Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 4, Episode 2 - Birmingham to Stafford - full transcript
In 1840, one man transformed travel
in the British Isles.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired
the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by Stop
he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making a series of journeys across
the length and breadth of these isles
to see what of Bradshaws Britain
remains.
I'm continuing my journey
through England's industrial heartland
towards rural Wales.
Even before the Victorian period,
the Midlands had experienced
an intellectual enlightenment
that put it at the core
of Britain's industrial Revolution.
And by the time
my guidebook was published,
their ideas had turned Britain
into the world's most advanced economy.
On this stretch, I'll learn how the
railways helped to make Birmingham
the pen making capital of the world...
It was a trade that brought writing
to the masses, really.
Hear the chilling tale
of one of 19th-century Britain's
most notorious murderers...
(man) Thirty-thousand turned up
for his execution.
They had special trains laid on
from Bristol, from Manchester
and from London.
And sample the delicacies
concocted in a Victorian kitchen.
- Look at that. Wow. Did you make that?
- I certainly did.
That's got a real wobble factor on it,
hasn't it'?
This journey began in the Chilterns
and is now taking me towards the heart
of the industrial Midlands.
I'll then join the picturesque Severn
Valley before crossing into Wales,
en route to my final stop
at Aberystwyth.
Today I'll begin in Birmingham,
then explore the Staffordshire towns
of Tamworth and Rugeley,
finishing in the county town
of Stafford.
I'm on my way to Birmingham,
which Bradshaw's tells me
is "the great centre
of the manufactured metal trades,
being situated in north Warwickshire
on the borders of the south
Staffordshire iron and coal district...
During Victorian times, Birmingham
was known as the workshop of the world
and the city of a thousand trades,
a place where the currencies
were skill and invention.
(announcement) We are now approaching
Birmingham Moor Street.
To trace the vestiges
of that hive of industry,
I'm alighting at Birmingham Moor Street,
the spectacular gateway
from the Chiltern Railway
to Britain's second largest
conurbation.
Thank you.
We an uplifting way to enter
this dynamic city.
Birmingham Moor Street Station.
What a joy.
First opened in 1909,
in Edwardian Britain.
Rebuilt in the 21st century
in 1930s style.
It has the feel of a film set for
a period costume drama, and I love it.
From the start of Britain's industrial
Revolution, Birmingham led the way,
enthusiastically adopting
the new technologies
that would change the world.
According to my guidebook,
“scarcely a street is without
its manufactory and steam engine“.
"At the same time, a considerable amount
of the labour is of a manual kind."
By the middle of the 19th century,
Birmingham had a population
of a quarter of a million.
In the previous 100 years
its inhabitants had applied for
three times as many patents
as those of any other city.
My Bradshaw's recommends that
amongst the principal establishments
worth visiting in Birmingham,
I should go to one
for the manufacture of steel pens,
here in the jewellery district.
In Bradshaws day, Birmingham was a
global centre for the making of pen nibs
and my guidebook singles out
one producer, saying,
"We should think that the reputation of
Messrs. Gillott and Son, Graham Street,
has reached all parts of the world."
Whilst the Graham Street factory
is no longer in operation,
just opposite the site is a pen museum,
where I'm meeting expert Larry Hanks.
- Larry.
- Good morning.
Good to see you.
I've got an advertisement in my
Bradshaw's Guide for a Joseph Gillott.
It's a fantastic advertisement.
"Joseph Gillott,
metallic pen maker to the Queen,
begs to inform the commercial world
of his useful productions
which for excellence of temper,
quality of material and cheapness
ensure universal approbation."
That sounds pretty good.
Joseph Gillott was just across
the street.
That's it.
His factory was built in 1839.
He was a great entrepreneur.
He made sure that anybody of any note
who visited Birmingham did the tour,
went round his works.
In Victorian times,
factories like Gillott's were
helping to transform society.
The first steel nib was invented in
Birmingham for a local doctor in 1780.
But in those days pens were
a hand-crafted luxury,
so even the few who were literate
couldn't afford to write.
Then, in the 1820s,
the process was mechanised,
with far-reaching consequences.
When the steel pen nib
was put into mass production,
did it remain an expensive item?
No. The price came down dramatically.
I mean to say you could be paying
two or three shillings each for
a steel pen when they first came out.
(Michael) That would have been
a lot of money.
(Larry) It would have been
in those days.
(Michael) It really made a difference
to public literacy,
- the availability of cheaper pens.
- (Larry) Oh, yes, it did.
It was a trade that brought writing
to the masses, really.
Suddenly, schools could afford
to buy pens in bulk,
and the means of writing were
put within even/body's reach.
The advent of the railways gave
the industry a further boost.
Trains carried steel from Sheffield,
and by the mid 19th century
Birmingham pens were conveyed by rail
for export around the globe.
What scale did pen nib manufacture reach
in Birmingham'?
(Larry) We say that
three-quarters of people
writing in the world with a steel pen
were writing with one
made in Birmingham.
Nobody came anywhere near us, really.
Most of the workers were women,
expected to produce
tens of thousands of nibs every day.
Why women?
Cheap labour, unfortunately.
"IX"
The other thing was that,
in the early days,
you could be fined for talking
or even singing.
But the bosses then didn't realise
that women can multitask.
They can talk and work, where
unfortunately men can only talk or work.
So, once the bosses realised this,
the workplace became happier
and the production most likely went up.
The machinery worked by the women
was simple but effective.
Each hand press completed
one stage of the process,
the first being
to cut the outline of the nib.
The first operation was blanking,
which was done on a strip.
The women were expected to do
36,000 in a day on this.
That's in position. So if you'd like
to pull that, sharp snatch towards you.
That's it. Push it back.
(Michael) So I've just pressed out
the shape of a pen nib?
I wouldn't want to do
36,000 of those in a day.
There were machines for shaping,
piercing and slitting the nibs,
but discerning Victorian customers
demanded more than just functionality
from their pens.
Right. On this last process here,
this started from about the 1850s,
where they started to do
more decorative pen nibs.
And to decorate them,
they embossed them.
For VIPs and big companies, personalised
nibs became a way of showing off.
And in Bradshaws day, no business
was bigger than the railways.
All companies and people had their names
and things embossed on pen nibs.
They were supplying the rail companies.
GWR, NER, LMS.
It even went on
into the British Rail era as well.
Sadly, Birmingham's Victorian domination
of the global pen trade wasn't to last.
In the 20th century,
the invention of the ballpoint pen
dealt the industry a devastating blow.
But one local firm continues
the tradition.
- Hello, Tim.
- Hi. Nice to meet you.
Very good to see you.
Tim Tufnell's company makes
traditional pens for the luxury market.
And you're doing, I think,
very intricate, high-end work.
- Using modern machinery for that?
- Not at all, no, no.
A lot of the tooling we're using
is this sort of thing,
which goes back to Victorian times,
exactly how they would have
produced this product in the 1800s.
- Is this what you start with?
- Yes. This is a piece of silver tubing.
So, that's what we buy in
from the manufacturer.
Then, believe it or not,
it ends up looking like that.
Now that is exquisite.
Afar cry from the usual mass production
of today,
these solid silver pens are
reminiscent of Birmingham's past.
The techniques used
would have been familiar
to the Jewellery Quarter's artisans
in the 19th century.
How many blows do you think you deliver
to a single piece
to build up the pattern?
- About 2,000.
- About 2,000.
We're so used to admiring
Victorian craftsmanship,
but it's wonderful to know
that it's alive and thriving here today.
I'm now leaving
industrial Birmingham behind
to continue my progress
through the Midlands.
In the past I've been very rude
about Birmingham New Street Station,
which is truly hideous.
But now they are
completely rebuilding it,
and in the meanwhile they are keeping
all the trains running,
which is an engineering achievement
on a Victorian scale.
From this busy railway hub, my next
train takes me just 17 miles northeast,
crossing from Warwickshire
into Staffordshire.
I'm on my way to Tamworth,
which my Bradshaw's tells me "is
a market town with a population of 8,650
who return two members".
That means they elected
two MPs to Westminster.
And in Tamworth, unusually for me,
I'm in search of a politician.
In the mid 1800s,
Tamworth's Member of Parliament
was the great 19th-century statesman
Sir Robert Peel.
Today he's seen as one of the founding
fathers of the Conservative party,
so I cam resist following my guidebook
to the marketplace,
to meet the vice chairman
of the Peel Society, Nigel Morris.
- Hello, Nigel.
- Hello, Michael. Welcome to Tamworth.
- Sir Robert Peel, I assume?
- Yes, that's correct.
(Michael) Bradshaw's says he's looking
towards Bury, the place of his birth?
That's correct.
He was born there in 1788.
Peel entered parliament in 1809,
aged just 21.
By the 1820s he?! risen
to the rank of Home Secretary,
where he made a rather famous decision.
Londoners have good reason
to remember Sir Robert Peel.
Yes, absolutely. Of course,
he passed through Parliament
the Metropolitan Police Act in 1829,
founding the police force
as we know it today.
Originally they were known as peelers.
They wore top hats
and bright white trousers.
But, after that, it became
after his first name, Robert, bobbies.
Peel was to go on to be
Prime Minister twice,
where his achievements included
Acts of Parliament
curbing child labour
in mines and factories.
He was also a keen supporter
of the railways,
cutting the first sod
for the Trent Valley tine in 1845.
But for me, it's another local event
that is Peel's most important
claim to fame.
And it took place here
in the town hall.
This is a delightful
and impressive council chamber.
And here's his portrait, a copy
of the one by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
It shows him as a relatively young man
still, about the age of 30.
- You can see his ginger hair.
- (chuckles)
Peel's first stint as Prime Minister
came at a tumultuous time
in British history.
His political opponents, the Whigs,
had recently instituted
constitutional reform,
bitterly contested by the Tories.
When Peel came to power,
he was determined to start afresh.
He set out his political vision
in a document read out
to the people of Tamworth
from the window of this town hall.
(Michael) What was significant about it?
The main point about it was
that he accepted the Reform Act of 1832.
Which had extended the franchise
to many more voters.
Yes, including the great industrial
cities of Manchester and Birmingham.
The Tamworth Manifesto,
as ifs become known,
is seen as the first example of the kind
of party manifesto that we know today.
And it also set an important precedent.
And actually we've seen that
in politics again and again, haven't we?
That the party that's in opposition
has opposed something
that the government does,
but then it finds
that it becomes the norm,
that it becomes something irreversible.
Then that party has to accept it
to have any chance of being re-elected.
Exactly. We see it time and time again.
It's very interesting
that it started, really, in this room.
Shall we go to the window
and look down on the great man'?
(Nigel) Exactly. Yes.
I'm now joining the Victorian-built
Trent Valley line
to continue my journey north.
On this stretch,
I'm following in the footsteps
of 19th-century thrill seekers.
I'm on my way to Rugeley,
which my Bradshaw's tells me
"will ever be memorable
on account of its having been the
residence of the sporting Dr Palmer,
who was accused of poisoning his wife,
his brother and friend John Parsons Cook
by strychnine."
"But at the post-modem examinations,
not a particle of that poison
was discovered."
Very intriguing. The Victorians
had a taste for the macabre.
And Victorian press was ever willing
to feed their ghoulishness.
In the 19th century,
urbanisation saw people living side
by side with strangers as never before,
and this, combined
with increasingly professional policing,
fuelled a public obsession with crime.
Cheap penny dreadfuls
enabled the masses
to read the lurid details
of infamous murders,
and railway companies even ran
special trains to crime scenes.
Dave Lewis has been researching
the still puzzling case
of Dr William Palmer.
- David!
- Good morning, Michael.
- Good to see you.
- Welcome to Rugeley.
Thank you very much indeed.
Who was this Dr William Palmer?
Well, he was the most infamous person
ever, I think, to live in Rugeley.
People were shocked
because he was a respectable doctor.
He was early 30s when he came to trial.
They were just shocked that somebody
who's taken the Hippocratic Oath
could be accused of so many murders.
(Michael) My Bradshaw's tells me that
he poisoned his wife and his brother.
- Now, was he accused of that?
- He was accused of that,
but he was never brought to trial for
the murder of his wife and his brother.
He was only ever accused
and tried for one murder,
that is the murder of John Parsons Cook.
- Shall I show you the grave?
- Let's have a look.
Cook was a friend of Dr Palmer,
and the events leading to his death
began in 1855.
By that time, the sporting doctor
had all but given up medicine
to indulge his passion for horse racing
and had accumulated
substantial gambling debts.
Well, they'd gone to the races
at Shrewsbury.
There, John Parsons Cook's horse,
Polestar, had won.
He'd won a tidy sum,
whereas poor old Palmer,
his horse, Chicken, had fallen
and he'd lost quite a lot of money and
was even more heavily in debt than ever.
Palmer invited his friend to Rugeley,
installed him in the local pub
and visited him frequently.
Cook became increasingly unwell
and on the seventh night,
shortly after Dr Palmer
had administered two pills,
his patient took a dramatic turn
for the worse.
Here we have on the left
the famous room number ten,
where John Parsons Cook died.
- Was it a painful death'?
- It was a horrendously painful death.
At one stage he was described
as resting on his heels and the back
of his head, he was in so much agony,
At first, Cooks death was ascribed
to natural causes.
But when Palmer claimed
to have lost his friend's betting book,
suspicions were aroused.
The accusation was
that Palmer had dosed Cook
with the rat poison strychnine.
But my Bradshaw's says
that in the post-mortem examination,
no trace of strychnine was found.
That was because of the incompetency of
the people carrying out the post-mortem.
The doctor in charge
arrived from Stafford.
He had no medical equipment. He didn't
even bring a pencil and paper.
The people who cut open the body,
one was a medical student and one was
an assistant at a local chemists.
Despite the botched postmortem,
Palmer was charged.
And the case immediately captured
the public imagination.
(Dave) It was probably
the trial of the century.
In fact, three months before the trial,
the London Illustrated Times produced
a 15-page supplement
which talked about
the Rugeley tragedies,
and all the suspicious deaths
that occurred
that were linked to Dr William Palmer.
Amongst the most shocking claims
was the accusation
that Palmer had killed
his own wife and brother,
both of whose lives he?! insured
for large sums.
He was never tried for those crimes,
but the Cook case was heard
at the Old Bailey in London.
And despite confused
and contradictory evidence,
the doctor was convicted
and sentenced to death.
The execution was back in Stafford
in accordance with the sentence,
and at a time when Stafford
had a population of 12,500,
30,000 turned up for his execution.
They had special trains laid on
from Bristol, from Manchester
and from London.
And evidently his fame survived
a long time after his death.
Oh, he did indeed.
Being in Staffordshire,
they produced pottery figurines.
They have a figurine
of William Palmer himself.
(Michael) Good Lord.
And this is a photograph of his effigy
that stood in Madame Tussauds London
in the Chamber of Horrors for 127 years,
labelled as a mass murder, even though
he was only ever tried for one murder.
Chilled to the marrow by grisly tales,
ifs time to seek the sunshine.
I'm hunting out the picturesque charms
of the Staffordshire countryside.
I'm on my way to Stafford.
My guidebook tells me
that the line passes through
"a country of singular beauty,
having almost the appearance
of one continued park."
These were the estates
of the great landed gentry.
Of the Harrowbys,
Shrewsburys and Dartmouths
and of the Lichfields,
at their estate of Shugborough.
Most readers of my guidebook
satisfied themselves
with a giimpse of Shugborough Park
from the train,
but the upper crust of 19th-century
society would arrive to stay.
In 1832, one visitor was
a young princess,
destined to become
one of our greatest monarchs.
I'm now following in her footsteps.
As I walk across the estate,
across the park, towards Shugborough,
the house appears
in all its magnificence,
and this, I think, is my guide
Hello, Chris.
Hello, Michael. Welcome to Shugborough.
Chris Copp is a local historian.
When Princess Victoria came here,
would she have seen the house
much as it is today'?
Yes. It's very little changed
from October 1832.
What had drawn her to the house?
Well, she was 13 years old.
She came with the Duchess of Kent on her
first tour, really, round the country,
round the grand stately homes
of England.
The future queen arrived
at Shugborough by horse and carriage,
but just 13 years later,
plans were drawn up to build
the Trent Valley Railway
through the heart of the estate.
The Ear! of Lichfield was horrified,
until he realised that there could be
a silver lining.
(Chris) He'd come into
financial difficulties in the 1840s.
He basically negotiated with the railway
company £30,000 in compensation.
That included £2,000 for the land
the railway took up,
and then the rest of the money was
to make good the look of the estate,
to avoid damaging
the appearance of Shugborough.
(Michael) My Bradshaw's tells me
that the railway passes through
a tunnel in Shugborough Park,
779 yards in length.
"The north face of the tunnel is a very
striking architectural composition."
Part of their attempts to make it
a more ornamental look,
to fit in with the other monuments.
The north portal looks
like a Norman castle.
Magnum
sauna-sumac;
Then this side, it's slightly less
impressive, but still ornamental.
It's meant to look like
an Egyptian temple,
but it takes a bit
of a leap of imagination.
In its Victorian heyday,
Shugborough employed 120 indoor
and outdoor staff,
including gardeners, gamekeepers
and farm labourers.
It's still run as a working estate,
and a look at the kitchen garden
brings home the scale of the operation.
A vast walled garden.
(Chris) Yes, and this is only one
of six compartments here.
Some of them are walled,
four walled compartments.
Then the other two are hedged,
But yes, it is a large garden.
Were walled gardens quite an innovation?
They were very fashionable in 1805
when this was built.
Estates at that time were trying
to be more self sufficient,
grow all their own produce.
So as well as the garden here for fruit,
vegetables, flowers, et cetera, honey,
you had the park farm built
at the same time
for meat, dairy products, cereals
and so on.
For illustrious visitors
like the young Princess Victoria,
the estate would pull out all the stops,
offering the very best produce
in lavish banquets.
Above stairs, amid the splendour
of this grand stately home,
it would all seem effortless.
But all that luxury came at a price.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
To get a sense of the graft involved,
I'm visiting the kitchens,
overseen today by resident cook
Penny Lock.
Oh, this is the kitchen
on the grand scale, isn't it?
What equipment have you got here
from the Victorian times?
We have all sons of things. We have
a bottle-jack for spit roasting meat on.
It's actually clockwork. We wind it up
and it spit roasts the meat for us.
We have a lemon squeezer.
(laughs) That is brilliant.
Works very well.
Put half a lemon in there.
The idea is it turns it inside out
as you squeeze it so there's no wastage.
Isn't that beautiful?
What a fine invention.
And even the squashed out lemon
was then given to the youngest girl
to dip in salt
and clean all the copper with.
The kitchens were a mode! of efficiency,
but 19th-century entertaining
was extravagant.
During Princess Victoria's
three-day stay,
the guests got through 76 pheasants
and 67 bottles of sherry.
But some Victorian delicacies have since
disappeared into obscurity.
They would make cucumber soup.
Have a cucumber soup there.
It actually tastes an awful lot better
than it looks.
Erm... and also stewed cucumbers.
Look at that. What have they been
stewed in? What do they taste of?
(Penny) Stewed in salted water to start
with. Then you make a stock up
and put them into the stock
and thicken the sauce from the stock.
It's believed very bad
to eat raw cucumber.
It's very bad for your digestion.
And... this I don't need
to have identified.
Look at that. Wow.
- Did you make that?
- I certainly did.
That's got a real wobble factor on it,
hasn't it'?
What's different from a Victorian jelly
and a present-day jelly?
It takes a long time to make a
Victorian jelly. A good hour or so.
Obviously you have the fresh gelatine
from the farm come up.
All the ingredients are stewed and the
gelatine is added. it's quite a skill.
With so many mouths to feed,
there was no space for idlers
in a Victorian kitchen.
Time for me to get stuck in.
- What's the recipe, Penny?
- They're fresh trout from the river.
(Michael) Mm! What a couple of beauties,
Can we have two glasses of the beer
in there'?
Beer was a big Victorian thing,
wasn't it'?
This beer is made at the brewhouse
on the estate here,
where staff allocated
eight pints of beer a day each.
Eight pints'?
They must have been paralytic!
The brew is made to make the strong ale
and the same mash is brewed
six or seven more times.
That's what the staff would be given,
purely because it's safe to drink.
A little wine, a little lemon...
- (Michael) Like a little thumb as well'?
- Preferably not.
And my trout's ready
for the coat-fired range.
It'll go across
the middle section there.
Once it starts steaming,
it'll take about 20 minutes.
Marvellous. A delicacy fit
for Princess Victoria.
Definitely.
Now for a taste of the kind of dish that
George Bradshaw would have enjoyed.
Cook, this looks very fine.
Excellent.
From the kitchen maid to the earl,
every member of this grand household
had a specific role to pray.
Victorian Britain organised
and Stratified.
As ever, I've been impressed
by Birmingham,
once the metal-bashing centre
of the world,
powered by the impersonal forces
of capitalism and steam.
But this leg of my journey has been rich
in Midlands personalities, too.
Prime Minister Peel, the landed
Lichfields and the poisoner Palmer.
I encountered them all in the pages
of my Bradshaw's Guide.
Next time, I'll explore one of
the greatest locomotive factories
in railway history, ..
The records are sketchy,
but they talk about 20,000 people,
so the size of it was immense.
Discover the dark side
of the Industrial Revolution...
(man) The place was very heavily spoilt
by pollution
and the stench of the sewage.
It was like a large cesspit.
And learn how the potteries
brought their products to the masses
in Victorian times.
This is incredibly difficult.
This is fiendish.
in the British Isles.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired
the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by Stop
he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making a series of journeys across
the length and breadth of these isles
to see what of Bradshaws Britain
remains.
I'm continuing my journey
through England's industrial heartland
towards rural Wales.
Even before the Victorian period,
the Midlands had experienced
an intellectual enlightenment
that put it at the core
of Britain's industrial Revolution.
And by the time
my guidebook was published,
their ideas had turned Britain
into the world's most advanced economy.
On this stretch, I'll learn how the
railways helped to make Birmingham
the pen making capital of the world...
It was a trade that brought writing
to the masses, really.
Hear the chilling tale
of one of 19th-century Britain's
most notorious murderers...
(man) Thirty-thousand turned up
for his execution.
They had special trains laid on
from Bristol, from Manchester
and from London.
And sample the delicacies
concocted in a Victorian kitchen.
- Look at that. Wow. Did you make that?
- I certainly did.
That's got a real wobble factor on it,
hasn't it'?
This journey began in the Chilterns
and is now taking me towards the heart
of the industrial Midlands.
I'll then join the picturesque Severn
Valley before crossing into Wales,
en route to my final stop
at Aberystwyth.
Today I'll begin in Birmingham,
then explore the Staffordshire towns
of Tamworth and Rugeley,
finishing in the county town
of Stafford.
I'm on my way to Birmingham,
which Bradshaw's tells me
is "the great centre
of the manufactured metal trades,
being situated in north Warwickshire
on the borders of the south
Staffordshire iron and coal district...
During Victorian times, Birmingham
was known as the workshop of the world
and the city of a thousand trades,
a place where the currencies
were skill and invention.
(announcement) We are now approaching
Birmingham Moor Street.
To trace the vestiges
of that hive of industry,
I'm alighting at Birmingham Moor Street,
the spectacular gateway
from the Chiltern Railway
to Britain's second largest
conurbation.
Thank you.
We an uplifting way to enter
this dynamic city.
Birmingham Moor Street Station.
What a joy.
First opened in 1909,
in Edwardian Britain.
Rebuilt in the 21st century
in 1930s style.
It has the feel of a film set for
a period costume drama, and I love it.
From the start of Britain's industrial
Revolution, Birmingham led the way,
enthusiastically adopting
the new technologies
that would change the world.
According to my guidebook,
“scarcely a street is without
its manufactory and steam engine“.
"At the same time, a considerable amount
of the labour is of a manual kind."
By the middle of the 19th century,
Birmingham had a population
of a quarter of a million.
In the previous 100 years
its inhabitants had applied for
three times as many patents
as those of any other city.
My Bradshaw's recommends that
amongst the principal establishments
worth visiting in Birmingham,
I should go to one
for the manufacture of steel pens,
here in the jewellery district.
In Bradshaws day, Birmingham was a
global centre for the making of pen nibs
and my guidebook singles out
one producer, saying,
"We should think that the reputation of
Messrs. Gillott and Son, Graham Street,
has reached all parts of the world."
Whilst the Graham Street factory
is no longer in operation,
just opposite the site is a pen museum,
where I'm meeting expert Larry Hanks.
- Larry.
- Good morning.
Good to see you.
I've got an advertisement in my
Bradshaw's Guide for a Joseph Gillott.
It's a fantastic advertisement.
"Joseph Gillott,
metallic pen maker to the Queen,
begs to inform the commercial world
of his useful productions
which for excellence of temper,
quality of material and cheapness
ensure universal approbation."
That sounds pretty good.
Joseph Gillott was just across
the street.
That's it.
His factory was built in 1839.
He was a great entrepreneur.
He made sure that anybody of any note
who visited Birmingham did the tour,
went round his works.
In Victorian times,
factories like Gillott's were
helping to transform society.
The first steel nib was invented in
Birmingham for a local doctor in 1780.
But in those days pens were
a hand-crafted luxury,
so even the few who were literate
couldn't afford to write.
Then, in the 1820s,
the process was mechanised,
with far-reaching consequences.
When the steel pen nib
was put into mass production,
did it remain an expensive item?
No. The price came down dramatically.
I mean to say you could be paying
two or three shillings each for
a steel pen when they first came out.
(Michael) That would have been
a lot of money.
(Larry) It would have been
in those days.
(Michael) It really made a difference
to public literacy,
- the availability of cheaper pens.
- (Larry) Oh, yes, it did.
It was a trade that brought writing
to the masses, really.
Suddenly, schools could afford
to buy pens in bulk,
and the means of writing were
put within even/body's reach.
The advent of the railways gave
the industry a further boost.
Trains carried steel from Sheffield,
and by the mid 19th century
Birmingham pens were conveyed by rail
for export around the globe.
What scale did pen nib manufacture reach
in Birmingham'?
(Larry) We say that
three-quarters of people
writing in the world with a steel pen
were writing with one
made in Birmingham.
Nobody came anywhere near us, really.
Most of the workers were women,
expected to produce
tens of thousands of nibs every day.
Why women?
Cheap labour, unfortunately.
"IX"
The other thing was that,
in the early days,
you could be fined for talking
or even singing.
But the bosses then didn't realise
that women can multitask.
They can talk and work, where
unfortunately men can only talk or work.
So, once the bosses realised this,
the workplace became happier
and the production most likely went up.
The machinery worked by the women
was simple but effective.
Each hand press completed
one stage of the process,
the first being
to cut the outline of the nib.
The first operation was blanking,
which was done on a strip.
The women were expected to do
36,000 in a day on this.
That's in position. So if you'd like
to pull that, sharp snatch towards you.
That's it. Push it back.
(Michael) So I've just pressed out
the shape of a pen nib?
I wouldn't want to do
36,000 of those in a day.
There were machines for shaping,
piercing and slitting the nibs,
but discerning Victorian customers
demanded more than just functionality
from their pens.
Right. On this last process here,
this started from about the 1850s,
where they started to do
more decorative pen nibs.
And to decorate them,
they embossed them.
For VIPs and big companies, personalised
nibs became a way of showing off.
And in Bradshaws day, no business
was bigger than the railways.
All companies and people had their names
and things embossed on pen nibs.
They were supplying the rail companies.
GWR, NER, LMS.
It even went on
into the British Rail era as well.
Sadly, Birmingham's Victorian domination
of the global pen trade wasn't to last.
In the 20th century,
the invention of the ballpoint pen
dealt the industry a devastating blow.
But one local firm continues
the tradition.
- Hello, Tim.
- Hi. Nice to meet you.
Very good to see you.
Tim Tufnell's company makes
traditional pens for the luxury market.
And you're doing, I think,
very intricate, high-end work.
- Using modern machinery for that?
- Not at all, no, no.
A lot of the tooling we're using
is this sort of thing,
which goes back to Victorian times,
exactly how they would have
produced this product in the 1800s.
- Is this what you start with?
- Yes. This is a piece of silver tubing.
So, that's what we buy in
from the manufacturer.
Then, believe it or not,
it ends up looking like that.
Now that is exquisite.
Afar cry from the usual mass production
of today,
these solid silver pens are
reminiscent of Birmingham's past.
The techniques used
would have been familiar
to the Jewellery Quarter's artisans
in the 19th century.
How many blows do you think you deliver
to a single piece
to build up the pattern?
- About 2,000.
- About 2,000.
We're so used to admiring
Victorian craftsmanship,
but it's wonderful to know
that it's alive and thriving here today.
I'm now leaving
industrial Birmingham behind
to continue my progress
through the Midlands.
In the past I've been very rude
about Birmingham New Street Station,
which is truly hideous.
But now they are
completely rebuilding it,
and in the meanwhile they are keeping
all the trains running,
which is an engineering achievement
on a Victorian scale.
From this busy railway hub, my next
train takes me just 17 miles northeast,
crossing from Warwickshire
into Staffordshire.
I'm on my way to Tamworth,
which my Bradshaw's tells me "is
a market town with a population of 8,650
who return two members".
That means they elected
two MPs to Westminster.
And in Tamworth, unusually for me,
I'm in search of a politician.
In the mid 1800s,
Tamworth's Member of Parliament
was the great 19th-century statesman
Sir Robert Peel.
Today he's seen as one of the founding
fathers of the Conservative party,
so I cam resist following my guidebook
to the marketplace,
to meet the vice chairman
of the Peel Society, Nigel Morris.
- Hello, Nigel.
- Hello, Michael. Welcome to Tamworth.
- Sir Robert Peel, I assume?
- Yes, that's correct.
(Michael) Bradshaw's says he's looking
towards Bury, the place of his birth?
That's correct.
He was born there in 1788.
Peel entered parliament in 1809,
aged just 21.
By the 1820s he?! risen
to the rank of Home Secretary,
where he made a rather famous decision.
Londoners have good reason
to remember Sir Robert Peel.
Yes, absolutely. Of course,
he passed through Parliament
the Metropolitan Police Act in 1829,
founding the police force
as we know it today.
Originally they were known as peelers.
They wore top hats
and bright white trousers.
But, after that, it became
after his first name, Robert, bobbies.
Peel was to go on to be
Prime Minister twice,
where his achievements included
Acts of Parliament
curbing child labour
in mines and factories.
He was also a keen supporter
of the railways,
cutting the first sod
for the Trent Valley tine in 1845.
But for me, it's another local event
that is Peel's most important
claim to fame.
And it took place here
in the town hall.
This is a delightful
and impressive council chamber.
And here's his portrait, a copy
of the one by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
It shows him as a relatively young man
still, about the age of 30.
- You can see his ginger hair.
- (chuckles)
Peel's first stint as Prime Minister
came at a tumultuous time
in British history.
His political opponents, the Whigs,
had recently instituted
constitutional reform,
bitterly contested by the Tories.
When Peel came to power,
he was determined to start afresh.
He set out his political vision
in a document read out
to the people of Tamworth
from the window of this town hall.
(Michael) What was significant about it?
The main point about it was
that he accepted the Reform Act of 1832.
Which had extended the franchise
to many more voters.
Yes, including the great industrial
cities of Manchester and Birmingham.
The Tamworth Manifesto,
as ifs become known,
is seen as the first example of the kind
of party manifesto that we know today.
And it also set an important precedent.
And actually we've seen that
in politics again and again, haven't we?
That the party that's in opposition
has opposed something
that the government does,
but then it finds
that it becomes the norm,
that it becomes something irreversible.
Then that party has to accept it
to have any chance of being re-elected.
Exactly. We see it time and time again.
It's very interesting
that it started, really, in this room.
Shall we go to the window
and look down on the great man'?
(Nigel) Exactly. Yes.
I'm now joining the Victorian-built
Trent Valley line
to continue my journey north.
On this stretch,
I'm following in the footsteps
of 19th-century thrill seekers.
I'm on my way to Rugeley,
which my Bradshaw's tells me
"will ever be memorable
on account of its having been the
residence of the sporting Dr Palmer,
who was accused of poisoning his wife,
his brother and friend John Parsons Cook
by strychnine."
"But at the post-modem examinations,
not a particle of that poison
was discovered."
Very intriguing. The Victorians
had a taste for the macabre.
And Victorian press was ever willing
to feed their ghoulishness.
In the 19th century,
urbanisation saw people living side
by side with strangers as never before,
and this, combined
with increasingly professional policing,
fuelled a public obsession with crime.
Cheap penny dreadfuls
enabled the masses
to read the lurid details
of infamous murders,
and railway companies even ran
special trains to crime scenes.
Dave Lewis has been researching
the still puzzling case
of Dr William Palmer.
- David!
- Good morning, Michael.
- Good to see you.
- Welcome to Rugeley.
Thank you very much indeed.
Who was this Dr William Palmer?
Well, he was the most infamous person
ever, I think, to live in Rugeley.
People were shocked
because he was a respectable doctor.
He was early 30s when he came to trial.
They were just shocked that somebody
who's taken the Hippocratic Oath
could be accused of so many murders.
(Michael) My Bradshaw's tells me that
he poisoned his wife and his brother.
- Now, was he accused of that?
- He was accused of that,
but he was never brought to trial for
the murder of his wife and his brother.
He was only ever accused
and tried for one murder,
that is the murder of John Parsons Cook.
- Shall I show you the grave?
- Let's have a look.
Cook was a friend of Dr Palmer,
and the events leading to his death
began in 1855.
By that time, the sporting doctor
had all but given up medicine
to indulge his passion for horse racing
and had accumulated
substantial gambling debts.
Well, they'd gone to the races
at Shrewsbury.
There, John Parsons Cook's horse,
Polestar, had won.
He'd won a tidy sum,
whereas poor old Palmer,
his horse, Chicken, had fallen
and he'd lost quite a lot of money and
was even more heavily in debt than ever.
Palmer invited his friend to Rugeley,
installed him in the local pub
and visited him frequently.
Cook became increasingly unwell
and on the seventh night,
shortly after Dr Palmer
had administered two pills,
his patient took a dramatic turn
for the worse.
Here we have on the left
the famous room number ten,
where John Parsons Cook died.
- Was it a painful death'?
- It was a horrendously painful death.
At one stage he was described
as resting on his heels and the back
of his head, he was in so much agony,
At first, Cooks death was ascribed
to natural causes.
But when Palmer claimed
to have lost his friend's betting book,
suspicions were aroused.
The accusation was
that Palmer had dosed Cook
with the rat poison strychnine.
But my Bradshaw's says
that in the post-mortem examination,
no trace of strychnine was found.
That was because of the incompetency of
the people carrying out the post-mortem.
The doctor in charge
arrived from Stafford.
He had no medical equipment. He didn't
even bring a pencil and paper.
The people who cut open the body,
one was a medical student and one was
an assistant at a local chemists.
Despite the botched postmortem,
Palmer was charged.
And the case immediately captured
the public imagination.
(Dave) It was probably
the trial of the century.
In fact, three months before the trial,
the London Illustrated Times produced
a 15-page supplement
which talked about
the Rugeley tragedies,
and all the suspicious deaths
that occurred
that were linked to Dr William Palmer.
Amongst the most shocking claims
was the accusation
that Palmer had killed
his own wife and brother,
both of whose lives he?! insured
for large sums.
He was never tried for those crimes,
but the Cook case was heard
at the Old Bailey in London.
And despite confused
and contradictory evidence,
the doctor was convicted
and sentenced to death.
The execution was back in Stafford
in accordance with the sentence,
and at a time when Stafford
had a population of 12,500,
30,000 turned up for his execution.
They had special trains laid on
from Bristol, from Manchester
and from London.
And evidently his fame survived
a long time after his death.
Oh, he did indeed.
Being in Staffordshire,
they produced pottery figurines.
They have a figurine
of William Palmer himself.
(Michael) Good Lord.
And this is a photograph of his effigy
that stood in Madame Tussauds London
in the Chamber of Horrors for 127 years,
labelled as a mass murder, even though
he was only ever tried for one murder.
Chilled to the marrow by grisly tales,
ifs time to seek the sunshine.
I'm hunting out the picturesque charms
of the Staffordshire countryside.
I'm on my way to Stafford.
My guidebook tells me
that the line passes through
"a country of singular beauty,
having almost the appearance
of one continued park."
These were the estates
of the great landed gentry.
Of the Harrowbys,
Shrewsburys and Dartmouths
and of the Lichfields,
at their estate of Shugborough.
Most readers of my guidebook
satisfied themselves
with a giimpse of Shugborough Park
from the train,
but the upper crust of 19th-century
society would arrive to stay.
In 1832, one visitor was
a young princess,
destined to become
one of our greatest monarchs.
I'm now following in her footsteps.
As I walk across the estate,
across the park, towards Shugborough,
the house appears
in all its magnificence,
and this, I think, is my guide
Hello, Chris.
Hello, Michael. Welcome to Shugborough.
Chris Copp is a local historian.
When Princess Victoria came here,
would she have seen the house
much as it is today'?
Yes. It's very little changed
from October 1832.
What had drawn her to the house?
Well, she was 13 years old.
She came with the Duchess of Kent on her
first tour, really, round the country,
round the grand stately homes
of England.
The future queen arrived
at Shugborough by horse and carriage,
but just 13 years later,
plans were drawn up to build
the Trent Valley Railway
through the heart of the estate.
The Ear! of Lichfield was horrified,
until he realised that there could be
a silver lining.
(Chris) He'd come into
financial difficulties in the 1840s.
He basically negotiated with the railway
company £30,000 in compensation.
That included £2,000 for the land
the railway took up,
and then the rest of the money was
to make good the look of the estate,
to avoid damaging
the appearance of Shugborough.
(Michael) My Bradshaw's tells me
that the railway passes through
a tunnel in Shugborough Park,
779 yards in length.
"The north face of the tunnel is a very
striking architectural composition."
Part of their attempts to make it
a more ornamental look,
to fit in with the other monuments.
The north portal looks
like a Norman castle.
Magnum
sauna-sumac;
Then this side, it's slightly less
impressive, but still ornamental.
It's meant to look like
an Egyptian temple,
but it takes a bit
of a leap of imagination.
In its Victorian heyday,
Shugborough employed 120 indoor
and outdoor staff,
including gardeners, gamekeepers
and farm labourers.
It's still run as a working estate,
and a look at the kitchen garden
brings home the scale of the operation.
A vast walled garden.
(Chris) Yes, and this is only one
of six compartments here.
Some of them are walled,
four walled compartments.
Then the other two are hedged,
But yes, it is a large garden.
Were walled gardens quite an innovation?
They were very fashionable in 1805
when this was built.
Estates at that time were trying
to be more self sufficient,
grow all their own produce.
So as well as the garden here for fruit,
vegetables, flowers, et cetera, honey,
you had the park farm built
at the same time
for meat, dairy products, cereals
and so on.
For illustrious visitors
like the young Princess Victoria,
the estate would pull out all the stops,
offering the very best produce
in lavish banquets.
Above stairs, amid the splendour
of this grand stately home,
it would all seem effortless.
But all that luxury came at a price.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
To get a sense of the graft involved,
I'm visiting the kitchens,
overseen today by resident cook
Penny Lock.
Oh, this is the kitchen
on the grand scale, isn't it?
What equipment have you got here
from the Victorian times?
We have all sons of things. We have
a bottle-jack for spit roasting meat on.
It's actually clockwork. We wind it up
and it spit roasts the meat for us.
We have a lemon squeezer.
(laughs) That is brilliant.
Works very well.
Put half a lemon in there.
The idea is it turns it inside out
as you squeeze it so there's no wastage.
Isn't that beautiful?
What a fine invention.
And even the squashed out lemon
was then given to the youngest girl
to dip in salt
and clean all the copper with.
The kitchens were a mode! of efficiency,
but 19th-century entertaining
was extravagant.
During Princess Victoria's
three-day stay,
the guests got through 76 pheasants
and 67 bottles of sherry.
But some Victorian delicacies have since
disappeared into obscurity.
They would make cucumber soup.
Have a cucumber soup there.
It actually tastes an awful lot better
than it looks.
Erm... and also stewed cucumbers.
Look at that. What have they been
stewed in? What do they taste of?
(Penny) Stewed in salted water to start
with. Then you make a stock up
and put them into the stock
and thicken the sauce from the stock.
It's believed very bad
to eat raw cucumber.
It's very bad for your digestion.
And... this I don't need
to have identified.
Look at that. Wow.
- Did you make that?
- I certainly did.
That's got a real wobble factor on it,
hasn't it'?
What's different from a Victorian jelly
and a present-day jelly?
It takes a long time to make a
Victorian jelly. A good hour or so.
Obviously you have the fresh gelatine
from the farm come up.
All the ingredients are stewed and the
gelatine is added. it's quite a skill.
With so many mouths to feed,
there was no space for idlers
in a Victorian kitchen.
Time for me to get stuck in.
- What's the recipe, Penny?
- They're fresh trout from the river.
(Michael) Mm! What a couple of beauties,
Can we have two glasses of the beer
in there'?
Beer was a big Victorian thing,
wasn't it'?
This beer is made at the brewhouse
on the estate here,
where staff allocated
eight pints of beer a day each.
Eight pints'?
They must have been paralytic!
The brew is made to make the strong ale
and the same mash is brewed
six or seven more times.
That's what the staff would be given,
purely because it's safe to drink.
A little wine, a little lemon...
- (Michael) Like a little thumb as well'?
- Preferably not.
And my trout's ready
for the coat-fired range.
It'll go across
the middle section there.
Once it starts steaming,
it'll take about 20 minutes.
Marvellous. A delicacy fit
for Princess Victoria.
Definitely.
Now for a taste of the kind of dish that
George Bradshaw would have enjoyed.
Cook, this looks very fine.
Excellent.
From the kitchen maid to the earl,
every member of this grand household
had a specific role to pray.
Victorian Britain organised
and Stratified.
As ever, I've been impressed
by Birmingham,
once the metal-bashing centre
of the world,
powered by the impersonal forces
of capitalism and steam.
But this leg of my journey has been rich
in Midlands personalities, too.
Prime Minister Peel, the landed
Lichfields and the poisoner Palmer.
I encountered them all in the pages
of my Bradshaw's Guide.
Next time, I'll explore one of
the greatest locomotive factories
in railway history, ..
The records are sketchy,
but they talk about 20,000 people,
so the size of it was immense.
Discover the dark side
of the Industrial Revolution...
(man) The place was very heavily spoilt
by pollution
and the stench of the sewage.
It was like a large cesspit.
And learn how the potteries
brought their products to the masses
in Victorian times.
This is incredibly difficult.
This is fiendish.