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The effect of the coming of the railway on the towns and villages of East Kent, 1841-1919

Andrews, F. W. G. (1993) The effect of the coming of the railway on the towns and villages of East Kent, 1841-1919. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent. (doi:10.22024/UniKent/01.02.86189) (KAR id:86189)

Abstract

Railways revolutionized public transport: within a space of twenty years journeys which had taken days could be accomplished in almost as few hours. Railways were once the cutting edge of new technology, in both mechanical and civil engineering, but the difference which they actually made to the towns and villages they served through which they passed has rarely been examined.

In part, this is a consequence of the lamentable lack of railway company statistics on just how many passengers were, and just what, and how much, freight was carried from where to where, but changes in the way of life are qualitative rather than quantitative, and so much less susceptible of clear identification.

An alternative source of information is the trade directories, from which it is possible to calculate the changing social and commercial structure of towns and villages, both on and off the railway, and to relate these changes to the railway's arrival.

Nineteenth century East Kent was very well supplied with railways as a result of competition between the two rival companies, the South Eastern and the London, Chatham and Dover Railways. They served the Channel ports and the Thanet resorts as a matter of policy, but much of the rest of the area was only served by default, and this thesis is an analysis, based in the main on directory evidence, of the various changes. Five groups of towns are discussed, the Channel ports and main railway centres; the holiday towns; Canterbury; the minor coastal towns; and the villages on the railway, with a control group of villages which (up to 1914) had no railway service.

This analysis suggests that, in quantitative terms, the railway had much less effect on an area with virtually no manufacturing industry or raw materials than might have been expected.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctor of Philosophy (PhD))
DOI/Identification number: 10.22024/UniKent/01.02.86189
Additional information: This thesis has been digitised by EThOS, the British Library digitisation service, for purposes of preservation and dissemination. It was uploaded to KAR on 09 February 2021 in order to hold its content and record within University of Kent systems. It is available Open Access using a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivatives (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) licence so that the thesis and its author, can benefit from opportunities for increased readership and citation. This was done in line with University of Kent policies (https://www.kent.ac.uk/is/strategy/docs/Kent%20Open%20Access%20policy.pdf). If you feel that your rights are compromised by open access to this thesis, or if you would like more information about its availability, please contact us at ResearchSupport@kent.ac.uk and we will seriously consider your claim under the terms of our Take-Down Policy (https://www.kent.ac.uk/is/regulations/library/kar-take-down-policy.html).
Uncontrolled keywords: East Kent; railways
Subjects: D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain
T Technology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of History
SWORD Depositor: SWORD Copy
Depositing User: SWORD Copy
Date Deposited: 29 Oct 2019 16:33 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 14:43 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/86189 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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