Walking around Swindon today, it is extraordinary to think that only a couple of centuries ago this was a small, insignificant market town on the top of a hill, encircled by farms and fields. The arrival of two canals at the beginning of the 19th century brought the first stirrings of change, but it was the railway, and the construction of the famous Swindon Works in 1841, that transformed Swindon from a tiny agricultural town into an industrial centre of international importance.

It certainly impressed George Bradshaw, who wrote in his Railway Handbook of 1863 that Swindon was one of the extraordinary products of railway enterprise of the present age .

This was also the era that saw seaside tourism become popular, thanks to the advent of the railways, and Swindon was at the forefront of that revolution.

The Works closed in 1986, after decades of decline, but today Swindon is an important centre for businesses and financial institutions. The town was granted unitary authority status in 1997.

Early Swindon
There has been a settlement at Swindon since Roman times, probably as part of a military camp. Later the Anglo-Saxons established a farming community here, and the town’s name is believed to have derived from the Anglo-Saxon swine and dun, or down, meaning ‘pig hill’. Agriculture and its associated industries – such as tanning and wool making – sustained the town throughout the Middle Ages, with quarrying emerging as a major industry in the early 18th century.

The arrival of the Wilts and Berks Canal in Swindon in 1810, followed just four years later by the completion of the North Wilts Canal, marked the beginning of Swindon’s metamorphosis into a major industrial town. The canals allowed local goods to be transported more quickly and easily, as well as attracting more trade into the area, and the population began to rise. At the beginning of the 19th century the population was around 1200; by the time of the 1821 census this figure had risen to 1580.

In 1830, Pigot & Co’s National Commercial Directory for Cornwall, Dorsetshire, Devonshire, Somersetshire and Wiltshire described Swindon as a market town in the hundred of Kingsbridge… pleasantly…pleasantly seated on the banks of the Wilts and Berks canal, by which navigation the trade of this place is much facilitated…Adjoining the church yard is a fine spring of water, which turns a corn mill within fifty yards of its source; and about a mile and a half south of the town is a reservoir, covering upwards of seventy acres, for supplying the canal.

So Swindon was still a relatively small, rural town in the early 19th century. All that was about to change with the coming of the railway.

Railway town
The Great Western Railway was formed in 1933 to establish a rail link between Bristol and London. It was incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1935, with Isambard Kingdom Brunel appointed as chief engineer. The first stretch of line, between Paddington and Maidenhead, opened in 1838, and by early 1841 the railway had reached Swindon.

Meanwhile, Brunel was looking for a suitable location for a new railway works, where locomotives could be built, maintained and repaired. His Locomotive Superintendent, Daniel Gooch, recommended Swindon, due to its close proximity to both the railway and the canal, as he explained at the time:

I was called to report upon the best situation to build these works and, on full consideration, I reported in favour of Swindon, it being the junction with the Cheltenham branch and also a convenient division of the Great Western for the engine working. Mr Brunel and I went to look at the ground, then only green fields, and he agreed with me as to its being the best place.

The proposal was approved by GWR directors on 25 February 1841, and the Swindon Works officially opened just under two years later, in January 1843, with a workforce of just 200. By 1851 this had increased to more than 2000, with workers producing one locomotive a week in the distinctive Brunswick green, as well as carrying out repairs and maintenance to existing stock.

In his Railway Handbook, Bradshaw commented: It’s a colony of engineers and handicraft men. The company manufacture their own engines at the factory, where cleaning and everything connected with constructive repair is carried out.

Many of the workers had moved to Swindon from all over the UK, swelling the town’s population considerably. To cope with this influx, GWR built a railway village for the workers and their families. Over the next 20 years, terraces of two-storey, back-to-back houses appeared, all built with stone from the local quarries. St Mark’s Church was consecrated in 1845, and there were shops, schools, medical facilities and the Bakers Arms pub. The streets were named after Great Western Railway destinations starting with Bath Street in 1842 and followed over the next few years by Bristol Street, Exeter Street, Taunton Street, London Street, Oxford Street, Reading Street and Faringdon Street.

The Mechanics’ Institute, which had been established in 1844, moved into new premises near the New Town in 1855, paid for by the GWR employees via subscription. The Institute provided a range of classes and leisure activities, as well as housing the UK’s first lending library. It was also home to a pioneering new health service, which inspired the creation of the National Health Service. Nye Bevan, the architect of the NHS, said: There was a complete health service in Swindon. All we had to do was expand it to the country.

The Swindon Works continued to expand rapidly throughout the 19th and early 20th century. In 1878, Gooch’s successor, Joseph Armstrong, set up a separate Carriage and Wagon Works, alongside the original Locomotive Works. Over the next few years the Works became increasingly self-sufficient, producing parts for locomotives in-house, as well as taking on the manufacture of engines for GWR’s growing fleet of ships. In its heyday, during the first half of the 20th century, the Works employed around 14,000 people including boilermakers, painters, carpenters, masons, electricians, millwrights, pattern makers, fitters, turners, general labourers, laundry workers and many more.

From 1848, a highlights of the workers’ year was the annual trip to the coast, paid for by GWR. This happened every July, and was part of the railway revolution that enabled ordinary people to travel to places previously accessible only to the rich. Seaside tourism became the new vogue as holidaymakers and daytrippers headed to resorts on the south coast.

Decline of Swindon Works
In 1900, Swindon was granted Municipal Borough status by royal charter, and in the same year Old Swindon and New Swindon were amalgamated into one town.

The Swindon Works remained the town’s flagship enterprise as it began producing heavier-duty locomotives and expanding its in-house facilities so that it could manufacture a wider range of components – including parts for military tanks and equipment during both world wars.

The post-war years ushered in a new era for the railways, which marked the beginning of a long, slow decline for the Swindon Works. Following the nationalisation of the railways in 1948, British Rail decided to replace steam locomotives with diesel and electric power. Initially this led to more work for Swindon, as it became the main regional centre for scrapping old stock. But as Beeching’s Axe fell, demand for new stock also dropped. Soon locomotives were no longer made at Swindon, and the Works focused on repairs and maintenance only. Some of the workshops were sold as the company downsized. By the late 1970s Swindon was struggling to compete with works at Derby and Crewe, and in 1986 the sad decision was taken to close the works completely, after 145 years in existence.

Thirty years on, Swindon has reinvented itself as a centre for large businesses and financial institutions. The old railway quarters have been regenerated, with some of the former Works buildings now occupied by the Steam Railway Museum, the English Heritage Archive and the National Trust central office, and much of the old site has been redeveloped as a designer outlet village.