The History Group

Leader:  Ronald (Yogi) Godwin - history@ashbyu3a.co.uk - phone 01530 467840

Yogi is ably assisted by Jane Barnett, Barbara Ball, Colin Ellis, Jane Harris and Isobel Salt

Contrary to what you may have heard, the Group is NOT closing but is continuing for at least next year.

All Ashby u3a members are welcome at our meetings.

All meetings with speakers will be held at Packington Memorial Hall on the 4th Thursday of the month.
Doors open for Packington meetings at 2.15pm. Admission £2

Details of visits will be advised closer to the time.
The following dates have been arranged, but may be subject to changes which will be announced as and when they are known.

Thursday 28th August. Bill Devitt ‘What gave rise to the Industrial Revolution’

25 members braved the rain to come and listen to Bill’s talk today. He started out by saying that the Industrial Revolution should really be called the Industrial Evolution as it wasn’t a sudden change but a more gradual move from an agrarian society to an industrial one and that many factors influenced that change.

During the Napoleonic Wars of 1792 to 1815 a huge number of sequestered horse were killed and so the price of horses and fodder reached an all time high forcing people to look for other means of providing ‘horse power’ on farms and for transport. The Newcomen engine had been invented in 1712 to pump water out of Cornish tin mines but it wasn’t until James Watt’s refinements and then Richard Trevithick’s high-pressure steam engine of 1804 that a moving engine ran on rails in Merthyr Tydfil. This was a bit of a false start as the price of horses started to fall and the need for an alternative was less urgent. However stationary engines on a cart hauled, ironically, by horses were starting to be transported to farms and other sites to provide horse power all day long without rest.

Mine owners in Northumberland started to realise that engines on rails could provide a quick and relatively easy way to move coal to the docks and so formed the Stockton and Darlington Railway which was the first public railway in the world using steam locomotives when it opened in 1825. Many other railways quickly followed, both in Britain and abroad. Russia was one of the first to buy rails and engines from Britain. Stephenson’s Rocket appeared at the Rainhill Trials in 1829 and it introduced many improvements and innovations to steam engines, and trains generally, many of which are basically in use today.

Meanwhile large stationary steam engines started pumping water into, and sewage out of, the emerging industrial towns and cities, whilst others were providing power to the mills and other factories in those towns to drive the machines doing all the milling, weaving, metal stamping and other industries that were springing up.

Transport for all those new products was now a bottle-neck. Roads were unsurfaced, rutted and often impassable in winter for the horse-drawn wagons and stagecoaches of the time. Hard-surfaced turnpikes, i.e. private roads, started to appear but they were little better. It was said that highwaymen could walk alongside the coaches to rob them as they were so slow. Canals were better but still slow. Railways started to get longer and to connect towns and cities together. Transport became faster and the need for communication needed to get faster too. Early ideas included the Pony Express in the USA which could get a letter coast to coast in 10 days by horse, but it only lasted 18 months before going bankrupt when the telegraph superseded it making communication nearly instantaneous.

An interesting look at how the Industrial Revolution came about.

Prior to Bill’s talk, Yogi reminded us of the many interesting things that have happened in August over the years, most notably 2 battles (Crecy in 1346 and Bosworth Field in 1485) and the ending of WWII on Aug 15th 1945 with the Japanese surrender.

On September 25th Yogi will be interested in your views on the direction of our History group for 2026. We have tried a ‘themed approach this year, tying up Liverpool with Slavery and Revolution, both agricultural and industrial. Has it worked? If so what themes would you like? Where can we go for our day out? Can we link it a theme? Should we have themes lasting longer than one year? When should we place the planning session in the year? Too early and little evidence to judge or too late giving little planning time.

Note also that the October 23rd talk on WWI Shattered illusions by Danny Wells has been postponed. Due to Hall maintenance work being carried out during that week our session cannot take place. So this session will run one week later on the 30th October. Please alter your programme and personal diaries accordingly.

Earlier history meeting