The railway revolution and its impact on our ancestors.

[mazi]

The coming of the railways brought big changes in rural life, not just in the ease of travel but in the availability of goods, notably coal for domestic use and fertiliser for agriculture, but also in verbal communication.

Engine drivers, fireman and guards who lived in major towns and cities could and did chat with local porters and local people, telling them stories of life in the city, and the industrial factories and the effect on young people must surely have inspired some to explore for themselves..


Mike

[coombs]

My great gran would have travelled from Oxford to London to train as a domestic servant in a Stamford Hill convent, then by the 1911 census she was working as a servant in Bexhill in Sussex. I guess she got the London to Brighton line but got a train that turned off at Keymer towards Bexhill when she travelled down to Bexhill to start her new job. By about 1916 she was in Rochford, Essex.

[chiddicks]

Anyone with railway ancestors might be interested in this database

https://www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk/the-accidents/

[Viktoria]

I always think it a great pity that  canals are now  much underused.
Speed is of the essence these days, but how much traffic would be off the roads if canals were more used.
It is not impossible to bring them back into use , they are quite lovely now in lovely scenery , as evinced by an interesting programme recently on T.V.
They go right into town centres ,much is still in place from their hey day.

Viktoria.

[susieroe]

I always think it a great pity that  canals are now  much underused.
Speed is of the essence these days, but how much traffic would be off the roads if canals were more used.
It is not impossible to bring them back into use , they are quite lovely now in lovely scenery , as evinced by an interesting programme recently on T.V.
They go right into town centres ,much is still in place from their hey day.

Viktoria.

Cardboard and paper were brought up the canal by barge from Holland for our box-making firm.
The business ran to the 1970s, it was still coming by the same route.

My great grandfather, Alfred Alexander Keats, was born in London, not too far from St. Pancras. He travelled to York, his first marriage was there. He was a musician then, but I do wonder if he worked for the LNER. Later, he came to Wigston Magna where he met my Great Grandma. They eloped and married at Ovendon, Yorkshire where he's still a musician. My Grandad was born at Leeds; more children followed, 2 at Leeds and 2 more at Wigston. The family finally settled in Leicester, living close to London Road Station, where Alfred was a Commercial Clerk. This rather disguises that he was a Railway Detective as related by Grandad and his sisters. Maybe it was thought wise to keep this fact quiet? I love Frith's painting The Railway Station, I like to imagine
the figure depicted was Alfred.

[EdinKath]

Hi, Does anyone know how long the train journey from London to Scotland would have been in the mid 1850s? How much it cost? And what the trip would have been like?

There are two children living in London (Soho) with their father and step mother on the 1851 census. Their father died in 1853 when they would have been 8 and 10. In 1861 the youngest is living with her Aunt (my ancestor) in rural Lanarkshire, Scotland. (The eldest also went to Scotland but I haven't yet found him in 1861.)

I assume that train would be how they got to Scotland but would two children have been sent alone? They had another aunt in London but she had 6 kids of her own so unlikely to have been able to take them.
thanks

[Kiltpin]

I assume that train would be how they got to Scotland but would two children have been sent alone? They had another aunt in London but she had 6 kids of her own so unlikely to have been able to take them.
thanks

 

There was a time when people could be posted - tag round their neck with stamps on. Boys were often sent home at end of term from boarding school by post. That would mean going in the baggage car. They had to provide their own food and drink, but it was cheap ... 

Regards 

Chas

[coombs]

Hi, Does anyone know how long the train journey from London to Scotland would have been in the mid 1850s? How much it cost? And what the trip would have been like?

There are two children living in London (Soho) with their father and step mother on the 1851 census. Their father died in 1853 when they would have been 8 and 10. In 1861 the youngest is living with her Aunt (my ancestor) in rural Lanarkshire, Scotland. (The eldest also went to Scotland but I haven't yet found him in 1861.)

I assume that train would be how they got to Scotland but would two children have been sent alone? They had another aunt in London but she had 6 kids of her own so unlikely to have been able to take them.
thanks

Your first question is interesting and I cannot give a definitive answer but I would say perhaps a day to travel from London to Scotland in the 1850s. Unless they stopped off somewhere overnight on the way.

[still_looking]

There's an ongoing project on the history of the development of transport, this link includes sample chapters and animations showing the year by year expansion of the railroads and turnpike roads.

https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/transport/onlineatlas/

The third chapter includes isochrones, maps whose lines reflect the distance travelled in days at a given speed.

S_L