There is a widely held belief that Thomas Cook invented the railway
excursion. In fact the railway excursion is almost as old as the
railway itself, dating back to the 1830s, when hordes of people
from one town would descend on another for a 'cheap trip'. Susan
Major has carried out much in-depth research for this book, drawing
on contemporary Victorian newspapers, and discovered that in fact
Cook played a very minor role, mainly in encouraging middle-class
people to go on more expensive excursions. Her book fills an
important gap in railway history. It explores for the first time
how the vast majority of ordinary working people in Britain in the
middle of the nineteenth century were able to travel cheaply for
leisure over long distances, in huge crowds, and return home. This
was a stunning experience for the excursionists and caused great
shocks to observers at the time. These 'trippers' had to overcome
many obstacles, particularly from the Church of England and the
non-conformist movement, who were affronted by the idea of people
enjoying themselves on a Sunday, their only day away from work.The
book takes the story of the early railway excursions from the 1840s
to the 1860s, a dramatic period of railway and social change in
British history. It looks at how these excursions were shaped and
the experiences of working class travellers during this period,
demolishing a number of cliches and myths endlessly reproduced in
traditional railway histories. While Michael Portillo paints a
picture of travellers sitting tidily in their railway carriages,
consulting their Bradshaws, many working class excursionists on
their trips were hanging on to the roof of a crowded carriage,
endangering their lives, or enduring hours of travel in an open
wagon in heavy rain.
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