Reviews for Victorian and Edwardian ships and harbours from old photographs

The average rating for Victorian and Edwardian ships and harbours from old photographs based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-11-06 00:00:00 Michael Oh One of the political parties in the forthcoming election is talking about Nationalisation of British Rail once more, well, there were no such thoughts in Victorian and Edwardian Great Britain as the photographs in this book will reveal. There are dozens and dozens of independent railway companies operating in this period - one of which the Manchester & Milford Railway reached neither of the places in its title - and most of them seemed to doing okay; what that proves I am not sure but it is certainly interesting as is this excellent photographic book which has extensive, and sometimes amusing, captions to accompany the informative captions. The book covers not only the trains and locomotives that were operating on the railways during the period in question but covers such things as stations, construction and destruction of engines, stations and anything else connected with the railway, rolling stock, signalling, staff, railway buses, goods and goods trains, hotels and refreshments, steamers, royalty and notable occasions. And all categories have interesting stories to tell and images to view. For instance the earliest member of a railway staff pictured is Edward Entwistle, who was born in 1815, and who was the fireman on Stephenson's rocket from 1831 to 1833 while a team lineup from the London & North Western shows the Coventry Athletics team in a quaint variety of sporting attire - as the caption notes, 'Shorts were apparently worn long that year.' And there is no sign of any Health and Safety procedures in place in a photograph of the erection of a footbridge at Ingatestone on the Great Eastern Railway around 1900 because there is a girder dangerously suspended from a crane directly above the working party that has stopped work to be photographed! And obviously there is no sign of any hard hats! There are any number of posh railway hotels and refreshment rooms pictured but perhaps the most impressive is the Coffee Room of the Midland Railway at St Pancras in June 1876; it looks simply splendid. It is quite different from the 1908 tea trolley at Euston, where the fare on offer does not look very exciting but at least the boys serving it are very smartly attired. The trains and locomotives on view show how building and design of such engines changed over the years with the earliest pictured being a locomotive built for the Inverness & Aberdeen Railway as a goods engine by Hawthorns of Leith in 1858; it continued in service until being scrapped in 1897. As for the stations, we view local stations, some more developed than others, and main line stations with the Rugby "Down" platform in the 1890s looking very much like many stations, particularly Preston station, that I encountered in my travels around the country in my youth. And the earliest photograph of a station dates to 1860 and it is Newlay station on the Leeds & Bradford Railway where apparently they had four classes of ticket; fourth class must have been a dream! Railway buses is not about replacement buses, of which we had plenty n recent years in Blackpool during electrification of the line out of town, but covers the buses that railways used for advertising purposes, for transporting passengers between stations in the larger cities or even in the case of the Great Western Railway, "Sightseeing Cars", one of which is pictured leaving Paddington in 1907. As for royalty,the sparkling London & North Western Royal train stands on Ollerton Station, despite that station being one belonging to the Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Company. It is surrounded by railway workers dressed in their finest attire as they wait to transport King Edward VII to Doncaster races in September 1906. And five years later the troops are out in force - they are wearing their full bearskin fur hats as they stand guard, armed with their rifles, to prevent trouble at 'vital points' on the Brighton Company's Clapham Junction North Signal Box during the two-day railway strike on 18 and 19 August 1911. Jeoffrey Spence provides an entertaining introduction that demonstrates what a lively and interesting history our railways have had. And there follows 155 images to view in this book that for a child of the steam age, which I am, brings back plenty of nostalgic memories of later train journeys on British Rail.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-07-29 00:00:00 R Pinson I really enjoyed this look at history. There were many very interesting (for me) discoveries amoungst the pages. I did chuckle at some of the tongue in cheek captions too.