Speaker Meeting, 6.15 for 6.30pm

Mon, May 14th 2018 at 6:15 pm - 8:00 pm

Speaker: Rotarian Richard Goddard (Rotary Club of Swindon Thamesdown). Subject: History of Swindon's Railway Village


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The history of Swindon’s Railway Village: Rtn Richard Goddard (pictured below on right) knows it well. His grandfather lived there, as did his great-grandfather.  Richard’s mother grew up there and Richard did a thesis on it for his architecture degree.

“Rather than Brunel, Sir Daniel Gooch is my hero”, he said.  Gooch was the first GWR Superintendent of Locomotives (1837-1864) and then GWR chairman (1865-1889). He was 20 years old when Brunel recruited him and arguably did far more to grow the Company than Brunel.  It was Gooch who identified Swindon as the site for the Works in 1840 and then designed the first locomotive to be built there. Sir Daniel was also a Conservative MP for twenty years to 1885.

Construction of the Village began in the early 1840’s and continued slowly for 20 years. The build was slow due to the peculiar arrangement whereby the contractor was not paid but instead had a percentage of the station refreshment room sales.  That was quite lucrative - until 1895 every train stopped at Swindon for 10 minutes to change locomotives.

The Village is built in grid fashion, four parallel streets off two sides of a wide central square originally called High Street (Emlyn Square today). The streets to the East were named after stations on the line eastwards: London, Oxford and Reading and to the west: Bristol, Bath, Taunton and Exeter.  300 plus terraced cottages, one-up one-down.  Later a scullery and outside privy were added.  There was a tiny door in the back wall of the privy for a GWR man to collect the “waste products” in his barrow every evening. In later years a sewer system was installed.  Right up to 1947 the GWR issued free limewash for whitewashing all the walls and privy.

Drinking water came from the Works’ water tower.  The houses were quite modern by 1850 standards but as the Works expanded they became overcrowded.  The 1851 census records 18 people living in No.7 Oxford Street.  

In 1843 a £500 bequest towards building a church and school came in and the GWR appealed for contributions from the public.  A total of £6,000 was raised with the result that St Mark’s church was dedicated on 25 April 1845.  The GWR also gave some land for a Park (Faringdon Road Park) which in its day was a lovely and much-used facility.  Fetes and children’s parties were held there until the outbreak of WW2.   

There was a market in the High Street: the first “shopping centre” in the new town.  A few of the workers started to collect books for a library and within a year had 1000 books and 500 members.  Gooch let them have an area in the Works but in 1850 he needed it back.  The men raised funds and built the Mechanics Institute not only for the library but also a theatre and other recreational facilities.

To solve the overcrowding problem the Company built a lodging house, called The Barracks.  It was specifically for workers coming from Wales with their families.  But they didn’t like it there so they formed a Building Society to fund new builds of their own: the Cambria Place area today.  The Barracks became a Wesleyan Chapel and then the first Swindon Railway Museum.

Water born diseases were a real problem particularly in 1854 when men were being laid off.  Sick and unemployed, they couldn’t afford to see a doctor.  Following an appeal from Gooch the GWR employed one and every worker contributed around a penny a week to a Fund. The Company gave two cottages for conversion to a hospital (it’s a community centre today) and thus the Medical Fund Society was born.  It lasted for 100 years.  Aneurin Bevan, instrumental in the establishment of the NHS in 1947, said: There was a complete health service in Swindon. All we had to do was expand it to the country."  

And so the Village grew and bonded: there was a great community spirit.  But 1948 brought railway nationalisation and 12 years later the Village was in a very poor state.  Swindon Borough Council applied to demolish much of it but a successful campaign for its preservation was launched by Sir John Betjeman.  The Council bought the entire estate for £117,422 and set about a modernisation programme and today much of it is a conservation area and many of the structures are listed buildings.

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