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MEANS OF TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATION

Updated: Oct 5, 2020


INTRODUCTION:

  • There was a remarkable improvement in the social life of England during 19th century.

  • Regular feature of English social life during the period includes:

  1. Exchanging social visits;

  2. Visiting relatives and friends in near and distant places;

  3. Going to holiday or health resorts;

  4. All communicating with kith and kin through letters.

  • All this was possible because of the tremendous progress in the means of transport and communication.

RAILWAYS:

  • The most important means of transport in the Victorian period was the railways.

  • It was the outcome of experiments conducted to find the best method of moving coal from the mines to places where it was required.

  • As Trevelyan puts it “the railways were England’s gift to the world”.

  • George Stephenson invented the first railway engine which he named “Active”.

  • The first railway line between Stockton and Darlington was opened on 27th September 1825.

  • Few years later he invented a more powerful engine which could pull the train at a speed of thirty miles per hour.

  • This engine was called “Rocket”.

  • It pulled the train along the railway connection Liverpool and Manchester.

  • It was opened on 15th September 1830.

  • At the opening of this railway, a former Cabinet Minister William Huskisson was killed.

  • Within a decade longer railways were built.

  • London was connected by railways with Birmingham, Brighton and Manchester in 1838.

RAILWAY AGE:

  • The thirty five years between the first two Reform Bills was the Railway age.

  • Great improvements took place in this field during this period.

  • Fast-moving engines were invented and better compartments and other facilities were provided.

  • Many railway companies were started, the most important one was started by George Hudson.

  • George Hudson was popularly known as the Railway King.

  • In about fifty years England was covered with a network of railways.

  • In 1843 there were about 2,000 miles of railways in Great Britain (but the coverage rose to 5,000 in another short period of five years).

  • In 1860 the mileage was just over 10,000 miles, but in 1890 it was nearly 20,000 miles.

  • The Government took various measures to ensure efficient administration of the department.

  • In 1844 the Cheap Trains Act compelled the railway companies to run at least one train a day in each direction at a reasonable fare of one penny a mile.

  • In 1873 to the Board of Trade was attached a Railway Commission (which had power to fix the rates for the carriage of goods and merchandise).

BICYCLE:

  • The popularity of the railway sounded the death-knell of roads and canals.

  • The public mail coach and the heavy family coach disappeared from the roads.

  • However, they continued to exist on by-roads connecting the railway stations and the towns.

  • The roads regained their importance only when the motor vehicles came into use.

  • One thing that helped the roads to regain their long lost importance was the fashionable use of the bicycle.

  • The common use of the motor car and motor-bicycle was yet to come when Queen Victoria died in 1901.

ENGLISH SHIPPING:

  • The rapid growth of the railway was accompanied by the development of English shipping.

  • Iron instead of wood was used for the making of ships and steam replaced sails.

  • As early as 1847, the English steamships were few and small, but in the eighteen-fifties and sixties big ocean-going ships were made.

  • They were made first of iron and afterwards of steel and were increasingly propelled by steam.

  • In 1855 a third of the world's sea-going ships were on the British register.

PENNY POST:

  • An outstanding development in the means of communication was the establishment of the penny post in 1840.

  • It was the result of the tireless efforts of Sir Rowland Hill (who was originally a teacher by profession).

  • Prior to the introduction of the penny post, sending letters was a costly affair (something which the poor could not afford).

  • The Government revenue too was small.

  • Rowland Hill's proposals were based on the following:

  1. A lower rate of postage would increase the revenue of the State by increasing the volume of mail;

  2. All postage rates should be the same without any regard to distance; and

  3. All mail should be prepaid.

  • In connection with the last principle he suggested a device which was subsequently known as the postage stamp.

  • In putting his programme into effect he had to face a lot of opposition from the indifferent statesmen and uninformed civil servants.

  • Carlyle, in one of his letters to his mother, expressed anxiety that the art of letter writing would deteriorate.

  • Nevertheless the system was a boon to many.

  • It enabled the poor for the first time in the history of mankind to communicate with their loved ones (from whom they were separated).

  • When the new postal system proved to be a success in England, it was initiated in every civilized country in the world.

ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH:

  • The same decade witnessed the inauguration of the electric telegraph which was based on the invention of Samuel Morse.

  • After many initial difficulties he was able to build in 1843 the first telegraph line in the United States from Baltimore to Washington.

  • The next year he sent the first message on this line: "What bath God wrought".

  • As telegraph lines spread, the inventor was amply rewarded by many Governments of Europe.

  • The electric telegraph originated as an adjunct of the new railway system.

  • By about 1848 over 1,800 miles of railways were already equipped with telegraph wires.

  • The Electric Telegraph Company formed in 1846 had seventeen offices in London by 1854.

  • The first successful cable was laid in 1866.

  • In the 1870’s Stearns and Edison developed methods of sending more than one message over the wire at the same time.

TELEPHONE:

  • The telephone, the most popular and easiest means of communication, was invented by Alexander Graham Bell.

  • In 1856 he exhibited an apparatus embodying the results of his studies in the transmission of sound by electricity.

  • This inception with modifications constitutes the modern telephone.

  • Two years later when Graham Bell visited England, he demonstrated his invention before Queen Victoria, partly because of the patronage given by her.

  • The first telephone exchange was opened in London in 1879 with seven or eight subscribers.

  • Several telephone companies were organized in Great Britain in the course of the next few years.

Sources:

Social History of England by Louise Creighton

An Introduction to the Social History of England by A.G.Xavier

A Short History of Social Life in England by M B Synge

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