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In the long reign of a single queen,

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Britain changed the world
and was itself utterly transformed.

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Queen Victoria came to the throne
in 1837.

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By the time she died in 1901,
we had built the modern world.

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It was a time of outstanding
engineering, remarkable innovation.

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All of it driven by ambitious
pioneers.

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It shapes the country we live
in today.

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Efficient and fast -

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new transport systems allowed people
to move freely for the first time.

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You get a real sense, in here,
of Victorian engineering, don't you?

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Oh, yeah. It's wonderful.

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Giant feats of ingenuity
saved lives.

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The Victorians had ambition.

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They thought big, and they got
on with it.

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Amazing inventions revolutionised
our domestic lives.

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What I'm holding in my hand
changed our homes forever.

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Automation transformed mass
production.

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Factories could now produce goods
at a rate never imagined before.

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The change is like a nuclear
weapon going off.

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This is the story of how
the Victorians built Britain.

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This time, I learned how a radical
new transport system was carved

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out of London.

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They might have had a couple
of cranes, but other

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than that all of it was done
by hand.

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How engineers wrestle to run
steam trains underground.

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It must have been Dante's Inferno.

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And how a clever idea transformed
affordable transport.

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When Queen Victoria came to the
throne in 1837, the landscape

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of Britain was being transformed.

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London was the most prosperous city
in the world, with a population

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of around 2 million.

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It was a very crowded place.

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Most were living within two
miles of the Thames.

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Judith Flanders has spent years
writing about Victorian Britain.

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Judith, what would the streets of
London have been like at the start

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of the Victorian era?

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They would have been noisier,
and more confusing,

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and more terrifying than this.

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We've got traffic, we've got buses,
we've got vans, we've got cars,

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bicycles, what we don't have is them
all going in all directions at once.

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There were no rules of the road.

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Everyone walked.
Everyone rode.

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Everyone drove all in the same
space.

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And in both directions.

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The confusion was phenomenal.

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And smelly?

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Beyond smelly.

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There would have been sheep driven
in, donkeys pulling carts,

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cattle being driven to market,
because most markets slaughtered

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the meat where you were.

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So just imagine the produce
of those animals,

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and then they were slaughtered.

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So the gutters would be running
with blood and fat.

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Blood and excrement - all
those animals.

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I read somewhere, I think,
that a thousand tonnes of horse dung

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a day ended up on London streets.

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Does that sound about right?

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It sounds a little low to me,
actually.

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They measured how many cart loads
of dung that they picked

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up between Piccadilly Circus
and Oxford Circus,

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just along Regent Street.

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And it was dozens of cart
loads every 12 hours.

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Most early Victorian transport
relied on horsepower.

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You only need to look at a list
of pub names in London from 1851

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to realise their importance.

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21 pubs were named after
Queen Victoria, but 54 were named

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The White Horse.

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And another 27,
The Horse and Groom.

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And the list goes on.

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But most people couldn't afford
the horse drawn transport

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that was available.

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How did people get around? On foot.

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Basically, if you wanted
to go anywhere you walked.

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In the morning, you have what were
called these black rivers of clerks,

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shopkeepers all walking
into work.

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They would walk along, like we have
our phones, they would walk

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along reading newspapers.

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A survey in the 1850s showed
that, on average, 200,000 people

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walked into the city each year.

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The relative luxury of a horse
and carriage was not for them.

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But for the middle classes
who didn't want to walk,

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there was another option.

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It's one that's far more familiar
to us today.

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The omnibus.

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Omnibuses - the ancestor of the bus.

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They were horse drawn.

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They could take 12 people inside.

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You had a coachman on the front.

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You had a conductor, or a cad,
stepping up on the back of cabs.

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A cad? Hence the word for a rotter.

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Yes, exactly. They had a slightly
dubious reputation.

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And actually they didn't, they had
a completely dubious reputation.

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You could have two people
sitting up with the coachman,

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and those were very favourite seats,
and he would keep those for the men

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who were regulars and who tipped
well, because inside was horrible.

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It was dark, it was damp,
it was smelly.

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To make matters worse
for the passengers, conductors

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would take their money and usher
them on board before they'd had time

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to realise there was barely
enough room inside.

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The drivers would, therefore, leap
around other buses to try and get

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ahead to get the next passenger.

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And we see court case after court
case of what was known

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as furious driving.

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As they raced each other
to get to the next passenger.

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So it was kind of the Wild West of
busdom.

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Fares started at a costly shilling,
but soon dropped to sixpence.

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Even then, it would have cost
an office clerk more than two days

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wages just to get the omnibus
to work each day,

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forcing them to remain living within
walking distance of their jobs.

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In just two decades, the population
of London had grown by a further

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half million people.

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This was only set to rise.

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And it was all down to one thing -
a frenzy of railway construction

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that had spread across Britain.

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WHISTLE BLOWING

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In just over a decade, they were
transporting millions of people

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across the country.

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By 1852, more people could access
the capital via major train stations

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like Euston, Paddington, Waterloo,
and King's Cross.

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There was fierce competition
to drive even more

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lines into London.

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A Royal Commission had ruled that no
mainline stations could be built

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within the city centre.

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Anyone arriving into one
of these stations had to continue

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their journey by road.

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The number of omnibuses doubled
as a result.

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And soon the streets of central
London were overwhelmed

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with traffic.

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One man, Charles Pierce, decided
something must be done.

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Solicitor to the City of London, and
something of a social reformer,

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he felt the railways themselves
held the answer.

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Charles Pearson was a man
on a mission.

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He had this radical idea for solving
the chaos on London's streets.

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He put forward a proposal
that was to lead to one

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of the defining projects
of the century.

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His idea would transform London,
and the way we get round the city,

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to this day.

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The London Underground.

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But creating the first underground
railway was a massive gamble,

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and no-one had any idea if it would
be a success.

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During the early Victorian
period, inner city travel

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was limited to horsepower for those
with money,

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and if you didn't earn a decent
wage, you walked everywhere.

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Charles Pearson was keen to improve
London and the chaos on its streets.

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He put forward a radical idea
for an underground railway.

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For years his idea was ridiculed.

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The Times described it as an insult

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to common sense that people
would prefer to be driven

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through the foul subsoil of London.

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Pearson wouldn't give up, and
eventually his persistence paid off.

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In 1853, the House of Commons
approved a bill for the construction

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of an underground railway.

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The first to be built anywhere
in the world.

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A company was set up called
the Metropolitan Railway.

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Construction on the first
stretch of line began in 1860.

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It was named the Metropolitan Line,
and it ran steam trains

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through its underground tunnels.

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This is North Weald station part
of the Epping Ongar Heritage

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Railway in Essex.

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This centre houses a collection
of historic trains and buses,

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and is currently the home
of a very special locomotive.

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It's the last Metropolitan
Underground Line steam locomotive

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in the country that's
still in working order.

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Morning, Alan.

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Morning, Michael. Nice to meet you.
So, this is it?

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This is it. 120 years old, nearly.

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Welcome aboard.

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OK.

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That's lovely.

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And you've got a wonderful
vista along the front.

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Oh, yeah.

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Alan Coppen is one of the volunteers
here at the centre.

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And is one of the team
responsible

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for the Metropolitan steam loco.

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Slide over. OK, if you want to screw
that off, if you want to.

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Here we go.

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All the way off.

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How's that? Marvellous.

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If you want to play the hooter. Oh!

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WHISTLE BLOWING

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There you go! I've always wanted to
do that. Simple stuff.

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Clear my side, Al.

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Clear my side. Here we go, then.

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This locomotive, the Metropolitan 1,
used to carry people

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through the underground tunnels.

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It was still running on open
stretches of the underground,

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west of London, to Chesham right
up until 1961.

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So what does it mean to you?

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I've always loved railways,
and particularly steam. Yeah.

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To be on this one, particularly,
I always find a great privilege.

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Yeah. The early Victorian drivers
would have their name in the cab.

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Really? It wasn't unusual for them
to come in on their days

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off just to look after their loco.
Really?

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They were polished like, well,
like your best silver service.

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You get a real sense in here
of Victorian engineering.

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Oh, yeah, it's wonderful.

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Can you just blow the whistle there,
Michael, for the crossing? Yeah.

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WHISTLE BLOWING

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You can make them sing.

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WHISTLE BLOWING

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The first section
of the Metropolitan Line ran

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from Paddington taking in three
major train stations.

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Paddington itself, Euston, and
King's Cross before ending

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at Farringdon.

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One of the first underground
stations to be built on that initial

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stretch was Baker Street.

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Is this Baker Street station much
as it was as it was built

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in the 1860s?

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Absolutely. This was part of the
original Metropolitan Railway opened

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just over 150 years ago in 1863.

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And this particular station
has been kept,

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more or less, in its original
condition.

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You could practically see the people
with top hats, can't you?

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Absolutely, absolutely.

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To construct the first underground
they used a method called

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cut and cover.

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Where possible, engineers followed
the roads to avoid

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knocking down buildings.

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Sealing off a portion of the road,

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they dug a giant trench
straight along it.

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The sides of the trench
were shored up with wooden planks

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before being lined with bricks.

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And finally, the top was roofed
over with a brick arch

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and the road reinstated above.

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Being just below street
level, these shallow tunnels

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are called subsurface lines.

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What would it have been like down
here when they were really

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in the throes of building it?

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There would probably have been a
couple of hundred men at least

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on this one station doing very
physical things, because they had

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virtually nothing to help them
mechanically.

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They might have had a couple of
cranes with steam engines, but other

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than that all of it was done
by hand.

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Some of the spoil was taken to
West London where it now forms part

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of the embankment at Chelsea
Football Club.

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The workmen digging these tunnels
were called navvies, an earlier term

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that was used for the men
who built the navigation canals

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a century earlier.

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A lot of them were Irish,
because in the early and mid

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19th century the Irish economy
was very poor.

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00:14:10,020 --> 00:14:13,380
A lot of men came over, and the boom
activity at the time

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was railway construction.

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They were tough guys.

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It was a sort of hard living,
hard drinking area, and there

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were lots of reports of fights.

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Both between themselves
and with local communities.

247
00:14:29,780 --> 00:14:32,860
So their navvies were not
popular.

248
00:14:32,860 --> 00:14:35,940
But they did the job in a way
that probably nobody else

249
00:14:35,940 --> 00:14:37,060
could have done.

250
00:14:38,660 --> 00:14:42,980
A major challenge was avoiding the
maze of pipes, drains, and sewers

251
00:14:42,980 --> 00:14:44,500
that ran beneath the streets.

252
00:14:46,780 --> 00:14:50,940
Disaster soon struck when the wall
of the fleet sewer burst.

253
00:14:52,060 --> 00:14:56,060
Its foul contents gushed out,
smashing through the timbers

254
00:14:56,060 --> 00:14:59,220
and flooding a section of tunnel
to a depth of ten feet.

255
00:15:01,100 --> 00:15:04,740
The setback cost months
of extra work, and hundreds

256
00:15:04,740 --> 00:15:06,180
of thousands of pounds.

257
00:15:10,700 --> 00:15:13,580
But eventually, the first stretch
of the Metropolitan Line

258
00:15:13,580 --> 00:15:15,700
opened in 1863.

259
00:15:17,420 --> 00:15:19,020
It was a huge achievement.

260
00:15:19,020 --> 00:15:20,980
There was great excitement
when it opened.

261
00:15:22,540 --> 00:15:26,700
They even held a banquet down on
the platform at Farringdon Station.

262
00:15:28,780 --> 00:15:32,500
Well, there was quite a fanfare
there, and there were lots of people

263
00:15:32,500 --> 00:15:35,900
who went on the first trains apart
from the celebratory trains

264
00:15:35,900 --> 00:15:37,820
where the notables came.

265
00:15:37,820 --> 00:15:42,260
The general public came very
quickly and used it, and they kept

266
00:15:42,260 --> 00:15:43,500
using it, as well.

267
00:15:48,260 --> 00:15:51,500
After the first year, the company
receipts showed profits

268
00:15:51,500 --> 00:15:55,020
of over £100,000,
which is the equivalent

269
00:15:55,020 --> 00:15:57,140
of around 9 million today.

270
00:15:59,700 --> 00:16:02,980
All testament to the vision
of one pioneering

271
00:16:02,980 --> 00:16:05,820
Victorian - Charles Pearson.

272
00:16:05,820 --> 00:16:06,820
WHISTLE BLOWING

273
00:16:10,700 --> 00:16:14,340
But constructing the underground
was only half the battle.

274
00:16:14,340 --> 00:16:16,780
The trains they ran on the tracks
were leased

275
00:16:16,780 --> 00:16:18,900
from the mainline railway companies.

276
00:16:20,380 --> 00:16:23,580
Trains that were never designed
to run underground.

277
00:16:31,540 --> 00:16:35,740
See, there's a red line there, Alan.
The ideal... If it gets to there,

278
00:16:35,740 --> 00:16:37,700
we jump! We jump!

279
00:16:37,700 --> 00:16:39,860
I'll be before you,
I'll be right before you.

280
00:16:39,860 --> 00:16:40,780
No, you won't!

281
00:16:48,060 --> 00:16:53,220
Take us back to when this
wonderful locomotive was actually

282
00:16:53,220 --> 00:16:57,860
on the Metropolitan Railway,
underground in Victorian times.

283
00:16:57,860 --> 00:17:00,420
Well, you've got this thing
down here chuffing out this stuff,

284
00:17:00,420 --> 00:17:02,100
and it must have been hell.

285
00:17:02,100 --> 00:17:04,100
It really must have been awful.
In those tunnels?

286
00:17:04,100 --> 00:17:05,340
In those tunnels.

287
00:17:05,340 --> 00:17:09,300
The soot, the smoke, and the dirt,
basically, and the sulphurous fumes.

288
00:17:09,300 --> 00:17:12,140
It must have been Dante's Inferno,
you know.

289
00:17:12,140 --> 00:17:16,180
So what they done, the
early, the earlier ones than this,

290
00:17:16,180 --> 00:17:19,540
this is a later one, they put
condensing apparatus on them.

291
00:17:19,540 --> 00:17:20,620
How did that work?

292
00:17:20,620 --> 00:17:23,660
Well, the idea was to reduce the
smoke emissions from the chimney,

293
00:17:23,660 --> 00:17:26,860
obviously, in the tunnels
by means of condensing.

294
00:17:26,860 --> 00:17:30,180
So what they did was they put
pipes in the cylinders...

295
00:17:30,180 --> 00:17:33,340
On a conventional locomotive, the
exhausts are going up the chimney

296
00:17:33,340 --> 00:17:34,460
into the atmosphere.

297
00:17:34,460 --> 00:17:37,100
But in this case they came
along the pipes, into the top

298
00:17:37,100 --> 00:17:39,620
of the water tanks on the
locomotive,

299
00:17:39,620 --> 00:17:43,100
where the waste was condensed,
turned into water.

300
00:17:43,100 --> 00:17:47,860
And it reduced it to a fair extent,
but it wasn't very successful.

301
00:17:47,860 --> 00:17:51,700
Clouds of smoke still engulfed
the underground tunnel.

302
00:17:51,700 --> 00:17:52,900
WHISTLE BLOWING

303
00:17:52,900 --> 00:17:54,820
And what about the passengers?

304
00:17:54,820 --> 00:17:56,300
Well that was their rotten luck.

305
00:17:56,300 --> 00:17:59,220
That was their attitude on the early
days. A lot of the early chemists,

306
00:17:59,220 --> 00:18:04,620
I understand did make potions, you
know, the metropolitan mixture...

307
00:18:04,620 --> 00:18:06,340
What, for travelling on the
Underground?

308
00:18:06,340 --> 00:18:08,660
Yeah, have buy our potion.
We like a little bit of profit.

309
00:18:08,660 --> 00:18:10,820
You know, it was supposed
to cure like ailments

310
00:18:10,820 --> 00:18:12,820
and bronchitis and asthma.

311
00:18:12,820 --> 00:18:17,380
I'm not sure it did, but some
of the crews asked for leave,

312
00:18:17,380 --> 00:18:20,260
a week's leave to grow beards.
Oh, really, why?

313
00:18:20,260 --> 00:18:24,500
Well, they thought that the beards
might help sort of... Oh, filter

314
00:18:24,500 --> 00:18:27,780
the sulphur and all that for the...
That didn't work.

315
00:18:27,780 --> 00:18:30,180
I can't say that worked, no,
no, but that's what they did.

316
00:18:32,220 --> 00:18:35,060
Despite the conditions,
being an engine driver on one

317
00:18:35,060 --> 00:18:40,180
of these trains was a good job
to have, and one they took pride in.

318
00:18:40,180 --> 00:18:42,540
But it was a hard way to earn
a living.

319
00:18:45,020 --> 00:18:47,060
What was it like for the crew?

320
00:18:47,060 --> 00:18:48,220
Long hours.

321
00:18:48,220 --> 00:18:49,780
Very, very dirty work.

322
00:18:49,780 --> 00:18:52,220
I think you had to be...

323
00:18:52,220 --> 00:18:55,380
You have to be a railwayman. I don't
think it was a job for people,

324
00:18:55,380 --> 00:18:59,060
"I might try the railways", I think
your father was a railwayman,

325
00:18:59,060 --> 00:19:02,060
perhaps, so you went on the
railways, and that's the way it was.

326
00:19:02,060 --> 00:19:04,180
But it was a backbreaking job.

327
00:19:07,940 --> 00:19:09,860
I think they were a different breed
of people.

328
00:19:09,860 --> 00:19:11,580
I think they were very tough people.
Yeah.

329
00:19:11,580 --> 00:19:13,860
And they were very, everything
they done was, in my eyes,

330
00:19:13,860 --> 00:19:15,060
I think they were brilliant.

331
00:19:15,060 --> 00:19:16,940
I think they shaped Britain.

332
00:19:16,940 --> 00:19:18,180
The railway shaped Britain.

333
00:19:18,180 --> 00:19:21,420
Certainly the early metropolitan,
you know, one of the first.

334
00:19:21,420 --> 00:19:23,580
And here it is, 122 years
later.

335
00:19:23,580 --> 00:19:25,100
It's great, isn't it? Marvellous.

336
00:19:28,300 --> 00:19:32,940
There's a contemporary account
by a stoker called George Spiller.

337
00:19:32,940 --> 00:19:34,820
He said,

338
00:19:34,820 --> 00:19:39,060
"You could hardly breathe going
through the tunnels, it was so hot.

339
00:19:39,060 --> 00:19:41,860
It was enough to boil
you on the foot plate.

340
00:19:41,860 --> 00:19:45,380
It was a dirty, hot, sweaty job."

341
00:19:46,500 --> 00:19:48,100
It must have been tough.

342
00:19:48,100 --> 00:19:54,380
But just think back 150 years
to the time when wonderful

343
00:19:54,380 --> 00:20:00,260
old locomotives like the Met 1
were transporting millions of people

344
00:20:00,260 --> 00:20:01,500
under the streets of London.

345
00:20:03,060 --> 00:20:07,300
Passengers weren't deterred
by the smoky tunnels.

346
00:20:07,300 --> 00:20:11,100
The Metropolitan Railway continued
to run steam locos on its tracks

347
00:20:11,100 --> 00:20:12,540
for the next 40 years,

348
00:20:12,540 --> 00:20:16,700
until electric trains took over
in the early 1900s.

349
00:20:18,380 --> 00:20:20,540
It was hugely successful.

350
00:20:20,540 --> 00:20:23,060
In the first year after it opened,

351
00:20:23,060 --> 00:20:25,300
that line from Paddington
to Farringdon

352
00:20:25,300 --> 00:20:29,980
carried 12 million passengers
across London.

353
00:20:29,980 --> 00:20:33,940
It was the first underground
railway in the world.

354
00:20:33,940 --> 00:20:38,260
The Metropolitan Railway
proved that the idea was possible,

355
00:20:38,260 --> 00:20:41,500
and it paved the way
for what was to come.

356
00:20:41,500 --> 00:20:45,100
But the next chapter was to push
the success of the Underground

357
00:20:45,100 --> 00:20:49,900
to breaking point, as a bitter feud
threatened to jeopardise plans.

358
00:20:51,780 --> 00:20:54,340
And a new rival vehicle
came to London

359
00:20:54,340 --> 00:20:57,260
that's largely been forgotten
by history.

360
00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:04,680
During the second half of
the 19th century,

361
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:07,960
Britain was in the throes of
a major revolution.

362
00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:13,040
The sheer scale of the Victorian
buildings, bridges

363
00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:16,520
and railway networks
dwarfed anything seen before.

364
00:21:18,120 --> 00:21:21,040
New forms of transport were
beginning to shape our towns

365
00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:24,080
and cities across the country.

366
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:28,240
And none more so than
the London Underground.

367
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:32,280
The Metropolitan Railway had always
planned on extending

368
00:21:32,280 --> 00:21:34,400
its initial stretch of line.

369
00:21:35,400 --> 00:21:37,080
But the next stage of construction

370
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:39,760
wouldn't be as straightforward
as they'd hoped.

371
00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:44,120
And the Metropolitan Railway
wasn't the only one to see

372
00:21:44,120 --> 00:21:47,840
an opportunity in expanding
the Underground.

373
00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:51,680
The promoters of these lines
were very entrepreneurial.

374
00:21:51,680 --> 00:21:55,480
So they might see a small town
or little village

375
00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:59,840
that was, sort of, two or three
miles outside London and say,

376
00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:03,560
"Well, we'll link that
into the Underground network".

377
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:09,840
And so, they spread out in a rather
higgledy-piggledy, random fashion.

378
00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:16,280
From the outset, there was always
a plan to build a Circle line

379
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:19,200
that would connect some
of the mainline railway stations

380
00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:23,080
and allow passengers
to navigate London as a whole.

381
00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:25,920
Two companies were tasked
with building it.

382
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:28,800
The Metropolitan Railway,

383
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:31,760
and a new company,
the District Railway.

384
00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:36,400
Who were the key figures
in all this?

385
00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:39,200
There were two key players in this.

386
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:41,720
Running the District, James Forbes,

387
00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:44,560
and the Metropolitan, Edward Watkin.

388
00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:47,840
Two rivals who actually
disliked each other,

389
00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:51,040
refused to have any negotiations,

390
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:54,120
and so built, kind of,
bits of the Underground

391
00:22:54,120 --> 00:22:57,320
that were not really
connected to each other.

392
00:22:57,320 --> 00:22:59,480
Why do you think they hated
each other so much?

393
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:01,560
They were very different types.

394
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:06,520
James Forbes was urbane,
kind of relaxed, kind of witty,

395
00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:09,120
rather charming, an art collector.

396
00:23:09,120 --> 00:23:15,240
Edward Watkin was this very
kind of focused empire-builder,

397
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:18,040
entrepreneur,
only interested in money.

398
00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:21,880
And I think their personalities
actually clash,

399
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:24,920
quite apart from the fact
they were just traditional,

400
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:27,240
capitalist rivals.

401
00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:34,320
It took 21 years for the Circle line
to be completed.

402
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:37,720
Largely because the two men
never found a way to work together.

403
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:42,160
And even then,
their rivalry continued.

404
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:48,200
The Metropolitan Railway actually
had the contract to run the trains

405
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:50,400
in the clockwise direction,

406
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:55,280
and the District had the contract
to run them in the anticlockwise.

407
00:23:55,280 --> 00:23:59,960
If a passenger was foolish enough
to go to the wrong ticket office,

408
00:23:59,960 --> 00:24:03,000
because they had two ticket offices
at each of the stations,

409
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:06,440
and buy a ticket that might involve
travelling around

410
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:09,080
17 or 18 stations
in the wrong direction,

411
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:12,600
instead of one
that might just take you

412
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:15,960
five stations in the correct
direction, they wouldn't bother.

413
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:20,280
They would just take the money
and say, "That's the long way round.
That's the way you haveto go."

414
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:23,680
And what are the consequences
of that rivalry

415
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:26,520
for people using the Underground
today?

416
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:30,360
One of the great examples of this
is the fact that where we are,

417
00:24:30,360 --> 00:24:32,040
Hammersmith, at the moment,

418
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:34,520
there are actually two stations.

419
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:38,760
And one was built by the District
Railway, which is over there,

420
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:42,400
and the other was built by the
Metropolitan, which is over there.

421
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:45,080
And the two did not connect
at the time,

422
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:50,440
and still, more than 150 years'
later, they still don't connect.

423
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:54,680
And you have to cross a busy road
to get from one to the other.

424
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:57,760
Despite its ups and downs,
the London Underground

425
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:00,400
was still a marvel of its time.

426
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,880
London was the great city
of the world at the time,

427
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:06,880
so it's not surprising that it
developed an underground system

428
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:12,640
30 or 40 years before any other
country actually developed one.

429
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:14,680
So New York, Paris, Berlin,

430
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:18,720
they all developed systems
starting around 1900,

431
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:22,720
which was 35-40 years
after we built our system.

432
00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:25,480
The Victorians deserve
their reputation

433
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:29,760
as the great inventors
and innovators of the period.

434
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:35,520
By the mid 1870s,
an estimated 60 million passengers

435
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:38,920
were travelling on the Underground
every year.

436
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:41,800
As the Metropolitan line expanded,

437
00:25:41,800 --> 00:25:44,040
the company tried to limit
the amount of damage

438
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:45,560
that the construction caused.

439
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:49,080
Particularly in wealthy areas,
like here, in Bayswater.

440
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,080
The residents didn't want
an ugly railway

441
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,960
cutting through
their elegant terraces.

442
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:57,200
So the solution was this -

443
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:02,840
A frontage that's in keeping
with the rest of the street.

444
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:06,920
Around the back...

445
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:10,880
..it's a different story.

446
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:17,200
Having demolished a whole house,

447
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:21,000
the railway company built
a brand-new facade to fill the gap

448
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,720
and hopefully
keep the residents happy.

449
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:30,160
New postmen were sometimes
handed letters to deliver

450
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:33,200
to this non-existent address,
just as a joke.

451
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,400
The Underground railway opened up
travel options around London

452
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:42,960
and capitalised on offering
what they called,

453
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:45,920
workmen's trains with cheaper fares.

454
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:49,880
But there were still lots of people
who still couldn't afford to use it.

455
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:56,680
But another kind of transport
was about to put in an appearance
in the city.

456
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:59,360
It took its inspiration
from the railways

457
00:26:59,360 --> 00:27:03,520
and it would revolutionise transport
for the masses.

458
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:08,440
It's a vehicle that today
has largely disappeared

459
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,000
from cities across Britain -
the tram.

460
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,960
It's similar to an omnibus,
but with a key difference -

461
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:19,160
its wheels ran on rails
that were built along the roads.

462
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:24,080
An original Victorian example
is held here,

463
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:26,280
at the London Transport Museum.

464
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:32,640
Tram was introduced in this country
by an American called George Train.

465
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:34,840
Wonderful name. Yeah.

466
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,400
And he set up three routes
in London,

467
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,960
but none of them actually prospered.

468
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:45,760
The rails that carried the trams
were slightly raised above the level
of the road,

469
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:49,240
which, for Londoners,
was unacceptable.

470
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:52,280
Other vehicles were constantly
bumping over these things,

471
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:57,440
including the carriages of
the mayors and aldermen and MPs,

472
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:02,080
who actually had the authority
to allow tram systems.

473
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,880
They hated the things.

474
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:07,240
Everything changed in 1868.

475
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:14,120
A company in Liverpool obtained
a local act to introduce tramlines
to their city.

476
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,880
They did this by working out
a way to lay the rails flush

477
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:20,800
with the road's surface.

478
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:25,280
Once that happened,
trams had arrived.

479
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:30,400
So from 1870 is when we have
a tram system here, in London.

480
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:33,960
It actually made it fun to travel
across London,

481
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:36,800
which it had never, never
been before.

482
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:42,440
Pulling the tram on rails created
less friction than wheels on a road.

483
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:44,720
Making them faster and smoother.

484
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:49,320
A horse-drawn tram could pull up to
50 passengers.

485
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:51,240
Double the load of an omnibus.

486
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:56,440
The rails were also simple
and cheap to lay.

487
00:28:56,440 --> 00:29:00,720
Unlike the Underground, the tram
companies didn't have to buy land,

488
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:03,840
which meant they could offer
much cheaper fares.

489
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,440
It meant that for the first time,
and this is a crucial thing,

490
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:14,640
for the first time, you did not
have to live within walking distance

491
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:16,240
of where you worked.

492
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:22,120
Just like the Underground railway,
trams also offered workman's fares,

493
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:26,280
making them, overall, the
most affordable mode of transport.

494
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:31,880
More working class people could now
move out to the suburbs,

495
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,600
where they could have more space,
even a garden,

496
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:36,840
and a better quality of life.

497
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:42,560
Paint me a picture of how it would
change the lives of an ordinary
woman.

498
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:47,200
All right. Well, suppose she was
a milliner working in Oxford Street.

499
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:50,520
She could actually live at home,
travel to work

500
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,400
on a more or less predictable
timetable.

501
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:56,480
Be there on time, come home late

502
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:59,400
on a reliable form of transport.

503
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,000
Bear in mind also, that these
vehicles were very well-lit,

504
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:06,560
and you have a burly conductor
standing right next to you.

505
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:09,200
They were a safe form of transport.

506
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:14,040
The tram contributed to the freedom
of women, in that sense.

507
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,040
And more predictable?

508
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:17,560
Absolutely.

509
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:20,480
It's like being on the train,
but it comes down your street

510
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:22,760
and it stops outside your house.

511
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,000
Tram stops began appearing
along residential streets.

512
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:31,480
Householders soon saw an opportunity

513
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,760
and began selling items
like drinks and tobacco

514
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:36,880
outside the front of their houses.

515
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:42,040
People would often build this shop
over their front garden.

516
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,440
And there are entire districts
in London

517
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:47,240
where you can see
that this has happened.

518
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:49,800
The shop is one-storey high,
the building behind is three.

519
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:54,480
That is the origin
of our suburban parades of shops.

520
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:57,240
They developed from
those tram stops.

521
00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:59,960
So, how much do you think
did the trams,

522
00:30:59,960 --> 00:31:02,920
and by extension,
the Victorians themselves,

523
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:05,480
contribute to the way we live now?

524
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:07,400
Their habits

525
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:12,520
of industry, education, culture,
transport...

526
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:16,840
..are those that we still follow.

527
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:19,200
We are walking in their footsteps.

528
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:23,120
They created the modern world,
there is no question about that.

529
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:30,640
In 1875, nearly 50 million people
travelled by tram across London.

530
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,520
Elsewhere in Britain,
their effect was even greater.

531
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:39,040
Unlike London, in places
like Liverpool, Edinburgh,

532
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:40,560
Birmingham and Manchester,

533
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,280
the trams were allowed right into
the heart of the city centre.

534
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:48,760
This meant whole tram networks

535
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:51,680
enabled people to navigate
right across town.

536
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,920
Opening up more possibilities
for the masses to get around.

537
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:01,440
Albert certainly looks very happy
with his tram journey.

538
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:04,560
Well, look how comfortable
that it is in here.

539
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:08,080
Feels like a time traveller,
sitting in here.

540
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:09,640
THEY LAUGH

541
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:13,840
Take us back to the age
of the Victorians.

542
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:15,360
BELL SOUNDS

543
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:20,440
For Londoners, though,
the trams only took you so far.

544
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:24,200
There was still the problem
of how to get into the city centre.

545
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,840
Which, for many, involved
getting across the Thames.

546
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,240
Attention turned again
to the underground railways.

547
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:36,680
A young engineer
had a radical solution,

548
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:40,960
inspired by an invention of
Isambard Brunel's father, Marc.

549
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:44,960
This new idea opened
a brand-new chapter

550
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:46,880
for the London Underground.

551
00:32:54,420 --> 00:32:56,260
During Queen Victoria's reign,

552
00:32:56,260 --> 00:32:58,580
Britain was the world's
wealthiest nation.

553
00:33:00,300 --> 00:33:05,020
The population of London ballooned
from two million to six million.

554
00:33:06,460 --> 00:33:07,980
To help get everyone moving,

555
00:33:07,980 --> 00:33:11,380
the London Underground
was about to get a brand-new line.

556
00:33:13,900 --> 00:33:16,500
A young engineer
called James Greathead

557
00:33:16,500 --> 00:33:19,620
had a novel solution
for how to build it.

558
00:33:19,620 --> 00:33:23,860
More people than ever before were
living to the south of the river,

559
00:33:23,860 --> 00:33:26,860
and getting across the Thames
had become a nightmare.

560
00:33:26,860 --> 00:33:29,220
And so, work began
on the construction

561
00:33:29,220 --> 00:33:32,100
of what we now know as
the Northern line,

562
00:33:32,100 --> 00:33:36,140
the first deep underground
tube line in the world.

563
00:33:36,140 --> 00:33:40,580
And the first section had to run
right under the River Thames.

564
00:33:40,580 --> 00:33:43,620
Starting...there.

565
00:33:44,940 --> 00:33:48,020
In 1886, James Greathead
and his team of navvies

566
00:33:48,020 --> 00:33:50,020
began constructing the first stretch

567
00:33:50,020 --> 00:33:52,860
of what would become
the Northern line.

568
00:33:54,260 --> 00:33:57,700
Trains still run through parts
of that original Victorian tunnel.

569
00:33:58,980 --> 00:34:03,260
A legacy which today, is undergoing
a massive modern extension,

570
00:34:03,260 --> 00:34:06,020
with works here, at Kennington.

571
00:34:06,020 --> 00:34:08,220
Bloody hell!

572
00:34:08,220 --> 00:34:11,420
That's the shaft, there you go.
Yeah. That's a 25-metre drop.

573
00:34:11,420 --> 00:34:15,740
And that's the way they've been
doing it for 100 or more years?

574
00:34:15,740 --> 00:34:18,340
Yeah, absolutely. The only way
to do it is going vertical.

575
00:34:18,340 --> 00:34:21,260
Keep talking,
you're taking my mind off, er...

576
00:34:21,260 --> 00:34:23,660
THEY LAUGH
Off the height. Off the drop.

577
00:34:25,100 --> 00:34:26,860
We're almost there,
we're almost there.

578
00:34:26,860 --> 00:34:28,500
So far, so good.

579
00:34:28,500 --> 00:34:30,380
THEY LAUGH

580
00:34:33,740 --> 00:34:35,340
It's the size of a cathedral,
isn't it?

581
00:34:35,340 --> 00:34:38,700
It's massive. It's a massive size,
yeah. Look at that!

582
00:34:38,700 --> 00:34:41,500
How much earth did you have to shift
to dig this out?

583
00:34:41,500 --> 00:34:43,660
It will be around 600 tonnes,
more or less.

584
00:34:43,660 --> 00:34:45,980
600 tonnes of earth? Yeah.

585
00:34:45,980 --> 00:34:48,580
Whoo! Wow! Easy.

586
00:34:48,580 --> 00:34:52,220
So, it goes down here, does it? This
is where the tube trains will run?

587
00:34:52,220 --> 00:34:55,820
That's where, in so many years, the
train will be running, through here.

588
00:34:55,820 --> 00:34:58,420
And connected to
the Battersea Power Station.

589
00:34:58,420 --> 00:34:59,980
Let's go. Let's go.

590
00:35:01,380 --> 00:35:04,620
The key difference in 1886
between the Northern line

591
00:35:04,620 --> 00:35:06,860
and the earlier underground
Metropolitan lines

592
00:35:06,860 --> 00:35:08,900
was that it went far deeper,

593
00:35:08,900 --> 00:35:11,780
avoiding the shallower pipes
and sewers.

594
00:35:13,340 --> 00:35:17,660
In order to dig a deep tunnel,
you first have to sink a shaft,

595
00:35:17,660 --> 00:35:21,700
essentially, a giant hole,
like this one at Kennington.

596
00:35:21,700 --> 00:35:24,220
It was the same for the Victorians.

597
00:35:24,220 --> 00:35:28,060
Once at the bottom, you could
then start digging out the tunnels.

598
00:35:30,140 --> 00:35:33,380
We're right at the end of the line
here, eh? Yes.

599
00:35:33,380 --> 00:35:37,220
So, what's the process? Basically,
what they're doing right now
is exposing clay.

600
00:35:37,220 --> 00:35:39,900
They are digging another metre
of tunnel.

601
00:35:39,900 --> 00:35:41,420
How are they doing it?

602
00:35:41,420 --> 00:35:44,700
So basically, what we do is, with
hand tools, with pneumatic tools,

603
00:35:44,700 --> 00:35:47,580
we dig all the clay out with spades.

604
00:35:47,580 --> 00:35:51,180
And then, after the face is exposed,
we install timber.

605
00:35:52,700 --> 00:35:56,260
In order to construct the original
Victorian stretch of tunnel,

606
00:35:56,260 --> 00:36:01,020
James Greathead used what became
known as the Greathead Shield.

607
00:36:01,020 --> 00:36:05,300
It was a metal cylinder
that protected the workers
as they dug the tunnels.

608
00:36:05,300 --> 00:36:10,340
It was based on an earlier model,
originally developed by Marc Brunel.

609
00:36:12,300 --> 00:36:14,620
As the men dug the tunnel out
by hand,

610
00:36:14,620 --> 00:36:17,820
the shield was pushed forward
by hydraulic screws.

611
00:36:18,940 --> 00:36:23,420
Cast-iron segments were then placed
behind to form the tunnel lining.

612
00:36:23,420 --> 00:36:28,260
Giving it the distinct look
that earned the nickname, the Tube.

613
00:36:28,260 --> 00:36:30,380
Just like here, at Kennington.

614
00:36:31,420 --> 00:36:35,620
But it's astonishing, isn't it,
that 150 years after the Victorians
did it,

615
00:36:35,620 --> 00:36:37,260
there are some guys with shovels!

616
00:36:37,260 --> 00:36:38,820
There will be always a requirement

617
00:36:38,820 --> 00:36:41,860
for hand-mining and tunnelling.
There always will be.

618
00:36:43,100 --> 00:36:47,140
Even with the latest technology,
workers today use hand tools

619
00:36:47,140 --> 00:36:49,540
in areas that big machines
can't access,

620
00:36:49,540 --> 00:36:53,100
or might damage
any existing structures.

621
00:36:53,100 --> 00:36:56,660
How far can they put the tunnel
in...a day, a week?

622
00:36:56,660 --> 00:36:59,860
Depends on the guys
and how motivated they are,

623
00:36:59,860 --> 00:37:02,860
but they probably do from
five to eight metres a week.

624
00:37:02,860 --> 00:37:05,060
Five to eight metres a week? Yeah.

625
00:37:09,060 --> 00:37:12,860
Greathead's original line
took four years to complete.

626
00:37:14,180 --> 00:37:18,500
Opening in 1890, it ran from a
station called King William Street,

627
00:37:18,500 --> 00:37:21,660
heading south, under the Thames,
to Stockwell.

628
00:37:21,660 --> 00:37:25,540
It was initially called
the City and South London Railway.

629
00:37:25,540 --> 00:37:28,860
Later, it became the Northern line.

630
00:37:28,860 --> 00:37:33,180
It was the first deep-level
tube line in the world.

631
00:37:33,180 --> 00:37:36,340
Do you think your tunnels will last
as long as the Victorians'?

632
00:37:36,340 --> 00:37:38,700
I would hope so.
At least for 150 years.

633
00:37:38,700 --> 00:37:41,700
You won't be around to see it.
I don't think so, no.

634
00:37:43,500 --> 00:37:46,180
When the line opened,
they couldn't run steam trains

635
00:37:46,180 --> 00:37:47,900
through such deep tunnels.

636
00:37:47,900 --> 00:37:50,780
They were too narrow,
had no ventilation.

637
00:37:50,780 --> 00:37:52,740
Instead, they took a gamble.

638
00:37:52,740 --> 00:37:56,020
For the first time
anywhere in the world,

639
00:37:56,020 --> 00:38:00,100
they ran electric trains
through the tunnels.

640
00:38:00,100 --> 00:38:03,180
This is one of the original
Victorian carriages

641
00:38:03,180 --> 00:38:06,540
that passengers travelled in
on the Northern line.

642
00:38:06,540 --> 00:38:09,420
It was called the padded cell.

643
00:38:09,420 --> 00:38:12,460
Partly because of these
rather wonderful old cushions,

644
00:38:12,460 --> 00:38:15,100
but also because
there were no windows.

645
00:38:15,100 --> 00:38:16,940
these are mirrors.

646
00:38:16,940 --> 00:38:20,460
The designers thought that because
they were going through tunnels,

647
00:38:20,460 --> 00:38:24,620
there was nothing to see,
no point in looking out.

648
00:38:25,660 --> 00:38:30,780
Nearly 5.5 million people travelled
on the new line in its first year.

649
00:38:30,780 --> 00:38:35,620
By the end of Queen Victoria's
reign, that had almost trebled.

650
00:38:37,140 --> 00:38:40,980
New modes of transport, like
the underground railway and trams,

651
00:38:40,980 --> 00:38:43,020
were changing how people got about.

652
00:38:43,020 --> 00:38:47,460
But it wasn't just the big vehicles
that could make a difference.

653
00:38:47,460 --> 00:38:51,100
There's one more vehicle
that owes its existence

654
00:38:51,100 --> 00:38:53,820
to those pioneering Victorians.

655
00:38:53,820 --> 00:38:57,780
It's one that's had a huge revival
in Britain over the last few years.

656
00:38:57,780 --> 00:38:59,940
The humble bicycle.

657
00:39:04,020 --> 00:39:08,020
Bikes old and new are celebrated
in the annual Tweed Run event,

658
00:39:08,020 --> 00:39:10,860
including some Victorian examples.

659
00:39:12,420 --> 00:39:15,100
During the 19th century,
they experimented with

660
00:39:15,100 --> 00:39:17,460
lots of designs
for a sort of bicycle.

661
00:39:18,940 --> 00:39:21,420
Some were more successful
than others.

662
00:39:21,420 --> 00:39:25,860
The penny-farthing soon became
a firm favourite.

663
00:39:25,860 --> 00:39:30,380
It's a fantastic experience
because you get a great viewpoint
from high up.

664
00:39:30,380 --> 00:39:34,620
But the penny-farthing was a little
bit hazardous to ride.

665
00:39:34,620 --> 00:39:37,580
If you fell off it, the consequences
were pretty serious.

666
00:39:40,420 --> 00:39:42,980
But in the late 1880s,
the penny-farthing

667
00:39:42,980 --> 00:39:45,180
suddenly became obsolete.

668
00:39:45,180 --> 00:39:49,780
They'd found something much better -
the safety bicycle.

669
00:39:49,780 --> 00:39:52,900
The introduction of
the safety bicycle was, really,

670
00:39:52,900 --> 00:39:55,980
one of the most significant things
in cycling history.

671
00:39:55,980 --> 00:39:58,260
Probably THE most significant thing.

672
00:39:58,260 --> 00:40:01,700
Because it made cycling
much safer for people.

673
00:40:03,140 --> 00:40:07,420
Unlike earlier experiments,
the safety bike had some innovative
features.

674
00:40:07,420 --> 00:40:10,980
It was lower,
had almost equal-sized wheels,

675
00:40:10,980 --> 00:40:13,980
was chain-driven
and easier to steer.

676
00:40:15,620 --> 00:40:17,820
It wasn't just men
that could ride it.

677
00:40:17,820 --> 00:40:20,620
Lots of women were keen
to have a go, too.

678
00:40:29,300 --> 00:40:32,100
Many adopted what was called
rational dress,

679
00:40:32,100 --> 00:40:35,580
such as bloomers
and specially-designed skirts.

680
00:40:35,580 --> 00:40:38,180
Although not everyone approved.

681
00:40:39,620 --> 00:40:42,580
There's an awful lot of
correspondence saying
how disgusting it was

682
00:40:42,580 --> 00:40:46,060
that women were wearing
these appalling creations.

683
00:40:46,060 --> 00:40:49,060
But there was a sort of hardcore
of women that were very happy

684
00:40:49,060 --> 00:40:51,260
to adopt that type of clothing.

685
00:40:53,260 --> 00:40:56,940
Cycling had a huge effect
on women's independence.

686
00:40:56,940 --> 00:41:01,300
They could travel wherever
they chose, and without a chaperone.

687
00:41:04,460 --> 00:41:06,900
Just like the tram and Underground
before it,

688
00:41:06,900 --> 00:41:11,140
the safety bicycle opened up
a wave of new possibilities.

689
00:41:11,140 --> 00:41:12,620
People could cycle to work.

690
00:41:12,620 --> 00:41:17,900
And, in rural areas, travel and
socialise beyond their communities.

691
00:41:19,260 --> 00:41:22,260
It became a form of transport
for the masses.

692
00:41:25,100 --> 00:41:27,300
When Queen Victoria came to
the throne,

693
00:41:27,300 --> 00:41:30,060
there was no such thing, really,
as public transport.

694
00:41:30,060 --> 00:41:33,660
But by the end of her reign,
everything had changed.

695
00:41:33,660 --> 00:41:38,060
People had options. People could
get around in a way they'd never
been able to before.

696
00:41:38,060 --> 00:41:42,540
These brand-new networks
laid down by the Victorians

697
00:41:42,540 --> 00:41:45,700
were fundamental in shaping
not just London,

698
00:41:45,700 --> 00:41:47,940
but the country as a whole.

699
00:41:51,180 --> 00:41:54,860
The legacy of the Victorians
is everywhere you look.

700
00:41:55,940 --> 00:41:58,780
From engineering triumphs
like the London Underground

701
00:41:58,780 --> 00:42:00,860
to simple vehicles like the tram,

702
00:42:00,860 --> 00:42:04,060
that have transformed the layout
of entire cities.

703
00:42:06,180 --> 00:42:09,180
Independent travel and our ability
to get about

704
00:42:09,180 --> 00:42:14,100
is all thanks to the Victorians'
immense determination

705
00:42:14,100 --> 00:42:17,020
to improve life
for the people of Britain.

706
00:42:17,020 --> 00:42:20,260
When Queen Victoria first came
to the throne,

707
00:42:20,260 --> 00:42:24,540
Britain was in the grip
of a public health catastrophe.

708
00:42:24,540 --> 00:42:26,980
Polluted, overpopulated cities

709
00:42:26,980 --> 00:42:30,260
were ravaged by epidemics
like cholera and typhoid.

710
00:42:31,580 --> 00:42:33,460
Thousands of people were dying.

711
00:42:35,380 --> 00:42:38,980
The main cause was dirty water
and raw sewage.

712
00:42:38,980 --> 00:42:42,700
And it would take the ingenuity
of remarkable engineers

713
00:42:42,700 --> 00:42:45,820
to win the battle
for the health of the nation.

714
00:42:48,740 --> 00:42:52,740
The solution they came up with was
a sophisticated network of pipes

715
00:42:52,740 --> 00:42:56,260
and tunnels beneath our streets -
the sewers.

716
00:42:57,500 --> 00:43:01,220
The Victorians spent a lot of time
thinking about the dark, difficult

717
00:43:01,220 --> 00:43:04,140
world of human waste and sewage.

718
00:43:04,140 --> 00:43:07,340
They had to. It had become a matter
of life and death.

719
00:43:07,340 --> 00:43:11,060
The push to clean up Britain's
cities and provide good sanitation

720
00:43:11,060 --> 00:43:12,660
and clean water for all

721
00:43:12,660 --> 00:43:16,260
is one of the greatest achievements
of the Victorian age.

722
00:43:16,260 --> 00:43:18,900
They got their hands dirty.

723
00:43:18,900 --> 00:43:24,300
Building miles of tunnels like these
under our towns and cities.

724
00:43:24,300 --> 00:43:27,620
Designed and built
by visionary engineers,

725
00:43:27,620 --> 00:43:30,900
these mammoth projects
had an extraordinary impact

726
00:43:30,900 --> 00:43:35,660
on people's lives,
and transformed public health.

727
00:43:37,140 --> 00:43:39,180
The first steps in the creation
of the sewers

728
00:43:39,180 --> 00:43:42,220
began not in London,
but in Liverpool,

729
00:43:42,220 --> 00:43:46,820
the most prosperous port
in the whole of the empire.

730
00:43:46,820 --> 00:43:50,220
By the 19th century,
business was really booming.

731
00:43:50,220 --> 00:43:51,820
The city had grown even richer,

732
00:43:51,820 --> 00:43:54,580
particularly thanks to the trade
in American cotton.

733
00:43:54,580 --> 00:43:58,340
These dock were a vital hub
for the import and the export

734
00:43:58,340 --> 00:44:00,380
of cargo and people.

735
00:44:00,380 --> 00:44:03,460
But there was another side
to this success story.

736
00:44:03,460 --> 00:44:06,220
Liverpool had become
a dangerous place to live.

737
00:44:08,420 --> 00:44:12,220
In fact, Liverpool was now the most
dangerously unhealthy city

738
00:44:12,220 --> 00:44:14,140
in the whole of Britain.

739
00:44:14,140 --> 00:44:18,220
People were flooding into Liverpool,
desperate to find work.

740
00:44:18,220 --> 00:44:22,420
The population had rocketed
from 78,000 at the beginning
of the century

741
00:44:22,420 --> 00:44:26,180
to nearly 400,000 by the late 1840s.

742
00:44:29,100 --> 00:44:32,580
The poorest were forced to live
in squalid, overcrowded slums.

743
00:44:35,740 --> 00:44:38,540
Whole families were crammed into
single rooms.

744
00:44:40,620 --> 00:44:44,820
A couple of filthy privies
would be shared by up to 50 people.

745
00:44:44,820 --> 00:44:48,540
Diseases like cholera were rife.

746
00:44:49,780 --> 00:44:53,460
I've come to Liverpool's docks
to delve into the dark side

747
00:44:53,460 --> 00:44:55,300
of the Victorian city.

748
00:44:56,540 --> 00:44:57,900
So, what was life like?

749
00:44:57,900 --> 00:45:00,860
Drudge from the moment you got up,
I would imagine.

750
00:45:00,860 --> 00:45:03,060
Physical, hard labour.

751
00:45:03,060 --> 00:45:06,140
If you wanted water,
you had to take a bucket

752
00:45:06,140 --> 00:45:08,340
to a standpipe in the street.

753
00:45:08,340 --> 00:45:12,180
But the water wouldn't be on for
more than two or three hours a day.

754
00:45:12,180 --> 00:45:15,540
What was the system
for getting rid of human waste?

755
00:45:15,540 --> 00:45:18,380
Well, people had cesspits
in their back yards

756
00:45:18,380 --> 00:45:21,940
and they would be manually dug out
maybe once or twice a year.

757
00:45:21,940 --> 00:45:25,660
And the contents would be put
in carts and taken out to the fields

758
00:45:25,660 --> 00:45:27,300
and used as manure.

759
00:45:27,300 --> 00:45:29,900
But what was the impact
on this cesspit system

760
00:45:29,900 --> 00:45:32,700
of the huge increase in population?

761
00:45:32,700 --> 00:45:36,020
The system breaks down.
You have overflowing cesspits

762
00:45:36,020 --> 00:45:39,540
leaking down into Liverpool's
water supply.

763
00:45:39,540 --> 00:45:42,740
If the boreholes, where
Liverpool's water came from then,

764
00:45:42,740 --> 00:45:46,340
were infected with cholera,
it would spread the disease

765
00:45:46,340 --> 00:45:49,140
very quickly
throughout the whole urban area.

766
00:45:49,140 --> 00:45:52,420
And it killed hundreds,
if not thousands of people,

767
00:45:52,420 --> 00:45:53,980
in each epidemic.

768
00:45:56,580 --> 00:45:59,900
Cholera was the disease
Victorians feared the most.

769
00:45:59,900 --> 00:46:04,300
It caused excruciating pain,
diarrhoea and vomiting.

770
00:46:04,300 --> 00:46:06,100
It could kill in a matter of hours.

771
00:46:07,820 --> 00:46:11,380
Liverpool's slums
were the perfect breeding ground.

772
00:46:11,380 --> 00:46:15,060
The city had the highest mortality
rates in Victorian Britain.

773
00:46:15,060 --> 00:46:17,940
Life expectancy
was just 15 years of age.

774
00:46:20,220 --> 00:46:22,580
Ignorance was a huge problem.

775
00:46:22,580 --> 00:46:26,860
The causes of this
terrible waterborne disease
were not understood.

776
00:46:26,860 --> 00:46:30,380
Victorians believed it spread
by smell in the air.

777
00:46:33,020 --> 00:46:36,460
But social reformers had established
the link between poverty,

778
00:46:36,460 --> 00:46:38,540
poor sanitation and disease.

779
00:46:38,540 --> 00:46:42,300
And they began campaigning
for change.

780
00:46:42,300 --> 00:46:45,380
What was the tipping point, when
Liverpool looked at itself and said,

781
00:46:45,380 --> 00:46:47,020
"This can't go on any longer"?

782
00:46:47,020 --> 00:46:50,340
Well, sadly, it wasn't
the infant mortality,

783
00:46:50,340 --> 00:46:52,540
which, at that time,
in the worst years,

784
00:46:52,540 --> 00:46:56,220
one in four babies were dying
before their first birthday

785
00:46:56,220 --> 00:46:58,260
in the poorest parts of Liverpool.

786
00:46:58,260 --> 00:47:01,500
You would think that would be enough
to convince the town council

787
00:47:01,500 --> 00:47:03,780
to do something, but it wasn't.

788
00:47:03,780 --> 00:47:06,100
The shipping owners
were beginning to find

789
00:47:06,100 --> 00:47:10,140
that if they went to New York
or Boston

790
00:47:10,140 --> 00:47:14,740
with a Liverpool ship that had
an infectious patient aboard,

791
00:47:14,740 --> 00:47:18,100
they would be put into quarantine
for 40 days.

792
00:47:18,100 --> 00:47:22,340
And the impact on their business
was huge.

793
00:47:22,340 --> 00:47:25,900
So it was the pressure from
the shipping companies

794
00:47:25,900 --> 00:47:29,540
saying to the town council,
"Clean up your act".

795
00:47:33,420 --> 00:47:37,020
With it affecting their wallets,
as well as their health,

796
00:47:37,020 --> 00:47:39,780
the city fathers
were forced to respond.

797
00:47:39,780 --> 00:47:43,220
In 1846, they passed
the Liverpool Sanitary Act,

798
00:47:43,220 --> 00:47:46,860
which finally opened the door
for change.

799
00:47:48,140 --> 00:47:52,340
The scale of the project
to save Liverpool would be huge.

800
00:47:52,340 --> 00:47:54,540
Thousands of lives were at stake.

801
00:47:54,540 --> 00:47:58,460
But great Victorians
would rise to the challenge,

802
00:47:58,460 --> 00:48:01,060
building the world's first
modern sewerage system

803
00:48:01,060 --> 00:48:03,780
right here,
in the city of Liverpool.

804
00:48:10,310 --> 00:48:15,070
In 1846, with its slums overflowing
with dirt, death and disease,

805
00:48:15,070 --> 00:48:17,550
the city of Liverpool
was leading the way

806
00:48:17,550 --> 00:48:21,390
in Victorian Britain's battle
against poor sanitation.

807
00:48:21,390 --> 00:48:25,750
The city fathers had just passed
the Liverpool Sanitary Act.

808
00:48:25,750 --> 00:48:28,670
It was a revolutionary step forward.

809
00:48:28,670 --> 00:48:31,190
And I'm heading to the city archive

810
00:48:31,190 --> 00:48:35,030
to find out more about
this radical turning point.

811
00:48:35,030 --> 00:48:39,230
This is it, Sally,
the Act of Parliament itself.

812
00:48:39,230 --> 00:48:40,830
It doesn't look much, does it?

813
00:48:40,830 --> 00:48:44,750
But some of the clauses here
are the most innovative clauses

814
00:48:44,750 --> 00:48:47,590
of any legislation
from the 19th century.

815
00:48:47,590 --> 00:48:52,270
What this Act did was to let
Liverpool Town Council raise money

816
00:48:52,270 --> 00:48:56,150
from the property owners to buy out
the private water companies,

817
00:48:56,150 --> 00:48:59,710
to build a sewer system,
to pave the streets,

818
00:48:59,710 --> 00:49:03,790
but most importantly,
to employ a borough engineer.

819
00:49:03,790 --> 00:49:08,670
And that went to a Scottish man
named James Newlands.

820
00:49:09,910 --> 00:49:12,950
Liverpool urgently needed to build
a sewerage system,

821
00:49:12,950 --> 00:49:16,870
but all the most-experienced
engineers were working on
the booming railways,

822
00:49:16,870 --> 00:49:21,670
and the city had to turn to the
relatively-unknown James Newlands.

823
00:49:21,670 --> 00:49:25,030
It was a lucky break
for someone who would soon become

824
00:49:25,030 --> 00:49:26,910
the saviour of Liverpool.

825
00:49:26,910 --> 00:49:30,510
He was the first person that had
the vision

826
00:49:30,510 --> 00:49:34,750
to link up a water system
with a sewer system.

827
00:49:34,750 --> 00:49:39,390
And if you link the two, you can
then have water closets, WCs,

828
00:49:39,390 --> 00:49:41,830
inside people's homes.

829
00:49:41,830 --> 00:49:46,070
Newlands knew he had to create
barriers between people
and their waste.

830
00:49:46,070 --> 00:49:51,430
Linking toilets to sewers would
flush effluent away from the homes.

831
00:49:51,430 --> 00:49:55,350
And the removal of cesspits would
mean they'd no longer seep into
the ground

832
00:49:55,350 --> 00:49:57,550
and contaminate drinking water.

833
00:49:57,550 --> 00:49:59,870
What's the first thing that he does?

834
00:49:59,870 --> 00:50:02,950
Well, he looks at the maps
that exist of Liverpool and he says,

835
00:50:02,950 --> 00:50:06,670
"These are not good enough". Because
they've not got enough detail.

836
00:50:06,670 --> 00:50:09,470
So the first thing he did was to say
to the town council,

837
00:50:09,470 --> 00:50:11,550
"I need a new map,

838
00:50:11,550 --> 00:50:14,030
"and I need a map
that has a contour

839
00:50:14,030 --> 00:50:16,230
"at every four feet of altitude".

840
00:50:16,230 --> 00:50:21,430
It took a year for Newlands and
his team fully to survey the city.

841
00:50:21,430 --> 00:50:25,110
This contoured map would allow
Newlands accurately to plot out

842
00:50:25,110 --> 00:50:28,470
what would be the world's
first integrated sewerage system.

843
00:50:31,030 --> 00:50:34,790
Taking advantage of the steep
natural contours
of Liverpool's hills,

844
00:50:34,790 --> 00:50:38,350
he would lay out the sewer pipe
so they led to large outflows

845
00:50:38,350 --> 00:50:40,230
down on the River Mersey,

846
00:50:40,230 --> 00:50:43,190
where the water could safely take
the effluent away.

847
00:50:44,510 --> 00:50:47,710
He even produced innovations
on the absolute basics.

848
00:50:47,710 --> 00:50:50,310
There's a wonderful book
of his surveys here.

849
00:50:50,310 --> 00:50:53,270
But it includes these drawings
of the sewer pipe.

850
00:50:53,270 --> 00:50:58,110
What's so radical about this
is that they are egg-shaped.

851
00:50:58,110 --> 00:51:02,310
But why not just a bog-standard,
if you'll excuse the expression,

852
00:51:02,310 --> 00:51:04,950
round sewer pipe?

853
00:51:04,950 --> 00:51:08,630
Because the water would move quickly
through the sewer,

854
00:51:08,630 --> 00:51:11,510
and at a speed
where it could carry solids.

855
00:51:12,910 --> 00:51:16,190
To get a real sense of Newlands'
revolutionary sewer,

856
00:51:16,190 --> 00:51:18,430
I need to head underground.

857
00:51:18,430 --> 00:51:22,430
This modern-day treatment works
may seem about as far as you can get

858
00:51:22,430 --> 00:51:24,070
from Victorian England,

859
00:51:24,070 --> 00:51:28,390
but in fact, Newlands' sewer
is just metres below my feet.

860
00:51:29,550 --> 00:51:32,310
This is one of the places
where Newlands' original sewer

861
00:51:32,310 --> 00:51:34,550
would flow into the Mersey.

862
00:51:36,830 --> 00:51:38,910
Hello, Neil. Hi.

863
00:51:38,910 --> 00:51:41,110
I found you. This is one of
your haunts, is it? It is.

864
00:51:41,110 --> 00:51:44,990
Under here is a bit of the old
sewerage system, yeah? Absolutely.

865
00:51:44,990 --> 00:51:49,270
It's the original 150-year-old sewer

866
00:51:49,270 --> 00:51:52,990
and all we've literally done
is put a new piece on the end of
the old existing.

867
00:51:52,990 --> 00:51:56,110
Because ultimately, it's in
perfect working condition,

868
00:51:56,110 --> 00:51:59,190
so, why would we want to contemplate
touching it?

869
00:52:00,710 --> 00:52:04,190
Working in the sewers is
a tightly-controlled activity.

870
00:52:04,190 --> 00:52:08,270
And I'm joining a maintenance crew
preparing to go down today.

871
00:52:08,270 --> 00:52:11,590
So, this beeper thing,
which is beeping from time to time,

872
00:52:11,590 --> 00:52:15,310
will tell whether there's poisonous
or inflammable gas?

873
00:52:15,310 --> 00:52:17,630
Yes. And it'll start to sound
and vibrate.

874
00:52:17,630 --> 00:52:19,870
And I shout, "Gas, gas, gas". Yes.

875
00:52:19,870 --> 00:52:22,910
I pull this open,
I put the breathing apparatus on.

876
00:52:22,910 --> 00:52:25,190
Yes. And I get the hell out. Yes.

877
00:52:25,190 --> 00:52:27,070
MICHAEL LAUGHS

878
00:52:29,230 --> 00:52:31,150
First time in a sewer.

879
00:52:32,270 --> 00:52:34,430
I've been in the old tight spot.

880
00:52:35,550 --> 00:52:37,750
Not one quite like this.

881
00:52:55,750 --> 00:52:58,630
This, effectively,
was the old outfall, was it,

882
00:52:58,630 --> 00:53:02,590
for the Victorian sewerage system,
into the river?

883
00:53:02,590 --> 00:53:04,590
Absolutely. That would have
completely come

884
00:53:04,590 --> 00:53:06,310
through this new structure,

885
00:53:06,310 --> 00:53:09,310
transporting the raw sewage
straight into the River Mersey.

886
00:53:11,350 --> 00:53:14,070
How far can we get down
that old Victorian tunnel?

887
00:53:14,070 --> 00:53:15,790
Shall we go and have a look?

888
00:53:15,790 --> 00:53:17,670
Well, after you, I suppose.

889
00:53:20,910 --> 00:53:24,590
The majority of Newlands' sewers
are just three-feet high.

890
00:53:24,590 --> 00:53:28,110
Fortunately for me, the tunnels
that lead to the river are tall

891
00:53:28,110 --> 00:53:29,430
enough to stand in.

892
00:53:30,710 --> 00:53:32,870
There's quite a lot of drips.

893
00:53:32,870 --> 00:53:34,390
Yes.

894
00:53:34,390 --> 00:53:36,470
Obviously these are the little bits

895
00:53:36,470 --> 00:53:38,950
of the ground water coming
in.

896
00:53:38,950 --> 00:53:42,030
Well, considering it's
150 years old...a little leak...

897
00:53:44,110 --> 00:53:49,070
Construction began on Newlands'
Liverpool sewer in 1849.

898
00:53:49,070 --> 00:53:52,150
He oversaw the work of thousands
of navvies drafted

899
00:53:52,150 --> 00:53:54,710
in to dig the trenches.

900
00:53:54,710 --> 00:53:58,150
Armed with just picks and shovels,
they were the powerful digging

901
00:53:58,150 --> 00:54:01,030
machines of the Victorian age.

902
00:54:01,030 --> 00:54:05,590
Without them, giant engineering
projects like canals or railways

903
00:54:05,590 --> 00:54:07,870
would have never been built.

904
00:54:07,870 --> 00:54:12,470
25 navvies could dig the equivalent
of an Olympic-sized swimming pool

905
00:54:12,470 --> 00:54:13,990
in just one day.

906
00:54:16,190 --> 00:54:17,550
It's a bit...

907
00:54:18,830 --> 00:54:22,030
..a bit tricky walking along,
isn't it? It is a little bit on the
bottom,

908
00:54:22,030 --> 00:54:24,430
it's just slightly... Slightly
slimy.

909
00:54:25,550 --> 00:54:28,750
But actually, quite a decent grip
on the side, with these bricks.

910
00:54:28,750 --> 00:54:30,950
Once the navvies had dug the
trenches,

911
00:54:30,950 --> 00:54:34,150
skilled bricklayers moved
in to build Newlands' preferred

912
00:54:34,150 --> 00:54:36,310
oval-shaped pipes.

913
00:54:36,310 --> 00:54:38,670
You can really see...

914
00:54:38,670 --> 00:54:41,350
..the fact that it's an oval
shape.

915
00:54:41,350 --> 00:54:44,070
Absolutely. With a bit
of a dip in the middle

916
00:54:44,070 --> 00:54:45,910
of it. Walking along it,

917
00:54:45,910 --> 00:54:47,750
you see the sense of it, don't you?

918
00:54:47,750 --> 00:54:50,710
The water is still flowing
even though, you know, its way

919
00:54:50,710 --> 00:54:55,150
down. As you can see, the standard
and the quality of that workmanship

920
00:54:55,150 --> 00:54:57,710
ensures that it flows free.

921
00:54:57,710 --> 00:55:01,510
It doesn't block, it doesn't get
build-up of silt or rag.

922
00:55:01,510 --> 00:55:04,270
I knew about it from the plans,
but to actually walk

923
00:55:04,270 --> 00:55:08,630
along a Victorian sewer, and see
how cleverly it's been built.

924
00:55:08,630 --> 00:55:12,590
They were clever guys, those
Victorians. They definitely was
clever guys.

925
00:55:12,590 --> 00:55:16,510
Newlands' choice of material
was controversial, earthenware pipes

926
00:55:16,510 --> 00:55:22,030
were much cheaper, but Newlands
chose the more durable brick and
stone.

927
00:55:22,030 --> 00:55:25,870
Like all great Victorians, he wanted
to build a legacy that would stand

928
00:55:25,870 --> 00:55:27,790
the test of time.

929
00:55:27,790 --> 00:55:31,390
The new sewage system
can last as much as 50 years.

930
00:55:31,390 --> 00:55:33,550
And yet here we are in a tunnel
that was built

931
00:55:33,550 --> 00:55:34,950
more than 150 years ago.

932
00:55:34,950 --> 00:55:36,110
Yeah, absolutely.

933
00:55:36,110 --> 00:55:38,630
What does that make you think
about progress?

934
00:55:38,630 --> 00:55:41,670
It definitely puts into perspective
what these guys did.

935
00:55:41,670 --> 00:55:45,870
The fundamental purpose
of what this pipe does, is key

936
00:55:45,870 --> 00:55:47,390
to our everyday life.

937
00:55:47,390 --> 00:55:52,030
And without, it we can't function
and to have this quality

938
00:55:52,030 --> 00:55:56,470
of workmanship still serving
that purpose,

939
00:55:56,470 --> 00:55:58,910
it just amazes me every time I see
it.

940
00:55:59,990 --> 00:56:03,910
The pioneering sewer took
21 years to complete.

941
00:56:03,910 --> 00:56:08,630
It would transform Liverpool
and the lives of its citizens.

942
00:56:08,630 --> 00:56:12,870
By the 1870s, life expectancy
had doubled for the poorest

943
00:56:12,870 --> 00:56:17,550
in the city, but Newlands
wasn't content to stop there.

944
00:56:17,550 --> 00:56:21,590
What Newlands did was to have
a holistic vision of urban health.

945
00:56:21,590 --> 00:56:26,350
He designed municipal boulevards,
public baths and wash houses,

946
00:56:26,350 --> 00:56:28,670
he did street paving.

947
00:56:28,670 --> 00:56:30,910
Just about everything
that could be done

948
00:56:30,910 --> 00:56:32,670
to improve urban health

949
00:56:32,670 --> 00:56:35,910
at that time, he thought
of and he planned for.

950
00:56:37,950 --> 00:56:40,310
The eyes of the nation
had been closely

951
00:56:40,310 --> 00:56:43,150
following Newlands' pioneering work.

952
00:56:43,150 --> 00:56:47,350
His success showed the way forward,
engineers would be inspired

953
00:56:47,350 --> 00:56:49,270
to follow in his footsteps.

954
00:56:50,710 --> 00:56:53,670
On the road to a public
health revolution.

955
00:56:56,390 --> 00:57:01,550
How should history judge James
Newlands? If he'd not done this
here...

956
00:57:02,870 --> 00:57:06,470
..there wouldn't have been the model
for other towns and cities to copy

957
00:57:06,470 --> 00:57:10,070
in Britain, and then worldwide,
and it was Newlands

958
00:57:10,070 --> 00:57:15,390
who had that vision and created
the first example of what you could

959
00:57:15,390 --> 00:57:19,870
do, how you could make a system
like this work.

960
00:57:19,870 --> 00:57:22,630
At the moment, he's an unsung hero.

961
00:57:22,630 --> 00:57:26,230
I think he deserves far greater
recognition and thanks

962
00:57:26,230 --> 00:57:28,190
for what he did in Liverpool.

963
00:57:35,570 --> 00:57:40,010
There's no pleasant way to put
this - well into the Victorian era,

964
00:57:40,010 --> 00:57:44,250
defecating was downright disgusting
and occasionally deadly.

965
00:57:45,410 --> 00:57:50,850
This privy was bog-standard
for the time. You do the deed

966
00:57:50,850 --> 00:57:55,490
and it stays there for weeks, maybe
months, before the night soil men

967
00:57:55,490 --> 00:57:57,090
come to take it away.

968
00:57:57,090 --> 00:58:00,370
Oh, and you're probably sharing
it with 11 other families.

969
00:58:03,770 --> 00:58:07,730
If you were rich, you might run
to this, so to speak.

970
00:58:07,730 --> 00:58:09,330
Looks good.

971
00:58:09,330 --> 00:58:16,850
Ceramic bowl. Rather complicated,
if ineffective, mechanics but a

972
00:58:16,850 --> 00:58:21,530
trickle, not a flush, and it wasn't
going anywhere, except...

973
00:58:22,610 --> 00:58:24,130
..down into the cellar.

974
00:58:30,410 --> 00:58:34,090
By the time Queen Victoria came
to the throne, her ever-resourceful

975
00:58:34,090 --> 00:58:38,330
subjects had arrived at a practical
ceramic flushing toilet

976
00:58:38,330 --> 00:58:40,970
that resembles the ones
we know today.

977
00:58:42,130 --> 00:58:45,970
Manufacturers like Thomas Crapper
and George Jennings started to make

978
00:58:45,970 --> 00:58:47,890
a name for themselves.

979
00:58:50,370 --> 00:58:51,970
A breakthrough.

980
00:58:51,970 --> 00:58:56,210
George Jennings put public toilets
into the Great Exhibition.

981
00:58:56,210 --> 00:58:59,690
Queen Victoria's husband, Prince
Albert, commissioned the building of

982
00:58:59,690 --> 00:59:03,730
a giant crystal palace in Hyde Park
to house the exhibition.

983
00:59:03,730 --> 00:59:08,890
When it opened in 1851, it showcased
the marvels of the Victorian age,

984
00:59:08,890 --> 00:59:12,290
including Jennings' flushing toilet.

985
00:59:12,290 --> 00:59:16,010
He charged a penny a time -
spend a penny, of course.

986
00:59:18,330 --> 00:59:24,210
In total, 827,000 people paid
to use Jennings' water closet.

987
00:59:24,210 --> 00:59:28,370
Clearly, there was big money
to be made in toilets.

988
00:59:31,290 --> 00:59:34,370
By the mid-19th century,
manufacturers in the pottery

989
00:59:34,370 --> 00:59:37,490
heartlands of the Midlands
were cashing in on the fashion

990
00:59:37,490 --> 00:59:42,290
for flushing. Tough, durable and
easy to clean, ceramics were the

991
00:59:42,290 --> 00:59:46,330
perfect material for making toilets.
Factories in places like

992
00:59:46,330 --> 00:59:49,210
Stoke-on-Trent were churning them
out for the masses.

993
00:59:49,210 --> 00:59:52,050
And I've come to find out more.

994
00:59:52,050 --> 00:59:57,690
Ceramics is the kind of game-changer
in the sense that it's so Hygienic

995
00:59:57,690 --> 01:00:01,450
compared to any other material
you could use. Ceramics comes

996
01:00:01,450 --> 01:00:02,890
in quite early,

997
01:00:02,890 --> 01:00:06,890
if you think about chamber
pots, but where it explodes,

998
01:00:06,890 --> 01:00:12,450
if you like, as an industry,
is when the totally ceramic toilet

999
01:00:12,450 --> 01:00:16,690
is developed. To what extent
was George Jennings the father

1000
01:00:16,690 --> 01:00:18,210
of the modern toilet?

1001
01:00:18,210 --> 01:00:21,290
He's an important engineer
and is linked forever

1002
01:00:21,290 --> 01:00:22,650
with public toilets.

1003
01:00:22,650 --> 01:00:26,610
But he isn't kind of the person
who made a big step.

1004
01:00:26,610 --> 01:00:28,410
I choose Thomas Twyford,

1005
01:00:28,410 --> 01:00:31,090
because he's the one who
successfully

1006
01:00:31,090 --> 01:00:34,970
develops, manufactures, makes
it available to everyone.

1007
01:00:36,810 --> 01:00:40,250
Twyford was a Victorian
industrialist with big ideas.

1008
01:00:40,250 --> 01:00:42,530
When he inherited the family
business,

1009
01:00:42,530 --> 01:00:45,250
he quickly turned it to the mass
production of toilets.

1010
01:00:47,410 --> 01:00:49,210
He never looked back.

1011
01:00:49,210 --> 01:00:53,530
He was able to expand, building
more factories here and abroad.

1012
01:00:53,530 --> 01:00:55,850
And his most popular product,

1013
01:00:55,850 --> 01:00:58,650
the Unitas, sold all over the
world.

1014
01:00:58,650 --> 01:01:00,170
It was the kind of first

1015
01:01:00,170 --> 01:01:03,250
million-selling ceramic toilet, and
in Russia

1016
01:01:03,250 --> 01:01:05,690
Unitas is still the word
for toilet.

1017
01:01:05,690 --> 01:01:07,410
What about Thomas Crapper, then?

1018
01:01:07,410 --> 01:01:09,930
He is the name that everybody knows.

1019
01:01:09,930 --> 01:01:11,730
But he didn't invent the toilet.

1020
01:01:11,730 --> 01:01:14,450
He had toilets made for him,
that he sold.

1021
01:01:14,450 --> 01:01:18,770
But his name is associated
with the process, so to speak!

1022
01:01:18,770 --> 01:01:23,250
Sadly not - "crap" is a very old
word, meaning rubbish.

1023
01:01:23,250 --> 01:01:27,730
I think people did find it amusing
that it was crap and Crapper.

1024
01:01:27,730 --> 01:01:31,010
So he's really caught the public
imagination.

1025
01:01:33,810 --> 01:01:36,930
To what extent has the development
of the toilet that

1026
01:01:36,930 --> 01:01:41,370
we use today improved our lives?
Well, in our day-to-day lives,

1027
01:01:41,370 --> 01:01:46,330
because of its hygienic qualities,
linked to a suitable sewage

1028
01:01:46,330 --> 01:01:48,050
and drainage system,

1029
01:01:48,050 --> 01:01:51,650
the development of the ceramic
toilet saved lives.

1030
01:01:51,650 --> 01:01:53,410
WATER FLUSHES

1031
01:01:57,170 --> 01:02:00,050
By the mid-19th century,
the increased popularity

1032
01:02:00,050 --> 01:02:04,290
of the flushing toilet was literally
putting bums on seats, playing

1033
01:02:04,290 --> 01:02:09,570
a vital role in the transformation
of hygiene in the Victorian home.

1034
01:02:09,570 --> 01:02:14,290
Meanwhile, in London, the largest
and most populous city in the world,

1035
01:02:14,290 --> 01:02:18,130
the filth and the squalor
continued to build up.

1036
01:02:18,130 --> 01:02:22,090
Ten years after James Newlands
began his sewers in Liverpool,

1037
01:02:22,090 --> 01:02:25,090
the great capital still
didn't have a proper system

1038
01:02:25,090 --> 01:02:27,730
of its own, and it was causing
a stink.

1039
01:02:30,130 --> 01:02:35,450
It's hard to imagine, but walking
here by the River Thames in 1850,

1040
01:02:35,450 --> 01:02:41,330
you'd be gazing out over a giant
toxic open sewer flowing

1041
01:02:41,330 --> 01:02:45,090
through this magnificent
city. A polluted, stinking

1042
01:02:45,090 --> 01:02:47,730
river of excrement.

1043
01:02:51,210 --> 01:02:55,450
In 1855, the future Prime Minister,
Benjamin Disraeli, famously said

1044
01:02:55,450 --> 01:02:59,410
of the Thames - "that noble river,
so long the pride and joy

1045
01:02:59,410 --> 01:03:04,850
"of Englishmen, has become a pool
reeking with intolerable horror.

1046
01:03:06,130 --> 01:03:08,410
"The public's health is at stake."

1047
01:03:10,490 --> 01:03:14,690
How bad was it? In the 1840s and
1850s...

1048
01:03:15,850 --> 01:03:19,690
..London was a very smelly place
in which to live and the real killer

1049
01:03:19,690 --> 01:03:22,370
was the widespread adoption
of the water closet.

1050
01:03:22,370 --> 01:03:23,930
The flushing toilet?

1051
01:03:23,930 --> 01:03:29,850
Indeed. When you flush the lavatory,
what you send round the S-bend

1052
01:03:29,850 --> 01:03:34,050
is a small quantity of potential
manure, and 10 or 20 times

1053
01:03:34,050 --> 01:03:35,690
as much water.

1054
01:03:35,690 --> 01:03:39,770
So the cesspools were filling
up 10 or 20 times as quickly,

1055
01:03:39,770 --> 01:03:44,010
and they leaked into the underground
rivers and into the water supply.

1056
01:03:44,010 --> 01:03:49,210
Victorian London had 200,000
overflowing cesspits and the city's

1057
01:03:49,210 --> 01:03:53,570
smaller rivers had long
been used for dumping excrement.

1058
01:03:53,570 --> 01:03:58,130
This poisonous mess was finding
its way down into the Thames.

1059
01:03:58,130 --> 01:04:04,410
The Thames was conveying the sewage
of two and a half million people

1060
01:04:04,410 --> 01:04:07,370
out towards the Thames Estuary
and the North Sea.

1061
01:04:07,370 --> 01:04:11,170
But of course, it's a tidal river
so it didn't just go away, it kept

1062
01:04:11,170 --> 01:04:14,130
coming back with each incoming tide.

1063
01:04:16,050 --> 01:04:20,610
All eyes were on Liverpool's
pioneering sewerage system but

1064
01:04:20,610 --> 01:04:23,530
no-one had the guts to give
the go ahead

1065
01:04:23,530 --> 01:04:27,730
in London. The cost of a much larger
sewer in this sprawling metropolis

1066
01:04:27,730 --> 01:04:29,690
would be astronomical.

1067
01:04:31,010 --> 01:04:33,890
But with death stalking
the streets of London with every

1068
01:04:33,890 --> 01:04:35,810
new cholera epidemic,

1069
01:04:35,810 --> 01:04:38,210
the press were up in arms.

1070
01:04:38,210 --> 01:04:42,370
This cartoon from 1858 powerfully
illustrates their fears.

1071
01:04:45,690 --> 01:04:50,090
In the end, nature would have its
own way of forcing the issue.

1072
01:04:55,250 --> 01:04:58,650
London had had a run of some
of the hottest summers on record,

1073
01:04:58,650 --> 01:05:03,770
and as temperatures soared
in the high summer of 1858,

1074
01:05:03,770 --> 01:05:07,930
the River Thames became
a stinking, stagnant soup.

1075
01:05:09,810 --> 01:05:13,450
This time, Parliament
just couldn't ignore it.

1076
01:05:13,450 --> 01:05:16,850
The foul smell coming off the river
quickly became known

1077
01:05:16,850 --> 01:05:19,050
as The Great Stink.

1078
01:05:19,050 --> 01:05:20,850
There was no escaping it.

1079
01:05:22,770 --> 01:05:26,610
The smell got so bad that they ended
up soaking the curtains

1080
01:05:26,610 --> 01:05:29,570
on the windows of Parliament
in lime chloride to try

1081
01:05:29,570 --> 01:05:31,770
to disguise the stench.

1082
01:05:31,770 --> 01:05:35,050
But by Wednesday June 30th, Members
of Parliament could stand

1083
01:05:35,050 --> 01:05:37,250
the stink no longer.

1084
01:05:37,250 --> 01:05:39,970
They simply evacuated the place.

1085
01:05:39,970 --> 01:05:43,850
The Times reported - "A sudden rush
from the room took place.

1086
01:05:43,850 --> 01:05:46,810
"Foremost among them being
the Chancellor of the Exchequer,

1087
01:05:46,810 --> 01:05:51,890
"Disraeli, who hastened in dismay
from the pestilential odour."

1088
01:05:51,890 --> 01:05:55,650
The Great Stink had
brought Parliament to a standstill.

1089
01:05:55,650 --> 01:05:58,290
This couldn't go on. In just 18
days,

1090
01:05:58,290 --> 01:06:01,410
the Members of Parliament rushed
through a bill that meant

1091
01:06:01,410 --> 01:06:04,250
they could now
build a new London sewer.

1092
01:06:05,930 --> 01:06:09,250
I've sometimes thought
that if the Houses of Parliament

1093
01:06:09,250 --> 01:06:12,970
had been rebuilt on Hampstead Heath,
we might still be arguing

1094
01:06:12,970 --> 01:06:14,450
about it now.

1095
01:06:14,450 --> 01:06:17,930
But once the politicians believed
that they were in danger

1096
01:06:17,930 --> 01:06:23,210
from the smell, they then changed
the legislation and by the late

1097
01:06:23,210 --> 01:06:25,730
autumn of 1858,

1098
01:06:25,730 --> 01:06:30,530
they were digging up Victoria Park,
Hackney, to lay the first sewers.

1099
01:06:33,650 --> 01:06:36,930
So finally, politicians were forced
to act.

1100
01:06:36,930 --> 01:06:39,930
The solution was extraordinary
in scale.

1101
01:06:39,930 --> 01:06:43,730
An epic engineering feat
to rival all others.

1102
01:06:43,730 --> 01:06:46,410
And the result would transform
London.

1103
01:06:48,170 --> 01:06:50,490
The man chosen to be chief engineer

1104
01:06:50,490 --> 01:06:52,970
of the project was
Joseph Bazalgette.

1105
01:06:52,970 --> 01:06:54,490
As a young man,

1106
01:06:54,490 --> 01:06:57,970
he had cut his teeth working
on the railways, and won the respect

1107
01:06:57,970 --> 01:07:01,330
of the engineering greats,
Isambard Kingdom Brunel

1108
01:07:01,330 --> 01:07:02,890
and George Stephenson.

1109
01:07:04,410 --> 01:07:08,850
The scale and ambition of
Bazalgette's plan was mind boggling.

1110
01:07:08,850 --> 01:07:12,210
Like Newlands, he would build
a network of small street sewers

1111
01:07:12,210 --> 01:07:14,650
connected to homes.

1112
01:07:14,650 --> 01:07:19,290
But the Liverpool scheme fed
untreated effluent into the Mersey,

1113
01:07:19,290 --> 01:07:23,730
Bazalgette's ambitious plan
was to build five main mega sewers

1114
01:07:23,730 --> 01:07:27,330
snaking across the city,
that would feed out to treatment

1115
01:07:27,330 --> 01:07:29,010
works in the east.

1116
01:07:29,010 --> 01:07:32,610
All this under the most
populous city in the world.

1117
01:07:35,410 --> 01:07:38,690
Within just a year of The Great
Stink, construction began

1118
01:07:38,690 --> 01:07:40,250
all over London.

1119
01:07:43,010 --> 01:07:46,890
Down on the River Thames he built
towering new stone embankments,

1120
01:07:46,890 --> 01:07:50,330
to house some of the main mega
sewers and also a stretch

1121
01:07:50,330 --> 01:07:55,690
of London's first Underground
railway, running right alongside it.

1122
01:07:55,690 --> 01:07:59,610
Along the way, he re-sculpted
London as we know it, creating

1123
01:07:59,610 --> 01:08:04,210
a riverside vista befitting
a great world capital city.

1124
01:08:04,210 --> 01:08:09,210
These now are iconic embankments
replaced rank marshland, and

1125
01:08:09,210 --> 01:08:11,930
narrowed the river, creating the
fast-flowing body of water

1126
01:08:11,930 --> 01:08:13,610
we recognise today.

1127
01:08:15,530 --> 01:08:18,810
To get a sense of the scale of
Bazalgette's great project,

1128
01:08:18,810 --> 01:08:22,330
Stephen is taking me down to the
Thames Embankment.

1129
01:08:22,330 --> 01:08:26,330
We're standing in Victoria
Embankment Gardens, which is part

1130
01:08:26,330 --> 01:08:30,410
of Sir Joseph Bazalgette's
Victoria Embankment,

1131
01:08:30,410 --> 01:08:35,890
and this is the York Watergate,
from which the Duke of Buckingham,

1132
01:08:35,890 --> 01:08:40,370
in the 17th century, used
to step onto his boat,

1133
01:08:40,370 --> 01:08:43,490
which would have been in
the River Thames.

1134
01:08:43,490 --> 01:08:47,010
All in all, Bazalgette's scheme
reclaimed 52 acres of land

1135
01:08:47,010 --> 01:08:48,570
from the river.

1136
01:08:49,970 --> 01:08:51,770
But it's 100 metres.

1137
01:08:51,770 --> 01:08:54,730
It is, yes. The river came
all the way back here? Yes.

1138
01:08:54,730 --> 01:08:58,530
If we had been here in 1860, we
would have been up to our necks in
water.

1139
01:08:58,530 --> 01:08:59,970
Up to here! Yeah.

1140
01:08:59,970 --> 01:09:01,970
The scale of it's astonishing, isn't
it?

1141
01:09:01,970 --> 01:09:04,170
I know, it's very hard to imagine

1142
01:09:04,170 --> 01:09:07,690
now, bearing in mind that this
was done mostly by people

1143
01:09:07,690 --> 01:09:09,330
with picks and shovels.

1144
01:09:13,570 --> 01:09:19,170
This gargantuan engineering project
was Victorian ambition writ large.

1145
01:09:20,690 --> 01:09:25,290
By the time he'd finished,
Bazalgette had spent £6.5 million

1146
01:09:25,290 --> 01:09:30,370
building 1,300 miles of sewers,
and in all that, he had used

1147
01:09:30,370 --> 01:09:34,530
an astonishing 300 million bricks.

1148
01:09:35,770 --> 01:09:39,490
This extraordinary achievement
all but eradicated poor sanitation

1149
01:09:39,490 --> 01:09:41,410
across the city.

1150
01:09:41,410 --> 01:09:44,770
The last cholera outbreak
was in 1866.

1151
01:09:45,970 --> 01:09:48,290
What do you think is his lasting
legacy?

1152
01:09:48,290 --> 01:09:52,490
The city was protected by
Bazalgette's sewers. When he died,

1153
01:09:52,490 --> 01:09:54,330
his obituary

1154
01:09:54,330 --> 01:09:57,530
stated that he had saved many,
many lives.

1155
01:09:57,530 --> 01:09:59,770
So he was, he was a public hero.

1156
01:10:01,850 --> 01:10:05,690
I think he's one of the greatest
of the Victorian engineers, who made

1157
01:10:05,690 --> 01:10:08,810
it possible for us to live
safely in cities.

1158
01:10:13,730 --> 01:10:18,250
Bazalgette's scheme didn't just
change the shape of London,

1159
01:10:18,250 --> 01:10:22,250
it eradicated diseases like cholera
forever, and it transformed the

1160
01:10:22,250 --> 01:10:23,970
lives of London's inhabitants.

1161
01:10:25,250 --> 01:10:28,450
Looking at the River Thames
today, it's a far cry

1162
01:10:28,450 --> 01:10:33,010
from those descriptions
of it as a reeking pool of sewage.

1163
01:10:33,010 --> 01:10:36,930
For that, and for so much else,
we have to thank Joseph Bazalgette.

1164
01:10:48,720 --> 01:10:52,920
By the second half of the 19th
century, the tide had started to

1165
01:10:52,920 --> 01:10:55,240
turn in the battle against disease,

1166
01:10:55,240 --> 01:10:57,440
poor sanitation and dirty water.

1167
01:10:57,440 --> 01:11:01,440
Fired by the success of Newlands'
ground-breaking sewer in Liverpool

1168
01:11:01,440 --> 01:11:04,920
and Bazalgette's engineering
marvel in London,

1169
01:11:04,920 --> 01:11:08,200
cities across Britain were inspired
to join in the great Victorian

1170
01:11:08,200 --> 01:11:10,320
sewer-building bonanza.

1171
01:11:11,480 --> 01:11:14,920
But while some were making
their names building sewers,

1172
01:11:14,920 --> 01:11:18,160
others were taking on a much
bigger challenge.

1173
01:11:41,360 --> 01:11:44,400
This is Vyrnwy Dam, built
to provide the city

1174
01:11:44,400 --> 01:11:46,480
of Liverpool with water.

1175
01:11:46,480 --> 01:11:50,880
Its construction was a huge
undertaking, and it stands today

1176
01:11:50,880 --> 01:11:55,680
as one of the great monuments
of Victorian engineering.

1177
01:11:55,680 --> 01:11:59,920
The dam is 1,165 feet long.

1178
01:12:01,120 --> 01:12:05,680
It's built of stone blocks carved
out of Welsh slate, each weighing

1179
01:12:05,680 --> 01:12:07,720
up to ten tonnes.

1180
01:12:07,720 --> 01:12:14,000
It's supported by 31 arches,
and is decorated with towers.

1181
01:12:14,000 --> 01:12:17,160
You can just see the turrets
over there.

1182
01:12:17,160 --> 01:12:18,680
It's beautiful.

1183
01:12:22,640 --> 01:12:26,720
Newlands' visionary plan to clean
up Liverpool had identified early

1184
01:12:26,720 --> 01:12:30,600
on that the city would need not
just sewers, but clean water

1185
01:12:30,600 --> 01:12:34,960
and lots of it, not only for
drinking water but also to flush the

1186
01:12:34,960 --> 01:12:38,200
toilets and rinse out the new
sewers.

1187
01:12:38,200 --> 01:12:41,400
But local wells, rivers
and reservoirs struggled to keep

1188
01:12:41,400 --> 01:12:43,960
up with demand.

1189
01:12:43,960 --> 01:12:47,640
And it would be another 30 years
before two pioneering engineers

1190
01:12:47,640 --> 01:12:50,200
would come up with a solution.

1191
01:12:50,200 --> 01:12:52,120
And they found it in Wales.

1192
01:12:53,400 --> 01:12:56,920
Noel Hughes has the job
of overseeing the smooth running

1193
01:12:56,920 --> 01:12:59,000
of this remarkable dam.

1194
01:12:59,000 --> 01:13:02,000
Oh, they are glorious, aren't they?
Aren't they just. How old are they.

1195
01:13:02,000 --> 01:13:04,480
Almost 140 years of age.

1196
01:13:04,480 --> 01:13:06,360
It's so beautifully done, isn't it?

1197
01:13:06,360 --> 01:13:10,760
The bridge has been done
with such clarity and detail

1198
01:13:10,760 --> 01:13:13,840
and delicacy. Notice the signatures?

1199
01:13:13,840 --> 01:13:15,880
Oh, gosh, yes, here we go.

1200
01:13:15,880 --> 01:13:17,480
Hawksley.

1201
01:13:17,480 --> 01:13:19,800
And George Deacon!

1202
01:13:19,800 --> 01:13:22,680
George Deacon
succeeded as borough engineer

1203
01:13:22,680 --> 01:13:26,760
when James Newlands retired.
Together with Thomas Hawksley, the

1204
01:13:26,760 --> 01:13:29,320
leading water engineer of the
Victorian era,

1205
01:13:29,320 --> 01:13:33,160
they took on the challenge
of supplying Liverpool with water.

1206
01:13:33,160 --> 01:13:36,920
Is this what they would have taken
to the Liverpool Council?

1207
01:13:36,920 --> 01:13:38,320
That's right.

1208
01:13:38,320 --> 01:13:40,760
This would have made
up the portfolio, to say,

1209
01:13:40,760 --> 01:13:42,960
this is what we're going
to be delivering.

1210
01:13:42,960 --> 01:13:45,960
This is how we can provide water
to every citizen of Liverpool.

1211
01:13:45,960 --> 01:13:47,760
That's right.

1212
01:13:47,760 --> 01:13:50,480
And all you've got to do
is pay for it! Quite!

1213
01:13:54,080 --> 01:13:57,560
Construction on the
Vyrnwy Dam began in 1881.

1214
01:14:00,560 --> 01:14:03,920
The scale of the project
was far much more ambitious

1215
01:14:03,920 --> 01:14:06,400
than anything that had come before.

1216
01:14:06,400 --> 01:14:09,320
What are the things that Deacon
brought to this dam

1217
01:14:09,320 --> 01:14:12,800
that you couldn't do at that time
see anywhere else?

1218
01:14:12,800 --> 01:14:16,000
The height, the sheer volume of
water that was holding behind it.

1219
01:14:19,080 --> 01:14:22,920
This 59,000 million litres of
water.

1220
01:14:24,920 --> 01:14:28,320
But also, the first dam
ever to overspill.

1221
01:14:28,320 --> 01:14:31,240
Most dams would have an overflow,
which goes round the side.

1222
01:14:31,240 --> 01:14:33,480
Yeah.
Deacon said no.

1223
01:14:33,480 --> 01:14:36,960
He wanted it to come over the top.
As it's doing now? As it's doing
now, yeah.

1224
01:14:36,960 --> 01:14:40,400
This is because it's been raining,
the dam is really full, the overflow
is right

1225
01:14:40,400 --> 01:14:42,440
the length of the dam itself.

1226
01:14:42,440 --> 01:14:45,880
That's correct. You've got to have a
really good dam for this to work,
though.

1227
01:14:45,880 --> 01:14:48,640
If this isn't strong,
this is dangerous, isn't it?

1228
01:14:53,080 --> 01:14:57,880
Engineers knew only too well
the perils of dam building.

1229
01:14:57,880 --> 01:14:59,880
17 years previously,

1230
01:14:59,880 --> 01:15:02,960
on the night of March 11th 1864,

1231
01:15:02,960 --> 01:15:07,120
the Dale Dyke Dam near Sheffield
had a catastrophic failure.

1232
01:15:10,840 --> 01:15:13,040
The dam wall collapsed.

1233
01:15:13,040 --> 01:15:17,920
And a deadly deluge of nearly
700 million gallons swept away

1234
01:15:17,920 --> 01:15:20,520
everything in its path.

1235
01:15:20,520 --> 01:15:22,960
240 people lost their lives.

1236
01:15:24,400 --> 01:15:29,120
It was one of the worst engineering
disasters of the Victorian age.

1237
01:15:31,320 --> 01:15:34,920
Engineer George Deacon was
determined his dam wouldn't suffer

1238
01:15:34,920 --> 01:15:36,480
the same fate.

1239
01:15:38,200 --> 01:15:42,120
You've got to realise that
this structure is as wide at the

1240
01:15:42,120 --> 01:15:43,720
base as it is high.

1241
01:15:43,720 --> 01:15:48,440
So as you can imagine, it is really
solid, this isn't going anywhere.

1242
01:15:49,560 --> 01:15:53,800
More than 1,000 men
were employed to build the dam.

1243
01:15:53,800 --> 01:15:57,480
Half a million tonnes of stone
were quarried nearby, and brought

1244
01:15:57,480 --> 01:15:58,720
to the site.

1245
01:16:00,440 --> 01:16:04,760
Masons carved the huge stone blocks
before they were lifted into place

1246
01:16:04,760 --> 01:16:08,320
with the aid of steam-powered
cranes.

1247
01:16:08,320 --> 01:16:13,440
It was a dangerous enterprise,
which claimed the lives of 44 men.

1248
01:16:13,440 --> 01:16:14,920
But by 1888,

1249
01:16:14,920 --> 01:16:19,360
just seven years after construction
began, the dam was complete.

1250
01:16:20,720 --> 01:16:23,520
The engineering that went
into it, you know, we've got

1251
01:16:23,520 --> 01:16:26,160
to just take our hats off
to the Victorians, they knew exactly

1252
01:16:26,160 --> 01:16:27,640
what they were doing.

1253
01:16:30,560 --> 01:16:34,280
To get the fresh water from Wales
all the way to Liverpool,

1254
01:16:34,280 --> 01:16:36,800
the engineers laid
out what was at the time

1255
01:16:36,800 --> 01:16:39,920
the world's longest aqueduct.

1256
01:16:39,920 --> 01:16:44,960
Miles of underground pipes designed
to convey the water purely

1257
01:16:44,960 --> 01:16:47,520
by the power of gravity.

1258
01:16:47,520 --> 01:16:51,720
The water's long journey starts
right here in this tower, perched

1259
01:16:51,720 --> 01:16:54,680
on the edge of the reservoir.

1260
01:16:54,680 --> 01:16:56,920
It looks extraordinary,
doesn't it, Peter?

1261
01:16:56,920 --> 01:16:59,080
It looks like something
out of Dracula's tower.

1262
01:16:59,080 --> 01:17:00,480
It's superb, yeah.

1263
01:17:00,480 --> 01:17:03,200
Deacon, as the principal
engineer, was really concerned

1264
01:17:03,200 --> 01:17:05,760
about the aesthetics of
what he built.

1265
01:17:05,760 --> 01:17:09,520
So although it was absolutely
functional, you know, he wanted

1266
01:17:09,520 --> 01:17:12,760
it to look pretty
in its environment.

1267
01:17:12,760 --> 01:17:15,480
What is the function? It will draw
the water off from the lake,

1268
01:17:15,480 --> 01:17:19,000
OK? This is one of the deepest parts
of the lake.

1269
01:17:19,000 --> 01:17:22,600
And then also, it filters it before
it moves off towards Liverpool.

1270
01:17:22,600 --> 01:17:24,760
Shall we go inside, then?
Yeah.

1271
01:17:24,760 --> 01:17:26,000
This is great.

1272
01:17:30,960 --> 01:17:33,320
And this is Liverpool's water, is
it?

1273
01:17:33,320 --> 01:17:34,800
Exactly.

1274
01:17:34,800 --> 01:17:38,120
We're now in the base of the tower.
On the end of this chain...

1275
01:17:38,120 --> 01:17:41,640
This whopping chain. Exactly.
..is where your filtration sits,

1276
01:17:41,640 --> 01:17:45,880
so the water from the lake is drawn
in through the syphon tubes.

1277
01:17:45,880 --> 01:17:49,560
And the only place it can go
is through one of those strainers,

1278
01:17:49,560 --> 01:17:52,440
and off through the pipeline
and into the aqueduct itself.

1279
01:17:55,200 --> 01:17:58,800
Those clever Victorians designed
the tower so they could draw

1280
01:17:58,800 --> 01:18:02,560
off water from different depths
in the lake, to ensure the best

1281
01:18:02,560 --> 01:18:04,880
quality enters the aqueduct.

1282
01:18:04,880 --> 01:18:07,360
And the machinery
that operates this

1283
01:18:07,360 --> 01:18:10,480
is an ingenious Victorian
water engine.

1284
01:18:10,480 --> 01:18:13,200
So here we are. Wow.

1285
01:18:13,200 --> 01:18:17,920
The heart of the tower, the engine
room itself. A real Victorian

1286
01:18:17,920 --> 01:18:20,480
engine, and it still works.

1287
01:18:20,480 --> 01:18:22,040
Not only is it functional,

1288
01:18:22,040 --> 01:18:24,800
we actually have to use it for
adjusting that draw-off level

1289
01:18:24,800 --> 01:18:29,040
out in the lake. All done
by water. All done by water.

1290
01:18:29,040 --> 01:18:31,320
Might you need to do it today?

1291
01:18:31,320 --> 01:18:34,240
Well, I think with all the heavy
rainfall that we had, the lake

1292
01:18:34,240 --> 01:18:37,080
level has come up and I'm going
to have to adjust that draw level!

1293
01:18:37,080 --> 01:18:39,080
Great.

1294
01:18:39,080 --> 01:18:40,800
Does it make a really big racket?

1295
01:18:40,800 --> 01:18:43,040
Actually, compared to a steam
engine,

1296
01:18:43,040 --> 01:18:44,960
I think you'll find
it relatively quiet.

1297
01:18:44,960 --> 01:18:49,160
It's gonna make some noise
but it'll be quite majestic,

1298
01:18:49,160 --> 01:18:50,640
I think. Mm, majestic!

1299
01:18:50,640 --> 01:18:52,360
Let's do it.

1300
01:18:52,360 --> 01:18:55,920
This engine is powered by water
pressure from a pool in the hills

1301
01:18:55,920 --> 01:18:57,600
above the tower.

1302
01:18:57,600 --> 01:18:59,080
WHOOSH

1303
01:18:59,080 --> 01:19:01,280
Hear the pressure now coming
into the engine? Yeah.

1304
01:19:01,280 --> 01:19:04,440
And this brings the water
in through here?

1305
01:19:04,440 --> 01:19:07,400
Yeah, you can hear... You can hear
it. Yeah.

1306
01:19:07,400 --> 01:19:10,720
So that's the water pressure
starting to move from the pipeline

1307
01:19:10,720 --> 01:19:13,520
up from quarry
pool, into the building.

1308
01:19:13,520 --> 01:19:14,960
Yeah.

1309
01:19:14,960 --> 01:19:16,920
HISSES

1310
01:19:19,480 --> 01:19:20,600
Look at that!

1311
01:19:22,960 --> 01:19:24,760
Shhhh!

1312
01:19:24,760 --> 01:19:26,480
You're right, it isn't that noisy.

1313
01:19:26,480 --> 01:19:27,680
It's just a hiss.

1314
01:19:28,720 --> 01:19:32,640
But look how smoothly it
moves. It's clockwork engineering

1315
01:19:32,640 --> 01:19:34,480
on a massive scale! Yeah, yeah.

1316
01:19:41,760 --> 01:19:43,600
It's great!

1317
01:19:43,600 --> 01:19:46,680
We're right on the top of the tower
now, looking down towards the dam.

1318
01:19:46,680 --> 01:19:48,240
How far is it to Liverpool?

1319
01:19:48,240 --> 01:19:52,480
The pipelines leave the tower now,
and they travel 68 miles... 68
miles?!

1320
01:19:52,480 --> 01:19:56,760
..all the way to Liverpool.
All that way, just by gravity.

1321
01:19:56,760 --> 01:20:00,800
That's an engineering feat in
itself, isn't it? It is, it is
superb, isn't it?

1322
01:20:00,800 --> 01:20:03,360
What do you make of the people
who built this?

1323
01:20:03,360 --> 01:20:04,760
Absolutely innovators -

1324
01:20:04,760 --> 01:20:07,640
doing things
that we don't even do today.

1325
01:20:12,760 --> 01:20:16,120
This engineering masterpiece
stands as a glorious tribute

1326
01:20:16,120 --> 01:20:18,880
to the Victorians'
greatest-ever achievement.

1327
01:20:23,760 --> 01:20:27,120
Their victory in transforming
health across the nation.

1328
01:20:36,160 --> 01:20:38,400
The challenges they'd faced
at the beginning

1329
01:20:38,400 --> 01:20:40,520
of the century were colossal.

1330
01:20:42,920 --> 01:20:46,760
The Victorians set about solving
them with an ingenuity and drive

1331
01:20:46,760 --> 01:20:49,960
that had never been seen
before, and has hardly been seen

1332
01:20:49,960 --> 01:20:53,960
since. Public health became
a cause to be championed.

1333
01:20:53,960 --> 01:20:57,880
Cleanliness was available
for all. These stunning feats

1334
01:20:57,880 --> 01:21:00,920
of engineering serve to remind us
of the debt that we owe

1335
01:21:00,920 --> 01:21:03,960
to the Victorians who built Britain.

1336
01:21:34,840 --> 01:21:37,960
Subtitles by Red Bee Media

1337
01:21:42,040 --> 01:21:44,840
In the long reign of a single queen,

1338
01:21:44,840 --> 01:21:48,400
Britain changed the world
and was itself utterly transformed.

1339
01:21:49,560 --> 01:21:52,760
Queen Victoria came to
the throne in 1837.

1340
01:21:53,880 --> 01:21:57,240
By the time she died in 1901,

1341
01:21:57,240 --> 01:21:59,360
we had built the modern world.

1342
01:22:01,000 --> 01:22:05,400
It was a time of outstanding
engineering, remarkable innovation -

1343
01:22:05,400 --> 01:22:09,320
all of it driven
by ambitious pioneers.

1344
01:22:09,320 --> 01:22:11,200
It shapes the country
we live in today.

1345
01:22:15,000 --> 01:22:18,760
Efficient and fast new transport
systems allowed people to move

1346
01:22:18,760 --> 01:22:20,960
freely for the first time.

1347
01:22:20,960 --> 01:22:24,880
You get a real sense in here
of Victorian engineering.

1348
01:22:24,880 --> 01:22:26,200
Oh, yeah, it's wonderful.

1349
01:22:27,280 --> 01:22:31,040
Giant feats of ingenuity
saved lives.

1350
01:22:31,040 --> 01:22:33,960
The Victorians had ambition -
they thought big,

1351
01:22:33,960 --> 01:22:35,960
and they got on with it.

1352
01:22:35,960 --> 01:22:40,360
Amazing inventions revolutionised
our domestic lives.

1353
01:22:40,360 --> 01:22:44,280
What I'm holding in my hand
changed our homes forever.

1354
01:22:45,800 --> 01:22:48,920
Automation transformed
mass production.

1355
01:22:48,920 --> 01:22:53,960
Factories could now produce goods
at a rate never imagined before.

1356
01:22:53,960 --> 01:22:57,600
The change is like a
nuclear weapon going off.

1357
01:22:59,600 --> 01:23:03,400
This is the story of how
the Victorians built Britain.

1358
01:23:06,000 --> 01:23:09,600
This time, I learn how the
Victorians harnessed the power of

1359
01:23:09,600 --> 01:23:12,120
gas and electricity for their home.

1360
01:23:12,120 --> 01:23:16,800
This really was the invention that
drove electricity into the home.

1361
01:23:18,440 --> 01:23:21,720
How are brand-new domestic
appliances became the must-have

1362
01:23:21,720 --> 01:23:23,320
items of the day.

1363
01:23:23,320 --> 01:23:26,520
You can't underestimate the effect
of the gas cooker.

1364
01:23:26,520 --> 01:23:29,480
For the Victorians,
this was absolutely amazing.

1365
01:23:29,480 --> 01:23:32,720
And how the Victorians laid the
foundations for the world

1366
01:23:32,720 --> 01:23:33,720
we live in today.

1367
01:23:45,000 --> 01:23:48,760
In 1837, at the beginning of
Queen Victoria's reign,

1368
01:23:48,760 --> 01:23:51,720
there were only five cities
in Britain that had a population

1369
01:23:51,720 --> 01:23:53,440
of more than 100,000 people.

1370
01:23:55,080 --> 01:23:57,200
By the time of her death,
there were 49.

1371
01:23:58,920 --> 01:24:02,520
In the 60 years of her reign,
the population of Britain doubled.

1372
01:24:05,880 --> 01:24:10,080
This massive population growth
created a frenzy of house-building

1373
01:24:10,080 --> 01:24:12,040
in the Victorian period.

1374
01:24:12,040 --> 01:24:15,720
A third of all the houses
in Britain today were built before

1375
01:24:15,720 --> 01:24:18,560
the First World War -
most of them were Victorian.

1376
01:24:18,560 --> 01:24:22,720
In fewer than 75 years,
they built six million homes.

1377
01:24:26,800 --> 01:24:30,160
Many different types of housing
sprang up to cater

1378
01:24:30,160 --> 01:24:32,520
for all different classes.

1379
01:24:32,520 --> 01:24:36,440
Back-to-back terraces
for the poorer members of society.

1380
01:24:36,440 --> 01:24:40,680
Smarter villas on the edge of towns
for the more affluent.

1381
01:24:40,680 --> 01:24:45,200
Even grand mansions for the new
rich industrialists.

1382
01:24:45,200 --> 01:24:49,680
Much of this new housing being built
was intended for the middle classes,

1383
01:24:49,680 --> 01:24:54,120
a group that expanded rapidly during
Queen Victoria's reign.

1384
01:24:54,120 --> 01:24:57,520
This burgeoning middle class
had a sense of what we'd call

1385
01:24:57,520 --> 01:25:00,920
being "house-proud", and it was
also a time that gave birth to

1386
01:25:00,920 --> 01:25:02,720
the phrase "home sweet home".

1387
01:25:05,480 --> 01:25:09,840
The Victorian middle-classers
loved to show off their new homes.

1388
01:25:09,840 --> 01:25:14,080
They saw them as display cases
for their taste and wealth.

1389
01:25:14,080 --> 01:25:17,400
The Victorians' desire
for stuff was aided by

1390
01:25:17,400 --> 01:25:19,680
the huge rise in mass production.

1391
01:25:19,680 --> 01:25:22,720
The factories across Britain
producing things to put

1392
01:25:22,720 --> 01:25:26,240
in the Victorian house -
for the Victorian housewife to buy.

1393
01:25:26,240 --> 01:25:30,720
So, you want to cram your Victorian
shelves with all this success,

1394
01:25:30,720 --> 01:25:33,640
because that signifies wealth.

1395
01:25:33,640 --> 01:25:38,920
An important element in showing off
your home was adequate lighting.

1396
01:25:38,920 --> 01:25:42,040
At the beginning of the
Victorian era, many homes were still

1397
01:25:42,040 --> 01:25:44,240
being lit by candles or oil lamps.

1398
01:25:45,560 --> 01:25:49,280
But a lot of these new homes that
were springing up all over Britain

1399
01:25:49,280 --> 01:25:52,440
would soon be able to rely on a
brand-new source of power.

1400
01:25:53,520 --> 01:25:56,760
Gas - and it came from
a surprising source.

1401
01:25:58,320 --> 01:26:02,360
The key ingredient in the
manufacture of this new gas

1402
01:26:02,360 --> 01:26:05,200
wonder fuel...was this - coal.

1403
01:26:06,560 --> 01:26:11,040
By the Victorian era, Britain was
the world leader in coal mining.

1404
01:26:11,040 --> 01:26:12,240
We had lots of the stuff.

1405
01:26:15,520 --> 01:26:18,680
It was called coal gas,
or "town gas",

1406
01:26:18,680 --> 01:26:22,480
and the Victorians began to build
gasworks in every town in the land.

1407
01:26:28,920 --> 01:26:31,320
This is Gakenham Gasworks
in Norfolk.

1408
01:26:32,520 --> 01:26:36,040
First opened in the early years
of the Victorian period,

1409
01:26:36,040 --> 01:26:40,520
it supplied gas to the local people
until it was closed down in 1965.

1410
01:26:42,640 --> 01:26:45,920
It's the only surviving gas works
of its type in England

1411
01:26:45,920 --> 01:26:47,040
from Victorian times.

1412
01:26:50,320 --> 01:26:55,320
Alan, this whole industry was based
on somebody discovering

1413
01:26:55,320 --> 01:26:57,760
that you could make gas from coal.

1414
01:26:57,760 --> 01:26:59,680
How did they do it?

1415
01:26:59,680 --> 01:27:02,200
It's quite a simple
process actually.

1416
01:27:02,200 --> 01:27:06,520
Underneath here is the furnace,
which is heating up a series

1417
01:27:06,520 --> 01:27:08,840
of ovens, which we call retorts.

1418
01:27:10,200 --> 01:27:15,040
Into each of the retorts, coal is
placed, the door is closed,

1419
01:27:15,040 --> 01:27:20,640
and then, the coal is heated to
about 750 degrees centigrade.

1420
01:27:20,640 --> 01:27:25,160
And the coal breaks down and
produces gas and other products,

1421
01:27:25,160 --> 01:27:26,640
as well as coal.

1422
01:27:26,640 --> 01:27:29,040
So, the coal isn't actually burning?

1423
01:27:29,040 --> 01:27:32,600
No, it is actually heated in the
absence of air, therefore it

1424
01:27:32,600 --> 01:27:36,480
can't burn - it's just breaking
it down into constituent products

1425
01:27:36,480 --> 01:27:40,200
that rise in the form of a thick,
brown gas,

1426
01:27:40,200 --> 01:27:46,400
up through the ascension pipes here,
and into the hydraulic main above.

1427
01:27:49,520 --> 01:27:52,560
The first public gasworks opened
shortly before

1428
01:27:52,560 --> 01:27:54,760
Queen Victoria's birth.

1429
01:27:54,760 --> 01:27:59,000
But by the 1860s, there were over
1,000 across the UK,

1430
01:27:59,000 --> 01:28:00,560
supplying every town and city.

1431
01:28:03,120 --> 01:28:07,360
The gas they produced was stored
in these large tanks.

1432
01:28:07,360 --> 01:28:10,280
From these, the gas was distributed
to the local town

1433
01:28:10,280 --> 01:28:11,640
through a network of pipes.

1434
01:28:12,840 --> 01:28:17,200
The main pipes were first laid under
existing roads, allowing towns to

1435
01:28:17,200 --> 01:28:21,440
install street lighting for the
very first time.

1436
01:28:21,440 --> 01:28:24,320
Remarkably, it's still possible
to get a sense of that

1437
01:28:24,320 --> 01:28:25,800
Victorian atmosphere today.

1438
01:28:33,880 --> 01:28:38,360
In London, a team of lamplighters
regularly takes to the streets

1439
01:28:38,360 --> 01:28:43,400
to attend to over 1,500 gas lamps
spread across the capital.

1440
01:28:43,400 --> 01:28:46,760
The warm glow gives us a flavour
of how Victorian Britain

1441
01:28:46,760 --> 01:28:48,120
would have looked at night.

1442
01:28:55,040 --> 01:28:58,880
In the first half of the
19th century, gas street lighting

1443
01:28:58,880 --> 01:29:01,400
spread out beyond London
to the rest of the country.

1444
01:29:03,320 --> 01:29:06,480
And once gas pipes had been laid
for street lighting,

1445
01:29:06,480 --> 01:29:09,840
it was then possible for homes
along the route to be linked

1446
01:29:09,840 --> 01:29:10,840
to the supply.

1447
01:29:12,440 --> 01:29:15,680
Who were the first people
to get gas in their homes?

1448
01:29:15,680 --> 01:29:18,240
The first people to adopt it in
the homes would've been

1449
01:29:18,240 --> 01:29:19,280
the middle classes.

1450
01:29:19,280 --> 01:29:20,680
Not the aristocracy, though?

1451
01:29:20,680 --> 01:29:22,880
They were a bit sniffy about it?
They were.

1452
01:29:22,880 --> 01:29:25,280
I think it helped when
Buckingham Palace adopted it.

1453
01:29:25,280 --> 01:29:29,520
So, Royal patronage was very key to
the success of the gas industry.

1454
01:29:33,880 --> 01:29:36,920
When Queen Victoria took up
residence at Buckingham Palace

1455
01:29:36,920 --> 01:29:41,160
in 1837, she had gas lighting
supplied throughout the building.

1456
01:29:42,800 --> 01:29:45,720
It was soon followed by
the House of Commons in 1852.

1457
01:29:47,400 --> 01:29:51,280
Such influential converts to gas
made it popular,

1458
01:29:51,280 --> 01:29:54,600
and the wealthy of the land
soon followed suit.

1459
01:29:54,600 --> 01:29:57,840
Then the invention of
the coin-operated gas metre

1460
01:29:57,840 --> 01:30:02,560
in the 1870s opened up this new,
wonder fuel to all classes

1461
01:30:02,560 --> 01:30:03,560
of British society.

1462
01:30:04,760 --> 01:30:07,400
Were their fears about
this new fuel?

1463
01:30:07,400 --> 01:30:09,840
I mean, after all, it is explosive?

1464
01:30:09,840 --> 01:30:12,560
People were concerned that the gas
pipes under the street were

1465
01:30:12,560 --> 01:30:16,320
transmitting fire, cos they saw that
fire came out of the gas fittings.

1466
01:30:16,320 --> 01:30:19,280
So, they assumed that it was fire
within the pipes themselves.

1467
01:30:19,280 --> 01:30:22,040
And people would go along past
gas pipes and touch them,

1468
01:30:22,040 --> 01:30:23,280
to see how hot they were.

1469
01:30:23,280 --> 01:30:24,760
THEY CHUCKLE

1470
01:30:24,760 --> 01:30:29,640
Looking back, to what extent did
manufactured gas change the way

1471
01:30:29,640 --> 01:30:31,280
people lived their lives?

1472
01:30:31,280 --> 01:30:34,840
It led to a whole range of health
benefits and societal benefits.

1473
01:30:34,840 --> 01:30:38,400
The environment was safer, it was
brighter, and it gave people more

1474
01:30:38,400 --> 01:30:41,040
flexibility over what they could
do with their lives.

1475
01:30:44,000 --> 01:30:48,240
Gas changed people's lives
in Victorian Britain.

1476
01:30:48,240 --> 01:30:52,480
Street lighting transformed
even the smallest towns.

1477
01:30:52,480 --> 01:30:55,480
But soon, it wasn't just a case
of lighting up their streets

1478
01:30:55,480 --> 01:30:57,160
and drawing rooms.

1479
01:30:57,160 --> 01:31:02,040
Gas was about to revolutionise
other parts of the Victorian home.

1480
01:31:02,040 --> 01:31:05,920
And one room would be transformed
more than almost any other -

1481
01:31:05,920 --> 01:31:06,920
the kitchen.

1482
01:31:15,130 --> 01:31:18,850
In Victorian Britain, the arrival
of gas had a profound effect

1483
01:31:18,850 --> 01:31:21,930
on the way many people lived
their lives.

1484
01:31:21,930 --> 01:31:24,730
First, it was used to provide
street lighting, and then,

1485
01:31:24,730 --> 01:31:25,810
lighting in the home.

1486
01:31:27,170 --> 01:31:31,010
But later in the Victorian period,
the invention of a brand-new

1487
01:31:31,010 --> 01:31:33,890
gas appliance caused
something of a revolution.

1488
01:31:35,290 --> 01:31:37,490
It was the gas cooker.

1489
01:31:37,490 --> 01:31:41,010
Up until the mid-Victorian period,
cooking was carried out mainly

1490
01:31:41,010 --> 01:31:42,210
on open fires or ranges.

1491
01:31:43,530 --> 01:31:48,170
You can't underestimate the effect
of the gas cooker on British homes

1492
01:31:48,170 --> 01:31:51,010
and kitchens, and meals and diet.

1493
01:31:51,010 --> 01:31:53,690
Because what you now have with
the gas cooker is you can

1494
01:31:53,690 --> 01:31:54,770
control the supply.

1495
01:31:54,770 --> 01:31:57,770
It is a straight supply of energy,
it won't go off and on,

1496
01:31:57,770 --> 01:31:59,610
and also, you can schedule
the temperature -

1497
01:31:59,610 --> 01:32:01,650
you can make it high, medium, low.

1498
01:32:01,650 --> 01:32:04,290
We take that for granted,
but for the Victorians,

1499
01:32:04,290 --> 01:32:05,770
this was absolutely amazing.

1500
01:32:09,930 --> 01:32:13,610
One of the first gas cookers
was installed at The Reform Club

1501
01:32:13,610 --> 01:32:18,930
in 1842, for celebrity chef
of the day, Alexis Soyer.

1502
01:32:18,930 --> 01:32:24,530
He carried out early demonstrations
of the benefits of cooking with gas.

1503
01:32:24,530 --> 01:32:27,810
The arrival of the new gas ovens and
gas cookers played a part in the

1504
01:32:27,810 --> 01:32:30,730
Victorians' revolution of
the kitchen.

1505
01:32:30,730 --> 01:32:34,490
Although initially only for the
wealthy, one of the major events

1506
01:32:34,490 --> 01:32:38,530
of the Victorian period brought
them closer to the masses.

1507
01:32:38,530 --> 01:32:45,970
The thing that really created
a kitchen revolution

1508
01:32:45,970 --> 01:32:48,330
was that absolutely pivotal event -

1509
01:32:48,330 --> 01:32:51,250
the Great Exhibition,
Summer of 1851.

1510
01:32:56,050 --> 01:32:59,770
The Great Exhibition was the very
first international presentation

1511
01:32:59,770 --> 01:33:01,130
of manufactured products.

1512
01:33:02,650 --> 01:33:05,930
It was organized by Queen Victoria's
husband, Prince Albert,

1513
01:33:05,930 --> 01:33:09,090
and held in a purpose-built
crystal palace in Hyde Park.

1514
01:33:10,570 --> 01:33:14,050
For the millions who visited,
it was eye-opening experience.

1515
01:33:15,370 --> 01:33:20,970
Assembled in one place
for the first time was everything

1516
01:33:20,970 --> 01:33:24,130
that Victorian technology
could produce.

1517
01:33:26,810 --> 01:33:32,730
And chief among this new technology
were the newfangled gas cookers.

1518
01:33:32,730 --> 01:33:36,450
After being displayed at the Great
Exhibition, more and more people now

1519
01:33:36,450 --> 01:33:39,570
installed them in their new
Victorian homes.

1520
01:33:39,570 --> 01:33:43,170
The Great Exhibition really brought
technology into the Victorian home.

1521
01:33:43,170 --> 01:33:46,610
On a modern gas oven,
you can change the temperature.

1522
01:33:46,610 --> 01:33:49,770
It made cooking much easier,
much more experimental -

1523
01:33:49,770 --> 01:33:53,130
and also, it meant that you could
make a more complex meal.

1524
01:33:53,130 --> 01:33:56,610
And so, we really do see the
Sunday roast becoming more popular

1525
01:33:56,610 --> 01:33:57,690
in this period.

1526
01:33:57,690 --> 01:34:00,930
It's something that the average
middle-class family can manage.

1527
01:34:03,290 --> 01:34:08,170
In one house that demonstrates this
Victorian kitchen revolution

1528
01:34:08,170 --> 01:34:10,610
probably more than any other

1529
01:34:10,610 --> 01:34:15,090
is the home of Victorian
industrialist William Armstrong.

1530
01:34:15,090 --> 01:34:18,530
He was one of the wealthiest men
in Britain, and he was obsessed

1531
01:34:18,530 --> 01:34:19,650
with kitchen gadgets.

1532
01:34:25,850 --> 01:34:29,770
What is it about this kitchen that a
Victorian coming in would think,

1533
01:34:29,770 --> 01:34:32,970
"Mmm, this is state of the art,
it's cutting edge" -

1534
01:34:32,970 --> 01:34:35,010
experimental, even?

1535
01:34:35,010 --> 01:34:37,210
Oh, it's got - it's full of gadgets,

1536
01:34:37,210 --> 01:34:40,610
They're taking advantage of every
modern convenience.

1537
01:34:40,610 --> 01:34:43,570
All the new mechanical aids.

1538
01:34:43,570 --> 01:34:46,450
Probably the most
modern kitchen of its time.

1539
01:34:46,450 --> 01:34:50,050
What is there in here that will
surprise me the most?

1540
01:34:50,050 --> 01:34:52,650
Ah! Well, I think you ought
to have a look at this,

1541
01:34:52,650 --> 01:34:54,650
if you want to be truly surprised.

1542
01:34:54,650 --> 01:34:55,610
HE CHUCKLES
OK.

1543
01:35:00,410 --> 01:35:01,730
What is it?

1544
01:35:01,730 --> 01:35:04,370
It's one of the very first
dishwashers.

1545
01:35:04,370 --> 01:35:05,410
HE LAUGHS

1546
01:35:05,410 --> 01:35:06,890
How does it work?

1547
01:35:06,890 --> 01:35:09,570
Well, it's quite simple, really.

1548
01:35:09,570 --> 01:35:14,250
You stack all your plates into it -
but then, there's these bars that

1549
01:35:14,250 --> 01:35:17,050
have jets of water under pressure.

1550
01:35:17,050 --> 01:35:20,410
So you close the door, so you don't
get a good soaking in the process.

1551
01:35:20,410 --> 01:35:21,490
HE CHUCKLES

1552
01:35:21,490 --> 01:35:26,290
And then, this water would cascade
down across the plates.

1553
01:35:26,290 --> 01:35:30,730
And this was a time when servants
were plentiful and cheap?

1554
01:35:30,730 --> 01:35:31,810
They were, indeed.

1555
01:35:31,810 --> 01:35:35,410
So, really, it's just a way
of showing off a bit.

1556
01:35:35,410 --> 01:35:39,610
"What's coming brand-new today?
Oh, a Washerup!

1557
01:35:39,610 --> 01:35:41,090
"I must have one of those."

1558
01:35:41,090 --> 01:35:42,090
HE CHUCKLES

1559
01:35:46,130 --> 01:35:49,490
But in the new Victorian kitchen,
it wasn't just about the high-end

1560
01:35:49,490 --> 01:35:52,010
state-of-the-art equipment.

1561
01:35:52,010 --> 01:35:55,850
The Victorians also invented
more basic kitchen utensils

1562
01:35:55,850 --> 01:35:57,410
that we take for granted today.

1563
01:35:58,650 --> 01:36:03,130
Victorians were obsessed
with novelty.

1564
01:36:03,130 --> 01:36:06,810
They loved gadgets as much
as people do today.

1565
01:36:08,010 --> 01:36:12,570
And so, they'd invent things
like an apple corer,

1566
01:36:12,570 --> 01:36:14,090
or a potato peeler.

1567
01:36:14,090 --> 01:36:16,610
You know, the potato peeler's
a wonderful thing.

1568
01:36:16,610 --> 01:36:18,970
You wonder why no-one ever
thought of it before.

1569
01:36:22,450 --> 01:36:26,010
As new materials like steel
became readily available,

1570
01:36:26,010 --> 01:36:28,890
mass-producing items like kitchen
gadgets was possible

1571
01:36:28,890 --> 01:36:30,850
for the first time -

1572
01:36:30,850 --> 01:36:32,570
made them available to the masses.

1573
01:36:34,410 --> 01:36:38,250
This whisk - surely people before
the Victorians had whisks?

1574
01:36:38,250 --> 01:36:41,930
Yes, whisks would've been
around for a long time.

1575
01:36:41,930 --> 01:36:46,850
But it's that manufacturing that
they had in the Victorian age -

1576
01:36:46,850 --> 01:36:52,010
meant that it was easy to bend the
wires, steel was being perfected.

1577
01:36:52,010 --> 01:36:54,970
This could all be done on a machine,

1578
01:36:54,970 --> 01:36:57,770
which meant they could
mass-produce them.

1579
01:36:57,770 --> 01:37:01,210
Gosh...the Victorians were fond
of garlic, weren't they?

1580
01:37:02,730 --> 01:37:06,370
This is not a garlic press, is it?
It's not, it's a potato master.

1581
01:37:06,370 --> 01:37:08,610
But it just shows, you know,

1582
01:37:08,610 --> 01:37:11,890
that they were looking for
finer dining.

1583
01:37:11,890 --> 01:37:15,690
You know, this was a house
that was built to impress.

1584
01:37:15,690 --> 01:37:20,370
You had guests coming - you wanted
the fluffiest, smoothest mash

1585
01:37:20,370 --> 01:37:22,010
that was possible.

1586
01:37:22,010 --> 01:37:26,170
And all this lovely technology
allowed you to do that.

1587
01:37:31,730 --> 01:37:35,290
The Victorians were so ingenious,
in fact, that even if the technology

1588
01:37:35,290 --> 01:37:39,330
of the day wasn't advanced enough
for them, they still found a way

1589
01:37:39,330 --> 01:37:41,410
to solve the problem.

1590
01:37:41,410 --> 01:37:45,370
In the grandest Victorian kitchens,
they were introducing an appliance

1591
01:37:45,370 --> 01:37:46,850
that was way ahead of his time.

1592
01:37:49,450 --> 01:37:52,810
Here we have one of the very
first fridges...

1593
01:37:52,810 --> 01:37:54,210
Good gracious me.

1594
01:37:54,210 --> 01:37:57,250
..which at stage was called a
"food storer".

1595
01:37:57,250 --> 01:38:01,530
But this is how refrigeration
really started in the home.

1596
01:38:01,530 --> 01:38:06,450
So, this is a very well-lined
and insulated box?

1597
01:38:06,450 --> 01:38:11,050
It is. It's built of timber,
which is an insulating material.

1598
01:38:11,050 --> 01:38:14,970
There's insulation between
the zinc and the timber.

1599
01:38:14,970 --> 01:38:18,490
And this would have probably been
stored in a scullery, as well,

1600
01:38:18,490 --> 01:38:20,330
which is already cool.

1601
01:38:20,330 --> 01:38:24,530
And it meant that you could keep
things for very much longer periods.

1602
01:38:24,530 --> 01:38:26,530
How would they have used it?

1603
01:38:26,530 --> 01:38:29,290
Well, the ice goes into the base,
and it has a drain hole

1604
01:38:29,290 --> 01:38:31,570
in the bottom, as well.

1605
01:38:31,570 --> 01:38:36,850
There's various removable shelves,
so you can have your ice cream bombs

1606
01:38:36,850 --> 01:38:39,730
in here, and your meat
in another area.

1607
01:38:39,730 --> 01:38:42,610
So, it's all well thought-out
and designed.

1608
01:38:42,610 --> 01:38:46,290
A fridge in all but name -
and of course, of electricity.

1609
01:38:46,290 --> 01:38:48,130
Yes, very much so.

1610
01:38:48,130 --> 01:38:51,370
The only thing you've got to do
is replenish the ice.

1611
01:38:51,370 --> 01:38:53,170
That's the only job with it, really.

1612
01:38:57,570 --> 01:39:01,330
This brand-new innovation,
the fridge, was beginning to appear

1613
01:39:01,330 --> 01:39:04,010
in the houses of
the wealthier Victorians.

1614
01:39:06,890 --> 01:39:11,250
It had long been known that packing
food in ice helped prolong its life.

1615
01:39:11,250 --> 01:39:15,450
But now, the notion ice in drinks,
for instance, and the manufacturer

1616
01:39:15,450 --> 01:39:18,490
of ice cream, was becoming popular.

1617
01:39:18,490 --> 01:39:20,530
During the mid-Victorian period,

1618
01:39:20,530 --> 01:39:23,210
there was a huge increase
in the demand for ice.

1619
01:39:25,290 --> 01:39:29,010
The industry that grew up to cater
for it is one of the great forgotten

1620
01:39:29,010 --> 01:39:31,370
stories of the Victorian era.

1621
01:39:31,370 --> 01:39:35,090
Such was the demand for ice
that a huge import business

1622
01:39:35,090 --> 01:39:36,690
was established.

1623
01:39:36,690 --> 01:39:40,010
First bringing the ice from America,
and then, from Norway.

1624
01:39:45,810 --> 01:39:50,250
Although little is known about it
now, here at the London Canal Museum

1625
01:39:50,250 --> 01:39:52,570
in King's Cross, there's still
evidence of this

1626
01:39:52,570 --> 01:39:53,890
extraordinary industry.

1627
01:39:56,290 --> 01:40:00,450
I'm meeting Ellen Leslie, an expert
on the Victorian ice business.

1628
01:40:02,810 --> 01:40:06,410
Much to my surprise,
beneath the can out Museum are two

1629
01:40:06,410 --> 01:40:08,530
enormous cylindrical spaces.

1630
01:40:10,010 --> 01:40:11,210
They're huge, aren't they?

1631
01:40:14,570 --> 01:40:15,890
Ellen, what is this place?

1632
01:40:15,890 --> 01:40:17,610
This is a commercial ice well,

1633
01:40:17,610 --> 01:40:21,410
that was built in the late 1850s
to store ice.

1634
01:40:21,410 --> 01:40:23,570
How much ice would there
have been in here? It's huge.

1635
01:40:23,570 --> 01:40:26,090
It would take about 2-3,000 tonnes.

1636
01:40:26,090 --> 01:40:30,130
Tightly packed in. Why is it here
at what is now the Canal Museum?

1637
01:40:30,130 --> 01:40:33,770
This was because ice could be
delivered from the docks,

1638
01:40:33,770 --> 01:40:37,490
brought up the Regent's Canal,
and then, distributed from here.

1639
01:40:37,490 --> 01:40:39,330
What did they want the ice for?

1640
01:40:39,330 --> 01:40:42,970
On a commercial level, restaurants
and fishmongers needed ice.

1641
01:40:42,970 --> 01:40:46,290
But what about the private
consumption of ice from here?

1642
01:40:46,290 --> 01:40:49,450
Well, certainly, only the very
wealthy would've had an ice box,

1643
01:40:49,450 --> 01:40:51,130
or an ice chest.

1644
01:40:51,130 --> 01:40:54,570
It took a while for it to be
something the masses would enjoy.

1645
01:40:54,570 --> 01:40:58,290
But it affected their eating,
because it enabled food to be kept

1646
01:40:58,290 --> 01:40:59,730
fresh for longer.

1647
01:40:59,730 --> 01:41:02,610
It changed maybe the kind
of desserts they had,

1648
01:41:02,610 --> 01:41:05,570
because they were able to make ice
cream and sorbets from the ice.

1649
01:41:05,570 --> 01:41:09,210
So, what people were eating in 1840s
to what they were eating in 1890s

1650
01:41:09,210 --> 01:41:10,330
was quite a big change.

1651
01:41:14,450 --> 01:41:18,530
It may have only been the very rich
that could now store their food in

1652
01:41:18,530 --> 01:41:22,490
a prototype fridge, but the new
mass-produce ice cream

1653
01:41:22,490 --> 01:41:25,170
was something that was
available to everyone.

1654
01:41:25,170 --> 01:41:29,130
It was sold in small glass bowls
called "penny licks".

1655
01:41:29,130 --> 01:41:32,810
But because they were often just
wiped clean before being used for

1656
01:41:32,810 --> 01:41:36,610
the next customer, they were banned
in the early 20th century,

1657
01:41:36,610 --> 01:41:37,970
just as wafer cones came in.

1658
01:41:39,010 --> 01:41:40,450
When did this industry peak?

1659
01:41:41,690 --> 01:41:45,130
Probably about the 1870s, 1880s.

1660
01:41:45,130 --> 01:41:49,770
It was short-lived...because,
by the end of the 19th century,

1661
01:41:49,770 --> 01:41:52,650
they were starting to manufacture
ice artificially.

1662
01:41:52,650 --> 01:41:56,250
So, this is extraordinary ice trade
that I must say I've never heard of,

1663
01:41:56,250 --> 01:42:00,290
almost exactly coinciding with the
reign of Queen Victoria herself?

1664
01:42:00,290 --> 01:42:01,290
Absolutely, yes.

1665
01:42:05,650 --> 01:42:09,210
Victorian life in the home was
now becoming more sophisticated

1666
01:42:09,210 --> 01:42:10,930
at every level.

1667
01:42:10,930 --> 01:42:14,290
New inventions were transforming
the way the Victorians lived

1668
01:42:14,290 --> 01:42:15,930
across the classes.

1669
01:42:15,930 --> 01:42:19,050
And for many, it meant the creation
of a whole new world

1670
01:42:19,050 --> 01:42:20,050
of leisure time.

1671
01:42:27,390 --> 01:42:30,910
Throughout the Victorian Age,
the house and home was becoming

1672
01:42:30,910 --> 01:42:34,270
a more comfortable and pleasant
place to be.

1673
01:42:34,270 --> 01:42:37,790
New house designs catered for
all classes of society.

1674
01:42:37,790 --> 01:42:41,310
And new technology was making
the lives of the Victorians

1675
01:42:41,310 --> 01:42:45,670
more civilised, and standards
of living were improving.

1676
01:42:45,670 --> 01:42:48,270
One of the biggest breakthroughs
was the introduction

1677
01:42:48,270 --> 01:42:50,470
of a regular gas supply.

1678
01:42:50,470 --> 01:42:53,710
It was literally bringing
people out of the dark.

1679
01:42:54,830 --> 01:42:58,910
Before gas lighting,
you have the candlelight.

1680
01:42:58,910 --> 01:43:04,190
But on a dark evening, you only have
light in your own immediate area.

1681
01:43:04,190 --> 01:43:08,150
And the thing with gas lighting -
it could light up a whole room.

1682
01:43:08,150 --> 01:43:10,110
CROWD LAUGHS

1683
01:43:11,270 --> 01:43:14,750
With the Victorians now being able
to extend their day,

1684
01:43:14,750 --> 01:43:17,950
there was a boom
in games and hobbies.

1685
01:43:17,950 --> 01:43:21,350
They played games, such as
"charades" and "blind man's bluff",

1686
01:43:21,350 --> 01:43:24,630
which became collectively known
as parlour games, after the room

1687
01:43:24,630 --> 01:43:25,870
that they were played in.

1688
01:43:27,830 --> 01:43:30,470
Most parlours also had a piano.

1689
01:43:30,470 --> 01:43:34,670
But by the 1870s,
the Victorians had even invented one

1690
01:43:34,670 --> 01:43:35,670
that played itself.

1691
01:43:38,670 --> 01:43:42,470
The pianola would mechanically
play a tune.

1692
01:43:42,470 --> 01:43:44,590
And for the first time ever...

1693
01:43:46,030 --> 01:43:50,510
..you could enjoy music without
needing an actual musician

1694
01:43:50,510 --> 01:43:51,550
to provide it.

1695
01:43:51,550 --> 01:43:53,990
RECORD PLAYS

1696
01:43:55,910 --> 01:43:59,950
As the Victorians began to have
more leisure time, they got busy

1697
01:43:59,950 --> 01:44:02,830
inventing more things to make that
time more pleasurable.

1698
01:44:04,190 --> 01:44:08,910
The pianola was surpassed by
a device called the graphophone -

1699
01:44:08,910 --> 01:44:10,590
a precursor to the record player.

1700
01:44:13,790 --> 01:44:16,230
The Victorian parlour
was beginning to resemble

1701
01:44:16,230 --> 01:44:17,550
a modern-day living room.

1702
01:44:18,790 --> 01:44:22,750
The concept of home entertainment,

1703
01:44:22,750 --> 01:44:26,750
as something canned and packaged
arrived with them.

1704
01:44:26,750 --> 01:44:28,430
We did not invent it.

1705
01:44:31,990 --> 01:44:35,390
One of the most novel inventions
in the Victorian era

1706
01:44:35,390 --> 01:44:37,830
was a whole new room - the bathroom.

1707
01:44:46,150 --> 01:44:48,910
It's impossible to imagine
a house without one.

1708
01:44:48,910 --> 01:44:53,910
But before water was piped to houses
in the 1850s, all of your toilet

1709
01:44:53,910 --> 01:44:56,990
business and washing was done
in bowls in the bedroom.

1710
01:44:58,710 --> 01:45:01,830
This is completely new and
revolutionary.

1711
01:45:01,830 --> 01:45:05,670
Previously of course, you have to go
to the well to get your water.

1712
01:45:05,670 --> 01:45:09,510
You have to physically heat it
on the hearth, take it upstairs,

1713
01:45:09,510 --> 01:45:11,310
and then, use it for your bath.

1714
01:45:11,310 --> 01:45:14,830
Now, suddenly, sanitation -
keeping yourself clean -

1715
01:45:14,830 --> 01:45:16,670
actually became rather easy.

1716
01:45:16,670 --> 01:45:18,270
You could have quite a few baths.

1717
01:45:18,270 --> 01:45:20,190
You maybe even could have
one every day.

1718
01:45:23,070 --> 01:45:25,950
Bathing as we know it
was now possible.

1719
01:45:25,950 --> 01:45:30,150
Because of the marriage of piped
water and a regular gas supply,

1720
01:45:30,150 --> 01:45:32,550
producing hot, running water.

1721
01:45:33,670 --> 01:45:36,190
After all, when Queen Victoria
came to the throne,

1722
01:45:36,190 --> 01:45:38,990
most people hardly washed at all.

1723
01:45:38,990 --> 01:45:42,830
And a bucket of cold water
was the upper limit of luxury.

1724
01:45:50,190 --> 01:45:53,430
But some Victorians went
one step further.

1725
01:45:53,430 --> 01:45:57,350
At Cragside, the lavish Victorian
home of millionaire industrialist

1726
01:45:57,350 --> 01:45:58,350
William Armstrong.

1727
01:45:59,590 --> 01:46:03,510
The bathroom he created is -
well, more than just a bathroom.

1728
01:46:05,190 --> 01:46:10,070
Gosh...it's like a present-day
hotel spa. It is, it yes.

1729
01:46:10,070 --> 01:46:13,990
This is where you relax, and -
a brandy and cigars...

1730
01:46:13,990 --> 01:46:16,510
Your every need, fulfilled - yeah.

1731
01:46:16,510 --> 01:46:20,790
And Cragside even boasts something
that we take for granted every day,

1732
01:46:20,790 --> 01:46:23,990
but it was a brand-new for
the rich Victorians.

1733
01:46:25,870 --> 01:46:27,750
Gosh, it's huge, isn't it?

1734
01:46:27,750 --> 01:46:30,110
We'd call it a shower -
what did they call it?

1735
01:46:30,110 --> 01:46:32,710
They called it a water douche.
Ahh.

1736
01:46:32,710 --> 01:46:36,310
And of course, you just pulled it
like the old lavatory chain,

1737
01:46:36,310 --> 01:46:37,910
you pulled the chain -

1738
01:46:37,910 --> 01:46:41,310
and then, you got this sustained
douche of water.

1739
01:46:41,310 --> 01:46:43,750
Which they reckoned you
shouldn't have for any more than

1740
01:46:43,750 --> 01:46:46,910
a minute-and-a-half, otherwise...
Why, because it was so cold?

1741
01:46:46,910 --> 01:46:50,150
Yes, and it wasn't good for you
to be sustained any more than that.

1742
01:46:50,150 --> 01:46:51,750
Oh, right.

1743
01:46:51,750 --> 01:46:56,230
But it's still the obvious ancestor
of the modern shower, isn't it?

1744
01:46:56,230 --> 01:46:58,110
Oh, without a doubt.

1745
01:46:58,110 --> 01:47:01,910
It's just the whole embodiment
of what a shower is today.

1746
01:47:01,910 --> 01:47:03,510
And years ahead of its time. Yes.

1747
01:47:09,230 --> 01:47:12,510
The new shower in Cragside was
cutting-edge technology

1748
01:47:12,510 --> 01:47:13,950
for the time.

1749
01:47:13,950 --> 01:47:17,350
But from the 1880s, they would soon
be on offer to Victorians

1750
01:47:17,350 --> 01:47:18,430
of more modest means.

1751
01:47:20,030 --> 01:47:23,870
Cragside's owner, William Armstrong,
didn't just stop at the shower -

1752
01:47:23,870 --> 01:47:26,030
he created a bathroom of the future.

1753
01:47:28,030 --> 01:47:29,430
HE CHUCKLES

1754
01:47:29,430 --> 01:47:30,510
Wow!

1755
01:47:30,510 --> 01:47:33,390
I mean...
it's not Armstrong's bathroom,

1756
01:47:33,390 --> 01:47:35,590
it's Armstrong's personal spa.

1757
01:47:35,590 --> 01:47:38,230
It is, they called it the
Turkish bath suite.

1758
01:47:39,310 --> 01:47:43,030
What, in total, has he got here
in this vast suite of rooms?

1759
01:47:43,030 --> 01:47:47,590
Well, he has a hot room, so you can
sweat out all your impurities.

1760
01:47:47,590 --> 01:47:50,110
And then, you came into here,

1761
01:47:50,110 --> 01:47:55,470
and you, then, went into the plunge
and immersed yourself in the water -

1762
01:47:55,470 --> 01:47:58,270
you can have it to
any temperature you liked.

1763
01:47:58,270 --> 01:48:00,630
Or you could take an ordinary bath.

1764
01:48:00,630 --> 01:48:05,070
And after that, you, then went out
for a vigorous walk onto the moor,

1765
01:48:05,070 --> 01:48:06,350
just to finish it all off.

1766
01:48:06,350 --> 01:48:07,350
HE CHUCKLES

1767
01:48:16,590 --> 01:48:18,270
In the context of the time,

1768
01:48:18,270 --> 01:48:21,350
the bathroom suite here
at Cragside is breathtaking.

1769
01:48:21,350 --> 01:48:24,950
You're seeing the very first
examples anywhere of the sort of

1770
01:48:24,950 --> 01:48:27,350
thing that you and I now
take for granted.

1771
01:48:34,350 --> 01:48:38,950
Heating the home had always been a
laborious and painstaking task that

1772
01:48:38,950 --> 01:48:41,830
mostly didn't work that well.

1773
01:48:41,830 --> 01:48:46,190
Running water and the ability to
heat it now created the opportunity

1774
01:48:46,190 --> 01:48:47,390
to warm the whole house.

1775
01:48:48,830 --> 01:48:53,470
The Victorian home was transformed,
because now, with gas and with

1776
01:48:53,470 --> 01:48:55,430
hot water, you can heat your home.

1777
01:48:55,430 --> 01:48:57,430
There are hot pipes going all
around it.

1778
01:48:57,430 --> 01:49:01,470
And although the actual radiator
per se was really introduced very

1779
01:49:01,470 --> 01:49:04,990
late in the Victorian period,
we do see versions of the radiator

1780
01:49:04,990 --> 01:49:08,670
beginning in the 1840s - a mixture
of pipes and radiating plates.

1781
01:49:08,670 --> 01:49:10,630
And some houses did have these.

1782
01:49:10,630 --> 01:49:14,030
So, the Victorian house
is beautifully warm.

1783
01:49:17,630 --> 01:49:21,150
The poorer members of Victorian
society were still having to rely

1784
01:49:21,150 --> 01:49:23,030
on open fires.

1785
01:49:23,030 --> 01:49:27,470
But for the more wealthy, radiators
started to appear in homes.

1786
01:49:27,470 --> 01:49:32,470
And the concept of central heating
was introduced for the first time.

1787
01:49:32,470 --> 01:49:35,390
At Cragside, they developed
an ingenious heating system that,

1788
01:49:35,390 --> 01:49:38,430
yet again, was way ahead
of its time.

1789
01:49:38,430 --> 01:49:40,110
There's a hole in the floor.

1790
01:49:40,110 --> 01:49:42,750
Down here? Yes, we're going down.
OK.

1791
01:49:42,750 --> 01:49:44,550
And in order to see it for myself,

1792
01:49:44,550 --> 01:49:47,070
Andrew is taking me under
the floorboards.

1793
01:49:50,070 --> 01:49:51,070
HE GRUNTS

1794
01:49:52,670 --> 01:49:55,590
Everyone was much shorter
in those days.

1795
01:49:55,590 --> 01:49:56,630
HE LAUGHS

1796
01:49:56,630 --> 01:49:59,390
Less well-fed. Not this short.

1797
01:49:59,390 --> 01:50:00,550
Goodness.

1798
01:50:00,550 --> 01:50:01,550
HE GRUNTS

1799
01:50:04,190 --> 01:50:07,230
Good gracious, this is absolutely
extraordinary, isn't it?

1800
01:50:07,230 --> 01:50:09,270
Look at these.

1801
01:50:09,270 --> 01:50:13,070
We are actually under Cragside
itself now, are we? We are.

1802
01:50:13,070 --> 01:50:15,230
In the basement underneath
the floorboards.

1803
01:50:15,230 --> 01:50:17,190
What are all these pipes for?

1804
01:50:17,190 --> 01:50:21,430
Well, these are the grand heating
system for Cragside.

1805
01:50:21,430 --> 01:50:25,390
You could send this hot water
coursing through these great ranks

1806
01:50:25,390 --> 01:50:28,070
of pipes, which then emanated the

1807
01:50:28,070 --> 01:50:32,310
heat that went up into the rooms
through grills,

1808
01:50:32,310 --> 01:50:35,270
and also a whole pipe system
through the house.

1809
01:50:43,350 --> 01:50:47,590
Throughout the lavish and
highly-decorated rooms are radiators

1810
01:50:47,590 --> 01:50:50,430
hidden discreetly behind
wooden panels.

1811
01:50:55,830 --> 01:50:59,190
The hot water pipes heat up
the hallways, and even provide

1812
01:50:59,190 --> 01:51:01,310
under-floor heating in the spa area.

1813
01:51:04,750 --> 01:51:10,990
So, you didn't see the engine room
of the central heating at all,

1814
01:51:10,990 --> 01:51:12,670
when you were in that opulence.

1815
01:51:12,670 --> 01:51:14,030
It was all underneath here.

1816
01:51:15,310 --> 01:51:19,790
How much of a breakthrough was this
in the history of the home?

1817
01:51:19,790 --> 01:51:24,510
Oh, it was phenomenal, there was -
and nobody had attempted this before

1818
01:51:24,510 --> 01:51:26,190
on this scale.

1819
01:51:26,190 --> 01:51:29,550
He was really at the cutting-edge
of modern living.

1820
01:51:29,550 --> 01:51:31,070
He was the first. He was.

1821
01:51:43,670 --> 01:51:47,110
The biggest advances in the
Victorian home were brought about

1822
01:51:47,110 --> 01:51:49,510
by the introduction of gas.

1823
01:51:49,510 --> 01:51:51,750
Every town had its own gasworks,

1824
01:51:51,750 --> 01:51:54,470
and large gas tanks became a
feature of the landscape.

1825
01:51:58,110 --> 01:52:03,390
These derelict gas holders are now
parts of our industrial heritage -

1826
01:52:03,390 --> 01:52:06,190
though their numbers are dwindling
as they're being torn down to

1827
01:52:06,190 --> 01:52:08,790
make way for redevelopment.

1828
01:52:08,790 --> 01:52:12,630
The other great pillar of the power
industry that still looms large

1829
01:52:12,630 --> 01:52:16,870
today also began in the
Victorian era - electricity.

1830
01:52:19,630 --> 01:52:24,710
The way we use electricity in our
homes now is arguably the invention

1831
01:52:24,710 --> 01:52:26,230
of an extraordinary man.

1832
01:52:32,270 --> 01:52:36,990
Joseph Swan - a visionary Victorian
physicist and adventurer.

1833
01:52:38,190 --> 01:52:41,510
He was one in a group of scientists
and engineers from the northeast of

1834
01:52:41,510 --> 01:52:45,310
England who were at the forefront
of developing electricity

1835
01:52:45,310 --> 01:52:48,230
as the Victorian era's
brand-new driving force.

1836
01:52:51,910 --> 01:52:56,150
Swan's special contribution to the
great Victorian invention of the

1837
01:52:56,150 --> 01:52:58,790
electricity was this -
the light bulb.

1838
01:52:58,790 --> 01:53:04,430
Or, as he would call it, "the
incandescent carbon filament lamp".

1839
01:53:04,430 --> 01:53:07,870
He developed it here at
his Victorian home in Gateshead,

1840
01:53:07,870 --> 01:53:09,430
on the outskirts of Newcastle.

1841
01:53:17,630 --> 01:53:20,310
In the heart of the city centre
in Newcastle is the

1842
01:53:20,310 --> 01:53:23,230
Literary and Philosophical Society.

1843
01:53:23,230 --> 01:53:26,830
Built just before the start of the
Victorian era, it played a crucial

1844
01:53:26,830 --> 01:53:28,310
role in Joseph Swan's career.

1845
01:53:29,830 --> 01:53:33,070
It was here that he demonstrated
his new light bulb

1846
01:53:33,070 --> 01:53:34,310
at a major presentation.

1847
01:53:38,550 --> 01:53:41,830
The current chairman of the
Lit & Phil, as it's locally known,

1848
01:53:41,830 --> 01:53:43,350
is Paul Gailiunas .

1849
01:53:44,950 --> 01:53:48,910
Paul, how important was
the Lit & Phil to Joseph Swan?

1850
01:53:48,910 --> 01:53:52,310
It was important to scientists
and engineers in the region,

1851
01:53:52,310 --> 01:53:54,750
and had been for 100 years.

1852
01:53:54,750 --> 01:53:59,870
Many important developments
were announced at lectures here.

1853
01:53:59,870 --> 01:54:04,270
And it is here that Joseph Swan
demonstrated the successful electric

1854
01:54:04,270 --> 01:54:07,870
light bulb for the first time?
Yes, that's absolutely correct.

1855
01:54:07,870 --> 01:54:12,070
I believe that there was standing
room only in the lecture theatre,

1856
01:54:12,070 --> 01:54:14,950
which actually held 550 people.

1857
01:54:14,950 --> 01:54:17,990
So, there's a lot of interest
in the town, and the newspapers

1858
01:54:17,990 --> 01:54:20,350
reported it over
several days, actually.

1859
01:54:20,350 --> 01:54:22,030
And I can read a little bit from it.

1860
01:54:25,110 --> 01:54:29,670
"The great invention of the day,
Mr Swan's lamp, with its mild and

1861
01:54:29,670 --> 01:54:34,390
warm brilliancy, steadiness, and
punctual ability, was then shown

1862
01:54:34,390 --> 01:54:37,110
"to the delight and
astonishment of them all,

1863
01:54:37,110 --> 01:54:39,310
"and the room lit up with that.

1864
01:54:39,310 --> 01:54:42,910
"This lamp is superior to gas in
every respect as a light."

1865
01:54:42,910 --> 01:54:45,270
And it goes on and on.
It goes on and on.

1866
01:54:45,270 --> 01:54:48,390
So, it made a really big impression?
Oh, it certainly did, yeah.

1867
01:54:52,350 --> 01:54:56,070
Joseph Swan's demonstration
was astonishing.

1868
01:54:56,070 --> 01:54:58,470
The news of his new lamp
went worldwide.

1869
01:54:59,590 --> 01:55:02,630
But there was a rival
to his invention on the horizon.

1870
01:55:04,830 --> 01:55:07,670
Scientist Thomas Edison was
developing a similar

1871
01:55:07,670 --> 01:55:09,870
invention in America -

1872
01:55:09,870 --> 01:55:13,190
although it's now widely agreed
that Swan just beat him to it.

1873
01:55:14,350 --> 01:55:17,430
So, Joseph Swan was the first.

1874
01:55:17,430 --> 01:55:18,910
Why haven't I heard of him?

1875
01:55:18,910 --> 01:55:20,870
Why have I only heard
of Thomas Edison?

1876
01:55:20,870 --> 01:55:26,430
Well, they were working on it at the
same time, and Edison claimed to

1877
01:55:26,430 --> 01:55:30,070
have solved the problem - but
actually, Swan was the first person

1878
01:55:30,070 --> 01:55:32,070
to get the thing into production.

1879
01:55:32,070 --> 01:55:34,270
Was there a row between them?

1880
01:55:34,270 --> 01:55:38,230
Edison sued Swan because Edison
claimed that he was

1881
01:55:38,230 --> 01:55:40,430
infringing his patent.

1882
01:55:40,430 --> 01:55:42,630
And the thing went on for
a year or two.

1883
01:55:42,630 --> 01:55:46,670
Eventually, it was resolved
amicably, and Edison actually

1884
01:55:46,670 --> 01:55:49,630
invested quite heavily
in Swan's company.

1885
01:55:49,630 --> 01:55:53,030
They traded it as Ediswan,
and it was the best of all worlds,

1886
01:55:53,030 --> 01:55:54,030
I think, for them.

1887
01:55:57,310 --> 01:56:00,830
Joseph Swan had come up with an
invention that would eventually

1888
01:56:00,830 --> 01:56:05,310
light up the world, but now a new
race was on to supply the power

1889
01:56:05,310 --> 01:56:08,510
to the home to bring Swan's
bulbs to life.

1890
01:56:17,820 --> 01:56:22,020
In the Victorian period, the new
wonder fuel, gas, had transformed

1891
01:56:22,020 --> 01:56:23,060
the way people lived.

1892
01:56:24,340 --> 01:56:28,540
But as the Victorian Age grew
to a close, a new power source

1893
01:56:28,540 --> 01:56:30,220
was about to transform the world.

1894
01:56:33,220 --> 01:56:37,740
In Newcastle, Victorian engineers
were experimenting with electricity

1895
01:56:37,740 --> 01:56:39,620
for the first time.

1896
01:56:39,620 --> 01:56:44,060
And a local inventor Joseph, Swan,
had perfected the first usable

1897
01:56:44,060 --> 01:56:46,380
light bulb - but how did he do it?

1898
01:56:47,820 --> 01:56:49,540
What have we got here, John?

1899
01:56:49,540 --> 01:56:53,100
This is a replica of the very first
successful electric lamp

1900
01:56:53,100 --> 01:56:54,820
that Joseph Swan built.

1901
01:56:54,820 --> 01:56:56,500
This one here?
It is - it is, indeed.

1902
01:56:56,500 --> 01:56:58,340
How does it actually work?

1903
01:56:58,340 --> 01:57:01,700
Well, he key thing is that it's
got a filament - a very fine

1904
01:57:01,700 --> 01:57:06,620
carbon thread - going from the top
to the bottom, connected to these

1905
01:57:06,620 --> 01:57:10,500
terminals here and here,
which are powered by a battery.

1906
01:57:10,500 --> 01:57:12,300
What makes the light?

1907
01:57:12,300 --> 01:57:16,940
It's the heating of the electric
filaments, and it glows white-hot.

1908
01:57:16,940 --> 01:57:20,940
That's 2,500 degrees Centigrade
roughly speaking.

1909
01:57:20,940 --> 01:57:24,300
And that was the key challenge
that Swan had to face.

1910
01:57:24,300 --> 01:57:27,260
None of the metals that were known
back in the Victorian days would

1911
01:57:27,260 --> 01:57:29,740
stand anything like white heat -
they would melt.

1912
01:57:29,740 --> 01:57:33,460
So, Swan was a chemist - he knew
the properties of materials,

1913
01:57:33,460 --> 01:57:36,140
and he settled upon carbon as
the material.

1914
01:57:36,140 --> 01:57:39,140
So, non-metal, but it does
conduct electricity.

1915
01:57:39,140 --> 01:57:40,980
Why doesn't it burn up?

1916
01:57:40,980 --> 01:57:44,300
That was the other challenge,
of course - to create as high a

1917
01:57:44,300 --> 01:57:46,860
level of vacuum inside that
bulb as you could.

1918
01:57:50,260 --> 01:57:53,700
With the technology available
at that time, it was very difficult

1919
01:57:53,700 --> 01:57:56,820
to create a complete vacuum
in the bulb.

1920
01:57:56,820 --> 01:58:00,100
But Swan discovered if you switch
the light on as the air was being

1921
01:58:00,100 --> 01:58:04,460
sucked out, it burnt off
all the remaining oxygen.

1922
01:58:04,460 --> 01:58:07,860
This resulted in the sealed bulb
lasting much, much longer.

1923
01:58:11,180 --> 01:58:15,660
The bulb he went on to mass-produce
also had a more resilient coiled

1924
01:58:15,660 --> 01:58:17,500
filament, instead of a straight one.

1925
01:58:19,500 --> 01:58:24,380
So, this is what he came up with -
the first commercial example

1926
01:58:24,380 --> 01:58:26,980
of the incandescent filament
electric lamp.

1927
01:58:26,980 --> 01:58:29,060
Can I hold it? You can, yes.

1928
01:58:29,060 --> 01:58:36,260
It is very similar to a light bulb
today, but am I holding in my hand

1929
01:58:36,260 --> 01:58:40,500
something that actually changed
our homes forever?

1930
01:58:40,500 --> 01:58:44,540
Yes, you are, because the
predecessors of the electric lamp

1931
01:58:44,540 --> 01:58:47,700
all involved burning something
in the home.

1932
01:58:47,700 --> 01:58:50,540
You had to burn oil
or you had to burn gas,

1933
01:58:50,540 --> 01:58:54,220
or you had to burn a candle - now
those were all in Victorian times,

1934
01:58:54,220 --> 01:58:57,140
quite dirty materials.

1935
01:58:57,140 --> 01:59:01,740
And this was an opportunity
to have light inside a room

1936
01:59:01,740 --> 01:59:04,100
without burning anything noxious.

1937
01:59:05,980 --> 01:59:14,500
What I am holding in my hand brought
cleanliness, light, and convenience

1938
01:59:14,500 --> 01:59:15,820
to our homes? Absolutely.

1939
01:59:20,660 --> 01:59:24,860
Swan's light bulb harnessed the
new power of electricity

1940
01:59:24,860 --> 01:59:26,780
on a relatively small scale.

1941
01:59:26,780 --> 01:59:31,420
There was obviously novelty value
and more in being able to light up

1942
01:59:31,420 --> 01:59:34,820
his little lamps, and it must have
seemed like magic to Victorians -

1943
01:59:34,820 --> 01:59:38,380
who up until then had to rely on
candles and gas lights.

1944
01:59:38,380 --> 01:59:41,900
But the electricity industry
was starting to grow -

1945
01:59:41,900 --> 01:59:44,780
and the Northeast was
crucial to that, too.

1946
01:59:46,980 --> 01:59:51,180
When Joseph Swan perfected his light
bulb, the only way of powering it

1947
01:59:51,180 --> 01:59:52,500
was with crude batteries.

1948
01:59:53,740 --> 01:59:58,340
But around the same time, a team of
engineers also from the Northeast

1949
01:59:58,340 --> 02:00:02,540
designed a generator so large,
it could provide electricity on a

1950
02:00:02,540 --> 02:00:04,260
commercial scale for the first time.

1951
02:00:07,580 --> 02:00:11,340
This resulted in the construction
of the world's first power station

1952
02:00:11,340 --> 02:00:12,340
in Newcastle.

1953
02:00:13,420 --> 02:00:18,100
They received parliamentary
permission to build it in 1899.

1954
02:00:18,100 --> 02:00:22,540
It was finally opened the year
of Queen Victoria's death in 1901.

1955
02:00:27,300 --> 02:00:31,220
This was the spark that would
eventually lead to the national grid

1956
02:00:31,220 --> 02:00:35,140
and the widespread distribution
of electricity for all -

1957
02:00:35,140 --> 02:00:36,940
and it was all down to
the Victorians.

1958
02:00:42,180 --> 02:00:46,540
Here at Cragside, the lavish
Victorian mansion in Northumberland,

1959
02:00:46,540 --> 02:00:48,940
William Armstrong was also
experimenting with

1960
02:00:48,940 --> 02:00:50,260
generating electricity.

1961
02:00:51,580 --> 02:00:54,780
But he came up with the way of
doing it that was a century

1962
02:00:54,780 --> 02:00:55,780
ahead of its time.

1963
02:01:01,340 --> 02:01:04,540
He invented hydroelectricity -

1964
02:01:04,540 --> 02:01:07,940
generating energy for his house
using the power of water.

1965
02:01:13,500 --> 02:01:17,220
Here at Cragside, Armstrong was
intent on filling his home with

1966
02:01:17,220 --> 02:01:19,540
the latest advances of the day.

1967
02:01:19,540 --> 02:01:23,980
Joseph Swan was a friend - he worked
and collaborated with him.

1968
02:01:23,980 --> 02:01:28,340
He was first in line to have his
greatest invention installed

1969
02:01:28,340 --> 02:01:29,660
here in this room.

1970
02:01:31,660 --> 02:01:36,300
How did it work out, then, in his
collaboration with Joseph Swan?

1971
02:01:36,300 --> 02:01:40,500
Here at Cragside, it meant that this
was the first house in the world

1972
02:01:40,500 --> 02:01:42,900
to be lit by hydroelectricity.

1973
02:01:42,900 --> 02:01:46,700
And it's in this very room
that Joseph and Lord Armstrong

1974
02:01:46,700 --> 02:01:50,020
worked on these very lamps.

1975
02:01:50,020 --> 02:01:55,220
And Lord Armstrong's genius in all
of this is taking that light bulb

1976
02:01:55,220 --> 02:02:00,220
and powering it by water power -
something we talk about today,

1977
02:02:00,220 --> 02:02:02,540
an alternative form of energy.

1978
02:02:02,540 --> 02:02:05,700
And here, they were perfecting
this in 1880,

1979
02:02:05,700 --> 02:02:10,460
and were able to light the house
through water with the new -

1980
02:02:10,460 --> 02:02:13,220
brand-new incandescent lamp.

1981
02:02:13,220 --> 02:02:16,500
So, we're not just looking
at the past here -

1982
02:02:16,500 --> 02:02:19,140
we're looking at the future?
We certainly are.

1983
02:02:19,140 --> 02:02:22,740
This really was the invention
that drove electricity

1984
02:02:22,740 --> 02:02:24,460
into the home.

1985
02:02:24,460 --> 02:02:27,220
It's the light bulb that drives
electricity in the home.

1986
02:02:31,740 --> 02:02:35,660
William Armstrong and his fellow
Victorian engineers, scientists,

1987
02:02:35,660 --> 02:02:39,460
and inventors profoundly affected
the way we live our lives.

1988
02:02:44,820 --> 02:02:49,460
During the 64 years of Victoria's
reign, the Victorian home changed

1989
02:02:49,460 --> 02:02:51,100
beyond all recognition.

1990
02:02:57,460 --> 02:03:02,380
As with so much else, the Victorians
created the world in which we live.

1991
02:03:02,380 --> 02:03:06,860
The mod consonant that they
introduced are the thing that

1992
02:03:06,860 --> 02:03:09,660
identifies us most closely
with them.

1993
02:03:11,340 --> 02:03:14,260
The bath, the shower,
the lavatory, those things.

1994
02:03:14,260 --> 02:03:16,500
We couldn't live without them.

1995
02:03:16,500 --> 02:03:19,460
We have the Victorians
to thank for those.

1996
02:03:21,940 --> 02:03:25,220
The Victorians created Britain
as we know it today.

1997
02:03:25,220 --> 02:03:29,260
Everything that we are and use
is thanks to the Victorians.

1998
02:03:29,260 --> 02:03:32,820
Our towns, our transport,
our construction, our homes.

1999
02:03:32,820 --> 02:03:35,420
They made everything that we have.

2000
02:03:35,420 --> 02:03:37,540
It's all thanks to them.

2001
02:03:43,620 --> 02:03:46,620
The home, probably
more than anywhere else,

2002
02:03:46,620 --> 02:03:51,140
is where the Victorians felt the
impact of those massive advances.

2003
02:03:51,140 --> 02:03:55,940
Cragside was the ultimate
test bed for those changes.

2004
02:03:55,940 --> 02:03:58,980
But the new-fangled ideas and
gadgets

2005
02:03:58,980 --> 02:04:02,420
would eventually reach
down to the rest of us.

2006
02:04:02,420 --> 02:04:07,180
From the top down, the Victorians
changed our lives forever.

2007
02:04:11,660 --> 02:04:13,980
At the start of
Queen Victoria's reign,

2008
02:04:13,980 --> 02:04:17,180
the nation she inherited
stood on the brink of a revolution

2009
02:04:17,180 --> 02:04:20,060
that would transform Britain
and the world.

2010
02:04:20,060 --> 02:04:22,620
It was a revolution
built on machines

2011
02:04:22,620 --> 02:04:26,260
and on a new idea
called mass manufacture.

2012
02:04:26,260 --> 02:04:30,020
The Victorians invented
the concept of the factory,

2013
02:04:30,020 --> 02:04:34,740
making goods on an industrial scale
and selling them across the globe.

2014
02:04:34,740 --> 02:04:36,940
It would make Victorian Britain

2015
02:04:36,940 --> 02:04:40,180
the richest nation
the world had ever seen.

2016
02:04:40,180 --> 02:04:43,260
At the forefront of this
technological revolution

2017
02:04:43,260 --> 02:04:46,460
was one city in particular -
Manchester.

2018
02:04:46,460 --> 02:04:49,220
These new mills and factories
in Manchester

2019
02:04:49,220 --> 02:04:51,620
were built for one simple commodity

2020
02:04:51,620 --> 02:04:56,620
that almost everybody in the world
wanted and soon needed - cotton.

2021
02:04:56,620 --> 02:04:59,580
The mass manufacture
of cotton cloths

2022
02:04:59,580 --> 02:05:03,460
would change Victorian Manchester
and would change the world.

2023
02:05:08,580 --> 02:05:10,660
In the early 18th century,

2024
02:05:10,660 --> 02:05:14,580
Manchester was a small market town
of around 10,000 people.

2025
02:05:14,580 --> 02:05:18,380
It was surrounded by rolling hills
and farmland.

2026
02:05:18,380 --> 02:05:22,780
By the end of the Victorian age,
it was a sprawling metropolis,

2027
02:05:22,780 --> 02:05:27,820
home to over 900,000 people and
England's second biggest city.

2028
02:05:27,820 --> 02:05:30,980
It was packed full
of dark Satanic Mills,

2029
02:05:30,980 --> 02:05:34,740
churning out cotton by the millions
of square metres.

2030
02:05:34,740 --> 02:05:37,780
The export of this cotton
would help make Britain

2031
02:05:37,780 --> 02:05:40,580
the greatest trading nation
in the world.

2032
02:05:44,660 --> 02:05:46,940
When Victoria came to the throne,

2033
02:05:46,940 --> 02:05:49,980
Manchester was already
a successful cotton town

2034
02:05:49,980 --> 02:05:52,900
thanks to local engineer
James Hargreaves,

2035
02:05:52,900 --> 02:05:54,740
who invented the spinning jenny.

2036
02:05:58,020 --> 02:06:01,500
Cotton cloth is created
from raw cotton bolls

2037
02:06:01,500 --> 02:06:04,060
and Manchester received
the third of its supply

2038
02:06:04,060 --> 02:06:06,180
from America's southern plantations.

2039
02:06:08,100 --> 02:06:11,340
The initial cargo was shipped
across the Atlantic Ocean

2040
02:06:11,340 --> 02:06:14,380
to the port of Liverpool,
emptied at the docks,

2041
02:06:14,380 --> 02:06:16,460
and carried by horse and cart

2042
02:06:16,460 --> 02:06:19,380
to land locked Manchester
36 miles away.

2043
02:06:21,060 --> 02:06:23,580
The final leg of the journey
took 12 hours

2044
02:06:23,580 --> 02:06:26,300
and needed an expensive
change of horses.

2045
02:06:30,540 --> 02:06:34,100
To reach its full potential,
Manchester's cotton trade

2046
02:06:34,100 --> 02:06:37,860
needed a new method of transport
to cut the journey time

2047
02:06:37,860 --> 02:06:40,020
from Liverpool to its cotton mills.

2048
02:06:41,260 --> 02:06:45,500
Fortunately for the Victorians,
the railway was now coming of age.

2049
02:06:48,900 --> 02:06:52,820
I've come to the East Lancashire
railway to discover how an engineer

2050
02:06:52,820 --> 02:06:57,180
called George Stephenson used
the latest Victorian technology

2051
02:06:57,180 --> 02:07:00,380
to bridge the gap between
Liverpool and Manchester

2052
02:07:00,380 --> 02:07:03,220
and become known as the
Father of the Railways.

2053
02:07:08,100 --> 02:07:11,460
Few know more about Stephenson
than Erin Beeston,

2054
02:07:11,460 --> 02:07:15,180
the curator of Manchester's Museum
of Science and Industry.

2055
02:07:17,500 --> 02:07:20,540
George Stephenson was a pioneer
of the railways

2056
02:07:20,540 --> 02:07:23,460
and he engineered the line
between Liverpool and Manchester

2057
02:07:23,460 --> 02:07:26,660
and he was brought on board
just to create the railway itself,

2058
02:07:26,660 --> 02:07:29,140
rather than the locomotives
that would run on it.

2059
02:07:29,140 --> 02:07:32,700
How did they decide what kind
of pulling power they would have?

2060
02:07:32,700 --> 02:07:36,420
They had a competition the year
before the railway opened in 1829

2061
02:07:36,420 --> 02:07:38,860
and one of the locomotives
to run was designed

2062
02:07:38,860 --> 02:07:40,940
by George Stephenson's son, Robert,

2063
02:07:40,940 --> 02:07:43,500
and that was the famous
Rocket Locomotive.

2064
02:07:43,500 --> 02:07:46,220
They were looking for
a few different things

2065
02:07:46,220 --> 02:07:49,500
and rocket was by far the
fastest and most reliable

2066
02:07:49,500 --> 02:07:52,180
and I think it hit speeds
of about 30mph.

2067
02:07:55,980 --> 02:07:59,820
Stephenson's Rocket was the first
steam locomotive to bring together

2068
02:07:59,820 --> 02:08:04,340
several innovations to produce
the most advanced engine of its day.

2069
02:08:07,580 --> 02:08:09,780
The Rocket was so successful,

2070
02:08:09,780 --> 02:08:12,860
it became the template
for steam locomotives of the future

2071
02:08:12,860 --> 02:08:16,180
and caused a stir
when it was first unveiled.

2072
02:08:17,820 --> 02:08:21,260
The opening ceremony itself
was a complete spectacle.

2073
02:08:21,260 --> 02:08:25,940
All of the MPs and important,
notable, famous people of the time

2074
02:08:25,940 --> 02:08:29,500
wanted to ride at the opening of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

2075
02:08:29,500 --> 02:08:32,860
We tend to focus on
the passengers on the railway.

2076
02:08:32,860 --> 02:08:36,300
But is that where an economist
would regard the significance

2077
02:08:36,300 --> 02:08:38,300
of this first intercity railway?

2078
02:08:38,300 --> 02:08:41,820
Initially, the idea was really to
get goods quicker from the port.

2079
02:08:41,820 --> 02:08:44,300
They would pull things
like raw cotton,

2080
02:08:44,300 --> 02:08:46,940
materials that needed
to be brought into Manchester

2081
02:08:46,940 --> 02:08:50,260
and then redistributed amongst
the Lancashire cotton industry

2082
02:08:50,260 --> 02:08:53,060
to be produced
and made into products

2083
02:08:53,060 --> 02:08:55,980
that could then go
back out to the Empire.

2084
02:09:00,700 --> 02:09:03,540
Cotton could now be transported
from Liverpool docks

2085
02:09:03,540 --> 02:09:05,780
to Manchester in just two hours,

2086
02:09:05,780 --> 02:09:10,540
knocking an astonishing 10 hours
off the old journey time.

2087
02:09:10,540 --> 02:09:14,580
It's remarkable to think that
it was cotton, humble cotton,

2088
02:09:14,580 --> 02:09:18,540
that spurred those great northern
cities Manchester and Liverpool

2089
02:09:18,540 --> 02:09:21,980
to build the world's
first intercity railway.

2090
02:09:21,980 --> 02:09:25,340
And as the new railways started
to crisscross the country,

2091
02:09:25,340 --> 02:09:29,340
they transform Victorian Britain,
slashing travel times.

2092
02:09:29,340 --> 02:09:31,540
In fact more than that,

2093
02:09:31,540 --> 02:09:35,700
opening up a whole new world
of travel for rich and poor alike.

2094
02:09:37,420 --> 02:09:41,180
When the Liverpool to Manchester
railway line opened in 1830,

2095
02:09:41,180 --> 02:09:44,740
it was the culmination of a
mammoth construction project.

2096
02:09:44,740 --> 02:09:48,260
The 36 miles between Manchester
and Liverpool

2097
02:09:48,260 --> 02:09:51,660
were crisscrossed with rivers,
canals and swamps.

2098
02:09:51,660 --> 02:09:54,300
Huge feats of engineering
were needed

2099
02:09:54,300 --> 02:09:56,500
to conquer an unforgiving route.

2100
02:09:57,860 --> 02:09:59,740
The Manchester to Liverpool railway

2101
02:09:59,740 --> 02:10:02,140
was the first to tunnel
beneath a city,

2102
02:10:02,140 --> 02:10:04,940
the first to have signals,
the first to have a timetable,

2103
02:10:04,940 --> 02:10:06,660
the first to carry mail.

2104
02:10:06,660 --> 02:10:08,420
But that wasn't all.

2105
02:10:08,420 --> 02:10:10,740
It also had to transport
all that cotton

2106
02:10:10,740 --> 02:10:13,580
to and from Manchester's
factories and mills.

2107
02:10:15,620 --> 02:10:17,620
Manchester was booming.

2108
02:10:17,620 --> 02:10:22,300
A new revolution in manufacture
was about to make it explode.

2109
02:10:22,300 --> 02:10:24,260
Here we have a Lancashire loom,

2110
02:10:24,260 --> 02:10:27,100
the workhorse of the Lancashire
cotton industry.

2111
02:10:27,100 --> 02:10:30,540
But while the mill owners
were drowning in money,

2112
02:10:30,540 --> 02:10:32,580
the workers weren't so lucky.

2113
02:10:32,580 --> 02:10:35,060
The conditions for the new workers
were grim.

2114
02:10:35,060 --> 02:10:37,780
Many were dying before they
even reached their 20s.

2115
02:10:37,780 --> 02:10:42,140
Could Manchester change its ways
and get the royal seal of approval?

2116
02:10:42,140 --> 02:10:44,900
This was a major event
for Manchester.

2117
02:10:53,010 --> 02:10:55,610
At the very beginning
of the Victorian era,

2118
02:10:55,610 --> 02:10:58,210
Manchester was on the way
to becoming the centre

2119
02:10:58,210 --> 02:11:00,170
of the world's cotton trade.

2120
02:11:01,730 --> 02:11:04,930
Thousands of tonnes of raw cotton
flowed into the city,

2121
02:11:04,930 --> 02:11:07,130
through the port of Liverpool

2122
02:11:07,130 --> 02:11:09,930
and along the new Manchester
to Liverpool railway.

2123
02:11:11,450 --> 02:11:14,650
If Manchester's mill owners
wanted to keep growing,

2124
02:11:14,650 --> 02:11:17,090
they needed a new generation
of machines

2125
02:11:17,090 --> 02:11:19,650
to take productivity
to the next level.

2126
02:11:23,690 --> 02:11:26,330
I've come to Queen Street Mill
in Bury,

2127
02:11:26,330 --> 02:11:29,090
just eight miles outside
of Manchester.

2128
02:11:29,090 --> 02:11:31,410
One of the very few
cotton mills left,

2129
02:11:31,410 --> 02:11:34,490
where you can see surviving
examples of the inventions

2130
02:11:34,490 --> 02:11:37,330
that revolutionised
Victorian industry

2131
02:11:37,330 --> 02:11:41,610
and made this whole area
a powerhouse of mass manufacture.

2132
02:11:43,930 --> 02:11:45,930
In we go.

2133
02:11:45,930 --> 02:11:50,250
Curator Philip Butler has fired
up the steam engine for me,

2134
02:11:50,250 --> 02:11:54,210
so I can see one of the last working
Lancashire looms in existence

2135
02:11:54,210 --> 02:11:56,410
running in all its glory.

2136
02:12:00,410 --> 02:12:04,610
It's the machine that made
Manchester the king of cotton.

2137
02:12:04,610 --> 02:12:06,930
You can barely hear yourself think.

2138
02:12:06,930 --> 02:12:09,450
Imagine how much noise 900 made.

2139
02:12:12,930 --> 02:12:15,730
Here we have a Lancashire loom
running as you can see

2140
02:12:15,730 --> 02:12:18,610
from a belt from the
line shafting overhead.

2141
02:12:18,610 --> 02:12:22,610
The Lancashire loom was made
in Burnley and was the staple,

2142
02:12:22,610 --> 02:12:25,610
was the workhorse of the
Lancashire cotton industry,

2143
02:12:25,610 --> 02:12:27,330
in terms of weaving.

2144
02:12:27,330 --> 02:12:29,770
The revolutionary Lancashire loom

2145
02:12:29,770 --> 02:12:34,410
was invented by James Bullough
and William Kenworthy in 1842.

2146
02:12:38,890 --> 02:12:41,450
Instead of needing a factory
full of people,

2147
02:12:41,450 --> 02:12:43,970
working one person on one machine,

2148
02:12:43,970 --> 02:12:46,890
the Lancashire loom
meant one 15-year-old

2149
02:12:46,890 --> 02:12:49,490
could operate eight machines
at the same time.

2150
02:12:54,210 --> 02:12:56,730
As soon as the new looms
came online,

2151
02:12:56,730 --> 02:12:59,050
productivity went through the roof.

2152
02:12:59,050 --> 02:13:03,370
A mill like Queen Street
was now eight times more efficient.

2153
02:13:03,370 --> 02:13:05,850
It was a remarkable transformation.

2154
02:13:05,850 --> 02:13:09,570
How did machines like this
change the cotton industry?

2155
02:13:09,570 --> 02:13:15,010
Once cotton could be woven fast
on power looms like these,

2156
02:13:15,010 --> 02:13:18,890
then goods could suddenly
be exported around the world.

2157
02:13:18,890 --> 02:13:23,210
And Lancashire actually became
and exporter of cotton goods

2158
02:13:23,210 --> 02:13:24,970
to places like India,

2159
02:13:24,970 --> 02:13:28,610
which was a complete reversal
from the century before.

2160
02:13:30,530 --> 02:13:33,690
Thanks to cotton, Manchester
was now in the driving seat

2161
02:13:33,690 --> 02:13:36,890
of the mass manufacturing
revolution.

2162
02:13:36,890 --> 02:13:41,730
By 1871, almost a third
of global cotton production

2163
02:13:41,730 --> 02:13:44,810
came from this small area
of Britain.

2164
02:13:44,810 --> 02:13:47,730
At its peak, the Lancashire
cotton industry

2165
02:13:47,730 --> 02:13:51,370
had over 250,000 powered looms.

2166
02:13:53,050 --> 02:13:54,770
OK, I'll steer clear of it!

2167
02:13:56,690 --> 02:14:00,450
This kind of Victorian innovation
came with great rewards

2168
02:14:00,450 --> 02:14:02,770
and no one man made more money

2169
02:14:02,770 --> 02:14:06,410
than the inventor of the
Lancashire loom, James Bullough.

2170
02:14:06,410 --> 02:14:10,050
The first cotton millionaire
and the Bill Gates of Lancashire.

2171
02:14:11,730 --> 02:14:15,170
In just over a decade, he went
from being a humble engineer

2172
02:14:15,170 --> 02:14:17,610
to part of the landed gentry.

2173
02:14:17,610 --> 02:14:19,690
His family's wealth was staggering

2174
02:14:19,690 --> 02:14:22,250
and in the course
of Victoria's reign,

2175
02:14:22,250 --> 02:14:25,170
the Bulloughs would build
vast mansions,

2176
02:14:25,170 --> 02:14:28,330
buy their own Scottish islands

2177
02:14:28,330 --> 02:14:34,250
and commission luxuries like a
221 foot steam yacht, named Rhouma.

2178
02:14:36,850 --> 02:14:41,010
But not everyone was as lucky as the
fabulously rich Bullough family.

2179
02:14:45,290 --> 02:14:47,890
The mill workers lived a grim life.

2180
02:14:49,050 --> 02:14:53,730
A typical working week would be
14 hours a day for six days a week.

2181
02:14:53,730 --> 02:14:55,930
And most workers were expected

2182
02:14:55,930 --> 02:14:58,610
to clean their machines
during meal times.

2183
02:15:00,090 --> 02:15:03,410
What sort of people
were the people who worked here?

2184
02:15:03,410 --> 02:15:06,050
You would get all working age
members of the family

2185
02:15:06,050 --> 02:15:09,290
working here in the mill,
from young apprentices

2186
02:15:09,290 --> 02:15:12,810
and both the female and male
members of the family.

2187
02:15:12,810 --> 02:15:15,010
And in Victorian times, children?

2188
02:15:15,010 --> 02:15:18,090
There where children here
between nine and 13, certainly.

2189
02:15:18,090 --> 02:15:20,810
Was it dangerous as well?
It could be.

2190
02:15:20,810 --> 02:15:24,690
They were building a large,
heavy cast iron machines

2191
02:15:24,690 --> 02:15:30,530
and that entailed rotating wheels
and cogs and fast-moving belts.

2192
02:15:30,530 --> 02:15:34,170
And everything was in danger
of being caught or trapped,

2193
02:15:34,170 --> 02:15:36,410
so it could be very hazardous.

2194
02:15:40,290 --> 02:15:42,370
This could be dangerous work.

2195
02:15:42,370 --> 02:15:45,290
Health and safety
simply didn't exist then.

2196
02:15:45,290 --> 02:15:47,610
And terrible injuries were common.

2197
02:15:50,610 --> 02:15:52,810
The mills relied on child labour.

2198
02:15:55,090 --> 02:15:59,570
200,000 children worked
in Manchester's cotton industry.

2199
02:16:00,930 --> 02:16:03,530
They were paid a fraction
of what adults earned

2200
02:16:03,530 --> 02:16:05,930
and were punished far harder.

2201
02:16:05,930 --> 02:16:10,130
A child worker would be beaten
or fined for falling asleep,

2202
02:16:10,130 --> 02:16:12,530
making a mistake or being late.

2203
02:16:14,250 --> 02:16:16,490
As Manchester's boom continued,

2204
02:16:16,490 --> 02:16:20,490
the welfare of its workers
could no longer be ignored.

2205
02:16:22,730 --> 02:16:25,210
The conditions for the
new workers were grim.

2206
02:16:25,210 --> 02:16:27,930
Many were dying before
they even reached their 20s.

2207
02:16:27,930 --> 02:16:31,530
The suffering was bad for them
but bad for the mill owners too,

2208
02:16:31,530 --> 02:16:34,770
who saw the productivity
of their factories being held back

2209
02:16:34,770 --> 02:16:37,570
by illness, injury and death.

2210
02:16:37,570 --> 02:16:40,810
So, philanthropy and self-interest.

2211
02:16:40,810 --> 02:16:43,850
The civic leaders came up
with a novel idea

2212
02:16:43,850 --> 02:16:47,570
for improving their workers' health
and quality of life.

2213
02:16:50,930 --> 02:16:55,170
Manchester had grown so fast
it now had its own separate borough,

2214
02:16:55,170 --> 02:16:58,610
Salford, home to thousands
of mill workers.

2215
02:17:00,690 --> 02:17:04,010
And this is Peel Park,
the pride of Salford.

2216
02:17:08,050 --> 02:17:10,490
It may not look
that remarkable today,

2217
02:17:10,490 --> 02:17:14,090
but almost two centuries ago
this was so cutting-edge,

2218
02:17:14,090 --> 02:17:16,890
people could hardly believe
it was real.

2219
02:17:19,890 --> 02:17:24,250
Welcome to one of Britain's
first free public parks.

2220
02:17:24,250 --> 02:17:27,850
Within a decade it was being
copied all over the country

2221
02:17:27,850 --> 02:17:29,650
and then the world.

2222
02:17:29,650 --> 02:17:32,410
Peel Park opened in 1846.

2223
02:17:32,410 --> 02:17:34,490
It was, in the words of the time,

2224
02:17:34,490 --> 02:17:37,450
for the enjoyment and recreation
of the public

2225
02:17:37,450 --> 02:17:39,890
without charge or restriction.

2226
02:17:39,890 --> 02:17:42,290
A revolutionary Victorian concept.

2227
02:17:42,290 --> 02:17:44,970
It was paid for by local
cotton industrialists,

2228
02:17:44,970 --> 02:17:47,490
by dignitaries like
Sir Robert Peel himself,

2229
02:17:47,490 --> 02:17:50,770
and from contributions from
working people in the area.

2230
02:17:52,570 --> 02:17:55,890
Peel Park is a fitting tribute
to one of Lancashire's finest sons,

2231
02:17:55,890 --> 02:17:57,970
Sir Robert Peel.

2232
02:17:57,970 --> 02:18:01,770
Born in nearby Bury, he founded
the Conservative Party,

2233
02:18:01,770 --> 02:18:04,130
went on to become
Prime Minister twice

2234
02:18:04,130 --> 02:18:07,890
and most famously of all created
the modern police force,

2235
02:18:07,890 --> 02:18:10,010
known then as Peelers.

2236
02:18:11,490 --> 02:18:13,210
Unlike other parks,

2237
02:18:13,210 --> 02:18:16,210
Peel Park was free and had
no restrictive dress codes.

2238
02:18:16,210 --> 02:18:19,290
It was a place for workers
and bosses alike.

2239
02:18:25,210 --> 02:18:29,130
Just on the edge of the park
came another Victorian first.

2240
02:18:31,210 --> 02:18:35,170
Creating the first public park
wasn't enough for the cotton elite.

2241
02:18:35,170 --> 02:18:38,050
In their urge to educate
the working class,

2242
02:18:38,050 --> 02:18:40,330
they set up a new kind of library.

2243
02:18:40,330 --> 02:18:43,250
It was to be the first
unconditionally free

2244
02:18:43,250 --> 02:18:46,610
public library in Britain,
maybe the world.

2245
02:18:50,210 --> 02:18:54,170
It's now a gallery and houses a
remarkable collection of paintings.

2246
02:18:54,170 --> 02:18:57,730
One of which documents a milestone
in the city's history,

2247
02:18:57,730 --> 02:19:01,090
a visit by Queen Victoria in 1851.

2248
02:19:03,490 --> 02:19:06,170
This was the first time
a ruling monarch

2249
02:19:06,170 --> 02:19:09,090
had visited the area
in over 150 years.

2250
02:19:10,610 --> 02:19:13,810
I'm here to meet the gallery's
heritage manager, Ceri Horrocks,

2251
02:19:13,810 --> 02:19:16,050
to discover how Her Majesty's visit,

2252
02:19:16,050 --> 02:19:18,570
officially to open the park
and library,

2253
02:19:18,570 --> 02:19:20,690
went down with the locals.

2254
02:19:21,930 --> 02:19:23,730
This was a major event

2255
02:19:23,730 --> 02:19:26,450
to mark the Queen's visit
to Salford and Manchester.

2256
02:19:26,450 --> 02:19:29,610
So Salford decided to gather 82,000
schoolchildren in the park

2257
02:19:29,610 --> 02:19:31,810
to sing for her on her arrival.

2258
02:19:34,010 --> 02:19:37,410
So this is in 1851 and she
arrived from Worsley New Hall,

2259
02:19:37,410 --> 02:19:39,330
where she had been staying,

2260
02:19:39,330 --> 02:19:42,290
with great pomp and ceremony
for this wonderful reception.

2261
02:19:42,290 --> 02:19:45,730
And there were 82,000 young
children there? Absolutely.

2262
02:19:45,730 --> 02:19:49,130
They had to be over the age of eight
and they came from Sunday schools

2263
02:19:49,130 --> 02:19:51,690
throughout the area,
not just Salford.

2264
02:19:51,690 --> 02:19:55,890
Each school was given a marshal,
a route they had to come by,
a time they had to leave.

2265
02:19:55,890 --> 02:19:57,610
It was all very, very precise

2266
02:19:57,610 --> 02:20:00,130
and the benches that had
been built for them

2267
02:20:00,130 --> 02:20:03,330
were apparently allocated
with 21 inches of bench per child.

2268
02:20:03,330 --> 02:20:05,770
And how did the visit proceed?

2269
02:20:05,770 --> 02:20:07,690
They left around ten o'clock.

2270
02:20:07,690 --> 02:20:10,450
The route was lined by lots
of cheering crowds,

2271
02:20:10,450 --> 02:20:12,890
but also by an ingenious
human telegraph

2272
02:20:12,890 --> 02:20:16,650
which was a way to make sure
that the children sang
at exactly the right moment.

2273
02:20:16,650 --> 02:20:20,290
Gentlemen in top hats lined the
route and when the first
carriage passed them

2274
02:20:20,290 --> 02:20:24,250
they waved their top hat in the road
and then the next one,
all the way along the line.

2275
02:20:24,250 --> 02:20:27,930
The last hat was waived
and apparently they all
started singing perfectly.

2276
02:20:31,650 --> 02:20:34,330
They did only manage one verse
of the national anthem.

2277
02:20:34,330 --> 02:20:37,090
They just started
cheering afterwards.

2278
02:20:37,090 --> 02:20:39,450
Why was it so significant?

2279
02:20:39,450 --> 02:20:42,250
I think it was a recognition
for Salford and Manchester

2280
02:20:42,250 --> 02:20:44,850
and the region of just how
important they had become

2281
02:20:44,850 --> 02:20:48,090
as centres of generating wealth,
generating a lot of income

2282
02:20:48,090 --> 02:20:50,650
and the industry
that was being developed.

2283
02:20:50,650 --> 02:20:53,250
Salford itself was the seat
of many innovations

2284
02:20:53,250 --> 02:20:55,370
in the Industrial Revolution.

2285
02:20:59,850 --> 02:21:03,210
Queen Victoria's visit really was
a royal stamp of approval

2286
02:21:03,210 --> 02:21:07,850
for the pioneering plan to improve
the health and condition
of the local people

2287
02:21:07,850 --> 02:21:11,850
with a ground-breaking
new kind of library and park.

2288
02:21:11,850 --> 02:21:14,530
But most of all,
the Queen was recognising

2289
02:21:14,530 --> 02:21:17,530
that it was northern cities
like Salford and Manchester

2290
02:21:17,530 --> 02:21:19,930
that were helping
to make her kingdom

2291
02:21:19,930 --> 02:21:22,490
the richest the world
had ever known,

2292
02:21:22,490 --> 02:21:25,970
and it was all on the back
of businesses like cotton.

2293
02:21:30,050 --> 02:21:33,690
Land locked Manchester was set
on even greater domination.

2294
02:21:33,690 --> 02:21:36,090
They now wanted a port of their own

2295
02:21:36,090 --> 02:21:39,410
to cut out their greedy neighbour,
Liverpool.

2296
02:21:41,050 --> 02:21:43,570
Mancunians thought
that the Liverpool merchants

2297
02:21:43,570 --> 02:21:45,730
were extracting
too much money from them.

2298
02:21:45,730 --> 02:21:47,930
To become masters of their own fate,

2299
02:21:47,930 --> 02:21:50,770
they built one of the wonders
of the modern world.

2300
02:21:53,050 --> 02:21:56,010
There are those that think
that the Manchester Ship Canal

2301
02:21:56,010 --> 02:22:00,250
is the finest feat of engineering
of the entire Victorian era.

2302
02:22:10,150 --> 02:22:12,470
In 1861, cotton was king

2303
02:22:12,470 --> 02:22:16,070
and Manchester was making the cloth
that dressed the world.

2304
02:22:16,070 --> 02:22:19,430
Great fortunes were being made
and ordinary families

2305
02:22:19,430 --> 02:22:22,710
were being dragged out of rural
poverty into the towns and cities.

2306
02:22:24,310 --> 02:22:26,990
Manchester imported three
quarters of its cotton

2307
02:22:26,990 --> 02:22:31,350
from American southern plantations,
where it was hand-picked by slaves.

2308
02:22:32,710 --> 02:22:34,350
Then disaster.

2309
02:22:34,350 --> 02:22:36,910
Civil war in America
pitting the Northern Union

2310
02:22:36,910 --> 02:22:38,870
against the Southern Confederacy.

2311
02:22:38,870 --> 02:22:41,150
The Union president,
Abraham Lincoln,

2312
02:22:41,150 --> 02:22:43,590
called on the mills
and factories of Europe

2313
02:22:43,590 --> 02:22:45,550
to stop using slave picked cotton

2314
02:22:45,550 --> 02:22:47,990
from the Southern Confederate
states.

2315
02:22:52,270 --> 02:22:54,350
At great personal cost,

2316
02:22:54,350 --> 02:22:57,390
Lancashire mill workers
sided with President Lincoln

2317
02:22:57,390 --> 02:23:01,350
and refused to touch American cotton
that had been picked by slaves.

2318
02:23:03,190 --> 02:23:05,150
A year into the Civil War,

2319
02:23:05,150 --> 02:23:07,710
the effects of the cotton embargo
began to bite.

2320
02:23:10,350 --> 02:23:13,310
60% of Lancashire's looms lay idle,

2321
02:23:13,310 --> 02:23:15,830
leaving tens of thousands
out of work.

2322
02:23:18,430 --> 02:23:20,830
Yet still, the Lancashire workers

2323
02:23:20,830 --> 02:23:23,830
refused to use American
slave picked cotton.

2324
02:23:26,070 --> 02:23:29,670
With the cotton industry on its
knees, President Abraham Lincoln

2325
02:23:29,670 --> 02:23:33,870
acknowledged the self-sacrifice
of the working men of Manchester

2326
02:23:33,870 --> 02:23:36,710
in a letter he sent them in 1863.

2327
02:23:36,710 --> 02:23:40,310
He praised them for helping
to end slavery in America

2328
02:23:40,310 --> 02:23:45,350
with what he described as a selfless
act of sublime Christian heroism

2329
02:23:45,350 --> 02:23:49,350
that has not been surpassed
in any age or any country.

2330
02:23:51,830 --> 02:23:54,950
The end of the American
Civil War in 1865

2331
02:23:54,950 --> 02:23:57,270
allowed to Manchester's mill owners

2332
02:23:57,270 --> 02:23:59,630
to concentrate
on making money again.

2333
02:23:59,630 --> 02:24:02,630
They identified a problem
closer to home

2334
02:24:02,630 --> 02:24:05,510
that was damaging their bottom line.

2335
02:24:05,510 --> 02:24:08,310
Their noisy neighbours, Liverpool.

2336
02:24:10,670 --> 02:24:15,190
What Manchester did next started one
of the most bitter and famous feuds

2337
02:24:15,190 --> 02:24:17,510
the world has ever known.

2338
02:24:17,510 --> 02:24:20,430
Nowadays, most people think
Liverpool and Manchester

2339
02:24:20,430 --> 02:24:22,350
hate each other because of football.

2340
02:24:22,350 --> 02:24:24,230
But they'd be wrong.

2341
02:24:24,230 --> 02:24:26,230
The real reason is cotton.

2342
02:24:29,870 --> 02:24:33,870
Manchester resented paying what they
thought were excessive charges

2343
02:24:33,870 --> 02:24:38,110
to Liverpool merchants
to use their docks and railway line.

2344
02:24:38,110 --> 02:24:42,670
They calculated that as much as
60% of their profits were taken

2345
02:24:42,670 --> 02:24:46,910
in over inflated charges
by their Liverpool neighbours.

2346
02:24:46,910 --> 02:24:49,950
The only way Manchester
could become independent

2347
02:24:49,950 --> 02:24:53,630
was by cutting Liverpool
out of the cotton equation.

2348
02:24:53,630 --> 02:24:58,670
To do this, they'd build the largest
ship canal the world had ever seen.

2349
02:25:00,350 --> 02:25:03,430
In 1882, the idea of
the Manchester Ship Canal

2350
02:25:03,430 --> 02:25:07,070
was championed by Manchester
manufacturer Daniel Adamson.

2351
02:25:07,070 --> 02:25:09,630
And the man he trusted
to make it happen

2352
02:25:09,630 --> 02:25:12,110
was civil engineer, Edward Williams.

2353
02:25:13,750 --> 02:25:17,670
Their plan was for their cargo ships
to sail past Liverpool docks

2354
02:25:17,670 --> 02:25:20,750
and head to Eastham
on the Mersey estuary.

2355
02:25:20,750 --> 02:25:25,750
From here, the brand-new canal
would head north-east for 33 miles,

2356
02:25:25,750 --> 02:25:29,990
passing Frodsham to Runcorn
until it reaches Barton.

2357
02:25:29,990 --> 02:25:33,470
Here, the ship canal would somehow
have to cross the smaller,

2358
02:25:33,470 --> 02:25:36,910
but still important,
Bridgewater Canal.

2359
02:25:36,910 --> 02:25:40,270
Finally, ships would sail
the remaining three miles

2360
02:25:40,270 --> 02:25:43,950
to the brand-new port of Manchester
with its nine docks.

2361
02:25:43,950 --> 02:25:47,270
The world had never seen
anything like it.

2362
02:25:52,030 --> 02:25:56,430
Historian Liz McIvor is a recognised
expert on the ship canal

2363
02:25:56,430 --> 02:25:59,310
and understands how it
kick-started the feud

2364
02:25:59,310 --> 02:26:01,710
between Liverpool and Manchester.

2365
02:26:03,350 --> 02:26:05,910
The rivalry goes back
quite a long way.

2366
02:26:05,910 --> 02:26:09,270
In the 1700s, really, Liverpool
had the upper hand over Manchester

2367
02:26:09,270 --> 02:26:11,990
because it was where
the gentlemen merchants were.

2368
02:26:11,990 --> 02:26:15,150
It was where all the money was
being made, all the transactions.

2369
02:26:15,150 --> 02:26:16,990
Because, of course, it was a port

2370
02:26:16,990 --> 02:26:20,550
and that was how all the raw
material that Manchester
might use would come in.

2371
02:26:20,550 --> 02:26:23,790
So once Manchester started to grow
in terms of large factories

2372
02:26:23,790 --> 02:26:27,390
and manufacture, there became
almost a rivalry of class.

2373
02:26:27,390 --> 02:26:29,630
So what did they decide to do?

2374
02:26:29,630 --> 02:26:32,630
Well, they broke one monopoly
by essentially creating another

2375
02:26:32,630 --> 02:26:35,470
and building the ship canal
and building the port and docks.

2376
02:26:35,470 --> 02:26:40,990
Give me some sense of the scale
and ambition of a project like this

2377
02:26:40,990 --> 02:26:43,270
in the 19th century.

2378
02:26:43,270 --> 02:26:46,630
The ship canal's been described
by historians, certainly,

2379
02:26:46,630 --> 02:26:50,470
as the greatest feat of engineering
in Victorian Britain.

2380
02:26:50,470 --> 02:26:54,470
It was creating a man-made waterway
where none existed

2381
02:26:54,470 --> 02:26:56,470
and creating an inland port,

2382
02:26:56,470 --> 02:26:59,110
something that just couldn't
have existed naturally

2383
02:26:59,110 --> 02:27:01,510
without a massive
engineering project

2384
02:27:01,510 --> 02:27:04,190
that would involve not only
huge amounts of workers,

2385
02:27:04,190 --> 02:27:06,870
but mechanical machinery
for the first time.

2386
02:27:09,470 --> 02:27:11,750
The building of the
Manchester Ship Canal

2387
02:27:11,750 --> 02:27:13,950
was a massive engineering endeavour,

2388
02:27:13,950 --> 02:27:17,310
the likes of which
had never been attempted before.

2389
02:27:20,190 --> 02:27:22,670
Every great project
has to start somewhere

2390
02:27:22,670 --> 02:27:25,030
and the first shovels
hit the earth here

2391
02:27:25,030 --> 02:27:27,270
on the banks of the Mersey
at Eastham.

2392
02:27:27,270 --> 02:27:30,270
If the canal was to be a success,
they were going to have to build

2393
02:27:30,270 --> 02:27:33,750
a channel big enough to carry
oceangoing ships 36 miles,

2394
02:27:33,750 --> 02:27:36,670
all the way to land locked
Manchester.

2395
02:27:36,670 --> 02:27:40,710
The first big engineering challenge
was to separate the canal

2396
02:27:40,710 --> 02:27:43,870
from the tidal waters
of the Mersey estuary.

2397
02:27:43,870 --> 02:27:48,110
To do that, the engineers came
up with the Eastham locks,

2398
02:27:48,110 --> 02:27:50,510
still the biggest
in the United Kingdom.

2399
02:27:52,030 --> 02:27:55,790
The entrance to the Manchester Ship
Canal is through these huge gates.

2400
02:27:55,790 --> 02:27:57,990
They weigh 300 tonnes each

2401
02:27:57,990 --> 02:28:00,950
and are built of
demerara greenheart wood,

2402
02:28:00,950 --> 02:28:03,190
which is more durable than iron

2403
02:28:03,190 --> 02:28:05,630
and less liable to damage
if hit by a ship.

2404
02:28:08,710 --> 02:28:11,190
When Edward Williams designed
the ship canal

2405
02:28:11,190 --> 02:28:13,870
he had to deal with the problem
that geographically

2406
02:28:13,870 --> 02:28:16,390
Manchester is 60 feet
above sea level.

2407
02:28:18,790 --> 02:28:23,630
So, when a ship enters at Eastham
locks, it's lifted 55 feet up

2408
02:28:23,630 --> 02:28:27,110
so it can make the journey
safely to Manchester.

2409
02:28:37,270 --> 02:28:40,110
Edward Williams' plan
was to dredge a channel

2410
02:28:40,110 --> 02:28:42,750
between a set of retaining walls.

2411
02:28:42,750 --> 02:28:44,990
It was back breaking work.

2412
02:28:44,990 --> 02:28:47,990
A team of around 12,000
Irish navvies

2413
02:28:47,990 --> 02:28:51,030
dug the canal
almost entirely by hand.

2414
02:28:53,870 --> 02:28:57,950
To enable oceangoing cargo ships
to sail directly to Manchester,

2415
02:28:57,950 --> 02:29:02,550
the channel had to be 120 feet wide
and 28 feet deep

2416
02:29:02,550 --> 02:29:04,670
for the entire 36 miles.

2417
02:29:05,830 --> 02:29:10,150
For those watching its progress,
it became known as the big ditch.

2418
02:29:10,150 --> 02:29:13,910
By the time the canal was finished,
the navvies had excavated

2419
02:29:13,910 --> 02:29:18,470
around 40 million cubic metres
of rock and earth.

2420
02:29:22,310 --> 02:29:26,030
For the first two years
construction went according to plan.

2421
02:29:26,030 --> 02:29:28,710
But then Edward Williams
died suddenly

2422
02:29:28,710 --> 02:29:31,270
and the project began to unravel.

2423
02:29:31,270 --> 02:29:35,310
The big ditch was scheduled
for completion by 1891

2424
02:29:35,310 --> 02:29:38,950
but a terrible winter that year
was the final straw

2425
02:29:38,950 --> 02:29:42,910
and the company formed to build
the canal ran out of money.

2426
02:29:42,910 --> 02:29:46,430
It looked as if it
might never be finished.

2427
02:29:46,430 --> 02:29:49,230
Almost bankrupt,
the ship canal company

2428
02:29:49,230 --> 02:29:51,870
went cap in hand
to Manchester Council

2429
02:29:51,870 --> 02:29:55,470
and was bailed out
to the tune of £3 million.

2430
02:29:55,470 --> 02:29:59,150
That's a quarter of a billion pounds
in today's money.

2431
02:29:59,150 --> 02:30:03,150
The build was back on, but before
the canal could be completed

2432
02:30:03,150 --> 02:30:06,910
there was one giant engineering
problem to overcome.

2433
02:30:16,190 --> 02:30:19,590
There are those that think
that the Manchester Ship Canal

2434
02:30:19,590 --> 02:30:24,150
is the finest feat of engineering
of the entire Victorian era.

2435
02:30:24,150 --> 02:30:28,550
If they're right,
then this is the best of the best.

2436
02:30:28,550 --> 02:30:34,270
It's an aqueduct that carries
an older canal over the ship canal.

2437
02:30:34,270 --> 02:30:36,750
And the astonishing thing is

2438
02:30:36,750 --> 02:30:41,310
it opens, water and all,
to let the big ships through.

2439
02:30:44,710 --> 02:30:47,630
When the swing aqueduct
is in this position,

2440
02:30:47,630 --> 02:30:51,310
it's linking both sides of the
much smaller Bridgewater Canal.

2441
02:30:53,070 --> 02:30:56,430
It's now safe for barges
to sail across the aqueduct,

2442
02:30:56,430 --> 02:30:59,030
which holds 800 tonnes of water.

2443
02:31:00,630 --> 02:31:05,190
But when an oceangoing ship sails
along the Manchester Ship Canal,

2444
02:31:05,190 --> 02:31:10,390
then the aqueduct swings 90 degrees
into the middle of the canal

2445
02:31:10,390 --> 02:31:13,070
to allow the larger vessels through.

2446
02:31:14,430 --> 02:31:18,710
It sounds complicated, but it's
really quite simply marvellous.

2447
02:31:20,270 --> 02:31:24,670
The grade two listed swing aqueduct
opened in 1894

2448
02:31:24,670 --> 02:31:26,790
and remains in regular use.

2449
02:31:28,550 --> 02:31:32,150
It's not only the first
swinging aqueduct in the world,

2450
02:31:32,150 --> 02:31:34,070
it's the only one.

2451
02:31:34,070 --> 02:31:36,070
True testimony to the ingenuity

2452
02:31:36,070 --> 02:31:38,750
of the Victorian engineers
of Manchester.

2453
02:31:38,750 --> 02:31:43,590
They solved a seemingly insoluble
problem and they built it so well

2454
02:31:43,590 --> 02:31:46,750
it's still in use well
over a century later.

2455
02:31:50,070 --> 02:31:53,350
After six long, hard
and expensive years,

2456
02:31:53,350 --> 02:31:57,150
the people of Manchester had fought
to build their ship canal

2457
02:31:57,150 --> 02:32:01,630
and finally, on the 1st of
January 1894, it was opened.

2458
02:32:10,150 --> 02:32:12,950
The total cost was over £15 million.

2459
02:32:14,710 --> 02:32:18,270
And it made Manchester Britain's
third busiest port,

2460
02:32:18,270 --> 02:32:21,510
despite the city being 36 miles
from the sea.

2461
02:32:24,630 --> 02:32:27,670
Mancunians thought their future
looked secure.

2462
02:32:27,670 --> 02:32:30,910
Now, they had a direct link
to the rest of the world

2463
02:32:30,910 --> 02:32:34,070
and could finally bypass
Liverpool docks.

2464
02:32:38,310 --> 02:32:40,870
When it opened, was there
a big fanfare? There was.

2465
02:32:40,870 --> 02:32:45,110
There was a huge party,
great decoration, bands,

2466
02:32:45,110 --> 02:32:47,430
lots and lots
of well-dressed people.

2467
02:32:47,430 --> 02:32:49,790
Huge crowds of ordinary people
as well,

2468
02:32:49,790 --> 02:32:52,030
partly here to see Queen Victoria,

2469
02:32:52,030 --> 02:32:54,470
who opened the ship canal
officially.

2470
02:32:54,470 --> 02:32:57,510
And was all Manchester
thumbing its nose at Liverpool?

2471
02:32:57,510 --> 02:33:01,270
In short, yes. At the beginning when
the ship canal had first opened,

2472
02:33:01,270 --> 02:33:04,270
a lot of people who hadn't
believed it could happen

2473
02:33:04,270 --> 02:33:06,710
were suddenly full of the
joys of spring at the fact

2474
02:33:06,710 --> 02:33:09,270
that they had this fantastic
engineering project

2475
02:33:09,270 --> 02:33:12,110
that was going to employ
so many people.

2476
02:33:14,470 --> 02:33:17,190
Liverpool didn't take
Manchester's challenge

2477
02:33:17,190 --> 02:33:19,150
to its supremacy lying down.

2478
02:33:19,150 --> 02:33:22,910
As soon as the ship canal opened
many Manchester traders,

2479
02:33:22,910 --> 02:33:27,630
in an act of regional treachery,
snubbed it because Liverpool docks

2480
02:33:27,630 --> 02:33:30,910
and the railway line dropped
their prices drastically

2481
02:33:30,910 --> 02:33:33,390
to stop the canal
becoming a success.

2482
02:33:34,750 --> 02:33:38,670
The Manchester Ship Canal was only
in commercial operation
for around 80 years,

2483
02:33:38,670 --> 02:33:41,670
so you could see it as maybe
it wasn't that successful.

2484
02:33:41,670 --> 02:33:44,910
But if you look around now,
this area has been redeveloped

2485
02:33:44,910 --> 02:33:49,110
and the ship canal is potentially
going to be used in the future
in different ways.

2486
02:33:49,110 --> 02:33:51,030
When you look at the ship canal now,

2487
02:33:51,030 --> 02:33:53,670
what does it tell you
about the Victorians?

2488
02:33:53,670 --> 02:33:57,030
When I see it, I think of tenacity,
I think of forward planning,

2489
02:33:57,030 --> 02:34:00,910
future thinking, being able to think
about more than just the 10 years

2490
02:34:00,910 --> 02:34:03,870
in which it will make a difference
to you and your business.

2491
02:34:03,870 --> 02:34:06,510
These are people who plan
for their grandchildren

2492
02:34:06,510 --> 02:34:08,870
and great-grandchildren's
prosperity,

2493
02:34:08,870 --> 02:34:12,110
and that's something that's quite
hard to think about these days.

2494
02:34:14,190 --> 02:34:16,430
Manchester was now making
more cotton

2495
02:34:16,430 --> 02:34:18,230
than the world had ever known.

2496
02:34:20,270 --> 02:34:23,390
Then along came the final piece
in the cotton puzzle.

2497
02:34:24,990 --> 02:34:27,070
The sewing machine.

2498
02:34:27,070 --> 02:34:30,990
The change is like a nuclear
weapon going off.

2499
02:34:32,470 --> 02:34:35,910
And it was going to change
shopping forever.

2500
02:34:35,910 --> 02:34:40,710
Everything was on a bigger scale
than anyone had ever seen before.

2501
02:34:46,410 --> 02:34:49,330
Manchester's mills had made
the laborious process

2502
02:34:49,330 --> 02:34:54,050
of turning cotton into cloth
a fast and highly efficient process.

2503
02:34:54,050 --> 02:34:59,130
Now, the economic impact of cotton
started to ripple through society,

2504
02:34:59,130 --> 02:35:02,730
from rich to poor,
affecting everyone's life.

2505
02:35:02,730 --> 02:35:06,690
Manchester's cotton revolution
was about to spark a change

2506
02:35:06,690 --> 02:35:09,930
in the way we dressed
and how we shopped.

2507
02:35:09,930 --> 02:35:12,570
The next step was to move
down the process

2508
02:35:12,570 --> 02:35:15,730
and do the same thing for the
mass manufacture of clothing.

2509
02:35:15,730 --> 02:35:19,770
In 1850, a simple dress shirt
had to be sewn by hand,

2510
02:35:19,770 --> 02:35:23,090
14 hours or more
of painstaking labour.

2511
02:35:23,090 --> 02:35:25,370
The pace of life was quickening up.

2512
02:35:25,370 --> 02:35:29,650
Those thrusting Victorians wanted
something far faster than that.

2513
02:35:29,650 --> 02:35:31,730
I'm meeting Alex Askaroff,

2514
02:35:31,730 --> 02:35:35,090
an expert on the invention
that would change the way

2515
02:35:35,090 --> 02:35:38,250
we dressed forever -
the sewing machine.

2516
02:35:41,290 --> 02:35:43,250
Before the sewing machine,

2517
02:35:43,250 --> 02:35:45,690
since humans started
to wear clothes,

2518
02:35:45,690 --> 02:35:47,890
they had to hand stitch everything.

2519
02:35:47,890 --> 02:35:50,850
And they would actually get
two pieces of fabric,

2520
02:35:50,850 --> 02:35:52,930
animal skin or whatever,

2521
02:35:52,930 --> 02:35:56,770
and they would do this laborious
stitching one after another.

2522
02:35:56,770 --> 02:35:59,130
And you would spend
all day doing this.

2523
02:35:59,130 --> 02:36:01,130
Along comes the sewing machine.

2524
02:36:01,130 --> 02:36:03,330
How great is the change?

2525
02:36:03,330 --> 02:36:07,170
The change is like
a nuclear weapon going off.

2526
02:36:07,170 --> 02:36:09,170
All of a sudden you've got a piece

2527
02:36:09,170 --> 02:36:11,930
of mechanised mass produced
machinery

2528
02:36:11,930 --> 02:36:17,450
that takes this job
and just turns it into this job.

2529
02:36:17,450 --> 02:36:20,850
And it makes it so easy,
it's astonishing.

2530
02:36:20,850 --> 02:36:24,250
You know, I'm not skilled at this.
This is what's doing it all.

2531
02:36:26,130 --> 02:36:29,930
It's not just a brilliant machine,
it's a thing of beauty
as well, isn't it?

2532
02:36:29,930 --> 02:36:34,530
Next door, if you want to see
beautiful machines, let's go
and have a look. OK. Lead on.

2533
02:36:38,530 --> 02:36:40,330
My goodness! Yeah.

2534
02:36:44,290 --> 02:36:46,570
It's just crammed with them.
Hundreds of them.

2535
02:36:48,490 --> 02:36:50,690
Who invented the sewing machine?

2536
02:36:50,690 --> 02:36:55,890
The first known invention, 1790,
British, Thomas Saint.

2537
02:36:55,890 --> 02:37:00,130
He put plans in at the Patent Office
for a leather working type machine.

2538
02:37:02,490 --> 02:37:06,170
It took 60 years of refining
Thomas Saint's original idea

2539
02:37:06,170 --> 02:37:08,970
before the American Singer
company produced

2540
02:37:08,970 --> 02:37:13,410
a mass manufactured
sewing machine in 1851.

2541
02:37:13,410 --> 02:37:17,010
In 1868, they turned
to Britain once again

2542
02:37:17,010 --> 02:37:19,530
to build the world's
biggest factory.

2543
02:37:21,090 --> 02:37:25,330
Glasgow was selected for its iron
making industries, cheap labour

2544
02:37:25,330 --> 02:37:28,410
and because Singer's general
manager, George McKenzie,

2545
02:37:28,410 --> 02:37:30,690
was of Scottish descent.

2546
02:37:30,690 --> 02:37:35,530
With nearly a million square feet of
space and almost 7,000 employees,

2547
02:37:35,530 --> 02:37:39,690
it was possible to produce
13,000 machines a week.

2548
02:37:41,650 --> 02:37:46,610
Over the next 60 years, Glasgow
produced over 36 million machines,

2549
02:37:46,610 --> 02:37:48,730
selling them all over the world.

2550
02:37:50,370 --> 02:37:53,490
Everyone could now get in
on the cotton revolution

2551
02:37:53,490 --> 02:37:56,010
and it changed the way we dressed.

2552
02:37:56,010 --> 02:37:59,090
People just looked better.
Everybody just looked better.

2553
02:37:59,090 --> 02:38:02,370
They made their clothes,
they altered their clothes.

2554
02:38:02,370 --> 02:38:05,930
We were in a society
where you could look as you wanted,

2555
02:38:05,930 --> 02:38:08,370
and that is an extraordinary thing.

2556
02:38:12,330 --> 02:38:17,170
Before the Victorian era, shopping
wasn't the fun pastime it is today.

2557
02:38:17,170 --> 02:38:22,090
Shops where austere places -
small, dark, poorly ventilated.

2558
02:38:22,090 --> 02:38:26,570
All the goods were kept in drawers
or cupboards or under the counter.

2559
02:38:26,570 --> 02:38:28,730
Absolutely no browsing.

2560
02:38:29,970 --> 02:38:32,730
If you wanted to touch
or even see the goods,

2561
02:38:32,730 --> 02:38:35,690
you needed permission
from the shop's clerk.

2562
02:38:35,690 --> 02:38:38,610
Most goods didn't
have prices on them.

2563
02:38:38,610 --> 02:38:42,770
One had to ask how much it cost,
and then the haggling began.

2564
02:38:44,170 --> 02:38:48,610
But haggling was a little too common
for the new Victorian middle-class.

2565
02:38:48,610 --> 02:38:51,290
They wanted a better way
to spend their money.

2566
02:38:51,290 --> 02:38:53,530
Changes were afoot.

2567
02:39:00,210 --> 02:39:03,530
This is the Burlington Arcade
in London's Piccadilly.

2568
02:39:03,530 --> 02:39:06,330
Perhaps the United Kingdom's
first shopping mall.

2569
02:39:06,330 --> 02:39:10,570
It's a pedestrianised collection
of small shops under a single roof

2570
02:39:10,570 --> 02:39:13,090
to protect the customers from rain.

2571
02:39:13,090 --> 02:39:14,770
And to this day,

2572
02:39:14,770 --> 02:39:17,970
it's still patrolled
by the Burlington Arcade Beadles,

2573
02:39:17,970 --> 02:39:20,650
who still wear their
traditional uniforms,

2574
02:39:20,650 --> 02:39:23,410
including top hats
and frock coats.

2575
02:39:23,410 --> 02:39:25,370
Morning. Good morning.

2576
02:39:28,650 --> 02:39:31,290
Historian Michael Paterson
has studied

2577
02:39:31,290 --> 02:39:36,130
how the Victorians' love for retail
changed the way we shopped forever.

2578
02:39:36,130 --> 02:39:39,290
So, there were several
things that created

2579
02:39:39,290 --> 02:39:41,810
the consumer climate of Victorians.

2580
02:39:41,810 --> 02:39:45,330
There was more disposable income
than there had ever been.

2581
02:39:45,330 --> 02:39:49,610
Secondly, goods were
manufactured more cheaply.

2582
02:39:49,610 --> 02:39:52,970
Thirdly, stuff was much
better displayed.

2583
02:39:52,970 --> 02:39:56,410
The Victorians had plate glass
and they had gas lighting.

2584
02:39:56,410 --> 02:40:00,810
The result was that window shopping
became a widespread activity.

2585
02:40:00,810 --> 02:40:04,410
You could have a lot of fun
just browsing the windows.

2586
02:40:04,410 --> 02:40:07,570
The shops themselves
then became bigger

2587
02:40:07,570 --> 02:40:10,130
because everything
the Victorians did

2588
02:40:10,130 --> 02:40:14,290
was on a bigger scale than
anyone had ever seen before.

2589
02:40:15,970 --> 02:40:19,530
During the Victorian period,
a new addition to the high street

2590
02:40:19,530 --> 02:40:22,570
was about to transform
the simple shopping arcade

2591
02:40:22,570 --> 02:40:25,770
into something recognisable
the world over.

2592
02:40:25,770 --> 02:40:27,810
The son of an East End grocer

2593
02:40:27,810 --> 02:40:30,610
decided to move the family firm
up west

2594
02:40:30,610 --> 02:40:33,890
and expand the operation
to start selling medicines,

2595
02:40:33,890 --> 02:40:37,410
perfumes, stationery,
food and off the peg clothing.

2596
02:40:38,890 --> 02:40:41,690
His name was Charles Digby Harrod

2597
02:40:41,690 --> 02:40:44,930
and he gave us one of the
first department stores.

2598
02:40:49,090 --> 02:40:52,890
What would Charles Digby Harrod
think about our shops today?

2599
02:40:52,890 --> 02:40:56,850
The notion of a shop that
is the size of a cathedral

2600
02:40:56,850 --> 02:41:00,610
or a railway terminus
had never been seen before.

2601
02:41:00,610 --> 02:41:03,090
That was a Victorian innovation.

2602
02:41:04,610 --> 02:41:07,930
If a Victorian in a time machine
came here,

2603
02:41:07,930 --> 02:41:11,450
they would recognise the names
of half a dozen stores

2604
02:41:11,450 --> 02:41:13,650
that are still trading.

2605
02:41:13,650 --> 02:41:16,770
Here are some actual
receipts from the 1890s.

2606
02:41:16,770 --> 02:41:20,450
William Whiteley,
John Lewis, DH Evans.

2607
02:41:20,450 --> 02:41:23,810
We all know those names
because they are still in business.

2608
02:41:23,810 --> 02:41:26,330
It's a fantastic commercial legacy.

2609
02:41:27,570 --> 02:41:30,970
As the Victorian consumer revolution
gathered pace,

2610
02:41:30,970 --> 02:41:34,010
new department stores opened
up and down the country

2611
02:41:34,010 --> 02:41:36,290
catering to the demand
for new clothes

2612
02:41:36,290 --> 02:41:38,610
and anything else
you could think of.

2613
02:41:40,410 --> 02:41:44,890
100 years on, cotton had all
but gone from Manchester

2614
02:41:44,890 --> 02:41:47,050
and its last mills closed.

2615
02:41:53,330 --> 02:41:58,050
However, the story of Manchester
and cotton still lives on.

2616
02:41:58,050 --> 02:42:02,770
I've come to Tower Mill, a Victorian
mill building in the city centre,

2617
02:42:02,770 --> 02:42:05,770
to find out more about
a new cotton revolution

2618
02:42:05,770 --> 02:42:07,890
built on Victorian foundations.

2619
02:42:19,810 --> 02:42:24,050
General manager Andy Ogden has
created a state-of-the-art factory

2620
02:42:24,050 --> 02:42:27,170
inside a grade two listed
Victorian mill.

2621
02:42:28,770 --> 02:42:31,770
we're the UK's only
cotton spinning facility.

2622
02:42:31,770 --> 02:42:35,050
Started two years ago,
a very new enterprise.

2623
02:42:35,050 --> 02:42:37,250
And what's your point of difference?

2624
02:42:37,250 --> 02:42:40,210
Well, we are the highest
quality spinner in the world,

2625
02:42:40,210 --> 02:42:43,210
so we're taking the best of the raw
materials from California,

2626
02:42:43,210 --> 02:42:46,410
spinning it into superfine yarn
for the really high-end

2627
02:42:46,410 --> 02:42:49,770
luxury markets and the manufacturers
that are still left in the UK.

2628
02:42:49,770 --> 02:42:51,690
What does cotton mean to you?

2629
02:42:51,690 --> 02:42:54,010
It's one of the most
important things in my life.

2630
02:42:54,010 --> 02:42:55,810
I'm from this community.

2631
02:42:55,810 --> 02:42:58,370
When I grew up, there were
1,000 mills in my area.

2632
02:42:58,370 --> 02:43:02,050
To come back and actually bring back
the original manufacturing process,

2633
02:43:02,050 --> 02:43:03,850
I'm very proud of that.

2634
02:43:09,050 --> 02:43:11,250
Extraordinary that Manchester,

2635
02:43:11,250 --> 02:43:14,090
which once produced 90%
of the world's cotton,

2636
02:43:14,090 --> 02:43:15,970
should have lost it all.

2637
02:43:15,970 --> 02:43:18,890
And heart-warming, in a way,
that cotton should be back.

2638
02:43:18,890 --> 02:43:23,850
Perhaps the spirit of those
Victorian innovators
is still around here

2639
02:43:23,850 --> 02:43:27,250
and being tapped into
by a new breed of mill owner.

2640
02:43:31,490 --> 02:43:34,370
The Manchester of today
has been profoundly shaped

2641
02:43:34,370 --> 02:43:37,090
by its Victorian cotton past.

2642
02:43:37,090 --> 02:43:41,490
Everywhere you look in the city
you can see the legacy of cotton,

2643
02:43:41,490 --> 02:43:46,690
from huge mills like this
to the Manchester Ship Canal

2644
02:43:46,690 --> 02:43:49,850
and the grand civic buildings
which were paid for

2645
02:43:49,850 --> 02:43:52,090
by the money made from cotton.

2646
02:43:53,850 --> 02:43:56,690
The Victorian age
was a period of profound change.

2647
02:43:56,690 --> 02:44:00,130
Almost every aspect of people's
lives was transformed

2648
02:44:00,130 --> 02:44:03,530
during the 64 years
of the Queen's reign.

2649
02:44:03,530 --> 02:44:06,850
And cotton was a key driver
of that change.

2650
02:44:06,850 --> 02:44:08,730
It helped build the railways

2651
02:44:08,730 --> 02:44:11,410
which connected every corner
of the country

2652
02:44:11,410 --> 02:44:14,850
and it built the huge factories
that changed the way we lived

2653
02:44:14,850 --> 02:44:16,970
and the way we worked.

2654
02:44:20,330 --> 02:44:22,890
The cotton industry
also had some surprising

2655
02:44:22,890 --> 02:44:25,010
and unexpected consequences.

2656
02:44:26,170 --> 02:44:30,010
It led to the creation of free
public parks and libraries.

2657
02:44:30,010 --> 02:44:32,090
It changed the way we dressed

2658
02:44:32,090 --> 02:44:34,850
and turned us
into a nation of shoppers.

2659
02:44:38,330 --> 02:44:41,530
Each and every Victorian,
from the humble factory worker

2660
02:44:41,530 --> 02:44:44,650
to the greatest industrialist
and engineer,

2661
02:44:44,650 --> 02:44:49,490
all played their part in forging
the modern world we live in today.

2662
02:44:49,490 --> 02:44:54,170
Without the Victorians, the Britain
we know and love would not exist.

2663
02:45:27,970 --> 02:45:29,970
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