The growth of the railways

The railways needed specialist industries to support them to provide and repair railway locomotives and rolling stock.

This led to the formation of large railway works and adjacent housing: the beginnings of a series of railway works and railway towns such as Crewe, Wolverton, Derby and Eastleigh. Swindon on the Great Western was one. Built at a major junction of the railway, it was built outside and separate from the old town of Swindon which it eventually absorbed.

© Sourced from Swindon: A Railway Town, English Heritage

The railway works and railway village formed an isolated, self-contained new settlement. Despite expansion, it remained physically separate from the old town for much of the nineteenth century.

© National Railway Museum/Science & Society Picture Library

Such a new town needed to generate an influx of labour and above all of skilled labour. This is reflected by the pie chart showing the place of birth of men working for the Great Western Company and living in the railway village.

Notice the high proportion who had come from furthest away from Swindon in the north of England and Scotland. Remember that it was in the coalfields that much of the early expertise in railway locomotives was to be found in the north. This is where Gooch, the first director of the works, had previously been active. The railway workshops needed skilled labour.

Later in the 1860s iron rolling mills were established at the works and then a new type of skilled worker was required, resulting in an influx from Wales and its iron industry. In 1851, there were only 27 Welsh born people in the village but this rose dramatically to 102 in 1861 and 613 in 1871.