The View from France

Many of the growing numbers of people moving off the land and into the towns and cities as a result of the Industrial Revolution recognised the value of education, and sought to improve their opportunities in life by acquiring knowledge, especially of the technological advances taking place around them.

Books were expensive, but publishers quickly realised there was a market for cheap journals and magazines containing articles about science, technology and the natural world. In Britain one such was "The Penny Magazine", which began in 1832. It was reprinted in America and Australia, and imitated in France and Germany. This is the French version's account of a journey on the newly-opened Liverpool - Manchester Railway.

The illustrations for the articles which appeared in numerous publications were often simply copies of others' engravings published earlier. The illustration of the Sankey Viaduct used in the Penny Magazine was from the north, whilst a view from the south is used here. However, the "quality" publication relating to the Railway was TT Bury's "Coloured Views on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway", published in 1831. Bury's famous illustration shows a view from the north, but the composition of this view is so similar to it, down to the cottage by the abutment and the position of the trees, that it seems very likely that his drawing was adapted by the French artist. It may be noted that no account is taken in the engraving of the presence of the Sankey Brook, which flows through the third arch from the left, a mistake which other artists, including Bury, made.

LES CHEMINS DE FER. (Deuxième partie.)
VOYAGE SUR LA ROUTE DE LIVERPOOL.

No translation, I'm afraid, but a rough precis:

The writer had been travelling around England for some months. Whilst in Liverpool he visited the gaol built by the prison reformer Howard, which had housed French prisoners of war, the Exchange, the Customs House, the lunatic asylum, and the theatre. He was impressed with the docks, with their large capacity, which he saw whilst waiting for the train to depart.

He also inspected the railway workshops, in the company of his English guide. They went through the tunnel beneath the town, which was gas-lit, and had signs showing which streets you were passing under as you went. The miners had been so close to the surface that they were undermining the foundations of the houses above!

At Edge Hill station fixed steam engines drew the coaches up on cables. In the engraving over the page the chimneys of the engines are, as he describes them, in the form of columns.
The writer moves on very rapidly from Edge Hill out of the town, noting the gradual drop which takes the line through Olive Mount and beyond. The bridges over and under the line seem of particular interest.

Two inclined planes, at Whiston and Sutton, bring the voyagers very quickly to "the beautiful valley of the Sankey which the railway crosses on an embankment leading to a nine-arched bridge, each arch being fifty foot wide and seventy foot high. This immense structure, which reminds one of those built by the Romans, is a very bold construction giving passage over the canal cut through the valley."

The journey continues through Newton, with its "gothic chateau", and on to the spot at Parkside where Huskisson was killed.

The route goes on across Chat Moss, with its shifting surface, and on to Barton, which provided a rich contrast with the barren mosslands.

He seems full of admiration for Manchester and its phenomenal growth over the past two decades, which he sees set to continue now that railway will make it "the warehouse for all the goods of Ireland" ... which seems a little strange.

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