lodged, and in endeavouring to solve this problem the company were
induced to try an experiment which savoured not a little of
communism, though not so intended. A building was erected which was
locally called the 'barracks,' and it well deserved the name, for at
one time as many as perhaps five hundred men found shelter in it. It
was a vast place, with innumerable rooms and corridors. The
experiment did not altogether answer, and was in time abandoned,
when the company built whole streets, and even erected a covered
market-place for their labourers. They went further, and bore the
chief expense in building a church. A reading-room was started, and
grew and grew till a substantial place was required for the
accommodation of the members. Finally, the 'barracks' was converted
into a place of worship for a Dissenting body, and a grand hall it
afforded when the interior was removed and only the shell left. But
by this time vast changes had taken place, and great extensions had
arisen through private energy. This land was the poorest in the
neighbourhood; low-lying, shallow soil on top of an endless depth of
stiff clay, worthless for arable purposes, of small value for
pasture, covered with furze, rushes, and rowen; so much so that when
a certain man with a little money purchased a good strip of it, he
was talked of as a fool, and considered to have committed a most
egregious error. How vain is human wisdom! In a few years the
railway came. Land rose in price, and this very strip brought its
owner thousands; so that the fool became wise, and the wise was
deemed of no account. Private speculators, seeing the turn things
were taking, ran up rows of houses; building societies stepped in
and laid out streets; a whole town seemed to start into being at
once. Still the company continued to concentrate their works at the
junction, and at last added the culminating stroke by bringing the
carriage department here, which was like planting a new colony. A
fresh impulse was given to building; fresh blocks and streets arose;
companies were formed to burn bricks--one of these makes bricks by
steam, and can burn a quarter of a million at once in their kiln.
This in a place where previously the rate of building was five new
houses in twenty years! Sanitary districts were mapped out; boards
of control elected; gas companies; water companies--who brought
water out of the chalk hills three miles distant: all the
distinctive characteristics of a city arose into being. Lastly came
a sewage farm, for so great was the sewage that it became a burning
question how to dispose of it, and on this sewage farm some most
extraordinary results have been obtained, such as mangolds with
leaves four feet in length--a tropical luxuriance of growth. One
postman had sufficed, then two, then three, till a strong staff had
to be organized, in regular uniform, provided with bull's-eye
lanthorns to pick their way in and out of the dark and dirty
back-streets. One single constable had sufficed, and a dark hole had
done duty as a prison. Now a superintendent and other officers, a
full staff, and a complete police-station, with cells, justice-room,
all the paraphernalia were required; and so preposterous did this
seem to other towns, formerly leading towns in the country, but
which had remained stagnant while Swindon went ahead, that they
bitterly resented the building, and satirized it as a 'Palace of
Justice,' though, in good truth, sorely needed. A vast corn
exchange, a vaster drill-hall for the workmen--who had formed a
volunteer corps--to drill in, chapels of every description, and some
of really large size--all these arose.
The little old town on the hill a mile from the station felt the
wave of progress strongly. The streets were paved; sewers driven
under the town at a depth of 40 feet through solid stone, in order
to dispose of the sewage on a second sewage farm of over 100 acres.
Shops, banks, and, above all, public-houses, abounded and increased
apace, especially in the new town, where every third house seemed to
be licensed premises. The cart-track seen by the luncheon-party in
the furze was laid down and macadamized, and a street erected, named
after the finest street in London, full of shops of all
descriptions. Every denomination, from the Plymouth Brethren to the
Roman Catholics, had their place of worship. Most of the tradesmen
had two branches, one in the upper and one in the lower town, and
the banks followed their example. Not satisfied with two railways,
two others are now in embryo--one a link in the long-talked-of
through communication between North and South, from Manchester to
Southampton, the other a local line with possible extensions. A
population of barely 2,000 has risen to 15,000, and this does not
nearly represent the real number of inhabitants, for there is a
large floating population, and, in addition, five or six villages
surrounding the town are in reality merely suburbs, and in great
part populated by men working in the town. These villages have
shared in the general movement, and some of them have almost trebled
in size and importance. This population is made up of the most
incongruous elements: labouring men of the adjacent counties who
have left the plough and the sickle for the hammer and the spade;
Irish in large numbers; Welshmen, Scotch, and North of England men;
stalwart fellows from York and places in a similar latitude. Yet,
notwithstanding all the building that has been going on, despite the
rush of building societies and private speculators, the cry is
still, 'More bricks and mortar,' for there exists an enormous amount
of overcrowding. The high rents are almost prohibitory, and those
who take houses, underlet them and sublet them, till in six rooms
three families may be living. The wages are good, ranging from 18s.
for common labourers to 30s., 36s., 40s., and more for skilled
mechanics, and the mode in which they live affords an illustrative
contrast to the agricultural population immediately surrounding the
place. As if to complete the picture, that nothing might be wanting,
a music-hall has been opened, where for threepence the workman may
listen to the dulcet strains of 'London artistes' while he smokes
his pipe.
Can a more striking, a more wonderful and interesting spectacle
be seen than this busy, Black-Country-looking town, with its
modern associations, its go-ahead ways, in the midst of a purely
agricultural country, where there are no coal or iron mines,
where in the memory of middle-aged men there was nothing but
pasture-fields, furze, and rabbits? In itself it affords a
perfect epitome of the spirit of the nineteenth century.
And much, if not all, of this marvellous transformation, of this
abounding life and vigorous vitality, is due to the energy and the
forethought, the will of one man. It is notorious that the Swindon
of to-day is the creation of the companion of Brunel at the lunch in
the furze-bushes. Sir Daniel Gooch has had a wonderful life.
Beginning literally at the beginning, he rose from stage to stage,
till he became the responsible head of the vast company in whose
service he had commenced life. In that position he did not forget
the place where his early years were passed, but used his influence
to enrich it with the real secret of wealth, employment for the
people. In so doing, time has proved that he acted for the best
interests of the company, for, apart from monetary matters, the mass
of workmen assembled at this spot are possessed of overwhelming
political power, and can return the man they choose to Parliament.
Thus the company secures a representative in the House of Commons.
Among the institutions which the railway company fostered was the
primitive reading-room which has been alluded to. Under their care
this grew and grew, until it became a Mechanics' Institute, or,
rather, a department of science and art, which at the present day
has an intimate connection with South Kensington. Some hundred
prizes are here annually distributed to the numerous students, both
male and female, who can here obtain the very best instruction, at
the very smallest cost, in almost every branch of learning, from
sewing to shorthand, from freehand drawing to algebra and conic
sections. On one occasion, while distributing the prizes to the
successful competitors, Sir Daniel Gooch laid bare some of his early
struggles as an incentive to the youth around him. He admitted that
there was a time, and a dark hour, when he all but gave up hopes of
ultimate success, when it seemed that the dearest wish of his heart
must for ever go without fulfilment. In this desponding mood he was
slowly crossing a bridge in London, when he observed an inscription
upon the parapet--_Nil Desperandum_ (Never despair). How he took
heart at this as an omen, and went forth and persevered till----The
speaker did not complete the sentence, but all the world knows what
ultimately happened, and remembers the man who laid the first
Atlantic cable. The great lesson of perseverance, of patience, was
never drawn with better effect.
In the Eastern tales of magicians one reads of a town being found
one day where there was nothing but sand the day before. Here the
fable is fact, and the potent magician is Steam. Here is, perhaps,
the greatest temple that has ever been built to that great god of
our day. Taking little note of its immense extent, of the vast walls
which enclose it, like some fortress, of the tunnel which gives
entrance, and through which three thousand workmen pass four times a
day, let us enter at once and go straight to the manufacture of
those wheels and tires and axles of which we have heard so much
since the tragedy at Shipton. To look at a carriage-wheel, the iron
carriage-wheel, one would imagine that it was all one piece, that it
was stamped out at a blow, so little sign is there of a junction of
parts. The very contrary is the fact: the wheel is made of a large
number of pieces of iron welded together, and again and again welded
together, till at last it forms one solid homogeneous mass. The
first of these processes consists in the manufacture of the spokes,
which are made out of fine iron. The spoke is made in two pieces, at
two different forges, and by two distinct gangs of men. A third
forge and a third gang are constantly employed in welding these two
detached parts in one continuous piece, forming a spoke. One of
these parts resembles a [T] with the downward stroke very short, and
the cross stroke at the top slightly bent, so as to form a section
of a curve. The other piece is about the same length, but rather
thicker, and at its larger end somewhat wedge-shaped. This last
piece forms that part of the spoke which goes nearest to the centre
of the wheel. These two parts, when completed, are again heated to a
red heat, and in that ductile state hammered with dexterous blows
into one, which then resembles the same letter [T], only with the
downward stroke disproportionately long. Eight or more of these
spokes, according to the size of the wheel, and whether it is
intended for a carriage, an engine, or tender, are then arranged
together on the ground, so that the wedge-shaped ends fit close
together, and in that position are firmly fixed by the imposition
above them of what is called a 'washer,' a flat circular piece of
iron, which is laid red-hot on the centre of the embryo wheel, and
there hammered into cohesion. The wheel is then turned over, and a
second 'washer' beaten on, so that the partially molten metal runs,
and joins together with the particles of the spokes, and the whole
is one mass. In the ordinary cart-wheel or gig-wheel the spokes are
placed in mortise-holes made in a solid central block; but in this
wheel before us, the ends of the spokes, well cemented together by
the two washers, form the central block or boss. The ends of the
spokes do not quite touch each other, and so a small circular space
is left which is subsequently bored to fit the axle. The wheel now
presents a curiously incomplete appearance, for the top strokes of
the [T]'s do not touch each other. There is a space between each,
and these spaces have now to be filled with pieces of red-hot iron
well welded and hammered together. To the uninitiated it would seem
that all this work is superfluous; that the wheel might be made much
more quickly in two or three pieces, instead of all these, and that
it would be stronger. But the practical men engaged in the work say
differently. It is their maxim that the more iron is hammered, the
stronger and better it becomes; therefore all this welding adds to
the strength of the wheel. In practice it is found quicker and more
convenient to thus divide the labour than to endeavour to form the
wheel of fewer component parts. The wheel is now taken to the lathe,
and a portion is cut away from its edge, till a groove is left so as
to dovetail into the tyre.
The tyres, which are of steel, are not made here; they come ready to
be placed upon the wheel, and some care has to be taken in moving
them, for, although several inches in thickness and of enormous
strength, it has occasionally happened that a sudden jar from other
solid bodies has fractured them. One outer edge of the tyre is
prolonged, so to say, and forms the projecting flange which holds
the rails and prevents the carriage from running off the road. So
important a part requires the best metal and the most careful
manufacture, and accordingly no trouble or expense is spared to
secure suitable tyres. One of the inner edges of the tyre, on the
opposite side to the flange, is grooved, and this groove is intended
to receive the edge of the wheel itself; they dovetail together
here. The tyre is now made hot, and the result of that heating is an
expansion of the metal, so that the circle of the tyre becomes
larger. The wheel is then driven into the tyre, which fits round it
like a band. As it grows cool the steel tyre clasps the iron wheel
with enormous force, and the softer metal is driven into the groove
of the steel. But this is not all. The wheel is turned over, and the
iron wheel is seen to be some little distance sunk, as it were,
beneath the surface of the tyre. Immediately on a level with the
iron wheel there runs round the steel tyre another deeper groove.
The wheel is again heated--not to redness, for the steel will not
bear blows if too hot--and when the tyre is sufficiently warm, a
long, thin strip of iron is driven into this groove, and so shuts
the iron wheel into the tyre as with a continuous wedge. Yet another
process has to follow--yet another safeguard against accident. The
tyre, once more heated, is attacked with the blows of three heavy
sledge-hammers, wielded by as many stalwart smiths, and its inner
edge, by their well-directed blows, bent down over the narrow band
of iron, or continuous wedge, so that this wedge is closed in by
what may be called a continuous rivet. The wheel is now complete, so
far as its body is concerned, and to look at, it seems very nearly
impossible that any wear or tear, or jar or accident, could
disconnect its parts--all welded, overlapped, dovetailed as they
are. Practically it seems the perfection of safety; nor was it to a
wheel of this character that _the_ accident happened. The only
apparent risk is that there may be some slight undiscovered flaw in
the solid steel which, under the pressure of unforeseen
circumstances, may give way. But the whole design of the wheel is to
guard against the ill-effects that would follow the snapping of a
tyre. Suppose a tyre to 'fly'--the result would be a small crack;
supposing there were two cracks, or ten cracks, the speciality of
this wheel is that not one of those pieces could come off--that the
wheel would run as well and as safely with a tyre cracked through in
a dozen places as when perfectly sound. The reason of this is that
every single quarter of an inch of the tyre is fixed irremovably to
the outer edge of the iron wheel, by the continuous dovetail, by the
continuous wedge, and by the continuous overlapping. So that under
no condition could any portion of the tyre fly off from the wheel.
Close by this wheel thus finished upon this patent process there was
an old riveted wheel which had been brought in to receive a new tyre
on the new process. This old wheel aptly illustrates the advantages
of the new one. Its tyre is fixed to the wheel by rivets or bolts
placed at regular intervals. Now, the holes made for these bolts to
some extent weaken both tyre and wheel. The bolt is liable, with
constant shaking, to wear loose. The bolt only holds a very limited
area of tyre to the wheel. If the tyre breaks in two places between
the bolts, it comes off. If a bolt breaks, or the tyre breaks at the
bolt, it flies. The tyre is, in fact, only fixed on in spots with
intervals between. The new fastening leaves no intervals, and
instead of spots is fixed everywhere. This is called the Gibson
process, and was invented by an employe of the company. Latterly
another process has partially come into vogue, particularly for
wooden wheels, which are preferred sometimes on account of their
noiselessness. By this (the Mansell) process, the tyres, which are
similar, are fastened to the wheels by two circular bands which
dovetail into the tyre, and are then bolted to the wood.
To return to the wheel--now really and substantially a wheel, but
which has still to be turned so as to run perfectly true upon the
metals--it is conveyed to the wheel lathe, and affixed to what looks
like another wheel, which is set in motion by steam-power, and
carries our wheel round with it. A workman sets a tool to plane its
edge, which shaves off the steel as if it were wood, and reduces it
to the prescribed scale. Then, when its centre has been bored to
receive the axle, the genesis of the wheel is complete, and it
enters upon its life of perpetual revolution. How little do the
innumerable travellers who are carried to their destination upon it
imagine the immense expenditure of care, skill, labour, and thought
that has been expended before a perfect wheel was produced.
Next in natural order come the rails upon which the wheel must run.
The former type of rail was a solid bar of iron, whose end presented
a general resemblance to the letter [T], which was thick at the top
and at the bottom, and smaller in the middle. It was thought that
this rail was not entirely satisfactory, for reasons that cannot be
enumerated here, and accordingly a patent was taken out for a rail
which, it is believed, can be more easily and cheaply manufactured,
with a less expenditure of metal, and which can be more readily
attached to the sleepers. In reality it is designed upon the
principle of the arch, and the end of these rails somewhat
resembles the Greek letter [Omega], for they are hollow, and formed
of a thin plate of metal rolled into this shape. Coming to this very
abode of the Cyclops, the rail-mill, the first machine that appears
resembles a pair of gigantic scissors, which are employed day and
night in snipping off old rails and other pieces of iron into
lengths suitable for the manufacture of new rails.
These scissors, or, perhaps, rather pincers, are driven by
steam-power, and bite off the solid iron as if it were merely strips
of ribbon. There is some danger in this process, for occasionally
the metal breaks and flies, and men's hands are severely injured. At
a guess, the lengths of iron for manufacture into rails may be about
four feet long, and are piled up in flat pieces eight or nine inches
or more in height. These pieces are carried to the furnace, heated
to an intense heat, and then placed under the resistless blows of a
steam-hammer, which welds them into one solid bar of iron, longer
than the separate pieces were. The bar then goes back to the
furnace, and again comes out white-hot. The swinging-shears seize
it, and it is swung along to the rollers. These rollers are two
massive cylindrical iron bars which revolve rapidly one over the
other. The end of the white-hot metal is placed between these
rollers, and is at once drawn out into a long strip of iron, much as
a piece of dough is rolled out under the cook's rolling-pin. It is
now perfectly flat, and entirely malleable. It is returned to the
furnace, heated, brought back, and placed in a second pair of
rollers. This second pair have projections upon them, which so
impress the flat strip of iron that it is drawn out into the
required shape. The rail passes twice through these rollers, once
forwards, then backwards. Terrible is the heat in this fiery spot.
The experienced workman who guides the long red-hot rails to the
mouth of the rollers is protected with a mask, with iron-shod shoes,
iron greaves on his legs, an iron apron, and, even further, with a
shield of iron. The very floor beneath is formed of slabs of iron
instead of slabs of stone, and the visitor very soon finds this iron
floor too hot for his feet. The perfect rail, still red-hot or
nearly, is run back to the circular saw, which cuts it off in
regular lengths; for it is not possible to so apportion the iron in
each bundle as to form absolutely identical strips. They are
proportioned so as to be a little longer than required, and then
sawn off to the exact length. While still hot, a workman files the
sawn ends so that they may fit together closely when laid down on
the sleepers. The completed rails are then stacked for removal on
trucks to their destination. The rollers which turn out these rails
in so regular and beautiful a manner are driven by a pair of engines
of enormous power. The huge fly-wheel is twenty feet in diameter,
and weighs, with its axle, thirty-five tons. When these rails were
first manufactured, the rollers were driven direct from the axle of
the fly-wheel, and the rails had to be lifted right over the
roller--a difficult and dangerous process--and again inserted
between them on the side at which it started. Since then an
improvement has been effected, by which the rails are sent backwards
through the rollers, thus avoiding the trouble of lifting them over.
This is managed by reversing the motion of the rollers, which is
done in an instant by means of a 'crab.'
Immediately adjacent to these rail-mills are the steam-hammers,
whose blows shake the solid earth. The largest descends with the
force of seventy tons, yet so delicate is the machinery that
visitors are shown how the same ponderous mass of metal and the same
irresistible might can be so gently administered as to crush the
shell of a nut without injuring the kernel. These hammers are
employed in beating huge masses of iron into cranks for engines, and
other heavy work which is beyond the unaided strength of man. Each
of the hammers has its own steam-boiler and its furnace close at
hand, and overhead there are travelling cranes which convey the
metal to and fro. These boilers may be called vertical, and with the
structure on which they are supported have a dome-like shape.
Hissing, with small puffs of white steam curling stealthily upwards,
they resemble a group of volcanoes on the eve of an eruption. This
place presents a wonderful and even terrible aspect at night, when
the rail-mill and steam-hammers are in full swing. The open doors of
the glaring furnaces shoot forth an insupportable beam of brilliant
white light, and out from among the glowing fire comes a massive bar
of iron, hotter, whiter than the fire itself--barely to be looked
upon. It is dragged and swung along under the great hammer; Thor
strikes, and the metal doubles up, and bends as if of plastic clay,
and showers of sparks fly high and far. What looks like a long strip
of solid flame is guided between the rollers, and flattened and
shaped, till it comes out a dull-red-hot rail, and the sharp teeth
of the circular saw cut through it, throwing out a circle of sparks.
The vast fly-wheel whirls round endless shaftings, and drums are
revolving overhead, and the ear is full of a ceaseless overpowering
hum, varied at intervals with the sharp scraping, ringing sound of
the saw. The great boilers hiss, the furnaces roar, all around there
is a sense of an irresistible power, but just held in by bars and
rivets, ready in a moment to rend all asunder. Masses of glowing
iron are wheeled hither and thither in wheelbarrows; smaller blocks
are slid along the iron floor. Here is a heap of red-hot scraps
hissing. A sulphurous hot smell prevails, a burning wind, a fierce
heat, now from this side, now from that, and ever and anon bright
streaks of light flow out from the open furnace doors, casting
grotesque shadows upon the roof and walls. The men have barely a
human look, with the reflection of the fire upon them; mingling thus
with flame and heat, toying with danger, handling, as it seems,
red-hot metal with ease. The whole scene suggests the infernal
regions. A mingled hiss and roar and thud fill the building with
reverberation, and the glare of the flames rising above the chimneys
throws a reflection upon the sky, which is visible miles away, like
that of a conflagration.