Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the GWR and anonymous Navvies
I am grateful to Peter Griffin and his piece in Stroud Local
History Society’s Millennium booklet, “Charles Richardson Helps To Bring The
Railway To Stroud”, for giving me the ideas for this piece. Richardson was a
resident engineer for the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway in the
early days of the GWR and Peter was given access to his journal.
Richardson first visited Stroud in the spring of 1835, with
Brunel; he spent his first night in the Royal George Hotel in King Street.
Peter comments that “The evening appears to have been rather lively” - as
Richardson’s journal records “… a great row in the house, one man tore the coat
off the back of another” – but, nevertheless, Richardson had to get up early
the next day to sally forth and commence his duties.
He enjoyed the journey: “…Went in Mr B’s carriage up the
valley of Stroud – beautiful scenery all along”; he then went to carry out some
levelling and surveying near the mouth of the canal tunnel at Sapperton, but
“lost our way by going along wrong road, but came into the line shortly after,
and continued levelling along road through wood till we met a man who showed us
the benchmark – we walked a little further and met Mr Brunel and rest of party
– walked a long way alongside of Canal till we came to Mr B’s chaise.”
His journal also reveals something about the workforce: on
the 20th February, 1837, as a consequence of “Disagreement among the
men [near Gloucester]. Turned off all Baker’s gang except two …” Then on the 2nd
of March, “… Rode to Glos’ter. Paid off nine men and sent Baker, their ganger,
to Sapperton …” Then on the 18th March, “… Walked with Brereton to
Sapperton. Paid men. Had some trouble with Hurst and other of the men. Short of
cash.”
A Working Class
Hero Is Something To Be
Everyone knows the name:
Isambard Kingdom
Brunel,
And everyone knows
that photograph:
The top hat, the waistcoat,
The cigar and the
chain-link,
The busy,
preoccupied,
Self-assured pride
Of the Victorian
engineer,
The man of his
moment,
Proud of his
steamships,
And proud of his
Great Western Railway -
The dignified
certainty of genius,
Knowing that his 120
mile long line
Would run all the long
level way
From Paddington to
Bristol,
With a mean gradient
of just 1 in 1,380,
Just as his drawing
board had intended.
But where are the men
who built it,
And where are the
women,
Who followed the
permanent way?
Where are the Fox
Talbot portraits
Of the men whose
picks and shovels,
Slide rule
discipline,
And one hundred
deaths,
Carried the line
right through Box Tunnel,
So that the sun shone
clean right through,
On Isambard Kingdom
Brunel’s birthday?
Where is the tribute
to their collective anonymity?
A working class hero
is something to be.
Navvies
and Legerdemain
Two
thousand miles of bucket-lift airshafts,
A
million men in diseased shanty towns,
Or lost
on the tramp in the town or the country,
With no
union-pub to rest a wet head,
No
Blacksmith’s Arms or Plough in the county,
A damp
clay embankment instead for a bed;
Or
cutting or gradient, a bridge or a wagon,
A
station or brick works, a clay pit or trench,
Or
making the running up Sonning Cutting,
A forty
foot climb with barrow and earth,
Two
miles of running and landslide bone crushing,
With
pick and with shovel, gunpowder and shot.
Tunnelling
through the mud and the water,
Conned
by contractor and ganger and truck,
Calumnied
by the press and the pulpit,
We
travel today on their muscle and sweat,
And
train names today tell of white collar fame,
But who
can remember a navvy’s true name?
Their
fustian skill and anonymous strength
Built
all our lines on their steam power length,
But
it’s hard to discover a navvy’s true name,
In
railway history’s ledger’s domain.
No comments:
Post a Comment