A Rural Revolution: The History of a Staffordshire Family and Their Village (Paperback)

A Rural Revolution traces one family's journey from the county of Cheshire and charts their new life in a Staffordshire village. The move is short in distance but long in duration, spanning several generations. Along the way, readers encounter a nasty road traffic accident, a family of seventeen children, a notorious canal murder, a prevailing aristocratic connection, a riot of cross-dressing men, a narcoleptic delivery driver and a cycling regiment sent to the most dangerous place on earth. From itinerant boatpeople to respected locals, the family is transformed by the world's first industrial revolution and its aftermath. The author shows it wasn't only the people trapped in Britain's dark mills and smoky towns who faced the upheavals and challenges of the times. The physical and social contours of the family's adoptive village, and of the entire nation, were redrawn by the booms in road and canal construction and the coming of the railways. A Rural Revolution is a work of narrative non-fiction that provides a new way of examining history. It will appeal to fans of local and family history as well as to those interested in the social history of the period.