and now what Bedlamitish sounds meet my ear! Singing on every hand, shouting on every hand, swearing on every hand, whistling on every hand, and the mad iron monster at the front rearing away like nothing else.1(Manchester, 1860)
Lancashire handloom weaver Benjamin Brierley painted a vivid picture of his cheap railway trip from Ashton to Worksop in 1860. It is likely that embarking in a crowd on a railway excursion, possibly for the first time, will have been memorable and pleasurable for those who took part in early trips in the 1840s and 1850s. Certainly for the masses, the act of being part of a large excursion crowd, in space shaped by a new kind of technology, while consuming a strange landscape, was remarkable, and will inevitably have shaped their perceptions and behaviour. While in some areas steamboat excursions were still providing an alternative option, for many people the railway train was the only way in which they could escape
temporarily to new places and landscapes, and as a result their perceptions of time, space and place would be modified. The sociologist Georg Simmel argued that ‘the rapid crowding of changing images, the sharp discontinuity in the grasp of a single glance, and the unexpectedness of onrushing impressions’ could affect
consciousness, and this might reflect perceptions of travelling in the new railway excursion carriages. Wolfgang Schivelbusch compared the experience of the railway journey to that of ‘losing control of one’s senses’ by being shot through the countryside as if in a projectile, but even now little is known about how ordinary people experienced the early railway excursions.2
Simon Blackburn has defined experience as ‘a stream of private events, known only to their possessor’, a directly observed representation of the world. He invokes three personal elements in a reconstruction of experience – the need to remember what has happened, to recognise it and to describe it. However the selective nature
1 Manchester Times, 21 July 1860; C. W. Sutton, ‘Brierley, Benjamin (1825–1896)’, rev.
John D. Haigh, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford,2004) online edn., Oct 2008 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3405 [accessed 17 March 2009].
2
Kurt H. Wolff (ed.), The Sociology of Georg Simmel (New York,1950), p. 410. Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th
of memory and the limited options for the transmission of descriptions of excursions by working class participants constrain this kind of evidence.3 Furthermore the recorded perceptions of the excursionist are mediated; they consist not only of what they saw at the time, but the meaning of this, socially constructed and framed by their past experience, by the editing of his/her personal account and by the experience of the reader.
Experience as an evidential category has been debated by many scholars, for example Joan Scott discussed the use of experience by E.P. Thompson in his
Making of the English Working Class; Dominick LaCapra has argued that the
experiential turn can help historians to fill in the gaps left by subordinate groups in histories, showing how this type of evidence can help us to complement, support and interrogate more traditional sources of evidence, in this case factual press reports, government reports and railway company histories.4 But nevertheless there are methodological issues to be addressed. Scott suggests that if one uses an account of a personal experience at face value, then this would disregard questions about the structure of vision and of language, and of context for example. 5 Indeed her argument might be seen to turn ‘experience’ into a category that demands analysis and historical contextualisation. Thus she urges us to ‘attend to the historical processes that, through discourse, position subjects and produces their experiences.’6 She argues that any historical interpretation of an account of an ‘experience’ is refracted not only through the historical actor’s experience but
through the vision, life history and understanding of the historian his/herself, through historiographical discourses. According to her, it is impossible to interrogate
sufficiently the complexities involved to arrive at an ‘authentic’ reading of this kind of source; the best that might be achieved is to recognise the impact of aspects such as historical context, vision and language on the personal accounts of excursions. But this is an extreme position and scholars such as LaCapra maintain that
3
"experience" The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Simon Blackburn. Oxford University Press, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. University of York.10 June 2012, http://www.oxfordreference.com [accessed 8 June 2012].
4 J. Scott, ‘The Evidence of Experience’, Critical Inquiry, 17 (1991), p.784-5; D.LaCapra,
History in Transit: Experience, Identity, Critical Theory (Ithaca, NY, 2004), pp. 3-4. As an
exampleSimon Willgoss, in his study of the experiences of travellers crossing the North Sea between England and the Netherlands over the last hundred years, has acknowledged these issues, taking into account passenger factors such as motivation, expectation and focus, as well as looking at the impact of the different stages of the journey itself and external factors. (Simon Willgoss, ‘Gateways to Europe: the experience of passengers travelling by rail and sea between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, c.1880-1984’ (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of York, 2010).)
5 J. Scott, ‘The Evidence of Experience’, Critical Inquiry, 17 (1991), 773-797. 6
‘experience’ is a useful category of evidence; Walton has also emphasised the important contribution of experience to tourism.7 At the very least, where accounts of experience are used as evidence in this study, whether from the excursionist, from company record keepers or from other observers, these must be critically examined and triangulated with others where possible. Despite all the difficulties of using experience as evidence, it is still the closest we can approach an
understanding of what happened when people travelled.
This chapter will examine evidence of how trains were used by the working classes on excursions in this early period, developing their leisure mobility. In analysing personal accounts it is possible to identify components of experience, such as emotions, sounds and self-esteem. The rare accounts of excursion experience provide new evidence for these affective aspects not covered in the traditional reporting of an activity. For example it is possible to trace novelty as a component, triggering emotion, a sensual excitement, thus shaping the
excursionist’s gaze. The research considers the role of the experience of novelty in remapping identities: Berghoff has noted how ‘the encounter with the unfamiliar forces the traveller to reflect on his or her home country, to define his or her own place in the world and to erect borderlines between him or herself and the foreign’.8 An examination of excursion accounts also helps us to understand how underlying factors, such as gender, shaped experience.
It is extremely challenging to capture evidence of such activity by ordinary
people, rather than from the middle and upper classes whose diaries and letters are more often found in archives.9 There has been little research on the personal
experiences of the masses taking part in excursions because relevant sources have not been available. As Gareth Stedman Jones has pointed out, we can barely see the ‘blurred and rather undifferentiated features of the rural and urban masses’ in the history of leisure, behind all the groups who feature rather more prominently in research - Methodists, magistrates and employers for example.10 But this makes the task of using what is available all the more important. This chapter discusses
evidence from the rare personal accounts of excursion trips identified in the press,
7 John K. Walton, ‘Thomas Cook: Image and Reality’, in Richard Butler and Roslyn Russell,
Giants of Tourism (Cambridge, Ma., 2010), p. 83.
8 H.Berghoff and B.Korte, ‘Britain and the Making of Modern Tourism: an Interdisciplinary
Approach’, in H.Berghoff and others (eds.), The Making of Modern Tourism: the Cultural
History of the British Experience 1600-2000 (New York, 2002), p. 8.
9
For examples see Chapter 1, footnote page 18/19.
10 G.Stedman Jones, ‘Class Expression versus Social Control: a Critique of Recent Trends
with the aim of illuminating and counterbalancing the easier discussion of reports made from the perspective of observers. It thus provides a contribution to studies of the historical consumption of working class transport. The chapter also examines some personal letters published in the press describing particular difficulties. Most accounts appeared in the northern liberal press, such as the Preston Chronicle and
Manchester Times, presumably because of the prevalence of trips in those areas
but also arising from the support which those publications gave to working class activity. There are further examples from national papers such as the Liberal Daily
News, which was generally supportive of labour reform.11
There are elements of railway trips which appear to remain undescribed in evidence, such as how people dealt with the absence of toilets on their long journeys in locked compartments and open wagons, as these were generally not available until nearer the end of the nineteenth century. Other elements which remain uncovered include the potential for sexual harassment activity in the liminal space of the carriage (see the next chapter for a further discussion on this).
The trips explored in this chapter are mainly day trips by rail, predominantly in the north of England. They are important because they offer a perspective quite
different to that of other stakeholders: the railway company board would have been trying to maximise economic benefits, the line manager coping with unprecedented crowds and the newspaper correspondent seeking to paint a rosy picture of events in his own town, to celebrate its aspirational status, or possibly they sought to criticise activity which did not align with the editorial views of the publication. Accounts of experience help to show us why the working classes extended their leisure mobility in great numbers at this time, how the experience impacted on their world view and what was important to them during their journey. They also serve to challenge traditional views of the development of the passenger railway.
Analysis of accounts
The analysis focuses firstly on four detailed press accounts of an excursion experience, examining the components of these, and how the excursion experience was framed by past experience. It then draws out some common themes from these accounts and from further short accounts from the press, with the aim of answering the questions posed in the previous section.
11
The Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900. http://www.victorianperiodicals.com [accessed 16 January 2012].
There were a few brief accounts in the press in the 1840s, but longer articles started to appear in the late 1850s, featuring male travellers writing about a trip, often for the first time, and mostly taking a positive attitude to this new experience. There is potential for the future study of ballads and dialect literature in capturing leisure experiences. Their appeal to the working classes in Lancashire and
Yorkshire especially, with themes of class and regional identity, was represented by Patrick Joyce as a kind of ‘inner voice’ of the northern working class, for example work by Edwin Waugh and Ben Brierley.12 Joyce saw dialect as a ‘marker of regional virtues’, defining a sense of northern superiority when describing London habits. Although such writings started to appear from the 1840s, these appeared more extensively after 1860, outside the study period.13 Thomas Wright, the journeyman engineer, featured material about Saint Monday leisure and Sunday trips in his work, but again this focused on the period after 1860.14
It is not clear why the periodisation of excursion accounts in the press occurs, as the excursion was quite common by the later 1850s, whereas during the late 1840s it would have been much more novel and hence newsworthy. In the 1850s the experience of a train journey was becoming less novel than the act of seeing a particular sight at a destination. Nevertheless in some cases descriptions of perceptions in and around the carriage are significant.
By 1860, excursion trains had become commonplace, and the characteristics of the crowds which they created were to give rise to an element of snobbery by people caught up in such occasions. Punch featured humorous and often cynical accounts of tours undertaken by middle class travellers encountering excursionists around this period.15 The Railway Traveller’s Handy Book, published in 1862, advised that excursion trains, while useful for ’the humbler classes and the economically inclined’, were ‘not best calculated for the ordinary traveller’:
The confusion and bustle, the irregular times of departure and arrival, and the boisterous company into which one is thrown, although of very little moment to the person who only has a travelling bag, and who sets off for a few days’ jaunt, are ill-calculated for the railway traveller who
12
Patrick Joyce, Visions of the People (Cambridge, 1991), p.277.
13
Patrick Joyce, Visions of the People (Cambridge, 1991), pp.256-304,
14
T. Wright, Some Habits and Customs of the Working Classes by a Journeyman
Engineer (London, 1867), pp. 115-130, 240-241.
15
has a sober journey to perform, and is burdened with its attendant responsibilities and cares.16
The emphasis here is of course on the ‘traveller’, regarded as a higher status than trippers or excursionists, as Walton has noted, and almost always based on class distinctions.17 Thus the middle class ‘traveller’, who might be forced to mix with working class excursionists, might be prevented from being ‘serious’ on such a journey. Furthermore it was assumed that only the higher status traveller could appreciate in sufficient depth what he or she was seeing on their travels. A discussion on the excursionist as a traveller is included in Chapter 7.
Although the current chapter draws upon mostly working class accounts of experiences, a few sources have been used from accompanying middle class travellers, to highlight contrasting class perspectives. There is also valuable evidence in letters to the press, mainly where a passenger felt aggrieved about an issue, from a mixture of classes. These provide a rather more negative element, a counterpoint to the many provincial press reports of excursions which offered a very stylised and flattering account of crowd behaviour and their reception by people at the destination. As the following examples show, these described scenes of rational recreation, good behaviour, excellent relationships between participants and
organisers and a safe return home:
16
Jack Simmons (ed.), The Railway Traveller’s Handy Book of Hints, Suggestions and Advice before the Journey, on the Journey and After the Journey (1862, reprint, Bath, 1971),
p. 44.
17 John K.Walton, ‘British Tourism between Industrialisation and Globalisation’, in H.Berghoff
and others (eds.), The Making of Modern Tourism: the Cultural History of the British
Liverpool Mercury, 17 August 1852
Leicester Chronicle, 16 July 1859
The press even adopted this approach when reporting what to modern eyes appears to be an inappropriate and voyeuristic trip:
Yorkshire Gazette, 27 March 1852
The following four accounts are all near contemporaneous, written a few days or weeks after a trip, rather than retrospective: thus recollections should be fairly clear at this stage. This type of account forms a natural ‘story’, suitable for publication for
a popular readership, as the railway excursion has an inherent beginning, middle and end, and thus it is perhaps surprising that more accounts were not published earlier.18 Some of the themes highlighted in these accounts will be discussed in more detail later.
The role of anonymity in this evidence might be regarded as problematic, but then this would apply also to valuable evidence in letters to the press, reports and commentary, which tend to be either anonymous or pseudonymous. It is not unusual, Griffin has suggested that anonymity was a key feature of authorship for much of the nineteenth century, arising from a variety of motivations but freeing authors from ‘social and political pressures’.19
He suggests that despite the advantages of being able to use authorial information from outside a text to help construct meaning, there can be an advantage to the reader in viewing a text as a stand-alone, with no background knowledge of the author, focusing attention on the text itself. In the case of the current research the lack of authored evidence, while limiting, does not prevent us making effective use of anonymous accounts, while assessing the social context in which they were written.
a) An Excursion Train (Daily News,1855)20
An anonymous account of a cheap trip from London to Portsmouth on the London & South Western Railway was originally published in Household Words. It appears on the surface to be an amusing account of a personal experience. However an exploration of the anonymous writer is revealing: Robert Brough, journalist and poet, was celebrated as a parodist who supported working-class causes and held a ‘deep vindictive hatred of wealth and rank and respectability’.21 It is actually a semi-fictional satirical piece, and his motivation was to highlight
stereotypes and mock prevailing attitudes to excursions at the time.
18
The four accounts all appear as lengthy newspaper pieces, as a result the quotes are not referenced separately.
19
Robert J. Griffin (ed.), The Faces of Anonymity: Anonymous and Pseudonymous
Publication from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century (New York and Basingstoke, 2003),
pp.6-15.
20
Daily News, 20 October 1855 (from Household Words). The Daily News was noted for its occasional use of satirical pieces (C. Mitchell, Newspaper Press Directory (London, 1847), p. 65).
21
The anonymous writer was identified by Lohrli as playwright, journalist and poet Robert Barnabas Brough; A.Lohrli, Household Words: A Weekly Journal 1850-1859 (Toronto, 1973), pp. 145, 214. C.Dereli, ‘Brough, Robert Barnabas (1828–1860)’, Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography (Oxford, 2004) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3577 [accessed 13
Unusually the writer’s focus is on the journey itself: ‘we are not going to write a guidebook...all we have to do with at present is the excursion train’. He asserts his class perspective by defending the ‘dense crowd of pleasure seekers’ waiting at the station, as no less unmannerly than those at the opera. This article highlights the wide range of travellers which might be found in an excursion carriage, the effects of mixing classes in close proximity which had not previously occurred. He portrays his fellow excursionists as ‘all very common people, doubtless’ but they suggests that needed to enjoy themselves and so ‘acquaintances were quickly formed’. Typically he notes that all were soon in friendly communication, ‘chattering away as busily as though we had been friends for years’, and deduces that ‘there is some hidden excitant in excursion trains to conversation.’ Nancy Green has observed the ‘comparative gaze’, where the traveller seeks to position their new experiences within the frame of their past experiences, and this writer demonstrates this by recalling the experience of a previous long journey in a first class carriage, where there was hardly any conversation.22 He satirises that travel ‘in an open carriage by an excursion train’ is ‘horribly plebeian’ and ‘low’, especially so because it is so ’disgracefully cheap’ – around 2s 6d per hundred miles.This account is valuable in confirming the use of ‘vulgar’ open carriages for excursions, even in 1855, while at the same time describing the alternative third class carriage adversely, as ‘fitted with a stifling low roof, with wooden shutters that keep the light out, and louvre boards that let the draught in’. Even worse the writer says that he has travelled on such a train on a Sunday, mocking Sabbatarians. He suggests that his nearest neighbour,