For Edwardian Britons, a Bradshaw's was an indispensable guide
to a railway network at its peak.
I'm using an early-20th-century edition to navigate
a vibrant and optimistic Britain,
at the height of its power and influence in the world...
..but a nation wrestling with political, social and industrial
unrest at home.
My journey continues in north-west England.
At the beginning of the 20th century,
about 60% of adult male householders had the vote
and Britain had swung decisively from aristocratic
towards democratic.
The Labour Party was founded in 1900,
and by 1910 had 42 seats in parliament.
The voting intentions of working men and, therefore, the way they lived
their lives, were now of interest even to the establishment.
The new importance given to the common man was not lost on women,
who still did not have the vote, no matter what class they were.
I began in the industrial town of Warrington,
pointed north to Preston and Blackburn,
and now turn south to Manchester.
I'll cross the Peak District to Elsecar,
before heading for Derby
and Birmingham.
I'll finish in the Potteries
at Stoke on Trent.
The second leg of my journey begins in Blackburn,
and continues to Nelson,
from where I strike south to Manchester.
On my way, I learn of a shocking attack...
The attendants, the first they hear is this repeated striking
against glass.
..catch a rare glimpse of Edwardian life...
All the way back at the beginning of the 20th century,
already people who saw cameras were going, "Eeerrrrr!"
Yeah, absolutely.
..and brave the enemy camp...
You know I'm a Tory because...? You haven't paid for your tea.
I haven't paid for my tea!
I'm on my way to Blackburn to catch early movies.
Moving images were just a series of stills,
moving through the projector fast enough to fool the human eye,
but this cinematographic illusion had an immeasurable impact on
society, and has provided us with a new lens through which to
view history.
At the time that my Bradshaw's Guidebook was published,
Blackburn's cotton industry was at its peak,
but the town was also home to a new industry -
film-making,
which was pioneered here by Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon.
Their work lay hidden for 70 years before it was recently rediscovered.
At Blackburn's Empire Theatre,
I'm hoping to understand the importance of this momentous find.
800 precious reels of film are now in the care of Patrick Russell
from the British Film Institute.
Great to be here.
I'm looking forward to this,
but, tell me, who were Mitchell and Kenyon and how did they make
their films?
Well, Mitchell and Kenyon were early film pioneers,
based here in Blackburn, who produced literally hundreds of films
in the very late Victorian and the Edwardian period,
most known for fiction films and for films about the Boer War.
I mean, purporting to be Boer War films but actually reconstructions
shot here in England.
It sounds as though they might have been quite epic.
Mini-epics, perhaps - cottage industry products.
It was only when this large collection of 826 original negatives
that Mitchell and Kenyon had produced was discovered
that it was realised that actually the core of their business
was this very large number of non-fiction films that were made,
not with the intention of being documentary makers or anything
like that at all, but a commercial enterprise,
the majority of which were commissioned by travelling showmen
and would have been shown at fairgrounds or in other venues
like town halls sometimes.
And based on a very simple business model -
get as many people into the frame as possible,
and then you will make an honest dime
when they turn up at the fair and have the chance to see
themselves on screen.
Let's see some of the films.
So, one of the genres, if you like, to be found in Mitchell and Kenyon's
work is sporting events.
The kind of things I notice here are the length of the shorts
and the fact you had have to have a policeman already
at a football match. Yes, indeed.
The camera manages to follow the action reasonably well.
It's impressive.
I mean, you've got to think about how bulky 35mm cameras
were at the time.
So, this is St Ignatius School in Blackburn.
Here, the quality of the image is extraordinary.
And, of course, the boys, in particular,
look at the camera as a great novelty. Yeah, absolutely.
None of these kids would have ever seen a film camera before
and you, sort of, can imagine the banter between the camera operator
and the kids as they come forward.
What I rather like is the contrast between how formally they're dressed
and how naughty they are. Yes.
So, the most prevalent genre, if you will,
amongst the Mitchell and Kenyon films
is what we call the factory gate.
So, this is people leaving a foundry here in Blackburn.
And interesting for me to note that all the way back at the beginning of
the 20th century, already people who saw cameras were going, "Eeerrr!"
Yeah, absolutely.
You get every possible human reaction from cheek to
bemusement, excitement...
Ah, now we're onto an industrial scene.
An industrial scene.
This is a colliery in Pendlebury, which is about 25 miles
down the road from here in Blackburn.
Where does all this fit in, in the history of film?
I mean, firstly, there had always been a bit of a focus
in the early history of films on the development of
the early film industry in London and the south-east of England,
and here were some very, very prolific and successful producers
based here in Blackburn.
I mean, this is industrial Britain.
Well, that was extraordinary material.
With this clarity, it's almost as though you could reach out
to the screen and touch and converse with these people.
It has an immediacy. Absolutely.
I mean, when we first saw the images that we'd produced
through our restoration process, it felt to us a little bit
like lifting the veil on Edwardian Britain.
With that vivid picture of what life was like at the beginning of
the 20th century, I continue my journey east.
My next stop will be Nelson.
Given that Britain had pioneered capitalism,
and that Marx and Engels had met in Manchester as early as 1845,
it's perhaps surprising that this country didn't have
a Communist Party until after the Russian Revolution,
and even the predecessor to the Labour Party, the ILP,
wasn't founded until 1893.
By then, intellectuals on the left were loudly sounding
socialism's clarion call.
That call would be answered by the Edwardian mill and factory workers
of the smog-bound industrial towns of East Lancashire.
Did I see you photographing the train? You did, yes.
Are you a bit of a train spotter. I am, yes.
The train we were photographing, there, I didn't think was
a particularly distinguished one.
It's one of these ones that's a bit like a bus on a chassis. It is, yes.
It's actually built off a Leyland National bus... Yes.
..and British Rail just came with the idea of, we need multiple units,
and that was the idea of just building them as cheap as possible,
and just for a few years.
But they're still worth photographing, are they? Yeah, yeah.
They're going at the end of the year or possibly a little bit longer,
so I'm just trying to photograph them as much as I possibly can.
Well, I'm very lucky to bump into you.
And you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.
In the Pendle Hills above Nelson is the last Clarion House in England.
Built in 1912, it was one of many in Britain at the time.
These working-class clubs were inspired by new socialist ideas
being published by the Clarion newspaper.
Slightly out of my comfort zone...
Hello, everyone. ALL: Hello.
What a jolly gathering this looks!
What fun. You've got some tea on the go, have you?
Sue Nike and Carol Hopkins joined 30 years ago.
Would you like a pint or a half?
I'll have a pint.
Isn't that in the Tony Benn tradition?
A pint of tea, yeah.
A pint of tea. Yes, yeah, yeah...
So, Clarion House - why the name Clarion?
Well, Clarion means to proclaim loudly,
and that was part of the early socialist tradition.
So, from the earliest days the idea was to take socialism, what,
out into the streets, out into the country even?
Well, really, this place is a bit of a relief for people who worked
in mills and factories, to get out into the countryside, get some fresh
air and meet each other and talk about issues,
which included their rights.
And how was the word of socialism carried around?
They started off with old Clarion vans,
usually drawn by horses and carts and...
And, what, and people standing on the back with a loud hailer?
Yeah, loud hailers, proclaiming loudly.
What were the slogans in those days?
We're talking about, what, the late 19th century, I suppose?
What do you think they'd shout out, Carol?
"Rights for the workers."
"Workers of the world unite."
Ah-hah!
SHE LAUGHS
And I saw a lot of bicycles outside -
were they using bicycles to carry the word, as well? Yeah.
There was a lot of Clarion cycling groups.
So you're giving me the impression
it's something that's actually quite well organised.
So, there's a newspaper. Yeah. There are the Clarion vans.
There's a cycling club. There's a Clarion House. Yeah.
Anything else?
Choir! A choir! Yes.
A Clarion choir.
All things that raise your spirits, to be honest,
because their working lives were quite...quite hard.
Yes, but, well, let's, erm...
Let's bring it all up to date.
Who are regulars here at Clarion House?
Everybody, really. What? You're all regulars?
It looks like some of you are cyclists.
Cycling, yep. Yorkshire meets Lancashire here.
So, we chew over who's the better bike riders...
LAUGHTER
I'm a Yorkshireman.
I've been coming here since 1958.
That is 60 years. That's right, yes.
So what draws you back again and again?
Well, just the companionship and the camaraderie,
and we sort the world's problems out here at dinnertime, you know!
Now, camaraderie is an interesting word. Are you still comrades?
ALL: Yes. Yes?
So, do you have political discussions in here?
Yes. Yes.
And tell me this, am I the first...
Tory! ..Tory...
Am I the first Tory to set foot in here?
We know you're a Tory cos you haven't paid for your tea yet!
You know I'm a Tory because...?
You haven't paid for your tea yet!
I haven't paid for my tea!
Lifelong socialist Jack Burrows remembers the harsh conditions
from which workers sought to escape.
In your childhood, what kind of a place was Nelson?
A beautiful place because there was community,
but it was dirty.
From railways, of course. From what else?
Well, smoke and mill chimneys.
All the children and all my friends,
we used to try and count the chimneys.
And, of course, we couldn't, because there were hundreds.
When you were a little lad, were your parents bringing you to the
Clarion House?
They did.
I've been coming to the Clarion House now for 88 years.
Ha!
And when I was young, everything was all based round the Clarion
and the ILP.
For your parents, or for you for that matter, was politics
an important part of it? Did you come here to talk politics?
Well, yes.
Once upon a day, there'd be someone on the top of the steps
every Sunday, talking to the assembled throng below.
I mean, we've had big, big politicians at the top of these
steps, and in the Labour rooms just over the hill in Nelson,
we've had Ramsay MacDonald there.
We've had Philip Snowden.
We've had all the big socialists of that era talking, and, of course,
we've had Keir Hardie down in Nelson on three occasions.
Well, I wondered whether I'd escape from here with my life,
but, actually, I felt quite a warm welcome.
Well, you are welcome.
We don't take any bias against anybody these days,
and, let's face it, it all depends on the personality of the person,
doesn't it?
It's a new day, and my rail campaign continues south.
I'm heading for Manchester Victoria.
The Manchester Guardian of the 4th of April 1913 -
"Manchester Art Gallery outrage.
"Three women arrested.
"Just before 9:00, an attendant heard crackings of glass.
"He found three women making a rush around the room, cracking the glass
"of the most valuable pictures."
The motive was political.
I don't know whether you could say that the women were canvassing
for support, but they certainly put women's suffrage in the frame.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be arriving into
Manchester Victoria, where this train will terminate.
Manchester Victoria has been here since 1844,
and it was given a lovely Italianate facade
around the time of my guidebook,
but the latest edition is this spectacular glass roof.
This has been added since I was last here,
and the station is now looking magnificent.
From 1894, the Manchester Ship Canal gave the city direct access to
the Irish Sea and new transatlantic trade opportunities beyond...
..but there were choppy waters ahead.
It was behind this neo-classical facade, so representative
of respectability, of the male-dominated old order,
that the outrage occurred.
Hello, Hannah. I'm Michael.
I'm meeting Hannah Williamson, Manchester Art Gallery's curator
of fine art, who will walk me through the scene of the crime.
So, the women would have entered by this entrance.
Well, we assume so. It's the normal public entrance and they were coming
in, sort of, faintly undercover as normal members of the public.
Who were they?
Annie Briggs is a housekeeper from Castleton near Rochdale
and Lillian Forrester is a married woman from Whalley Range
in Manchester, and Evelyn Manesta is a governess from Whalley Range.
Now, I think we're approaching their target, aren't we? Yeah.
This way you'll see one of the one of the ones they particularly
targeted, actually.
This one? It may not be the biggest,
but it's by one of the biggest names.
It's by George Frederick Watts - Paola and Francesca -
and this is one of the works that is recorded as having the worst
damage, so not just the glass, but it went through to the canvas a bit.
And the attendants, the first thing they hear is this repeated striking
against glass.
Are more of their targets in this area?
Yes. This picture here, Arthur Hacker's Syrinx,
and Captain Andromache by Frederic Leighton.
Which one is that? That's this one here.
And that was glazed at the time,
so there was a lot of smashing to do there.
And these? Yes, both of these.
This is The Last Watch Of Hero, also Frederic Leighton,
and Burne-Jones' Sybilla Delphica, also smashed.
And what they were using was not a massive weapon but a tiny hammer,
like a toffee hammer.
The sort of hammer you use today, actually, if you're going to break
the glass in an emergency on a train.
Oh, yeah, like on a train, exactly. Most effective.
Any more?
Well, this gorgeous picture here,
Rossetti's Astarte Syriaca.
Also hit.
You can make a connection between their targets, can't you?
They're going for the big, the famous, the eye-catching.
It doesn't seem like they're trying to completely wreck them
because it's a political action.
What occasioned the action?
Oh, well, it was just hours before that Mrs Pankhurst
had been sentenced to three years for inciting suffragette action.
So, the three women in Manchester were quite quick off the mark,
showing their outrage at their leader being in prison.
So, the attendants rush in and presumably they seize the women.
Yes, but there are only two attendants and there are
three women, so it's quite a dramatic scene when they call to
the guard on the door, who shuts the main doors.
The third woman is trapped.
Why do you think they attacked art?
I suppose art is a symbol of power,
and if you want to go right to the heart of power,
you attack the things that powerful people choose to display.
I love paintings, and even at a distance of 100 years,
I am shocked that anyone would take aim at art.
But, then again, of course, I'm the sort of male establishment figure
who was the real target of the attack.
Do you know that in the art gallery over there some suffragettes
attacked some of the paintings with hammers?
They did it just to show and make a point.
They wanted to show that, "We exist. Please pay attention."
If the authorities would have paid attention, they wouldn't have gone
that far to break something.
In that art gallery over there, they smashed the glass on paintings -
could that have been justified? Yeah, I think so.
I think if it was to make a statement and it was standing up
for what you believe in, then definitely.
What do you think might have been in their mind
if they were attacking famous paintings?
I think it's probably a way of just, sort of, going against the system
and a way to be heard,
and maybe it was violent, but it's worth it.
Nearly 100 years earlier in 1819,
ordinary men and women protested together for reform
at St Peter's Fields in Manchester.
What began that day as a peaceful demonstration ended in massacre.
15 dead and more than 600 injured.
If at the time of my guidebook the Government had been nervous of
the masses, almost a century before, it had assumed that revolution
was imminent,
and in that state of fear the Peterloo Massacre occurred.
I'm now making my way to the south of Manchester.
I think if you say to most British people "suffragette",
they will immediately think of the Pankhurst family,
a mother and three daughters who helped to shape the course of
British history, and who added mightily to
Manchester's reputation for radicalism.
The Pankhurst House, now incongruously situated in the middle
of the Royal Manchester Infirmary,
stranded like an island amidst modern development.
Elaine De Fries curates the Pankhurst Centre...
Hello, Elaine. Hello Michael.
..which, appropriately, is now home to a women's community organization.
Oh, yes, a very nicely recreated period room.
So, why did you do a recreation?
Because something momentous happened in this space in 1903 -
it was the first meeting of the Women's Social and Political Union.
Was the WSPU militant, radical, from the outset?
At the very first meeting, they decided on their motto,
which was, "Deeds, not words."
They felt that there had been enough peaceful talk,
so they were going to break the law to catch attention.
And were the daughters of the family radicalised by the time
of the foundation of the WSPU?
Oh, yeah. They had been brought up by their parents to believe
they were equal to men.
They were educated. Christabel studied law.
Sylvia was an artist.
They were an educated, militant family who believed
that they could make a difference.
What were their tactics?
They wanted to break the law and they did it in very public places.
They wanted to go to prison
because they knew their voices would be heard.
They decided to burn down empty properties, to destroy those things
that men had,
so they were disobedient and deliberately disobedient.
Led by their mother, Emmeline, Christabel and her sister Sylvia
targeted high-profile events to get maximum exposure.
In 1905 at the very important meeting at the Free Trade Hall,
a Liberal Party meeting, which was being addressed by Edward Grey
and Winston Churchill, they wanted to make the point that
the Liberal Party didn't espouse their views on women's equality.
So, they went and they unfurled a banner and they shouted out,
which, of course, in a meeting entirely of men was unheard of.
They were thrown out of the meeting, and Christabel spat in the face
of a police officer and was thus arrested.
When did they conceive of the tactic of a hunger strike?
The original tactic wasn't a hunger strike, but they wanted
to be considered political prisoners so they had to protest in some way.
But the authorities had had enough of this, so they decided
that they would force-feed them.
I'd like to show you this piece.
It was commissioned by the Pankhurst Centre
from the artist Charlotte Newson.
It's a photo mosaic composed of photos of women
that were nominated by members of the public,
and I think it's a very effective depiction of Emily.
I know, it's superb, and now we're in front of the great woman,
she and her family, what do you think was their contribution
to the progress towards votes for women?
They were pivotal. They changed the game.
They did something different. They took action.
They didn't just talk about it.
They didn't just lobby the parliamentarians.
It was a campaign - a well-designed and thought out campaign.
Emmeline conceived it, and with her daughters, they carried it out.
In 1819, here upon what were then St Peter's Fields, cavalry cut down
demonstrators in a throng seeking that the franchise be extended.
In 1905, Christabel Pankhurst heckled Winston Churchill
in what was then the Free Trade Hall in her campaign for votes for women.
The brutality that was shown against the Peterloo crowd,
and nearly a century later against the suffragettes, brought shame
upon the British Government,
and eventually both campaigns for voting rights were successful.
Upon this ground, amidst howls of anguish,
British democracy edged forward.
Next time, I uncover rough tactics in a 1900 election...
"Don't vote for a man guilty of such a dirty trick."
Woo!
..visit a home more than fit for a king...
Buckingham Palace has 20 rooms of architecture,
and we reputedly have 25.
We've only found 22 up till now.
We're still looking for the rest!
..and let off some steam.