounds on decorating the place god i wish i could have seen what she did with it i'm thinking
00:32:42chandeliers huge mirrors along with this fabulous dome this is nouveau riche bling
00:32:48i kind of love it the hudson's were living like railway royalty here in the capital
00:32:57but their lifestyle wasn't quite as secure as it might appear
00:33:03george wasn't old money he didn't have a family fortune sitting in the bank
00:33:09keeping his bills paid and his investors happy relied entirely on his lines continuing to make money
00:33:16he needed to ensure they sold as many tickets as possible
00:33:23very true but i think it's time we got a proper feel for the difference between first
00:33:29class and third on hudson's trains for ourselves rob
00:33:34well i mean after you thank you so much chivalry isn't dead
00:33:42so this carriage is a little bit later but i think it gives you the feel of what you might
00:33:47expect
00:33:48if you bought a first class ticket somewhere to put your luggage and nice plush comfortable seat
00:33:53and of course no corridor people can't come in no so you're in your very own private compartment
00:33:58the only access in and out is onto the platform this is very much about separating the classes
00:34:04so would you like to see the sort of thing that third class are traveling in i think really for
00:34:10the good of your soul you ought to if i'm honest long past that but come on come on then
00:34:18third class passengers generally paid a penny a mile to travel at least half the price of first
00:34:24class right i'm looking but i'm not touching anything and you could certainly feel the difference
00:34:30here we go then what do you mean what's this well this is it this is the third class carriage
00:34:37that's not a carriage that's for horses where's the roof i know it is i mean it is just a
00:34:43cattle wagon
00:34:44it really is come on in in 1840s this is what you'd be expecting they might get 100 people onto
00:34:54one
00:34:54of these and they just jam you in standing up but how would they bring the food you know during
00:34:59the
00:34:59buffet service well there's no buffet service even if you're in first class most people just
00:35:04brought their sandwiches in their pockets how would you go to the loo i didn't you either have to hold
00:35:09it in or you have to make a mess so i've actually got look look this is such a famous
00:35:17picture so this
00:35:18is the first class carriages in this this image yeah right this is the second class carriages
00:35:25still open with seats and look one little like tiny third class on the end in which they're all stood
00:35:31like this exactly like this it feels less like a train and more like a fairground ride what would
00:35:36happen if you went around a corner too quick you'd be all over the place and actually that is exactly
00:35:42what some people report i've got some bits out of some local newspapers describing some of these trips
00:35:49carriage came partially unfastened how i cannot say which caused a sudden and tremendous jerk in about
00:35:55half a dozen carriages the people's heads came in contact with each other by which all in those
00:36:00carriages became more or less wounded with black eyes bruised faces and bloody noses oh my goodness
00:36:07you go on a nice day out and you end up coming out like you've been boxing and especially hudson's
00:36:13day
00:36:13trips because they would just like add more and more and more carriages they just kept piling them on
00:36:19because they could make money so some of the trains were a hundred of these wagons long
00:36:25there's a quote here sheep pens and pig carriages were good enough for them
00:36:29and and that says it all really the attitude of cramming people in and taking their money willful
00:36:35indifference to the poor willful indifference i do feel sorry for the poor in this situation but um
00:36:41i do feel like i've seen it now are you gonna bail i think so have a nice time
00:36:47i'm sure you'll learn a lot from it it's going to rain
00:36:53unfortunately rob we can't all take shelter in our first-class carriages
00:36:58the pressure to squeeze more and more money from the railways was taking its toll something the navvies
00:37:04up at the woodhead tunnel including thomas eaton knew all too well a report had just reached the
00:37:11desks of government with accounts of terrible accidents at the tunnel
00:37:17and on the 23rd of june thomas eaton was one of 32 witnesses summoned to westminster
00:37:23to give his testimony to a committee
00:37:27mrs goodman so we begin with the evidence of thomas eaton this is a man who has seen men die
00:37:38in front of him listen to his testimony here several were killed sometimes when the engine was drawing
00:37:46them up sometimes striking at the side it threw them out and killed them in short he sees about 40
00:37:54people
00:37:55killed in the 18 months that he's worked on this section of the line indeed the death toll
00:38:04on this particular area of line is a three percent of the workforce it was pretty sobering stuff
00:38:14but the men running the inquiry didn't seem as sympathetic as you'd expect we have a series of
00:38:21questions here how did most of these accidents happen were they from carelessness on the part of
00:38:26the men themselves was it generally their own fault is another question there is a lot of talk of course
00:38:34about the amount of alcohol available on site and and people were drinking there is no doubt about it
00:38:41but the suggestion is that those who died it's their own fault
00:38:48it was a slap in the face for thomas and the other men at the woodhead tunnel
00:38:53but the worst was yet to come so we have here the testimony of an engineer a man called purden
00:39:01so he's being asked if there is a safer way apparently there is a new patent fuse available and he
00:39:09says
00:39:10oh well perhaps it is safer but it is attended with such a loss of time and the difference is
00:39:17so
00:39:17very small i would not recommend the loss of time for the sake of all the extra lives it would
00:39:23save
00:39:25gosh that's an admission profit over lives profit over lives as it says quite explicitly in the evidence
00:39:38it's hard to imagine what it would be like for thomas hearing his very life was valued less than the
00:39:44earth
00:39:45he was shoveling the committee he faced that day had its own agenda among them was a familiar face
00:39:54george hudson mp and railway king but for hudson things weren't as rosy as they seemed
00:40:03behind behind his grand promises the numbers in his account books weren't quite adding up his railways
00:40:10had to succeed if they didn't he wouldn't be the only one to feel the consequences
00:40:15his eager investors could be about to lose it all
00:40:25in 1846 over 2 000 miles of britain's railway network had been laid
00:40:30and more than a quarter of them belonged to the locomotive mogul george hudson his railway empire was
00:40:39at its peak and he wasn't slowing down on the 27th of july george closed yet another deal
00:40:50he bought the leicester and swannington railway including the small station at mary lee's run by mary argyle
00:41:01mary is now plugged into a much bigger network right across the west midlands with the possibility
00:41:08of hooking up with some of hudson's other lines to the east and south as well her job is about
00:41:14to have
00:41:15a huge overhaul mary was now working for a much bigger business and she'd have to play by the company
00:41:24rules oh my goodness oh wow do you look smart thank you so this is this is the uniform yes
00:41:36hudson
00:41:36rebranded his entire railway empire so we all looked the same everything about railway life was regulated
00:41:43by the rule book this was their bible so what sort of things are covered in this early rule book
00:41:50you have
00:41:51to come on duty every day freshly shaved right and for a working class man who usually shaved once a
00:41:57week that's a big change railway workers were also forbidden to drink alcohol a job in which you weren't
00:42:04allowed to drink alcohol was a really unusual thing it was and for a lot of working class people
00:42:10small beer was a key part of their diet yeah in order to supply the missing calories a lot of
00:42:17people
00:42:17turned to cocoa as in drinking chocolate drinking chocolate and one company which did that was
00:42:23selling something called vi coco and the first box like this was free okay because this stuff was
00:42:31literally habit forming oh so coca cocaine you couldn't smoke tobacco you couldn't drink alcohol
00:42:44but for every serving of this there's been enough cocaine to make you high for 24 hours
00:42:51and that's being pushed at railway workers railway workers jeepers it makes you wonder why these
00:42:57rule books got so much thicker as well as a rule book mary may have been issued with a brand
00:43:04new pocket
00:43:05watch so she could keep track of the timetable
00:43:10now you couldn't in some way say that this was a perk of the job these things were really expensive
00:43:15in the 1840s however there were problems with this sort of time keeping and one of the most basic
00:43:22was that time itself was not the same all over the country
00:43:29before now the time of day in each town had been measured by the rising and setting of the sun
00:43:35which varied slightly across the country it meant that britain had different time zones
00:43:42and the local time in mary lee's was actually just over five minutes behind london
00:43:49now this hadn't mattered before if people were on foot or they were on horseback it took so long to
00:43:55get somewhere that you know half an hour made a little difference one way or the other and people just
00:44:00looked at the town clock and went oh yeah that's the time now when i've got here it just didn't
00:44:03matter
00:44:04but the railways were fast and this therefore produced new problems if you were going to have
00:44:11accurate time keeping with trains leaving and departing according to the book you were going to have to
00:44:19work out a system so that's exactly what they did in 1846 midland railway along with many other
00:44:28companies decided to use greenwich meantime as their standard mary had gone from an isolated rural
00:44:36community to being part of hudson's fast-growing countrywide network it must have felt like a dizzying
00:44:43change but buying up railways like mary's wasn't the only way george hudson was boosting his income
00:44:51railway owners across the country were cramming more and more people onto their trains by promoting
00:44:57cheap day trips to tempt the working classes onto their carriages
00:45:03and on wednesday the 9th of june 1847 one of those trains pulled into the station at castle howard
00:45:15what are you doing here i was invited by whom well i was in the paper oh god yeah that
00:45:22idea do
00:45:22come in are there more of you well there's about 2 000 of us on the train slippery slope
00:45:32now the new railway line was up and running lord morpeth offered to open his home to the public
00:45:39oh goodness
00:45:42hundreds of punters showed up grabbing the chance to see what life for the super rich really looked
00:45:48like like that
00:45:54it turned out to be quite the eye-opener
00:45:57ah wow
00:46:00well this is the great hall imagine coming down here with a whole train load of you that walked
00:46:08here from the station and then you come through the door in batches into this huge space with this dome
00:46:1570 feet high i mean talk about a culture shock because we brought up with television
00:46:20we see the way the other half live on a regular basis but in 1840 with no tv you just
00:46:28had no
00:46:28opportunity to see something and then suddenly to be dropped into this what a shock it must be
00:46:35what's that this is in in the advertisement is inviting people to walk through the principal
00:46:40apartments and have the gratification of inspecting this princely collection
00:46:45this will be in the newspaper this is right on the early sort of start of mass tourism
00:46:52why would morpeth have said i know let's just open it up to the great unwashed
00:46:57well he was a he was a public spirited man we know that he would walk up and down and
00:47:03shake hands
00:47:04with people and he would lay on teas there would be a band playing it would be a real day
00:47:09out it's
00:47:10something day out is a phrase we take for granted isn't it we do it's part of all our lives
00:47:14the chance to have a day out the railway's allowing you to move into completely different places
00:47:19where you could only the gentry could go before and now everyone can lord morpeth was clearly a
00:47:26forward-thinking man not everyone would put up with the working classes tramping through their living room
00:47:32but i'm still not quite sure how i feel about him
00:47:37morpeth was a visionary really it's a bit of a mixed thing isn't it because it's a bit
00:47:42patronizing frankly saying you know come and be civilized as if as if there was no civilization
00:47:49except in posh places but also it's giving people opportunities and chance that they just never had
00:47:55and he seems to do it with the generosity of spirit which is nice to see isn't it it's a
00:48:00real deal he
00:48:00really cares i think he really did i mean the main thing is inviting the poor or not i still
00:48:06get to keep
00:48:06the house yeah not everything changes it must be said not everything changes off you go i'm having
00:48:13a party see ya while lord morpeth made polite conversation with the poor in his hallway down in
00:48:22the capital george hudson was also getting ready to host some visitors and let's just say his guests
00:48:37on the fifth of july queen victoria and prince albert were traveling from london to cambridge for an event
00:48:43they decided to go by rail and george had the honor of being their escort
00:48:49like many britons queen victoria was rather taken with train travel only of course she did it in regal
00:48:55style apparently she loved to have her saloon decorated in flowers so i bought her some posh too
00:49:07hello hello rob oh look at that you got me some flowers actually for queen victoria but
00:49:11i figured oh seeing as you're here if i'll do
00:49:17welcome to queen victoria's railway carriage fleets london to milton king's doesn't it
00:49:26this is a recreation yeah of some of her earlier saloons that she would have gone in
00:49:31and so george hudson his wife elizabeth yes accompanied uh the queen and and her entire entourage
00:49:38aboard a train not looking dissimilar to this one on the interior so this is the hudson's really
00:49:44arriving in the top echelon of society oh yeah absolutely this is a list there's a picture here
00:49:50i can see this is them being escorted oh wow onto the train i think that's that that is george
00:49:55hudson
00:49:56there this is his chance to show now that he is in charge of railway company that is worth investing
00:50:02in
00:50:02that is safe and that he's now fraternizing with people on the queen's level quite a moment for them
00:50:09oh absolutely tell us what the journey was like i mean it's freezing today it is isn't it was that
00:50:14it's so cold on the day of course this is july so the frame was extremely hot and victoria didn't
00:50:19like the heat famously she was neurotic about keeping the temperature below 15 degrees so on
00:50:24here have been probably kind of windows open you can imagine that and again surrounded it says in
00:50:28this document here by flowers as well perhaps to dissuade people from smelling all the the smuts
00:50:33coming from the engine up ahead very noisy as well bouncing along and the reason for all of this
00:50:37this lovely velour we've got here today actually is to help reduce some of the sound coming from the
00:50:43outside absolutely velvet for that reason absolutely this is effectively like a little miniature
00:50:47palace on wheels and that's what she came to expect yeah i mean in my own head this is how
00:50:53i
00:50:53would travel on trains queen victoria usually refused to eat on the train apparently if she
00:51:00thought it was bad for digestion but all over the country the new railway network was kicking off a
00:51:07revolution in food for poorer folk like mary argyle the weekly shop was about to get a lot more
00:51:14more interesting with the coming of the railways there is a new treat fish with a fast train you can
00:51:27bring fish inland so many people who lived away from the coast were finally able to afford fresh fish
00:51:36this is the era when we start to make fried fish a major part of our national diet but unfortunately
00:51:43there's no chips yet that has to wait a few years meanwhile it's not just fish that the railways are
00:51:50carrying they're also beginning to move a whole range of other fresh produce around so we've got
00:51:57strawberries and watercress in particular did really well
00:52:04luckily for mary she'd just had a pay rise from midland rail which meant an extra shilling a week
00:52:11it might not sound like much but for a woman from a poor family it was a real achievement
00:52:18but she had to be careful how she spent it the railways had made it easier to transport food
00:52:23but that didn't always mean there was enough to go round
00:52:27we have to remember that this is a time of a run of bad harvests and therefore real hunger for
00:52:35many
00:52:35people there are bread riots and at the very same time the potato blight is sweeping
00:52:43across northern europe the price of food had risen sharply as poor families struggled to make ends meet
00:52:50their discontent grew the mood across the country got darker but the poor weren't the only ones worrying about money
00:53:02george hudson still appeared to be living the high life swanning about with the royals and throwing parties
00:53:07in his massive london mansion but behind the scenes he knew that something very worrying indeed was going on
00:53:16the new railway network was proving expensive to build and with so many companies competing
00:53:21it was hard for anyone to make the profit they'd hoped share prices in railway companies across the
00:53:27country had been falling for some time in fact they were plummeting and for thousands of wealthy
00:53:34investors who had their money in george's companies well that was very very bad news
00:53:41as the railway craze turned into a market crash there was a good chance they'd lose everything
00:53:48and if they did it could be george's neck on the line
00:54:01in 1847 britain was experiencing a major stock market crash the railways had cost far more than
00:54:09anyone expected and made much less money than promised for investors it was a nightmare
00:54:18they could be looking at financial ruin and they wanted someone to blame george hudson's business
00:54:25methods are coming under more and more scrutiny but while other railway companies are folded he's
00:54:31still chairman of a fair few and an mp with some very powerful friends in his pocket to boot
00:54:37all of which he hoped would keep him in business but not everyone could get by on connections and influence
00:54:46for the hundreds of thousands of workers like navi thomas eaton whose entire existence was tied to the
00:54:53railways the situation was devastating after the market crash over a third of the railways that had been
00:55:03approved by parliament were simply abandoned some of them were half built others hadn't even got as far as that
00:55:12and the people who had been doing the building the navi 200 000 of them people like thomas eaton
00:55:23well the construction companies often went bust and wages were owed wages were not paid they were left with nothing
00:55:37these men had built the world's most advanced railway network in just a few years
00:55:44and many of thomas's friends had paid for it with their lives it's hard to imagine a group of workers
00:55:51who've had a bigger impact on the creation of modern britain and yet in the blink of an eye
00:55:58they were forgotten no pension no payout no protection
00:56:06and thomas eaton and his wife martha what would have happened to them
00:56:10we know that thomas had left the woodhead tunnel project in 1845 unhappy with the appalling conditions
00:56:21but with so many lines being cancelled where was the work to come from
00:56:33back in london over a year since the railway bubble had started to burst george hudson was still
00:56:40managing to weather the storm and he was doing it in style george and elizabeth are spending a lot of
00:56:46time in their palatial knightsbridge home six bedrooms multiple entertainment spaces servants
00:56:53the lot somehow george was still funding his elite lifestyle and paying his investors even if it wasn't
00:57:01nearly as much as they'd been promised for now he was keeping his head above water high society haven't
00:57:08thrown elizabeth and george out on their rear yet in fact their daughter is due to marry a tory mp
00:57:13later in the year it looks like the hudson's might just survive this unscathed or maybe not
00:57:22that spring a pamphlet began circulating around the city and it quickly caught people's attention
00:57:28the pamphlet alleges that the railway crisis has been caused by dodgy accounting and fraud
00:57:33and it places the blame squarely at the feet of george hudson
00:57:41could it be that george hudson's good fortune was running out of steam there were thousands of
00:57:47people all over the country who would suffer if the railway crash got worse but i can't help but wonder
00:57:53where navvy thomas eaton was when all this was happening at this point railway projects are being
00:57:59cancelled left right and center so i can't imagine that thomas eaton had an awful lot of choice as to
00:58:05where he went next one place where construction was still in full swing however was oldham
00:58:12oldham in greater manchester was still expanding with plenty of coal nearby that needed shifting by
00:58:18railway we know that thomas got a job there working on the line and he and martha up sticks from
00:58:25the
00:58:25pennines and moved into a new home in town i should imagine that after living months out upon the bleak
00:58:32moors life in alden must have been very different but that doesn't necessarily mean it was all a bed of
00:58:38roses most people were living in what were called back to backs and you can see from this picture just
00:58:45how cramped it all was you got a room downstairs and a room upstairs and that's it you've got people
00:58:51behind you so often not much light gets in the windows and not much air moves around these places
00:58:58were notorious for the damp and for the mold thomas and martha would have shared an outdoor toilet and
00:59:07a water pump with their many neighbors it was hardly glamorous but for them it would do they had found
00:59:15a new life for themselves but it still depended on lines continuing to be greenlit
00:59:21if the crash got worse they could lose everything and they weren't the only ones who were vulnerable
00:59:28there were people like mary argyle who'd moved up in the world by building a life around the railways
00:59:33and even george hudson whose high-flying lifestyle was now under threat
00:59:53the 20th of february 1849 railway entrepreneur george hudson had been under scrutiny over the state
01:00:01of his finances but so far he'd been getting away with it
01:00:07that afternoon he strolled into the investors meeting of one of his railway companies
01:00:11expecting business as usual only was met with angry shareholders who felt ripped off
01:00:18they were losing money hand over fist and they were looking for someone to blame george had no idea
01:00:26what was about to hit him what was their main complaint it's not really clear where the money is going
01:00:33of course one hopes that all the money that's being invested is going into the building of railways
01:00:38but he's living a very lavish lifestyle and it's not entirely clear that some of that money isn't
01:00:43being embezzled really to support his own lifestyle they must be worried they're going to lose a lot of
01:00:47money absolutely they've thrown a lot of their own personal wealth into this venture and it's becoming
01:00:53increasingly apparent that they may not get any of their money back some people could be looking at
01:00:58the catastrophe the committee were out for blood and launched an official inquiry into george's dodgy
01:01:04dealings and it wasn't long before the press were on to him too how is hudson characterized the victorians
01:01:14love a good juicy news story um there's lots of caricatures and there's a lovely one here that we can
01:01:20see
01:01:21of george hudson and we get a sense of how he's being made fun of by his own technology by
01:01:27the rails
01:01:28himself gosh look at that he really does look every bit the train villain he's literally fallen off the
01:01:34rails he's fallen off the rails with mail delivered up to 12 times a day in london there was a
01:01:42constant
01:01:43stream of new gossip his daughter's high society wedding was called off his family were mocked and
01:01:51george was soon britain's favorite railway villain by late spring hudson's forced to resign from all of
01:01:58his companies and then he's given an ultimatum pay up or we'll take you to court hudson was being asked
01:02:07to pay back a staggering 750 000 pounds today that's around a hundred million he needed to make money
01:02:16as fast as he could from his properties he rents this one for 1800 pounds a year to the french
01:02:22embassy
01:02:23but it's still not enough
01:02:29being an mp meant george had certain protections as long as he was in parliament he was safe
01:02:36but if he wasn't re-elected he and his wife elizabeth would need to hot-footed out of the
01:02:41country to avoid him being put behind bars
01:02:46it's hard to imagine a more dizzying fall from grace
01:02:53one minute george is living the high life the next is turfed out of his home his reputation in tatters
01:03:00i actually feel quite sorry for george this was a completely self-made man
01:03:04who'd worked his way to the very top and now he had absolutely nothing to show for it
01:03:10there's no statues of him today in york even his model in madam two swords was melted down
01:03:16he might as well have been erased from history
01:03:24rich or poor there's no doubt the coming of the railways had changed life in britain forever
01:03:29but for hudson and for many other entrepreneurs the boom and bust had cost them everything
01:03:39i wonder where there are two sorts of rich you know there are the rich who have got things to
01:03:45lose
01:03:45because they don't have status like hudson and then you've got the rich like lord morpeth who frankly
01:03:52even if they lose their money for a bit they've still got their title they've still got their
01:03:57land so you can afford to open up your house i think the tragedy of it ruth is that to
01:04:03most people
01:04:03hudson's name has been lost but actually so many of our trains and our train routes wouldn't have
01:04:10happened but for him preparing to take a risk no i think really if we're going to talk about the
01:04:16true
01:04:16heroes of the railway it has to be the quarter of a million navvies like thomas eaton who actually
01:04:24built it literally people are dying to make those railways people are maimed and injured they're the
01:04:31people who are really doing the risk you're only talking about money risk true i mean i think of
01:04:37mary argyle and you know she is really quite a poster person for a new modern way of living she's
01:04:44born
01:04:45into the working classes and yet she as a woman is finding a new sort of work yeah and that
01:04:54opportunity comes because the railway opens up new ways of being a working person in this country
01:05:01the coming of the railways it changes everything and nothing is ever going to be the same again
01:05:08rich or poor to the railways rich or poor to the railways and all of those who built them
01:05:13eできolico remembers and all of those who built them to do while they like they wanted some photos
01:05:21all great and all those who built them into action before they created the wall and wrapped them up
01:05:21the fur and..'
01:05:21ss rsteinblown
01:05:21ss rsteinblown
01:05:21ss rsteinblown
01:05:26ss rsteinblown
01:05:29ss rsteinblown
01:05:39ss rsteinblown
01:05:59What did the Romans ever do for us?
01:06:02That's what Rob and Ruth will be delving into
01:06:04brand new next Tuesday at nine.
01:06:06Tomorrow at nine, a head-on crash
01:06:08leaves a nurse unable to move her legs.
01:06:10Can anything be done to help
01:06:12a new 999 critical condition?
01:06:15Next, manhunt, search for the cop killer.
Comentários