Built by Vulcan ~ The Story of Vulcan Works from the 1800's

 

To set the scene for the story of the Vulcan Foundry we will return to the early 1820’s and take a brief look at the events in England at that time.

The Regency period had ended with the death of George III in 1820; George IV was now on the throne, and the future Queen Victoria was only four years old. Although the country was at peace it was still recovering from the effects of the Napoleonic Wars that had ended some eight years earlier.

The 1820’s were the ‘Golden Age’ for literature and arts; the famous Wordsworth and Tennyson were yet to succeed Southey as Poet Laureate and among their contemporaries were Byron, Coleridge and Charles Lamb, whilst Charles Dickens was still a young boy. The composers Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert were still alive and Constable and Turner were painting their immortal landscapes.

On the sports field, the strange Scottish game known as golf was trying hard to establish a foot hold on English turf and as W. G. Grace, was yet unborn for twenty-five years, one Alfred Mynn, a Kentishman, dominated the cricket pitch. At Rugby School a young William Webb Ellis, whilst playing a game of football, made a strange move and passed into sporting history by running with the ball in his arms, thus inventing the game of Rugby Football.