Roads and road transport before the turnpikes have had a bad press, but little attempt has previously been made to investigate what road services for goods and passengers were really like. This important new book presents a strikingly different picture from the traditional one: a large network of road services which were reliable and regular in both summer and winter. Surprising conclusions are drawn about the state of the roads, the impact of the earliest turnpikes, the failure of stage-coach speeds to increase between the 1650s and 1750s, and the sudden increase in those speeds in the 1760s. A rich collection of illustrations, including many documents, photographs and contemporary drawings, enhances this splendid work. This impressive book examines the London carriers and stage-coach men, and their customers, from the 1650s to the 1760s, when turnpikes began to have a significant effect. It will transform conventional views of how the metropolis and provinces were linked in the period preceding the Industrial Revolution, and is both essential reading for local and transport historians alike.

Industrial Enlightenment explores the transition through which England passed between 1760 and 1820 on the way to becoming the world’s first industrialised nation. In drawing attention to the important role played by scientific knowledge, it focuses on a dimension of this transition which is often overlooked by historians. The book argues that in certain favoured regions, England underwent a process whereby useful knowledge was fused with technological ‘know how’ to produce the condition described here as Industrial Enlightenment. At the forefront of the process were the natural philosophers who entered into a close and productive relationship with technologists and entrepreneurs. Much of the evidence for this study is drawn from the extraordinary archival record of the activities of Matthew Boulton (1728–1809) and his Soho Manufactory. The book will appeal to those keen to explore the dynamics of change in eighteenth-century England, and to those with a broad interest in the cultural history of science and technology.

First published in 1984, this book provides the first full study of the carefully planned rising of south Wales miners and ironworkers in 1839 and of its collapse at the confrontation with soldiers of the 45th regiment of Newport. It examines not only the rising itself, but the factors that made it, if not inevitable, then likely. It argues that while the workers’ movement was an immediate response to the grim circumstances of the workplace, it was also deeply rooted in the centuries-old Welsh experience of repression. This title will be of particular interest to students of Victorian political and social history and well as the history of Wales.