Swindon

For many years Swindon was just a small market town, with a stone quarry and a few annual markets for selling livestock. However with the coming of the railway, and the advantages of easy transport of goods, Swindon became the biggest town in Wiltshire!

There were iron and corn trades, but the biggest factor in Swindon’s prosperity was the railway works. As well as this, some agricultural tools and machines were made here, and later on in the 19th century there were large businesses making clothes, which employed a great amount of women in the area. All this attracted people, both as workers and as investors, and this caused Swindon’s population to rise very quickly.