THE REIGN OF A GREAT QUEEN
Many of the changes described in the last three chapters were but
partially accomplished in Cheshire, when a young princess of eighteen
years became Queen of England. The power of steam was known, but the
Cheshire railways were not yet laid, and those who wished to attend the
coronation of Queen Victoria had to use the stage or the family coach
and take a day and a half over the journey.
Telegraph and telephone were also quite unknown, and the penny post had
not yet come into being. That was to follow in the wake of the railways.
During her reign all our main roads were lined with telegraph wires, and
cables laid at the bottom of the seas sent our messages to the uttermost
parts of the earth. The news of distant events, which formerly took
weeks or even months to reach us, may now be read in our newspapers
within a few hours at most.
Inventions without number followed the discovery of electricity. The
shops and warehouses of large towns, railway carriages and ocean liners,
and the homes of the well-to-do are lighted with it. Electric launches
flit along the shores of the Mersey. Tram-cars are worked by
electricity, which also sets in motion the dynamos that work the
machinery of mills and workshops. The pressing of an electric button
sets free the big ships when they take the water for the first time in
the dockyards of Birkenhead.
The wonderful progress made by the engineers of the nineteenth century
is seen in the making of the Manchester Ship Canal, the greater part of
which lies within the county of Cheshire. For many years Manchester's
great ambition was to become a port. The winding and shallow bed of the
inland waters of the Mersey could not be navigated by ocean-going
vessels, and a ship canal was wanted in order that the bales of cotton
might be brought direct from the United States and other cotton-growing
countries to the place where the raw material is distributed. Thus time
would be saved, as well as the expense of unloading at Liverpool and
putting the cargoes on the railways, whose rates were very high.
It was therefore decided to ask Parliament for powers to make a wide and
deep canal, capable of carrying ships of several thousand tons burden.
The railway and canal companies and the Liverpool merchants who
controlled the navigation of the Mersey were afraid that the trade of
Liverpool would be injured, and opposed the scheme vigorously. But
Parliament was wise enough to see what a boon the canal would be to the
cotton towns and the district through which it was to be laid, and
passed the bill for its making. In the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria
the work was begun.
Many millions of money were required for such a vast undertaking, and
more millions were asked for as the work went on. After seven years of
perseverance in the face of tremendous difficulties, the canal was
opened by the queen.
The canal is thirty-five and a half miles long, and, roughly speaking,
two-thirds of it are in Cheshire. The entrance to the canal is at
Eastham, where great locks were built. From Eastham to Runcorn, a
distance of thirteen miles, the canal is tidal and laid along the
foreshore of the Mersey estuary, and protected by an embankment. At
Runcorn 'Gap' the canal and the Mersey, which here becomes very narrow,
are separated by a concrete wall nearly one mile in length.
The rest of the waterway lies inland. Latchford serves as a port for
Warrington, and the locks here always present a busy scene. At Irlam
locks the canal enters Lancashire, and its waters are at this point
forty feet above sea-level. The canal is fed by the River Irwell, whose
waters flow down the canal from Salford to Irlam.
The railways are carried over the canal by lofty bridges, which had to
be made very high to allow the masts of ocean ships to pass under them.
Bays or sidings, where ships may pass each other, occur at intervals.
Wharves and docks have been built at many points along the canal, which
some day may be expected to appear one long seaport.
Ellesmere Port, where the Ellesmere Canal and Ship Canal unite, has
become a thriving place in recent years, and the trade of Runcorn has
also been greatly increased by the canal. Large alkali works have been
built at Weston Point, the most suitable place that could have been
found for them, because they are equally near to the Lancashire
coal-field on the one hand and to the salt beds of Cheshire on the
other. The salt is brought in the form of brine direct from Northwich to
the works by pipes laid underground, a great saving of money, for salt
is heavy and costly to carry.
Though the cotton industry was the one that was expected to gain most
from the canal, the traffic is by no means confined to this commodity.
Grain and cattle are brought from the United States and from South
America, timber from Canada, and hides from the Argentine, and big
cargoes of bananas, oranges, and apples, pass up the canal. In addition
to this oversea traffic, the canal also has a great share of the
coasting trade of the West of England, of which slates from Carnarvon,
and china clay from Cornwall may be taken as the best examples.
The triumphs of engineering and mechanical skill have improved our means
of travelling from one place to another. The great engines that are now
turned out from the locomotive sheds at Crewe are as vastly superior to
the Rocket (models of which are now but a curiosity in our museums) as
the twentieth-century motor-cycle is to the velocipede or wooden
'bone-shaker' that your fathers rode. Horse carriages are fast
disappearing and giving place to the motor-car, and hansoms to the
taxicab. The science of aviation is turning the inventive powers of men
into new channels, and 'flying men' are showing to the world that the
conquest of the air is but a matter of time.
Before the reign of Queen Victoria, few of the children of the poorest
classes were able either to read or write. Such education as these could
receive was given in the Sunday Schools, which Robert Raikes had started
in 1781. The children were hard at work in the mills all the week.
Teachers volunteered for the work, which was carried on in cottages or
disused factories. In 1805, Stockport built the big Sunday School which
still remains, and a hundred thousand children have been grateful for
the simple teaching given to them.
The Education Bills of Queen Victoria's reign brought knowledge within
the reach of all. Education is cheap for the middle classes, free for
the poor. Schools have been built where none existed before. Money has
been found to help any Cheshire boy or girl to receive the very highest
education, and to open up the way from village school to university. The
municipalities have built their own municipal schools in the chief towns
of Cheshire, and technical schools where you may learn a trade. At the
Agricultural School at Holmes Chapel you may be instructed in the newest
and most scientific ways of farming.
The people have learnt to study the laws of health, and to understand
the value of light and fresh air. Towns are cleaner and your homes
healthier. Open spaces, parks and playing-fields, brighten the lives of
the children in the towns, and by making them stronger, fit them the
better for the hard work that lies before them.
Port Sunlight shows how much can be done by those who study the needs of
the working classes. This 'garden city', with its avenues of dainty
cottage villas, is the home of those who work in the big soap-works on
the Mersey. Here everything is done that can make for the comfort and
well-being of the inhabitants. There are schools for the children, and
'institutes' for the young men and women, libraries and reading-rooms,
savings banks to encourage thrift, games, clubs, swimming-baths and
gymnasium for the strong, a hospital for the sick and infirm, ambulance
and fire brigade and a life-saving society, and societies for the study
of literature and science.
You are not all as fortunate as the dwellers of Port Sunlight. But some
day many of you will perhaps see the slums of great towns cleared away,
and you will take care that sunlight is let into dark places. You will
have learned how foolish it is to overcrowd the towns and herd together
in close and mean streets, and you will have the power to say that these
things ought not to be.
The Cheshire County Council was created by Queen Victoria. Its members
are elected, and the Council allows large parishes to elect a Parish or
District Council to manage their own local affairs. But Stockport,
Chester, and Birkenhead do not send members to this Council, for their
populations are so big that they are considered as counties in
themselves. The County Council also controls the education of the
county, keeps roads and bridges in repair, directs the cleansing of the
small towns and villages, and provides a pure water-supply.
New boroughs were made at Crewe, Hyde, and Stalybridge in Queen
Victoria's reign, with a mayor and corporation to direct their affairs.
Macclesfield, you will remember, was a borough in very early times.
Altrincham and Over too, once had their mayors, though they have them no
longer. Their mayors seem to have been men of very humble position, and
to have been looked down upon by their neighbours. You have perhaps
heard of the Cheshire saying:
The Mayor of Altrincham,
And the Mayor of Over--
The one is a thatcher,
The other a dauber.
[Illustration: MODERN GOTHIC: S. MARGARET'S, ALTRINCHAM]
The work of the borough councils has become very heavy during the last
fifty years. Gas, water, electricity, libraries, education, public
health, baths, markets, and police, have their own special committees to
look after them. The handsome Town Halls of Chester and Stockport, the
latter opened only a few years since by the present King George the
Fifth, had to be built to accommodate the small army of clerks who
assist in the government of a great city.
The reign of Queen Victoria was not all one of peace. The war with
Russia, and the terrible mutiny of her Indian subjects with its tale of
horrors and its glorious heroism, brought woe to many a home in
Cheshire. The obelisk by the roadside between Aldford and Farndon
reminds us that the soldiers of Cheshire were often called upon to fight
our battles and too often find a grave in distant lands. Colonel
Barnston, of Crewe Hill, to whose memory this monument was set up,
fought at the siege of Sebastopol. In the Indian Mutiny he was wounded
while gallantly leading an assault at the relief of Lucknow, and died of
his wounds at Cawnpore. Numbers of memorial tablets in the Cathedral of
Chester speak of the lives that were cheerfully laid down by Cheshire
men in the service of their queen and country.
Your fathers will tell you how bonfires were lighted on the beacons and
hill-tops of Cheshire to celebrate the Jubilee or fiftieth year of the
reign of Queen Victoria. Still greater was the rejoicing some ten years
later, when she surpassed in length of reign all previous sovereigns of
England. Nearly every town and village has some memorial of her: a cross
in the village street, a drinking-fountain by the wayside, new bells for
the parish church or a lich-gate for the churchyard, a village 'hall' or
a public recreation ground, these are but a few examples that prove the
love and reverence that Cheshire men and women felt for the great queen
whose only thought was ever for the welfare of her people.
Yet her last years were saddened by the long and costly war in South
Africa, still unfinished when she died. The call to arms was once more
heard from east to west of Cheshire; from town and country,
'reservists' who had thought to end their days in peace were sent
oversea to defend the South African dominions of the queen. The brave
'Cheshires'--the fathers of some of you were among them--served
throughout the war. A gallant Cheshire officer was one of the first to
win distinction. Lieutenant Congreve, of Burton Hall, was one of three
who volunteered to rescue the guns at the battle of Colenso. He was shot
down in the attempt, but was able to crawl to a sheltered place, and
lived to receive the reward that all soldiers strive to merit--the
Victoria Cross.