Railways and agriculture in France and Great Britain, 1850 to 1914 (original) (raw)
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The development of the railway network in Britain 1825-1911
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This chapter describes the development of the British railway network during the nineteenth century and indicates some of its effects. It is intended to be a general introduction to the subject and takes advantage of new GIS (Geographical Information System) maps to chart the development of the railway network over time much more accurately and completely than has hitherto been possible. The GIS dataset stems from collaboration by researchers at the University of Cambridge and a Spanish team, led by Professor Jordi Marti-Henneberg, at the University of Lleida. Our GIS dataset derives ultimately from the late Michael Cobb’s definitive work ‘The Railways of Great Britain. A Historical Atlas’. Our account of the development of the British railway system makes no pretence at originality, but the chapter does present some new findings on the economic impact of the railways that results from a project at the University of Cambridge in collaboration with Professor Dan Bogart at the Univers...
Transport History in France: A Bibliographical Review
The Journal of Transport History, 1987
Transport has constituted and still constitutes one of the main themes in French historiography. For 'many years railways attracted almost all the researcher's attention, but since the beginning of the 1970s several studies have reversed this visible imbalance. The purpose of this article is to examine the most important publications which have extended our knowledge of French transport in the main sectors, roads, waterways and railways.
Railways and Rural Population Change in England and Wales, 1801-1851
Taking advantage of the availability of a novel and extensive dataset of railway lines, I provide the first historical evidence on the effect of railway access on rural parishes within England and Wales in the mid-nineteenth century. Using a difference-indifferences model, I find that early access to this new transport technology significantly increased the rural population level by 13% in 1851. The short-run impact shown here is positive, sizeable and significant. My hypothesis is that rural parishes located among important economic cities received the railways as a " big push " , providing of market access and better economic prospects for its development. This work contributes to the literature on modern transport improvements by estimating the impact of infrastructure on rural development in a developed country and adds evidence to a growing body of empirical research that looks at the causal relationship between railways and economic activity. Last, but not least, the availability of this new dataset also opens up new opportunities for future research, e.g, focusing on long-term impacts or structural change. * I would like to thank Alfonso Herranz and Bruno Caprettini for reading this document and making several useful criticisms, but especially for their help throughout the writing of this paper. I am also grateful to Eduard Alvarez for the provision of the railways database and to Luke McLeary for helped me with the English. Without their valuable assistance, this work would not have been possible.
The First French Railways of Saint-Etienne (1823-1833)
HISTORICAL STUDIES IN CIVIL ENGINEERING, 1996
At the beginning of 1820s, Saint-Etienne collieries were very promising, but enclosed by transportation difficulties. After the Napoleonic Wars, the new situation the first French Industrial Revolution) led to a reorganization of collieries concessions, more favorable to an industrial exploitation. Several possibilities of new transportation system were tried, such as canals, roads and railways, to the cities along the river Rhône, where there were many industrial consumers and important ports. There are few papers and publications on the history of the first French railways, especially Saint-Etienne railways. The aim of this paper is to overview the design and construction of the first French railways by Marc Seguin. His tubular boiler of 1827 and locomotive for the heavy and hilly transportation are also discussed.
Journal of Historical Geography, 2011
Combining the literature on 'city systems' and its intermediary spatial categories with the discourse on 'socio-technical' hybrids, this article examines whether the early ruraleurban condition in Belgium was the planned spatial outcome of infrastructure policy. More specifically, it analyzes the dialectic between the conception of light railways and the geographies of power, tracing its impact on the spatial organization of the territory. In 1911 the British sociologist Seebohm Rowntree stated that Belgium had gone further than any country in supplying its working class with gardens. The dense Belgian railway network encouraged workers to commute between land and labour, travelling from their homes in the healthy countryside to work in urban factories and mines. Despite the agricultural crisis and accelerating industrialization in nineteenth-century Belgium, infrastructure policy had resulted in a peculiar territorial balance between city and countryside by transforming agricultural labourers and farmers into industrial workers without forcing them to leave their ancestral villages. Rather than nostalgically clinging to a disappearing countryside, the government harnessed the modern technology par excellence, combining rails, steam and state management, to safeguard the country as well as to facilitate modern dynamic. Countryside preservation and accelerating industrialization were reconciled in a reshaped configuration that rendered the countryside and its inhabitants simultaneously rural and urban, traditional and modern. As most literature situates the genesis of ruraleurban landscapes after the First and Second World War, this article on latenineteenth-century Belgium adds a further facet to the recently growing international research on hybrid territories within the fields of urbanism and geography.
2015
This research presents a demographic investigation into the effects the development of Britain's railways in the Victorian Era had on the largely rural counties of Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. A 'gateway' to London, this region was traversed by many lines with a wide range of impacts. Railway historiography has questioned the extent to which railways affected national development; contemporary views of their central importance giving way to more critical opinion. Local rural studies have been recognised in addressing this; these at present are, however, few. Comparing and contrasting the three counties, the findings were used to create hypotheses of rural impacts, subsequently tested for accuracy and applicability by comparison with individual settlements. They demonstrated that occupations became decreasingly agricultural; railways having varying involvement. Sometimes a key factor, mostly they were of a supporting nature triggering knock-on effects. Land use became more urbanised but this was not railway originating; contrarily land use affected rail development itself. Railways, nonetheless, actively boosted urbanisation and industry by 1900, and in cases even supported agriculture. Population changes were assisted by railways, particularly rural-urban migration, but while aiding later in the period, railways did not initiate the process. A case study of Wolverton (Buckinghamshire), the first planned 'railway town', reveal exceptional differences even down to the appropriateness of the broader historiography. Limited prior research on this settlement type had been undertaken, and this study revealed their development was more complex than at first glance. As a result, a new structural framework was created to explain how they could transform from company tool to independent town. The contribution of this research is thus threefold. In analysing a new region, another area is added to a growing number collectively building a national understanding from a local level. As a rural region yet close to London, this shows that while current historiographical 'facilitator' views are correct, variation was rife. The hypotheses present a starting point for future rural rail studies-a method for comparing regions alongside a list of investigable aspects. Lastly, the proposed model for 'railway town' development provides a framework for comparison not just of these settlements but potentially other forms of planned 'company town'. While railways were one factor among many, their importance should not be underestimated.
Perhaps the greatest agent of change in nineteenth century Britain was the coming of the railways. Their influence on almost all aspects of life was, to borrow Gourvish's phraseology, 'truly ubiquitous'. 1 Yet when one reviews the general literature on the nineteenth century one is struck by the paucity of scholarly research on the effect of this technological advance on the countryside. 2 This neglect is apparent even within the realm of specialist academic railway literature. Neglect of the impact of the railway on the countryside is apparent even within the realm of railway history. There are excellent studies of its affect on urbanisation, transport, the physical landscape and a wide range of economic issues. 3 John Walton led the way into studies of the role the railway played in the development of rural seaside resorts and the Lake District. 4 However little of this historiography addresses the impact the early English railways had on the socio-economics of the rural communities through which they passed. Some of the few who have examined these matters or part thereof are: the late Jack Simmons, Frank Andrews, Robert Schwartz and David Turnock. 5 Research on the social impact of GWR on the countryside is particularly sparse. The general consensus within almost all of this literature is that the railway was an agent for dramatic change in rural communities. On the one hand it is assumed that they facilitated the seismic shift in the rural/urban balance of the population; an exodus driven by young single people in search of better wages
RAILROADS IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Historiography on Portuguese railroads has not paid much attention neither to their regional effects, nor to the relationship between the operation of this form of transportation and population evolution. In fact, available studies usually adopt a national approach and analyze the contribution of railroads to the overall development of the country. The main argument of this paper is that in the Portuguese case, access to railroads reinforced pre-existing territorial inequalities and promoted different regional dynamics, mainly with regard to population growth, urban development and population mobility. In reality, in the more developed regions, railroad access helped increase population concentration in the areas served by this infrastructure. The railways also favored the growth of pre-existing urban centers and the emergence of new ones. They also encouraged migration into towns, thus contributing to their growth. In the Inland North, where the Tua line is integrated, traditionally affected by greater transportation difficulties, railroads seem to have operated in the opposite direction, contributing to a decline in population relative to the other regions of Portugal. Moreover, this area continued to be characterized by a predominance of modest-sized cities, unable to match the dynamism of the urban centers in the coastal regions or to attract a migrant population to aid in their development. Instead, since the end of the nineteenth century, this region suffered from an increasing emigration that railroads seem to have facilitated. To explain this evolution we must also take into account the economic crisis that affected the agriculture of this part of the country, but the presence of the railroad seems to have been a significant factor. In this paper, we will try to put the Tua line in this context, comparing its effects on population with those caused by the Beira Baixa line in another Portuguese mountainous region around the city of Covilhã.