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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2023
In 1838 when the first train on the London & Birmingham Railway passed through Rugby, Dr Arnold is reported as saying ‘There goes the death-blow of feudality’. The editor of the Railway Record saw this clearly in July 1846 when he wrote in his leading article:
‘Railways have effected a great social revolution. Brighton, the favoured retreat of Majesty … can now be reached by 2,000 passengers in a single train of 44 carriages, and at a cost of 5s return. The stage coach fare had been ¿1 and it took all day. The train left at 7 a.m. and arrived in Brighton at 9 a.m.’
After the Napoleonic wars, the country had entered a period of depression and unemployment combined with a rapidly rising population. The conditions in Bedfordshire are seen in the Woburn correspondence. There is a letter dated 15th September 1833 from Crocker, the Duke of Bedford’s steward at Woburn, to W. G. Adam, Agent-in-chief in London:
‘ … there are so many unemployed in … Westoning, Flitton, Toddington, etc. and the feeling among them appears to reckless… There was a fire at Eaton Bray yesterday morning which destroyed the Tithe barn.’
In another letter (20th September 1834) Crocker mentions that farmers have lowered wages from 9s to 8s. Shortly afterwards, a new steward, Thomas Bennett states that ‘at Steppingley . . the few farmers there are terrified out of their wits’. Well they might be, for Bennett reports that an outbuilding belonging to the Overseer of the Poor was set on fire, and glass broken in the houses of the Reverend Mr Green and Mr Cook. The burden of the losses by fire fell on to the insurance companies, and Bennett reports on 6th February 1835 that the County Fire Office have sent a police officer to Wilden to try and trace the incendiaries. Bennett saw before most people that the only permanent solution was mass emigration, in a letter to Adam written on 30th November 1834 he said ‘… We have a surplus population … without some means… to dispose of this redundancy the Workhouse system will fail … If this is admitted we must turn … to emigration.
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