Swindon in the Past Lane

It's never too early to introduce your grandchildren to history - even if they really, really don't want to know! When my daughter said she’d never walked along the canal, I immediately went into local historian mode. What a lovely idea for an educational day out. We made a picnic lunch and armed with cameras we headed off with grandchildren in tow. Our walk took the route that begins behind the Esso Service Station at the bottom of Kingshill and extends into the Wichelstowe housing development. Begun in 1795 and under construction for 15 years, the Wilts & Berks canal opened in 1810. Stretching 52 miles from Semington Junction on the Kennet and Avon to the Thames at Abingdon, the canal was used chiefly for the transportation of coal from the Somerset mines. Its most profitable period was during the construction of the Great Western Railway and the Swindon works when it was used to convey materials. Sadly, the collapse of the Stanley Aqueduct over the River Marden in 1901...

In Memory of Robert Harwood Who Departed This Life January 18th 1864 Aged 55 Years Also of Robert Son of Robert and Susannah Harwood Who Departed This Life July 21 1872 Aged 28 Years Robert Harwood got up early on Sunday morning, July 21 1872. He picked up the gun that once belonged to his father and set off across the fields to Toothill Farm. He knew the area well - this was where he had lived with his parents and his two brothers John and William and his sister Ellen just a few short years ago; where he had worked as a farm labourer and had learned to shoot before securing a job in the Great Western Railway as an engine driver. He knew every inch of this farm and he knew where to bag a rabbit or two.  He was found later that day - dead; the rabbits at his feet. At the inquest held at the farm on Monday the coroner told how it was his opinion that as Robert drew his gun to shoot again it became entangled and exploded; the charge entering the victim...

Today in the East End of London a group of dedicated people are trying to save the Smithfield General Market Hall - 'Behold the winged lion on the Holborn Viaduct looking down protectively upon the Smithfield General Market,' writes the Gentle Author on www.spitalfieldslife.com. 'as - over at the Guildhall the Public Enquiry that will decide the fate of this magnificent building designed by Horace Jones, the architect of Tower Bridge, reaches the end of its second week.' Read more about this threatened building by clicking the link - now read about Swindon's former market buildings, which sadly have also been lost. In the 1840s Old Swindon had a thriving shopping centre.  Blacksmiths, butchers and brewers rubbed shoulders alongside the Strange family's drapers store in the High Street and Sadler Bristow's ironmongers in Wood Street. But in the developing settlement at the bottom of the hill facilities for the early settlers in New Swindon were d...

Despite the growing deprivations on the home front, hard pressed Swindonians were asked to dig deeper into their pockets as Britain entered a second year at war - and the response was phenomenal. "It does not matter how much we women detest war, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that in this war women and children are in the front line," May George, Swindon's first Lady Mayor 1935-36 wrote in a letter to the Evening Advertiser.  "Let the women of Swindon show what they can do to help in the defeat of the enemies of everything that we hold dear." Just days before the town's War Weapons Week was to begin, ten people were killed and several others injured during an air raid on October 20, 1940.  Houses in Rosebery Street took a direct hit while a second bomb dropped in the middle of an adjoining road.  Local residents were commended for their great fortitude and the calm way in which they responded to the emergency. If ever the people of Swindon needed ...

The 1950s heralded a new age of diesel locomotives.  In the Western region alone, 130 diesel hydraulics were required to replace over 200 steam locomotives. Fittingly Swindon received an order for 30 of these main line 2000hp engines. Headed by Mr. J.A. Clarke, British Railways Western Region Diesel School opened in premises at the works in 1956, where training was given to drivers and maintenance staff. ‘Modernisation going on apace’ was one of the headlines in the British Railways Magazine of March 1958.  When the D.800, the first of 33 of its type to be built at Swindon, was named the Sir Brian Robertson at Paddington on July 14, 1958, the future at the former GWR works looked promising. In 1959 Swindon works received a share of the order for 2700hp diesel engines with hydraulic transmission for use on the Western Region.  Swindon was to build 35 of the 74 engines with delivery due in 1961. British Railways announced that Swindon was to be a centre fo...

Swindon has enjoyed a long history of educational excellence and was quick to establish a Local School Board following the 1876 Education Act. With the old GWR School bursting at the seams, the School Board rapidly set about building new ones. Queenstown Infants' and Girls' and Gilbert's Hill Girls' and Infants opened in 1880 with Westcott Infants' and Primary Mixed the following year. However the Westcott Street Infants School log book reveals that the school actually opened at the Drill Hall in March 1878. 'I, Jane Harrison, Certificated, took charge of this school on Monday last,' wrote the newly appointed schoolmistress in her first entry. Miss Harrison admitted 24 new children in the morning with a further 21 in the afternoon. Meanwhile eight school board officers trooped through the schoolroom to see how things were going. With her assistant mistress Miss Robson and two monitresses, Alice Turner and Albinia Dowling, Jane Harrison was pl...

In 1948 Aneurin Bevan, Labour's Minister of Health, rolled out the revolutionary National Health Service, a cradle to grave safety net of state health and welfare care. Something GWR employees at Swindon had enjoyed for over 100 years. The World War II Coalition government had debated the whys and wherefores of creating a National Health Service but it was the radical Welsh MP Aneurin Bevan who masterminded the plan having been inspired, it has been said, by the GWR Medical Fund at Swindon. He had urged members of Clement Attlee's post war Cabinet to visit the town and see just how an employee's contributory scheme could, and did work. "There it was," Bevan is reported as saying, "A complete health service, all we had to do was to expand it to embrace the whole country." Daniel Gooch, Locomotive Superintendent at the railway works is acknowledged as being the initiator of the GWR Medical Fund. As men were dismissed or put on short time workin...