All Change in the Victorian Age

Page 2 of 6

• 1. Rural life
• 2. Railway mania
• 3. Time is money
• 4. The new rat race
• 5. Rural decline
• 6. Find out more
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Railway mania

Although migration itself was not new, it had been difficult and correspondingly rare. The birth of the steam locomotive and the railway networks made it easier and more commonplace. In 1825 the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened, followed by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway five years later. The age of the railway had begun, reducing transport times, lowering transport costs, consuming raw materials and stimulating investment. The 1840s saw 'railway mania': by 1851 6,800 miles of track had been laid. Soon it was possible to travel from London to Bristol in hours rather than days at speeds of around 60 mph.

But what did this actually mean? Reduced travel times inevitably shrank the country and widened horizons from local to national. The old days of local time (as in Bristol) jarred with railways that crossed the country and ran to a national timetable, and in 1845 the rail companies successfully lobbied Parliament to abolish it. The edges of Britain were joining up with the centres - the cities.

'If rail travel shrank the country, the telegraph crushed it.'

The spread of railways stimulated communication, and Rowland Hill's standardisation of postal charges in 1839 saw a boom in mail services. But this was nothing compared to the revolution of the telegraph. If you think the internet is big (and given you're reading this online the chances are you do) then just imagine how much bigger it would seem if you had never before seen a computer or telephone. That's what the telegraph was to the Victorians. If rail travel shrank the country, the telegraph crushed it. It opened in the 1840s and soon went stratospheric - within ten years exchanging telegrams had become part of everyday life. By the mid 1860s London was connected with New York and ten years later messages could be exchanged between London and Bombay in minutes.

This had vast implications for business and communication. The telegraph marked the start of truly global markets and news. It marked an irreversible acceleration in the pace of commercial and everyday life. New mass communication via the telegraph, newspapers and - from 1876 - the telephone meant that the rate of change accelerated further. New inventions, like the X-ray in 1895, could be flashed around the globe in days. The age of media frenzy had arrived.

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Published: 2001-08-01