The parties adjourned to the hotel. And comforted their hearts with a roast goose and proper drinks. Richard Trevithick
From his earliest years Fred Dibnah, the Bolton steeplejack, hero-worshipped the men who worked up factory chimneys. He loved the cotton industry, the mills and the steam engines, the noise, the smoke and the pride. Fred Dibnah, A Year With Fred s1e1: Monuments of the Dark Ages, BBC 1987
‘Everybody’s like trying to rip everybody else off.’ ibid. Fred
Fred has spent much of his life with steam-engines. The restoration of this roller from a wreck took 14 years of resolute work in which he pressed on through domestic upheavals and public outcry. ibid.
These characters down here you know they’ll like live in the romantic world of long ago. This steam-engine business is really a form of escapism. And it’s like little lads who never grew up. I can’t complain. ’Cause I’m one meself. It’s like an excuse to dress yourself up with a red neckerchief on and a flat cap. Really they’re like romantics trying to escape from modern life in a way. You know. But I think if you really could go back to Victorian times it weren’t that romantic. Fred Dibnah, Life With Fred e1: Part of the Dales on Film, BBC 1994
Nice and tranquil I suppose ... [laughs and glances at punts on river] ... I much prefer a steamboat meself. It’s very nice here in Cambridge. I like it very much. It strikes me as it’s a quite a laid-back existence here being an academic or a student. I can’t say that the life would have suited me, you know. I prefer more of a practical approach to life. ibid. Fred
Men like Brunel. Who built the first steam-ships. ibid.
By 1813 William Cockerill’s manufacturing empire employed fifty blacksmiths and fifteen hundred wool workers. The Fred Dibnah Story e1: Beginnings, BBC 1996
By 1830 Cockerill was the largest integrated company in Europe. Maybe even the world. ibid.
Why I’ve created all this lot here in me back garden – It’s part of a vain attempt to hang on to childhood memories I suppose. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age e1: Wind, Water and Steam, BBC 1999
Engines in steam – there used to be loads of engines like this where I come from. Every coal mine and every spinning wheel had one. But alas they’ve all gone now. ibid.
Up until the 18th century all we had were these things – watermills and windmills. And then this came along … this beautiful little steam train. ibid.
The very first steam-engines weren’t very smooth either. ibid.
The beam-engine became the work-horse of the industrial revolution. ibid.
When we’ve finished with the boiler we always have to blow it down: this is to get rid of the sediment which forms in the bottom. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age e2: Mills & Factories
Arkwright built himself a factory in Derbyshire powered by water to house these machines. And he is really regarded as the father of the factory system. ibid.
It were really coal and iron that started the industrial revolution. Iron to make the boilers similar to this one, and coal of course to burn on them to make the steam to drive all the machinery. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age e3: Iron & Steel
There are still some coal mines around where you can see what it was like to be a miner. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age e4: Mining, BBC 1999
The cage would go down as much as 3,000 feet. ibid.
A strong sense of comradeship developed. ibid.
In 1947 there were nearly three quarters of a million miners in this country. ibid.
National Railway Museum in York: the world’s greatest collection of locomotives … Stephenson’s Rocket: that’s the original inside the museum. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age s5: Railways
It was Robert Stephenson’s father George who is credited as being the father of the railways. ibid.
At the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign they were already building some fairly large and substantial steam engines, and it were about this period when they built the first iron ships. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age s6: Ship & Engineering
The first steam-powered iron ship was the SS Great Britain. ibid.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel: My hero. ibid.
The Victorian age was an age when Britain led the world in making and inventing things; an age when engineering achievement was seen as a symbol of national greatness. Everything was getting bigger and faster. Everything was on a grand scale. Fred Dibnah’s Victorian Heroes s1e1, BBC 2001
These were the men who transformed the face of the country and the world, and turned the Victorian age into the great age of the engineer. ibid.
George Stephenson had a great interest in mechanics and he was involved in the early development of the railways. He is known as the Father of the Railways. ibid.
Robert Stephenson was in the forefront of creating a railway network which was to transform the lives of millions. It was the age of iron. ibid.
Railways, bridges, ships, the lot: Isambard Kingdom Brunel. ibid.
Armstrong never had any formal training in engineering … The greatest armament supplier of the time. ibid.
Britain is full of magnificent examples of architectural and engineering genius. And it stands testimony to the men who actually constructed it all and of course the architects and engineers who designed it. ibid.
Ha ha. I’ve been up a few chimneys in me time, you know, but I’ve never been up one with as nice surroundings as this one. Fred Dibnah’s Building of Britain e4: Scottish Style
Robert Adam’s style was so distinctive they named it after him. ibid.
This is Glamis Castle – the childhood home of the Queen Mother ... One of the best examples of the Scottish Baronial style in existence. It’s a style that was developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. ibid.
By the eighteenth century the leading Scottish architect William Adam began to design country houses that broke away radically from the Baronial style. ibid.
It was William’s more famous son Robert who took some elements of this and added a lot of ideas of his own to create a style of architecture that is named after him. Robert Adam had spent three years travelling around Europe drawing and studying the great buildings of the past. He was particularly impressed by the remains of the ancient Roman buildings he saw, and it was this that influenced the Adam style more than anything else. ibid.
The eighteenth century saw the building of the first canals and with it the birth of civil engineering. Fred Dibnah’s Building of Britain e5: Building the Canals
The canals were like the arteries of the industrial revolution. ibid.
[James] Brindley was actually a mining engineer ... Work on the Bridgewater Canal started in 1759 ... It was opened in 1765. It was an immediate success ... A major engineering achievement. ibid.
His Barton aqueduct which carried boats forty feet above the river was so amazing in its time it was considered one of the wonders of the world. There’s not much of it left now. ibid.
A canal across the Pennines from Leeds to Liverpool ... A hundred and twenty seven miles and climbed over the Pennine chain – the backbone of England. ibid.
The whole enterprise was incredibly expensive. ibid.
There’s more to lock gates than meets the eye. ibid.
Elm is a beautiful timber for chucking in water and lasting for ever. ibid.
It took six years to build this tunnel under atrocious conditions ... Cut and cover – where they dig a great tunnel through the hillside and then put in the centring ... Lay the masonry which had all been cut to shape ... Cover the whole lot up ... Withdraw the wedges from underneath the centring ... And keep advancing like that ... A beautiful stone arch tunnel. ibid.
Those early civil engineers who built the Leeds and Liverpool Canal helped to revolutionise transport in Britain. They made cheap travel across the Pennines possible, and laid the foundations for the Industrial Age. They helped turn Britain into the Workshop of the World in the Victorian Age. ibid.
The magnificent town hall like this one here at Bolton is a grand example of Victorian civic pride. The success and prosperity that the industrial revolution brought to towns like this left us with some magnificent buildings. The Victorians loved to have everything ornate ... The great age of Victorian splendour. Fred Dibnah’s Building of Britain: Victorian Splendour s1e6