Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 5, Episode 1 - Manchester to Birkenhead - full transcript
In 1840, one man
transformed travel in Britain.
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 go,
what to see and where to stay.
And now, 170 years later,
I'm aboard for a series of rail
adventures across the United Kingdom
to see what of Bradshaw's Britain
remains.
From 1830, booming Liverpool
and Manchester were linked
by the world's first twin-track
locomotive-hauled inter-city railway
and a region already enriched
by the mass production of cotton goods
became globally dominant.
I'm beginning a journey around
this Victorian industrial heartland,
starting in a notorious slum and ending
in one oi its grandest stately homes.
Following my "Bradshaw's" guide,
my journey starts in
the world's first industrialised city
before heading west
to Merseyside and Birkenhead.
Hugging the coastline north,
I'll turn inland to
the rugged foothills of the Pennines
and on to the gritty
West Riding of Yorkshire.
My journey ends in Chesterfield,
where the rather of the railway,
George Stephenson, is buried.
On today's leg
I'm travelling through Manchester
from Oxford Road Station
to Old Trafford
before heading along the Mersey
toils once famous ship building port
of Birkenhead.
On the first leg of this adventure
I travel back in time...
George Bradshaw never saw trams.
He didn't know what he was missing.
Go in search
of some left-wing credentials...
Eventually their work after this time
would culminate in
the Communist Manifesto.
Which must be one of the most important
political documents of all time.
“And I surprise even myself
by becoming a red.
(cheering)
At last, the adulation
that I've always craved.
My guidebook says,
"Watt's steam engine,
Arkwright's power loom
and factory system
and inexhaustible supplies of coal
have given superiority to Manchester
which ii has retained to this day."
You can perhaps hear the tone of pride
for Bradshaw was Manchester-born,
but the Quaker George Bradshaw
was probably both impressed
by the productivity of industrialisation
and appalled by its social consequences.
In Victorian times,
Manchester was the beating heart
oi industrial Britain.
During the 19th century,
most of the world's cotton
was processed or woven here
before being exported throughout
the British Empire.
I'm travelling
into Manchester Piccadilly,
where I'll change to the heal network
to head Southwest
to the city's Oxford Road Station.
It was the epicentre of Cottonopolis,
as Manchester had come to be known.
Today I want to look at
those who toiled in the mills,
those who came from
the wrong side of the tracks.
I'm meeting Manchester tour guide,
Phillipa Cave,
who has offered to show me
their side of the city.
In the Victorian era, this area
was known as Little Ireland
and was notorious as
one oi the worst slums in Manchester.
We've descended into a shadowy hollow.
Why was this called Little Ireland?
Well, in Manchester
in the early part of the 19th century,
there's a massive population increase
of people trying to find work
in Manchester's mills.
One of those groups of people
is Irish immigrants
and this area is predominantly
inhabited by them.
And what were conditions like here
for living?
They were dreadful. There were
probably two groups of cottages here.
Maybe 200 of them.
But 4,000 people living in them,
so in one room you might get ten people
living in a space that's only
ten feet by nine feet.
They were also really damp,
these properties.
We are down in a little dip from the
road here and surrounded by a river.
In fact, the cellar dwellings
are below the level of the river
so they would frequently flood.
Anyone who could afford not to live here
would move further out.
And the area was surrounded by chimneys
that would be belching forth
this dense smoke,
and the noise of the crunching
of the machinery in the mills,
the shrieking of boiler engines
and also the incessant beat of the loom,
the rhythm of Manchester.
And I often think of the fact that
George Bradshaw died of cholera.
What was the public health like
in the slum?
Very poor. By 1841,
the average life expectancy is 26 years.
Friedrich Engels,
the son of a German manufacturer,
highlighted the immigrants' plight
and created the text
for a political movement.
He wrote a treatise, "The Condition of
the Working Class in England" in 1844,
documenting
their shocking circumstances.
(Phillipa) "A horde of ragged women
and children swarm about here
as filthy as the swine that thrive upon
the garbage heaps and in the puddles."
"The race that lives in these ruinous
cottages behind broken windows
or in dark, we! cellars
in measureless filth and stench,
this race must really have reached
the lowest stage of humanity."
Powerful writing.
What was he doing in England?
Well, he'd have come from Germany.
His family had
a manufacturing business there
and it was always assumed
that Engels would join that business.
He had rather other ideas.
He'd gone to military school in Berlin,
and become politically engaged.
He began to write
a critique of the manufacturers
and what they were doing
lo their workers.
So his father thought the best way
to bash these radical ideas out of him
and put him back on track
would be to send him to a business
that he co-owned here in Manchester.
Unfortunately, his father
couldn't have sent him to a better place
lo develop those radical tendencies.
Because, as Engels said,
here in Manchester
the modern art of manufacturing
has reached its perfection.
Determined to find a way to eradicate
the exploitation oi capitalism,
Engels teamed up with his friend,
the philosopher Karl Marx.
Both were regarded
as political troublemakers.
Indeed, Marx had recently
been deported from Paris.
Manchester was the ideal place
for the pair to develop their ideas
and can claim to be
the womb of communism.
Qhetham's Library was founded in 1653,
and ls the oldest surviving public
library in the English-speaking world.
I love libraries
and this one is absolute perfection.
What you're seeing here is really how
it would have looked from around 1655,
through Engels's time
and that of Bradshaw,
and it continues like this today.
Books were very expensive
and so originally they'd have been
chained to the shelves
but then later these gates were added.
(Michael) Marx and Engels were coming
here because this was a great resource?
(Phillipa) Absolutely. All the
manuscripts and volumes on philosophy,
economic theory, they'd have access to.
So, what we have here
are some of the actual books
that we know Marx and Engels referred to
when they were studying in the library
in 1845.
Let's see what they were getting up to.
"An Inquiry Into the Duties of Men
in the Higher and Middle Classes
of Society in Great Britain."
"Discourses on the Publick Revenues,
and on The Trade of England."
- Solid topics, aren't they?
- Light reading.
"The Slate of the Poor:
An History of the Labouring Classes
in England. Parochial records."
What was the intellectual relationship
between the two?
Marx is perhaps the better known, but
Engels is working behind the scenes.
He's the more empirical, the more
methodical, and he gets the work done.
He gets the books written.
Marx is perhaps more impetuous,
more impulsive.
He's personally indignant about
the plight of the working classes.
There's one more place I want to
show you before we leave Chelham's.
(Michael) Lead on.
So it's in this alcove,
at this very table,
that Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx
would sit and do their research
from all these books
and they were drawing
on the experience of Engels
from places like Little Ireland,
and eventually their work
after this time
would culminate
in the Communist Manifesto.
Which must be one of the most important
political documents of all time.
A prescription for revolution,
without which there wouldn't have been
a Soviet Revolution.
No Lenin, no Stalin,
no Mao Tse-Tung in China.
And it all began here in Manchester.
So communism was hatched
in this little alcove.
Marx and Engels proved that
the word is mightier than the sword.
An idea honed amongst
dusty library books
had the power to change the world,
to shape the destiny
of nations and humanity.
My own political career left
somewhat less momentous marks
on the development of our species.
In 1989 when I was
Minister for Public Transport,
I had the honour to approve
the contract to build this:
the Manchester Metrolink.
The idea was to use trams
to connect the suburban railways running
into Victoria and Piccadilly Stations,
running along the streets
of central Manchester.
Now it's carrying
21 million passengers a year
and there are plans to make it
the largest light rail system
in the United Kingdom.
With a captive audience
I have an opportunity to find out
how those decisions
have affected Mancunians.
- Hello.
- Hello.
Do you use the tram,
- the Metrolink, very much?
- Yes.
Are you using it on a daily basis
to visit family?
Baby-sitting.
Visiting family in Manchester.
And how do you find it?
Brilliant.
Best thing Manchester has done.
Bradshaw's tells me that Old Trafford
is in the vicinity of Trafford Park,
seat of Sir Humphrey de Trafford
descended from one of
the most ancient of old families.
Nowadays, Old Trafford is associated
with Manchester United
and having had a brother
who was a keen supporter of the club,
my childhood memories
are of its triumphs and tragedies.
And today I'm excited
to be visiting its iconic stadium.
This temple of sport inspires awe
amongst believers
and unbelievers alike.
I'm meeting Graham Simmonds,
a lifelong Manchester United supporter
and one of the club's tour guides.
Imagine you're the captain
of the opposition team
and I'm the captain
of Manchester United.
All the United fans, the hard-core,
passionate supporters, will be here,
traditionally, on this left-hand side,
known as the Stretford End.
(Michael) It's amazing, isn't it?
It's so vast, the seats reaching up
almost into the sky.
Incredible number of people.
How many can be seated here?
It seats 76,000.
It's the biggest in the football league.
(Michael)
I've sometimes spoken to 2,000 people.
(laughs) This is just vast.
So how did ii all begin?
It all started back in 1878
when we were known as
Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire
Railway Cricket and Football Club.
All started by a group of guys that
used to make carriages for the railways
and of a weekend they would go in a pub,
get changed,
and go and play football
in an open field.
The railwaymen of Newton Heath
indulged their passion for the sport,
but couldn't have suspected what would
grow out of their football enthusiasm.
Rival departments and other railway
companies became their adversaries.
These guys had to work
in the carriage works all day
and then they're just playing soccer
in their spare lime.
Yes, very much so. More likely
to be on a Saturday afternoon.
In those days, work took priority.
They would work long hours;
maybe five, five and a half days.
(Michael) So how do we get from
the early days of the railwaymen
to Manchester United?
Newton Heath joined the football league
in 1892.
Unfortunately, after only two seasons
we were relegated
and we got into
some financial difficulty.
But a local brewer saved the club
and the name was changed
to Manchester United.
And I think it helped the supporters
having to shout out,
"Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire
Railway Cricket and Football Club."
(laughs)
Yes, that is not very succinct.
And along with the change of name,
they changed their strip
from the green and gold colours
of the railway company,
to their now familiar red.
As I walk around
what Sir Bobby Charlton
called the Theatre of Dreams,
I can't help thinking about its most
successful manager, Sir Alex Ferguson.
Come on in, Michael.
Sit in the boss's seat.
Middle seat, back row.
There we go. How does that feel?
A surge of power when I sit here.
Controlling the team, the whole stadium
in the palm of my hand.
Now, what do you do?
You do a lot of arm waving, don't you,
like that? ls that right?
Arm waving, clock watching.
Yeah, it feels great.
Now, the team today
is very, very successful.
Tell me about your triumphs.
Our triumphs just seem to go
from strength to strength.
Thirteen times now we've won
the Premiership trophy
in its 21-year period,
three European trophies, 11 FA Cups.
(Michael) So, it's one of the most
successful clubs in the world?
(Graham) I would say so,
if not the most successful.
(crowd cheering)
At last, the adulation
that I've always craved.
After so much excitement,
I've just enough energy
for a short hop
from Trafford Park Station.
I'm heading towards
the Roman town of Warrington.
During the Industrial Revolution,
the town developed and prospered
as a result oi its position
on the new railway network
and the Manchester Ship Canal.
As I'm halfway between
Manchester and Birkenhead,
it's where I'm breaking my journey.
Evidence of the Industrial Revolution
is all around in Warrington.
But communism was not the only response
to the condition of the workers.
Whilst Marx and Engels
regarded factory owners as ruthless men
who ground the noses of the poor
in the dirt,
there were entrepreneurs
who took their social duties seriously.
Here at Warrington Bank Quay Station,
I'm in the shadow
of the Unilever factory.
I'm now on my way to see
the utopian workers' village
created by William Lever,
who gave his name to the company.
But before I can witness the legacy
of Merseyside's mighty soap baron,
I need to change trains at Chester
and my next stop
is just over 20 minutes away.
I'll be getting off at a station
that didn't exist
when my guide was published:
Port Sunlight.
The very name,
borrowed from a bar of soap,
belied the general impression
of industrial towns
as smoky places,
enveloped in dark and gloom.
Port Sunlight was built in 1888
to house William Lever's
soap factory workers
and its 900 houses,
set in 130 acres of parkland,
are a far cry from the filthy hovels
of Little Ireland.
In fact, it's one of the finest
surviving examples in Britain
of early urban planning.
Even today Port Sunlight is a pristine
haven of tranquility and order.
The houses are built with generous
proportions and in fine materials.
William Lever must have been
an exceptional philanthropist.
I'm meeting Lionel Bolland,
chief executive
of the Port Sunlight Village Trust.
- Welcome to Port Sunlight.
- Thank you very much.
Why did William Lever
build Pod Sunlight and why here?
(Lionel) Well, he needed
a site for a factory
because he wanted
to expand his soap production
and he wanted to realise a dream
which was to build an environment,
a community, for his factory workers.
He wanted to see his workforce prosper,
and this was cheap land.
Marshy,
riddled with tidal inlets and ravines,
but superbly located because it had a
port atone side with access to the sea
and it had a railway line on the other
from which he could draw sidings
into the factory.
In fact, just over there is one of
the original entrances into the factory.
The desire to improve living standards
for his workers
had its roots in William's
early ambition to be an architect.
But his father insisted
that he become involved
in the family grocery business.
Looking at Port Sunlight,
there's no doubt that William
was able to apply his ideas
about architecture and society.
Lever obviously provided
a lot oi public space.
What other facilities are there
in the village?
Well, he built a cottage hospital,
so that anybody who worked
for Lever Brothers
would have free medical attention.
Free schooling up to the age of 12.
Al 12, you would have gone and worked,
taken a job.
There was an institute technical college
for those that wanted
to better themselves.
And in 1907,
there was a social study done.
The infant mortality rate
in Port Sunlight
was half of what it was in Liverpool.
Providing that level of care
and commitment was possible
only thanks to Lever's prodigious
ability as a businessman.
By the 1890s,
his factory had become one of the
biggest soap suppliers in the world.
(Michael) This looks like examples
of his marketing.
What's this about £1,000?
In 1885, he put a £1,000 reward up
for anybody who could find
an impurity in Sunlight soap.
Now, that was an astonishing fortune.
A year's salary for a factory worker at
that time would have been about £100.
Nobody ever successfully claimed
that £1,000.
This was an advertising gimmick.
Of course. And that's what
he was so astonishingly good at.
- This looks like the original product.
- Indeed it is.
This is from one of the early boils
of soap.
Was this for the body
or for washing clothes?
It was actually both,
and that was quite significant.
One of the important features of it,
it was very mild,
because of what it was made of.
And you could use it as a household
soap for washing yourself
and also for washing clothes.
Washing clothes in the 19th century
was a demanding physical activity
which began with grating your own soap.
It's quite slow work
getting this grated.
Look at those luscious suds.
(Lionel) That was one of its great
features; it lathered very well.
Made from coconut and palm oil,
Sunlight's slogan was:
"mild because it's pure".
(Lionel) Twist it one way
and then the other quite vigorously.
Alright, Lionel,
I'm doing it quite vigorously.
Now, what you would
very quickly gel here
would be blisters all over your hands.
Right, let's consider that done.
As any housewife will tell you,
Sunlight washes whiter.
It does indeed.
Lever had business acumen,
compassion and imagination.
His philanthropy has often since been
ridiculed for its paternalism
because the people
housed on his model estates
were required to conduct orderly lives
governed by Christian rules.
Marx might not have been impressed,
but I suspect that Lever's workers
were grateful.
The final stop on this first leg
of my journey will be Birkenhead.
Bradshaw's tells me that:
"The Cheshire side of the Mersey
is now a prosperous suburb of Liverpool,
with a softer climate
and more attractive scenery."
"Birkenhead is chiefly engaged
in shipbuilding
with a large docks of 150 acres,
opened in 1847.“
The town's success was due to
William Laird, a Scottish shipbuiider,
who, in 1828, received his first order
for an iron vessel to be used
on the waterways in Ireland.
The business rapidly expanded as the
demand for large iron steamships grew.
This successful shipbuilding family
also helped to establish a new form
of public transport in Europe.
Robert Jones will tell me how
William's son John
shaped Birkenhead's history.
He was chairman
of the town commissioners,
like a chief executive
we'd have these days,
and John brought street railways
to this town.
An idea he got from an American
called George Francis Train.
Have you heard of George Francis Train?
- Can you believe it?
- I have not.
A wonderful guy.
He was the person Jules Verne
based Phileas Fogg on,
Around the World in 00 Days.
And there had never been a tram
in Britain before?
Was this a horse-drawn tram
or an electric tram?
They were horse-drawn trams and they
were called horse railways in America.
We always went for the English term
tramway, really, or tramcar.
John Laird said,
"I'll give you a six-month trial."
And he was so thrilled
that Birkenhead
was going to be the first town
that would have street railways.
(Michael) The first town in England?
The first town in Europe to have
railways running in the street here.
They were smooth running, quiet, cheap.
And was the tram a success?
It was, after a lot of local opposition
in certain places.
But gradually people came around
and as George Francis Train said,
"The age of the omnibus is over."
"The age of the horse tramway
has commenced."
So confident was Mr Train
in his horse-drawn trams
that he made an agreement
with Birkenhead
that if the tramway were a failure,
he would return the town's streets
to their original state
using his own money.
Luckily, the tramway was a success
and Robert's taking me
to Birkenhead's tram museum
to see some of the surviving examples.
These are the most beautiful,
wonderfully restored trams.
Now, George Francis Train,
he introduced a horse-drawn tram.
These are obviously electric.
When do these date from?
This is 1901.
And you're involved in the business
of restoring them here?
- Yes, that's my hobby, Michael.
- Well, you've done a wonderful job.
What condition are these trams in
when you find them?
They were in a terrible condition.
This was found in a field on
the River Dee in a place called Farndon.
And it was just the lower saloon
and we built an upper deck,
obtained the running gear
from Barcelona, built the platforms on.
- A very long job. It took us 15 years.
- And it actually runs?
Yes, I'm hoping we're going
to have a ride on it now, Michael.
Excellent.
Birkenhead 7.0 was built in the town
by the firm of Milnes in the 1900s.
The best way {or me to experience
George Francis Twain's legacy
is to drive a tram. But I don't think
that Marx would fail to recognise me
as unforgivably bourgeois.
- Hello.
- Morning, Michael.
- How are you today?
- Very well.
- Now, how do you drive this thing?
- Right. Number one, the key.
- This goes with you everywhere.
- Right.
That makes sure nobody
can pinch the tram.
Good idea.
So we make sure that the switch
is oft on the circuit breaker.
Put the key in.
This way, this way.
Ah, OK. Right.
Push the key forward.
That releases the control.
What we normally use is four digits.
Today because
we're only going a short stretch,
- we're only going to use two.
- OK, great.
- OK?
- Turn the key off.
Switch it back off.
You keep hold of the key.
Power's now on.
- Key...
- Key inserted.
- Forward.
- Forward.
First notch.
Second notch.
Whoa, this is fun.
- You're doing the brakes?
- I'll do the brakes.
Slow it down.
George Bradshaw never saw trams.
He didn't know what he was missing.
Britain seemed not to know
what it was missing
as so many cities tore up
their tram tracks.
But now trams have made a comeback.
Like trains, we cannot be without them.
The plight of the working classes
required a revolution,
argued Marx and Engels.
William Lever thought a model village
was the answer.
A group of Manchester railwaymen
relieved the tedium of the workplace
by founding a football team.
In my view, Manchester United
has endured better than Marxism.
On the next leg of my journey,
I put a vintage truck to the test...
More than a century old
and still going strong.
“Team how the railways transformed
the seaside oi the Northwest...
Without any doubt they were fundamental
to the future success of the resort.
And I bake a lunchtime staple
of the 19th-century worker.
You have to get a lot of air into it.
- It's already feeling lovely.
- You're quite good at this.
transformed travel in Britain.
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 go,
what to see and where to stay.
And now, 170 years later,
I'm aboard for a series of rail
adventures across the United Kingdom
to see what of Bradshaw's Britain
remains.
From 1830, booming Liverpool
and Manchester were linked
by the world's first twin-track
locomotive-hauled inter-city railway
and a region already enriched
by the mass production of cotton goods
became globally dominant.
I'm beginning a journey around
this Victorian industrial heartland,
starting in a notorious slum and ending
in one oi its grandest stately homes.
Following my "Bradshaw's" guide,
my journey starts in
the world's first industrialised city
before heading west
to Merseyside and Birkenhead.
Hugging the coastline north,
I'll turn inland to
the rugged foothills of the Pennines
and on to the gritty
West Riding of Yorkshire.
My journey ends in Chesterfield,
where the rather of the railway,
George Stephenson, is buried.
On today's leg
I'm travelling through Manchester
from Oxford Road Station
to Old Trafford
before heading along the Mersey
toils once famous ship building port
of Birkenhead.
On the first leg of this adventure
I travel back in time...
George Bradshaw never saw trams.
He didn't know what he was missing.
Go in search
of some left-wing credentials...
Eventually their work after this time
would culminate in
the Communist Manifesto.
Which must be one of the most important
political documents of all time.
“And I surprise even myself
by becoming a red.
(cheering)
At last, the adulation
that I've always craved.
My guidebook says,
"Watt's steam engine,
Arkwright's power loom
and factory system
and inexhaustible supplies of coal
have given superiority to Manchester
which ii has retained to this day."
You can perhaps hear the tone of pride
for Bradshaw was Manchester-born,
but the Quaker George Bradshaw
was probably both impressed
by the productivity of industrialisation
and appalled by its social consequences.
In Victorian times,
Manchester was the beating heart
oi industrial Britain.
During the 19th century,
most of the world's cotton
was processed or woven here
before being exported throughout
the British Empire.
I'm travelling
into Manchester Piccadilly,
where I'll change to the heal network
to head Southwest
to the city's Oxford Road Station.
It was the epicentre of Cottonopolis,
as Manchester had come to be known.
Today I want to look at
those who toiled in the mills,
those who came from
the wrong side of the tracks.
I'm meeting Manchester tour guide,
Phillipa Cave,
who has offered to show me
their side of the city.
In the Victorian era, this area
was known as Little Ireland
and was notorious as
one oi the worst slums in Manchester.
We've descended into a shadowy hollow.
Why was this called Little Ireland?
Well, in Manchester
in the early part of the 19th century,
there's a massive population increase
of people trying to find work
in Manchester's mills.
One of those groups of people
is Irish immigrants
and this area is predominantly
inhabited by them.
And what were conditions like here
for living?
They were dreadful. There were
probably two groups of cottages here.
Maybe 200 of them.
But 4,000 people living in them,
so in one room you might get ten people
living in a space that's only
ten feet by nine feet.
They were also really damp,
these properties.
We are down in a little dip from the
road here and surrounded by a river.
In fact, the cellar dwellings
are below the level of the river
so they would frequently flood.
Anyone who could afford not to live here
would move further out.
And the area was surrounded by chimneys
that would be belching forth
this dense smoke,
and the noise of the crunching
of the machinery in the mills,
the shrieking of boiler engines
and also the incessant beat of the loom,
the rhythm of Manchester.
And I often think of the fact that
George Bradshaw died of cholera.
What was the public health like
in the slum?
Very poor. By 1841,
the average life expectancy is 26 years.
Friedrich Engels,
the son of a German manufacturer,
highlighted the immigrants' plight
and created the text
for a political movement.
He wrote a treatise, "The Condition of
the Working Class in England" in 1844,
documenting
their shocking circumstances.
(Phillipa) "A horde of ragged women
and children swarm about here
as filthy as the swine that thrive upon
the garbage heaps and in the puddles."
"The race that lives in these ruinous
cottages behind broken windows
or in dark, we! cellars
in measureless filth and stench,
this race must really have reached
the lowest stage of humanity."
Powerful writing.
What was he doing in England?
Well, he'd have come from Germany.
His family had
a manufacturing business there
and it was always assumed
that Engels would join that business.
He had rather other ideas.
He'd gone to military school in Berlin,
and become politically engaged.
He began to write
a critique of the manufacturers
and what they were doing
lo their workers.
So his father thought the best way
to bash these radical ideas out of him
and put him back on track
would be to send him to a business
that he co-owned here in Manchester.
Unfortunately, his father
couldn't have sent him to a better place
lo develop those radical tendencies.
Because, as Engels said,
here in Manchester
the modern art of manufacturing
has reached its perfection.
Determined to find a way to eradicate
the exploitation oi capitalism,
Engels teamed up with his friend,
the philosopher Karl Marx.
Both were regarded
as political troublemakers.
Indeed, Marx had recently
been deported from Paris.
Manchester was the ideal place
for the pair to develop their ideas
and can claim to be
the womb of communism.
Qhetham's Library was founded in 1653,
and ls the oldest surviving public
library in the English-speaking world.
I love libraries
and this one is absolute perfection.
What you're seeing here is really how
it would have looked from around 1655,
through Engels's time
and that of Bradshaw,
and it continues like this today.
Books were very expensive
and so originally they'd have been
chained to the shelves
but then later these gates were added.
(Michael) Marx and Engels were coming
here because this was a great resource?
(Phillipa) Absolutely. All the
manuscripts and volumes on philosophy,
economic theory, they'd have access to.
So, what we have here
are some of the actual books
that we know Marx and Engels referred to
when they were studying in the library
in 1845.
Let's see what they were getting up to.
"An Inquiry Into the Duties of Men
in the Higher and Middle Classes
of Society in Great Britain."
"Discourses on the Publick Revenues,
and on The Trade of England."
- Solid topics, aren't they?
- Light reading.
"The Slate of the Poor:
An History of the Labouring Classes
in England. Parochial records."
What was the intellectual relationship
between the two?
Marx is perhaps the better known, but
Engels is working behind the scenes.
He's the more empirical, the more
methodical, and he gets the work done.
He gets the books written.
Marx is perhaps more impetuous,
more impulsive.
He's personally indignant about
the plight of the working classes.
There's one more place I want to
show you before we leave Chelham's.
(Michael) Lead on.
So it's in this alcove,
at this very table,
that Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx
would sit and do their research
from all these books
and they were drawing
on the experience of Engels
from places like Little Ireland,
and eventually their work
after this time
would culminate
in the Communist Manifesto.
Which must be one of the most important
political documents of all time.
A prescription for revolution,
without which there wouldn't have been
a Soviet Revolution.
No Lenin, no Stalin,
no Mao Tse-Tung in China.
And it all began here in Manchester.
So communism was hatched
in this little alcove.
Marx and Engels proved that
the word is mightier than the sword.
An idea honed amongst
dusty library books
had the power to change the world,
to shape the destiny
of nations and humanity.
My own political career left
somewhat less momentous marks
on the development of our species.
In 1989 when I was
Minister for Public Transport,
I had the honour to approve
the contract to build this:
the Manchester Metrolink.
The idea was to use trams
to connect the suburban railways running
into Victoria and Piccadilly Stations,
running along the streets
of central Manchester.
Now it's carrying
21 million passengers a year
and there are plans to make it
the largest light rail system
in the United Kingdom.
With a captive audience
I have an opportunity to find out
how those decisions
have affected Mancunians.
- Hello.
- Hello.
Do you use the tram,
- the Metrolink, very much?
- Yes.
Are you using it on a daily basis
to visit family?
Baby-sitting.
Visiting family in Manchester.
And how do you find it?
Brilliant.
Best thing Manchester has done.
Bradshaw's tells me that Old Trafford
is in the vicinity of Trafford Park,
seat of Sir Humphrey de Trafford
descended from one of
the most ancient of old families.
Nowadays, Old Trafford is associated
with Manchester United
and having had a brother
who was a keen supporter of the club,
my childhood memories
are of its triumphs and tragedies.
And today I'm excited
to be visiting its iconic stadium.
This temple of sport inspires awe
amongst believers
and unbelievers alike.
I'm meeting Graham Simmonds,
a lifelong Manchester United supporter
and one of the club's tour guides.
Imagine you're the captain
of the opposition team
and I'm the captain
of Manchester United.
All the United fans, the hard-core,
passionate supporters, will be here,
traditionally, on this left-hand side,
known as the Stretford End.
(Michael) It's amazing, isn't it?
It's so vast, the seats reaching up
almost into the sky.
Incredible number of people.
How many can be seated here?
It seats 76,000.
It's the biggest in the football league.
(Michael)
I've sometimes spoken to 2,000 people.
(laughs) This is just vast.
So how did ii all begin?
It all started back in 1878
when we were known as
Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire
Railway Cricket and Football Club.
All started by a group of guys that
used to make carriages for the railways
and of a weekend they would go in a pub,
get changed,
and go and play football
in an open field.
The railwaymen of Newton Heath
indulged their passion for the sport,
but couldn't have suspected what would
grow out of their football enthusiasm.
Rival departments and other railway
companies became their adversaries.
These guys had to work
in the carriage works all day
and then they're just playing soccer
in their spare lime.
Yes, very much so. More likely
to be on a Saturday afternoon.
In those days, work took priority.
They would work long hours;
maybe five, five and a half days.
(Michael) So how do we get from
the early days of the railwaymen
to Manchester United?
Newton Heath joined the football league
in 1892.
Unfortunately, after only two seasons
we were relegated
and we got into
some financial difficulty.
But a local brewer saved the club
and the name was changed
to Manchester United.
And I think it helped the supporters
having to shout out,
"Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire
Railway Cricket and Football Club."
(laughs)
Yes, that is not very succinct.
And along with the change of name,
they changed their strip
from the green and gold colours
of the railway company,
to their now familiar red.
As I walk around
what Sir Bobby Charlton
called the Theatre of Dreams,
I can't help thinking about its most
successful manager, Sir Alex Ferguson.
Come on in, Michael.
Sit in the boss's seat.
Middle seat, back row.
There we go. How does that feel?
A surge of power when I sit here.
Controlling the team, the whole stadium
in the palm of my hand.
Now, what do you do?
You do a lot of arm waving, don't you,
like that? ls that right?
Arm waving, clock watching.
Yeah, it feels great.
Now, the team today
is very, very successful.
Tell me about your triumphs.
Our triumphs just seem to go
from strength to strength.
Thirteen times now we've won
the Premiership trophy
in its 21-year period,
three European trophies, 11 FA Cups.
(Michael) So, it's one of the most
successful clubs in the world?
(Graham) I would say so,
if not the most successful.
(crowd cheering)
At last, the adulation
that I've always craved.
After so much excitement,
I've just enough energy
for a short hop
from Trafford Park Station.
I'm heading towards
the Roman town of Warrington.
During the Industrial Revolution,
the town developed and prospered
as a result oi its position
on the new railway network
and the Manchester Ship Canal.
As I'm halfway between
Manchester and Birkenhead,
it's where I'm breaking my journey.
Evidence of the Industrial Revolution
is all around in Warrington.
But communism was not the only response
to the condition of the workers.
Whilst Marx and Engels
regarded factory owners as ruthless men
who ground the noses of the poor
in the dirt,
there were entrepreneurs
who took their social duties seriously.
Here at Warrington Bank Quay Station,
I'm in the shadow
of the Unilever factory.
I'm now on my way to see
the utopian workers' village
created by William Lever,
who gave his name to the company.
But before I can witness the legacy
of Merseyside's mighty soap baron,
I need to change trains at Chester
and my next stop
is just over 20 minutes away.
I'll be getting off at a station
that didn't exist
when my guide was published:
Port Sunlight.
The very name,
borrowed from a bar of soap,
belied the general impression
of industrial towns
as smoky places,
enveloped in dark and gloom.
Port Sunlight was built in 1888
to house William Lever's
soap factory workers
and its 900 houses,
set in 130 acres of parkland,
are a far cry from the filthy hovels
of Little Ireland.
In fact, it's one of the finest
surviving examples in Britain
of early urban planning.
Even today Port Sunlight is a pristine
haven of tranquility and order.
The houses are built with generous
proportions and in fine materials.
William Lever must have been
an exceptional philanthropist.
I'm meeting Lionel Bolland,
chief executive
of the Port Sunlight Village Trust.
- Welcome to Port Sunlight.
- Thank you very much.
Why did William Lever
build Pod Sunlight and why here?
(Lionel) Well, he needed
a site for a factory
because he wanted
to expand his soap production
and he wanted to realise a dream
which was to build an environment,
a community, for his factory workers.
He wanted to see his workforce prosper,
and this was cheap land.
Marshy,
riddled with tidal inlets and ravines,
but superbly located because it had a
port atone side with access to the sea
and it had a railway line on the other
from which he could draw sidings
into the factory.
In fact, just over there is one of
the original entrances into the factory.
The desire to improve living standards
for his workers
had its roots in William's
early ambition to be an architect.
But his father insisted
that he become involved
in the family grocery business.
Looking at Port Sunlight,
there's no doubt that William
was able to apply his ideas
about architecture and society.
Lever obviously provided
a lot oi public space.
What other facilities are there
in the village?
Well, he built a cottage hospital,
so that anybody who worked
for Lever Brothers
would have free medical attention.
Free schooling up to the age of 12.
Al 12, you would have gone and worked,
taken a job.
There was an institute technical college
for those that wanted
to better themselves.
And in 1907,
there was a social study done.
The infant mortality rate
in Port Sunlight
was half of what it was in Liverpool.
Providing that level of care
and commitment was possible
only thanks to Lever's prodigious
ability as a businessman.
By the 1890s,
his factory had become one of the
biggest soap suppliers in the world.
(Michael) This looks like examples
of his marketing.
What's this about £1,000?
In 1885, he put a £1,000 reward up
for anybody who could find
an impurity in Sunlight soap.
Now, that was an astonishing fortune.
A year's salary for a factory worker at
that time would have been about £100.
Nobody ever successfully claimed
that £1,000.
This was an advertising gimmick.
Of course. And that's what
he was so astonishingly good at.
- This looks like the original product.
- Indeed it is.
This is from one of the early boils
of soap.
Was this for the body
or for washing clothes?
It was actually both,
and that was quite significant.
One of the important features of it,
it was very mild,
because of what it was made of.
And you could use it as a household
soap for washing yourself
and also for washing clothes.
Washing clothes in the 19th century
was a demanding physical activity
which began with grating your own soap.
It's quite slow work
getting this grated.
Look at those luscious suds.
(Lionel) That was one of its great
features; it lathered very well.
Made from coconut and palm oil,
Sunlight's slogan was:
"mild because it's pure".
(Lionel) Twist it one way
and then the other quite vigorously.
Alright, Lionel,
I'm doing it quite vigorously.
Now, what you would
very quickly gel here
would be blisters all over your hands.
Right, let's consider that done.
As any housewife will tell you,
Sunlight washes whiter.
It does indeed.
Lever had business acumen,
compassion and imagination.
His philanthropy has often since been
ridiculed for its paternalism
because the people
housed on his model estates
were required to conduct orderly lives
governed by Christian rules.
Marx might not have been impressed,
but I suspect that Lever's workers
were grateful.
The final stop on this first leg
of my journey will be Birkenhead.
Bradshaw's tells me that:
"The Cheshire side of the Mersey
is now a prosperous suburb of Liverpool,
with a softer climate
and more attractive scenery."
"Birkenhead is chiefly engaged
in shipbuilding
with a large docks of 150 acres,
opened in 1847.“
The town's success was due to
William Laird, a Scottish shipbuiider,
who, in 1828, received his first order
for an iron vessel to be used
on the waterways in Ireland.
The business rapidly expanded as the
demand for large iron steamships grew.
This successful shipbuilding family
also helped to establish a new form
of public transport in Europe.
Robert Jones will tell me how
William's son John
shaped Birkenhead's history.
He was chairman
of the town commissioners,
like a chief executive
we'd have these days,
and John brought street railways
to this town.
An idea he got from an American
called George Francis Train.
Have you heard of George Francis Train?
- Can you believe it?
- I have not.
A wonderful guy.
He was the person Jules Verne
based Phileas Fogg on,
Around the World in 00 Days.
And there had never been a tram
in Britain before?
Was this a horse-drawn tram
or an electric tram?
They were horse-drawn trams and they
were called horse railways in America.
We always went for the English term
tramway, really, or tramcar.
John Laird said,
"I'll give you a six-month trial."
And he was so thrilled
that Birkenhead
was going to be the first town
that would have street railways.
(Michael) The first town in England?
The first town in Europe to have
railways running in the street here.
They were smooth running, quiet, cheap.
And was the tram a success?
It was, after a lot of local opposition
in certain places.
But gradually people came around
and as George Francis Train said,
"The age of the omnibus is over."
"The age of the horse tramway
has commenced."
So confident was Mr Train
in his horse-drawn trams
that he made an agreement
with Birkenhead
that if the tramway were a failure,
he would return the town's streets
to their original state
using his own money.
Luckily, the tramway was a success
and Robert's taking me
to Birkenhead's tram museum
to see some of the surviving examples.
These are the most beautiful,
wonderfully restored trams.
Now, George Francis Train,
he introduced a horse-drawn tram.
These are obviously electric.
When do these date from?
This is 1901.
And you're involved in the business
of restoring them here?
- Yes, that's my hobby, Michael.
- Well, you've done a wonderful job.
What condition are these trams in
when you find them?
They were in a terrible condition.
This was found in a field on
the River Dee in a place called Farndon.
And it was just the lower saloon
and we built an upper deck,
obtained the running gear
from Barcelona, built the platforms on.
- A very long job. It took us 15 years.
- And it actually runs?
Yes, I'm hoping we're going
to have a ride on it now, Michael.
Excellent.
Birkenhead 7.0 was built in the town
by the firm of Milnes in the 1900s.
The best way {or me to experience
George Francis Twain's legacy
is to drive a tram. But I don't think
that Marx would fail to recognise me
as unforgivably bourgeois.
- Hello.
- Morning, Michael.
- How are you today?
- Very well.
- Now, how do you drive this thing?
- Right. Number one, the key.
- This goes with you everywhere.
- Right.
That makes sure nobody
can pinch the tram.
Good idea.
So we make sure that the switch
is oft on the circuit breaker.
Put the key in.
This way, this way.
Ah, OK. Right.
Push the key forward.
That releases the control.
What we normally use is four digits.
Today because
we're only going a short stretch,
- we're only going to use two.
- OK, great.
- OK?
- Turn the key off.
Switch it back off.
You keep hold of the key.
Power's now on.
- Key...
- Key inserted.
- Forward.
- Forward.
First notch.
Second notch.
Whoa, this is fun.
- You're doing the brakes?
- I'll do the brakes.
Slow it down.
George Bradshaw never saw trams.
He didn't know what he was missing.
Britain seemed not to know
what it was missing
as so many cities tore up
their tram tracks.
But now trams have made a comeback.
Like trains, we cannot be without them.
The plight of the working classes
required a revolution,
argued Marx and Engels.
William Lever thought a model village
was the answer.
A group of Manchester railwaymen
relieved the tedium of the workplace
by founding a football team.
In my view, Manchester United
has endured better than Marxism.
On the next leg of my journey,
I put a vintage truck to the test...
More than a century old
and still going strong.
“Team how the railways transformed
the seaside oi the Northwest...
Without any doubt they were fundamental
to the future success of the resort.
And I bake a lunchtime staple
of the 19th-century worker.
You have to get a lot of air into it.
- It's already feeling lovely.
- You're quite good at this.