Early Victorian Railway Excursions: ‘The Million Go Forth’

I was at the York Railway Station, on Tuesday afternoon, when an excursion train was about to start for Newcastle. The train consisted of four first-class, two second-class, and three third-class open carriages or tubs, which are only a fit conveyance for pigs and sheep. Several of the passengers had tickets for covered carriages, but were forced into the open tubs by the officials, and were thus obliged to travel eighty-five miles on a wet night, exposed to all the inclemency of the weather. (York Herald, 27 September 1856)
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Conditions such as those experienced above, riding in an open wagon on a wet night for three or four hours are unimaginable today, but these failed to deter the working classes from seizing the new opportunity to travel cheaply for leisure on the new railway excursions over long distances for the first time and return home.


Tickets from our archives – examples of excursion tickets


My new book on railway excursions was published in November 2015 by Pen and Sword Books Ltd. Based on my doctoral research with the Institute of Railway Studies at the University of York/National Railway Museum, it explores the way that ordinary people in Britain started to take advantage of the new railway excursions in the middle of the 19th century.

Using contemporary newspaper evidence from the British Library and excursion handbills from the National Railway Museum, the book looks at how these excursions were shaped and the experiences of working class travellers during this period, demolishing a number of clichés and myths endlessly reproduced in traditional railway histories. It highlights for example the very minor role played by Thomas Cook in mass mobility at the time, when compared to other agents (such as Henry Marcus), companies and organising groups. Two men, Charles Melly from Liverpool and a clergyman, Joseph Brown from London, also played an intriguing part.


A rather more well-to-do group of Victorian passengers c.1876 (SSPL img 10324685)


In the early days the sight of a ‘monster excursion’ train arriving was viewed as a huge spectacle. A press report on a Sheffield excursion to Leeds, in October 1840, described five engines and sixty-one carriages full of Sheffield mechanics, ‘the most extraordinary cargo that ever left the smoky region of Hallamshire’. It attracted a large audience with ‘exclamations of wonder and delight’ as it passed the assembled thousands’. The scene was remarkable, ‘on each side the line as far as Brightside, the fields were lined with spectators, who in spite of rain and mud, patiently awaited the magnificent sight’. This particular trip suffered a common failing, when the large number of passengers and carriages caused traction problems and the weary passengers didn’t return until one o’clock the following morning.

Surprisingly roof travel featured on some excursions, leading to awful accidents when heads collided with railway bridges. To add to the problems, excursionists complained bitterly that they were often treated like animals and there was a tendency for them to bleat or bellow when carried in open trucks, to demonstrate their feelings about these.

The book draws upon many intriguing reports in the press. At Whitsun in 1849, a young man on an excursion from Preston to Liverpool was reported to have equipped himself ‘from ‘top to toe’ with a splendid suit of clothes, which were stolen from him during the trip and as a result he travelled home (20-30 miles) ‘almost, if not entirely in a state of nudity’, arriving there around 3am.

An advertising campaign in 1855 caused a few unexpected problems. The Midland Railway complained to Sheffield Magistrates about tailor and clothier Moses and Son, which had branches in the North of England. Moses had distributed advertising material in the form of realistic looking Midland Railway excursion tickets, which some members of the public had successfully used for trips between Sheffield and Rotherham.


A promotional shot of me in the museum’s Bodmin and Wadebridge open carriage


With a foreword by Professor Colin Divall, the book is fully referenced and has an index and colour plates with maps and illustrations. I’ll be talking about it at an event at Clements Hall in York on Friday 5th February at 7.30pm – it would be great to see some blog readers there!

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