Michael Portillo, former government minster turned television presenter (and famous for his brightly-coloured clothes), asked the Gaskell Society’s Chair, Dr Diane Duffy, to contribute to a BBC programme celebrating the bicentenary of the modern railway. Michael set out to explore the transformative effect of railways on Britain by travelling on the world’s first intercity line between Liverpool and Manchester, which opened in 1830. Mary Barton features a dramatic train journey on that same line, making Elizabeth Gaskell (herself a regular rail passenger) one of the first authors to capture the speed of and spirit of rail travel in her fiction.
Diane tells us more….
On a sunny June morning, I set off for Rainhill where I was to meet Michael and the production team before taking a short train journey to Liverpool Lime Street station. En route, I was asked to read the passage from Mary Barton that describes the bustle of the Manchester railway station which, if the story ended before 1842, would have been Quay Street. As Mary is leaving Manchester, she looks back to see the smoke cloud hanging over the city, creating what Ruskin (in a letter from Brantwood, 13 August 1879) calls ‘Manchester devil’s darkness’, where the devil is smoke.
The modern railway follows the same route as the original 1830 line that was hailed as the first intercity passenger railway and a magnificent feat of engineering as it navigated the boggy terrain of Chat Moss. These early trains were a world away from the airy, modern carriages we know today. The early trains had individual carriages which were locked from the outside during the journey. This could be quite intimidating for a woman travelling alone who might be locked in with other, often male passengers. Kate Colquhoun in her book Mr Briggs’ Hat about the first railway murder describes how eighteen-year-old Mary Anne Moody was indecently assaulted by a fellow passenger in one of these isolated compartments. Colquhoun gives a dramatic account of Mary’s attempted escape and how she was saved from almost certain death by a gentleman in a neighbouring compartment reaching through the barred window to hold her onto the ‘primitive footboard’ while the train was steaming along at roughly 40mph. I am sure Elizabeth would have made the most of that drama had she known about it!
Thomas Briggs’ murder on the train in 1864 started a push to transform carriage designs to include a corridor which would allow passengers to move compartments while the train was in motion. The central aisle of our Northern Rail train did just that. In fact, curious fellow travellers negotiated the camera man and sound engineer to try and eavesdrop on this very odd conversation about Elizabeth Gaskell’s use of railways in her novels and her life, a conversation which we constantly had to replay to avoid the perpetual announcements hailing our imminent arrival at yet another station!
The approach to Lime Street station is very impressive, with a rather grand metal and glass roof. We had plenty of time to take in the scenery, as we had to wait until fellow travellers had left before filming could take place (the camera could not capture the faces of any fellow passengers). From the station we followed in Mary’s footsteps down to the docks, where in the novel she hoped to find Will Wilson. Will was the only person who could give Jem, her ‘lover’, an alibi and save him from hanging for the murder of Henry Carson.
On our walk through the station and along the waterfront, we discussed Elizabeth’s attitude to trains in her novels and in her life. In her works railways symbolise the modern world: the progress of science and engineering and the growing wealth of the middle classes, who wished to widen their horizons by travelling at home and abroad. Trains were faster and more comfortable than travelling by road. Charlotte Mathieson states that in 1836, although the speed of road travel had increased to about 10mph, the first passenger train averaged nearly twice that speed (17mph). It appears that even working-class people could afford the fares. Mary Barton asks her friend Will: ‘Why on earth are you walking? You can get [to Liverpool] by rail for three-and-sixpence’.
However, in Cousin Phillis, Gaskell shows a more negative side to railways, as they metaphorically bring the serpent into Eden; Eden being the traditional farming community that is presented as isolated from the modern world. Holdsworth, the chief railway engineer, is presented as a bringer of experience to this innocent world through his work on the railway and his awakening of Phillis’ sexuality. If viewed in a Blakean sense, however, the bringing of experience would be necessary for the community (or in Phillis’ case, the person) to progress. So not all negative!
In Cranford, Captain Brown dies on the railway, and it is at the railway station that Frederick Hale is recognised when escaping from Milton in North and South. As we all know, this implicates his sister Margaret in subterfuge and murder – Elizabeth loved her dramatic incidents. So while there is some ambivalence surrounding railways in her novels, the same did not apply to her life – she was an enthusiastic railway user.
In fact, her letters are a mine of information for anyone wanting to chart the travel times and cost of Victorian railway journeys – she has them all at her fingertips. In 1853, she details a train journey from London Kings Cross to Keighley on her way to visit Charlotte Brontë in Haworth: ‘leaving King (sic) Cross Station at ½ past 10. Gets to Leeds at 5.50PM (Fare 33s) Leave Leeds at 5PM Arrive Keighley at 5-56, Fare 2s-10d’.The journey from London to Leeds took 5 hours 20 minutes, whereas the same journey today would take just 2 hours 11 minutes – a vast difference!
This meticulous planning can also be seen in her continental travels where she details a journey from Cologne to Heidelberg leaving Cologne at 9am ‘via Mayence, Ludwigshaven, Mannheim’ and reaching their destination at 7.30pm: quite a long journey. This same letter also shows the difference in price between first and second class tickets. One journey she plans on the Cologne line offers a first class ticket for 30 frs, a second class fare for 18 francs 40 cents.
Such accurate travel planning would require the use of Bradshaw’s Railway Timetables which were first published in 1839 and after 1841 were published monthly, although Elizabeth’s copies seem to have been consistently out of date. In January 1860 she writes to a friend that Marianne will travel on the Manchester to Liverpool line, leaving Manchester at ‘11-05 am which gets into Edge Hill Station at 12.04 (by a November Bradshaw)’ with the journey taking one minute short of an hour – the timetable was two months out of date. Hopefully the train times did not alter too much during the winter! Today that same journey takes 45 minutes, about 14 minutes faster and a great deal more comfortable!
If you’re based in the UK, you can watch this episode of Michael Portillo’s 200 Years of the Railways on BBC IPlayer until August 2026.