Swindon in the Past Lane

As Swindon schools prepare to begin the summer holiday at the end of July, the debate continues about the validity of a long six week break. The tradition harks back to our agricultural past when children were required to work in the fields, earning a much needed additional income for their family. Today things are a little different and the long summer break is said by some educationalists to disadvantage children and set back their learning. School holidays are an expensive time to travel but parents potentially face fines for taking their children out of school during term time. Perhaps there is an argument for readjusting how we do things. Few firms still shut down for a fixed summer holiday, and nothing compares to TRIP when the mighty railway works closed for its annual break. 'Swindon changed its ways and adapted itself to accommodate TRIP, so significant was it for the town's economy and social well being. The council called special meetings, the shopkeepers chang...

The railway factory dominated life in Swindon for close on 150 years. When the Works closed in 1986 a raft of skills were lost, consigned to history, and a way of life ended. But are we guilty today of preserving a nostalgic and sentimental view of life in the railway factory, especially as it existed back in the good old days? Last month I attended a talk by Graham Carter about Alfred Williams who worked in the railway factory as a steam-hammer man for 23 and a half years. In 1912 he wrote a warts and all book called Life in a Railway Factory. It wasn’t published until 1915, three years after Alfred had left the factory, his own health compromised by years of back breaking labour. His book didn’t sell well in Swindon. You could say that with the vast majority of men employed in the Works they didn’t need or want to read about life ‘inside’ but was it more to do with fear of sanction by the GWR foremen? A less than favourable review appeared in the February 1916 edition o...

In 1986 my husband moved to Swindon. After several years of unemployment, he left me and our two young children living in the coastal town in Pembrokeshire where he had grown up and where there was no work, to try his luck in Swindon. We were so desperate as a family that he came not to paid employment, but as a volunteer with Swindon Cyrenians, a charitable organisation that worked with homeless people.   The Swindon Cyrenians hostel was based in four terrace houses at the bottom of Farnsby Street while several of the volunteers were accommodated in a property in the railway village at No 1 Oxford Street. A settlement in Old Swindon dates back millennia but New Swindon, the former industrial complex at the bottom of the hill, is barely 178 years old, and the town itself continues to this day to be a work in progress. Farnsby Street today looks very different even to the place Steve came to in 1986. The four houses, all that remained of the Victorian s...

In 1966 the local authority purchased the railway village cottages from British Rail. The properties were in a state of disrepair and in a flashback to Victorian times were found to be insanitary and not up to modern expectations. Most of the cottages lacked indoor toilets and bathrooms and the rear extensions were dilapidated and infested with vermin. For some considerable time the fate of the cottages hung in the balance while residents led a crusade to save these historic properties. Eventually Thamesdown Council began a long running refurbishment programme, completed in the 1980s. Today the stone built former railway workers homes are central to the town's Railway Village Conservation Area designated in 1975. The 300 Grade II listed cottages constitute an almost complete planned railway settlement of the 1840s and 50s.  In 2016 the  Railway Village Museum was transferred from Swindon Borough Council to the Mechanics' Institution Trust and it is now open on selected wee...

Henry Mildmay, 5th Viscount Bolingbroke spent just two months of the year, during the shooting season, at his country home of Lydiard, where it has to be said, he liked it to be above all - quiet. But there was one big spanner in the works - the GWR factory hooter. Originally mounted on 'R' Shop, now the home of STEAM railway museum, the hooter had a range of between 12 to 15 miles, reaching the far flung corner of Lydiard Park, and sounding at various times throughout the day. It was the early morning calls at 5.15, 5.45 andd 6am to which Lord Bolingbroke particularly objected, claiming a subsequent lack of sleep was jeopardising his weak heart. Henry began his campaign to silence the hooter in 1868 and succeeded in persuading the GWR to construct a screen around the offending instrument, thereby muting the sound. However, after complaints by the workmen, the screen was eventually removed, but Henry refused to concede defeat. On January 9, 1873 he presented an 11 p...

On the eve of voting in the Scottish Independence Referendum, the United Kingdom holds a collective breath. This is possibly the most emotive if not the most important political event to take place during my lifetime. With more than 81% of the population in England, Northern Ireland and Wales hoping for a 'no' vote, all we can do is sit back and wait. The past two weeks has been a period of intense campaigning by those representing both sides of the argument with old fashioned tub thumping accompanied by extensive media coverage. Press coverage more than 130 years ago also had a major influence on public opinion, resulting in a landslide Liberal victory in the 1880 General Election. But even William Morris, founder of the Advertiser, could hardly have anticipated it would lead to a riot in Swindon. Polling day dawned dull and dismal but nothing could dampen the enthusiasm of the people. This had been a long anticipated election and the popularity of the Liberal Party ha...

Bruce travelled 12,000 miles by rail and raised more than £890 for charity, mostly for the Swindon Victoria Hospital, in a life that spanned just ten short years.  Awarded 16 gold and silver medals and a solid silver collar, Bruce the famous fund raising dog has gone down in local history, but what about his owner. Thomas Arthur Beal was born on January 31, 1878 at 5 Read Street.  His father, also named Thomas, was a railway coach body maker in the GWR works, and on his 14th birthday Thomas junior joined him in the railway factory, beginning a seven year apprenticeship in the Turning Department. By the time of the 1901 census Thomas was boarding with a family in Portsmouth where he worked as an electrical engineer fitter, but it would not be long before he returned to Swindon. In 1905 he married Jane Rice and set up home in Nelson Street, living with his new wife, her 12 year old son and, presumably Bruce who was born the same year. An obituary was published ...

The Local Defence Volunteers, later known as the Home Guard, was launched on May 14, 1940 in response to Germany’s invasion of the Low Countries, and within 24 hours more than a quarter of a million men had come forward to join. One such volunteer was William Arthur Townsend, the son of John, a moulder at the GWR works and his wife Elizabeth.  William, also known as Art, was born in 1903 and grew up at 280 Cricklade Road, Gorse Hill. On leaving school he followed his father ‘inside’ to begin a boilermaker’s apprenticeship.  By the time war was declared in 1939 William was married with a young family. In a collection of pocket diaries William recorded his daily routine providing a unique account of one man’s war time experience in the GWR 13 th Battalion of the Home Guard.    The official age range for Home Guard volunteers was from 17-65 but there were reports of more than just a few old soldiers joining the ranks, some in their 80s. By June 1940 more t...

It is difficult to believe that at the time this aerial photograph was taken in the 1950s, the railway industry was officially in decline. Visiting Swindon Junction in 1840, Brunel and his superintendent of locomotives, Daniel Gooch decided this would be an ideal place to establish a repair and maintenance depot.  The works opened in January 1843 with 423 men on the pay roll. Today the Churchward estate occupies what was once the site of  'A' Shop completed in 1920 and reputed to be one of the largest covered workshops in the world.  These were the heady days of the GWR when more than 14,000 worked 'inside' the vast railway factory complex. The railway industry was nationalised in 1948 by the post war Labour government and the 100 year old GWR works was renamed British Railways Workshops.  In 1960 the Evening Star was the last steam loco built for BR at Swindon and three years later a large part of the Carriage Works closed.  The end came at 4.30 pm Mar...

The Leggett brothers - William (left) Ernest (right) Recent publicity concerning the future of Sanford Street School has highlighted the importance of a roll of honour on display there to former pupils who died in the First World War. Among the list of more than 130 names are those of seven sets of brothers killed in the 1914-18 war. An entry in the school logbook dated March 20, 1936 records – “Received today the memorial to Old Sanfordians who fell in the Great War.  It is a very beautifully made memorial, paid for by money in the School’s private fund.’ Two brothers listed among the dead are Horace and Reginald Corser, the sons of William and Elizabeth Corser of 1 Broad Street.  Reginald, an engine room artificer on HMS Defence was killed on May 31, 1916 during the Battle of Jutland.  He was 25 years old and had been married for less than a year.  Brother Horace was serving with the 79 th  Field Company Royal Engineers when he was killed on J...

It was railway engineer Daniel Gooch who identified Swindon as the most suitable site for the much debated principal engine establishment in a letter to Brunel dated September 13, 1840. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Chief Engineer at the Great Western Railway, and Gooch worked on the design for a substantial engineering works for the maintenance and repair of locomotives. The land, approximately a mile to the north of the small market town of Swindon, was somewhat unprepossessing. 'The poorest in the neighbourhood; low lying, shallow soil on top of an endless depth of stiff clay, worthless for arable purposes, of small value for pasture, covered with furze, rushes and rowen,' according to local writer and naturalist Richard Jefferies. Once the workplace of boilermakers, brass finishers and toolmakers today 'V', 'O' and 'E' Shops are Grade II listed buildings and a modern day monument to merchandise.  The historic buildings built during the 1870s reign...