Editing Swindon (section)

===Railway town===
[[File:GWR Church Swindon.jpg|alt=|thumb|Former lodging house in the Railway Village, now a community centre]]
Between 1841 and 1842, [[Isambard Kingdom Brunel]]'s [[Swindon Works]] was built for the repair and maintenance of locomotives on the [[Great Western Railway]] (GWR). The GWR built a small railway village to house some of its workers. The [[Swindon Steam Railway Museum|Steam Railway Museum]] and [[English Heritage]], including the [[English Heritage Archive]], now occupy part of the old works. In the village were the GWR Medical Fund Clinic at Park House and its hospital, both on Faringdon Road, and the 1892 health centre in Milton Road, which housed clinics, a pharmacy, laundries, baths, [[Swindon Victorian Turkish Baths|Victorian Turkish baths]] and swimming pools, was almost opposite.

From 1871, GWR workers had a small amount deducted from their weekly pay and put into a healthcare fund; GWR doctors could prescribe them or their family members medicines or send them for medical treatment. In 1878 the fund began providing artificial limbs made by craftsmen from the carriage and wagon works, and nine years later opened its first dental surgery. In his first few months in post, the dentist extracted more than 2,000 teeth. From the opening in 1892 of the health centre, a doctor could also prescribe a haircut or even a bath. The [[cradle-to-grave]] extent of this service was later used as a blueprint for the [[National Health Service|NHS]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=24 October 2007 |title=Background |url=https://mechanics-trust.org.uk/history/background/ |url-status=dead |access-date=25 December 2021 |website=The Mechanics' Institution Trust |language=en-gb |archive-date=25 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211225134507/https://mechanics-trust.org.uk/history/background/}}</ref>

The Mechanics' Institute, formed in 1844, moved into a building that looked rather like a church and included a covered market, on 1 May 1855. The New Swindon Improvement Company, a [[co-operative]], raised the funds for this programme of self-improvement and paid the GWR £40 a year for its new home on a site at the heart of the railway village. It was a groundbreaking organisation that transformed the railway's workforce into some of the country's best-educated manual workers.<ref>[http://mechanics-trust.org.uk/history/1850-1870/  ''1850–1870'' – The Mechanics Institution Trust, Swindon] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131217090445/http://mechanics-trust.org.uk/history/1850-1870/ |date=17 December 2013 }}. Retrieved on 23 July 2007. Reference updated 12 December 2013</ref>

The Mechanics' Institute had the UK's first [[lending library]],<ref name=":2" /> and a range of improving lectures, access to a theatre and various other activities, such as ambulance classes and [[xylophone]] lessons. A former institute secretary formed the New Swindon Co-operative Society in 1853 which, after a schism in the society's membership, spawned the New Swindon Industrial Society, which ran a retail business from a stall in the market at the institute. The institute also nurtured pioneering trades unionists and encouraged local democracy.<ref>[http://mechanics-trust.org.uk/2003/07/this-is-our-heritage/  ''This is Our Heritage'' — 1996 lecture by Swindon labour movement historian Trevor Cockbill] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304185012/http://mechanics-trust.org.uk/2003/07/this-is-our-heritage/ |date=4 March 2016 }}. Retrieved on 23 July 2007. Reference updated 12 December 2013</ref>

When [[tuberculosis]] hit the new town, the Mechanics' Institute persuaded the industrial pioneers of North Wiltshire to agree that the railway's former employees should continue to receive medical attention from the doctors of the GWR Medical Society Fund, which the institute had played a role in establishing and funding.<ref>[http://mechanics-trust.org.uk/history/background/  ''Background'' – The Mechanics Institution Trust, Swindon] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131012181448/http://mechanics-trust.org.uk/history/background/ |date=12 October 2013 }}. Retrieved 23 July 2007. Reference updated 12 December 2013 {{cite web |url=http://www.new-mechanics.com/history/background.htm/ |title=Background |access-date=23 July 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929175547/http://www.new-mechanics.com/history/background.htm/ |archive-date=29 September 2007}}</ref>

Swindon's 'other' railway, the [[Swindon, Marlborough and Andover Railway]], merged with the [[Swindon and Cheltenham Extension Railway]] to form the [[Midland & South Western Junction Railway]], which set out to join the [[London & South Western Railway]] with the [[Midland Railway]] at [[Cheltenham]]. The Swindon, Marlborough & Andover had planned to tunnel under the hill on which Swindon's Old Town stands but the money ran out and the railway ran into [[Swindon Town railway station]], off Devizes Road in the Old Town, skirting the new town to the west, intersecting with the [[Great Western Railway|GWR]] at [[Rushey Platt railway station|Rushey Platt]] and heading north for [[Cirencester]], Cheltenham and the [[London, Midland and Scottish Railway|LMS]], whose 'Midland Red' livery the M&SWJR adopted.

During the second half of the 19th century, Swindon New Town grew around the main line between London and [[Bristol]]. In 1900, the original market town, Old Swindon, merged with its new neighbour at the bottom of the hill to become a single town.<ref name="Chandler"/>

On 1 July 1923, the GWR took over the largely single-track M&SWJR and the line northwards from Swindon Town was diverted to [[Swindon railway station|Swindon Junction]] station, leaving the Town station with only the line south to Andover and Salisbury.<ref>[http://www.swindonsotherrailway.co.uk/his.html/  ''Swindon's Other Railway'' — the Swindon, Marlborough & Andover Railway] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020619050944/http://www.swindonsotherrailway.co.uk/his.html |date=19 June 2002 }}. Retrieved on 23 July 2007.</ref><ref>[http://glostransporthistory.visit-gloucestershire.co.uk/RR%20MidSWJR.htm/  ''The Midland & South Western Junction Railway'', Railspot Reloaded] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071224203526/http://glostransporthistory.visit-gloucestershire.co.uk/RR%20MidSWJR.htm |date=24 December 2007 }}.Retrieved on 23 July 2007.</ref><ref>[http://www.steampicturelibrary.com/pictures_447348/Swindon-Town-Station-c1920.html/ ''GWR Museum'' picture gallery] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081028190519/http://www.steampicturelibrary.com/pictures_447348/Swindon-Town-Station-c1920.html |date=28 October 2008 }}. Retrieved on 23 July 2007</ref> The last passenger trains on what had been the SM&A ran on 10 September 1961, 80 years after the railway's first stretch opened.

During the first half of the 20th century, the railway works was the town's largest employer and one of the biggest in the country, employing more than 14,500 workers. Alfred Williams<ref>Leonard Clark, Alfred Williams – His Life and Work, David and Charles 1969</ref> (1877–1930) wrote about his life as a hammerman at the works.<ref>Alfred Williams, Life in a railway factory, first published 1915, 2007 edition published by Sutton Publishing {{ISBN|978-0-7509-4660-5}}</ref>

The works' decline started in 1960, when it rolled out [[BR standard class 9F 92220 Evening Star|''Evening Star'']], the last steam engine to be built in the UK.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A15849868/ ''Evening Star — Steam Locomotive''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091203154340/http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A15849868 |date=3 December 2009 }}, BBC, 29 November 2006. Retrieved on 21 July 2007.</ref> The works lost its locomotive building role and took on rolling stock maintenance for [[British Rail]]. In the late 1970s, much of the works closed and the rest followed in 1986.

The community centre in the railway village was originally the barrack accommodation for railway employees of the GWR. The building became the Railway Museum in the 1960s, until the opening of the STEAM Museum in the 2000s.