The Day The World Got Smaller: the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway - 3pm Saturday 15 September
This tour takes place on the day, Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, opened the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in September 1830 ushering in a transport revolution.
Despite the earlier line at Stockton and Darlington in the North East of England it was this one which proved rail travel had a future as it almost immediately made money. With an emphasis on passenger travel it also made travel more democratic – for the first time poorer people could journey regularly for a reasonable price. The oldest station in the world survives in the Museum of Science and Industry.
It all got off to an inauspicious start with an angry crowd at Manchester protesting about the price of food and about the lack of representation in Manchester. There was tragedy too when William Huskisson, a Liverpool MP, was run down and killed by a train.
The railways made travel easier but also the separation of the classes more pronounced as the purely commuter towns of south Manchester such as Wilmslow, Alderley Edge, Sale and Cheadle Hulme spread over farm fields. This led to a debate about those who owed their wealth to the city abandoning it. ‘If God made the country and Man made the town.. the Devil made the suburbs,’ thundered local progressive Charles Rowley in 1899.
On this funny, poignant and dramatic tour we look at how the Liverpool and Manchester Railway revolutionised the city and life. The tour includes mention of George Bradshaw who created the famous Bradshaw’s Railway Companion in 1839. This was the first national railway timetable, a revelation at the time, ‘seldom has the gigantic intellect of man been employed upon a work of greater utility,’ wrote one commentator.
Michael Portillo has created a well-known BBC TV series around Bradshaw's timetables called Great British Railway Journeys. The tour guide for this tour, me, myself, I appeared on this with him. You can watch the episode here.
The tour begins at 3pm and meets at the Museum of Science & Industry entrance, Lower Byrom Street, Manchester, M3 4FP. Book below or just turn up.
Despite the earlier line at Stockton and Darlington in the North East of England it was this one which proved rail travel had a future as it almost immediately made money. With an emphasis on passenger travel it also made travel more democratic – for the first time poorer people could journey regularly for a reasonable price. The oldest station in the world survives in the Museum of Science and Industry.
It all got off to an inauspicious start with an angry crowd at Manchester protesting about the price of food and about the lack of representation in Manchester. There was tragedy too when William Huskisson, a Liverpool MP, was run down and killed by a train.
The railways made travel easier but also the separation of the classes more pronounced as the purely commuter towns of south Manchester such as Wilmslow, Alderley Edge, Sale and Cheadle Hulme spread over farm fields. This led to a debate about those who owed their wealth to the city abandoning it. ‘If God made the country and Man made the town.. the Devil made the suburbs,’ thundered local progressive Charles Rowley in 1899.
On this funny, poignant and dramatic tour we look at how the Liverpool and Manchester Railway revolutionised the city and life. The tour includes mention of George Bradshaw who created the famous Bradshaw’s Railway Companion in 1839. This was the first national railway timetable, a revelation at the time, ‘seldom has the gigantic intellect of man been employed upon a work of greater utility,’ wrote one commentator.
Michael Portillo has created a well-known BBC TV series around Bradshaw's timetables called Great British Railway Journeys. The tour guide for this tour, me, myself, I appeared on this with him. You can watch the episode here.
The tour begins at 3pm and meets at the Museum of Science & Industry entrance, Lower Byrom Street, Manchester, M3 4FP. Book below or just turn up.
