Andrew Ure, The Philosophy of Manufactures, 1835

The blessings which physico-mechanical science has bestowed on society, and the means it has still in store for ameliorating the lot of mankind, has been too little dwelt upon [in current discussions of England’s factory system] . . . .

            In my recent tour . . .of the manufacturing districts, I have seen tens of thousands of old, young, and middle-aged of both sexes . . .earning abundant food and domestic accommodation without perspiring at a single pore, screened meanwhile from the summer’s sun and winter’s frost, in apartments more airy and salubrious than those of the metropolis, in which our legislative and fashionable aristocracy assemble. . . . .

Steam-engines furnish the means not only of their support but of their multiplication.  They create a vast demand for fuel; and, while they lend their powerful arms to drain the pits and to raise the coals, they call into employment multitudes of miners, engineers, ship-builders, and sailors, and cause the construction of canals and railways:  and, while they enable these rich fields of industry to be cultivated to the utmost, they leave thousands of fine arable fields free for the production of food to man, which must have been otherwise allotted to the food of horses. . . . Lancashire is the fertile and well-laboured soil in which the seed of factory knowledge will bring forth fruit one hundred fold. . . .

Alexis de Tocqueville on Manchester, Journeys to England and Ireland, 1835

The fetid, muddy waters, stained with a thousand colors by the factories they pass . . . wander slowly round this refuge of poverty. . .

. A sort of black smoke covers the city.  The sun seen through it is a disc without rays. . . .

The footsteps of a busy crowd, the crunching wheels of machinery, the shriek of steam from boilers, the regular beat of the looms, the heavy rumble of carts, those are the noises from which you can never escape in the somber half-light of these streets . . . .Never the gay shouts of people amusing themselves, or music heralding a holiday. You will never see smart folk strolling at leisure in the streets, or going out on innocent pleasure parties in the surrounding country. Crowds are ever hurrying this way and that in the Manchester streets, but the footsteps are brisk, their looks preoccupied, and their appearance somber and harsh.

From this foul drain the greatest stream of human industry flows out to fertilize the whole world.  From this filthy sewer pure gold flows.  Here humanity attains it most complete development and its most brutish; here civilization makes its miracles, and civilized man is turned back almost into a savage.

A

Is there no nook of English ground secure From rash assault.[of railways]?. . .

Baffle the threat, bright Scene, from Orresthead  . . . .

Plead for thy peace, thou beautiful romance

Of nature; and, if human hearts be dead,

Speak, passing winds; ye torrents, with your strong 

And constant voice, protest against the wrong. 

William Wordsworth, [RS1] 1844.

The iron rail proved a magicians' road. The locomotive gave a new celerity to time. It virtually reduced England to a sixth of its size. It brought the country nearer to the town and the town to the country... It energized punctuality, discipline, and attention; and proved a moral teacher by the influence of example.

Samuel Smiles, 1859