"township, whilst its collieries, factories ... fill the atmosphere with smoke"". After the Second World War there was a boom followed by a slump from which Wigan's textile industry did not recover. While the town's cotton and coal industries declined in the 20th century, the engineering industry did not go into recession. The last working cotton mill, May Mill, closed in 1980. In 1937, Wigan was prominently featured in George Orwell's ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" which dealt, in large part, with the living conditions of England's working poor. Some have embraced the Orwellian link, as it has provided the"
"given today to the area around the canal at the bottom of the Wigan flight of locks on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The book was reviewed on 14 March 1937 by Edward Shanks, for ""The Sunday Times"", and by Hugh Massingham, for ""The Observer"". Harry Pollitt reviewed the book, vitriolically, for the 17 March 1937 issue of the ""Daily Worker"", though even he ""was forced to concede some merit to its first part"". In general, early reviewers of ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" praised Orwell's depiction of the working class in Part I. The poet Edith Sitwell wrote ""the"
"is little to say except praise."" This sentiment is shared in a review by Hamish Miles in ""New Statesman and Nation"" on 1 May 1937. Miles writes that ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" ""is a living and lively book from start to finish. The honest Tory must face what he tells and implies, and the honest Socialist must face him, too."" Douglas Goldring, writing in ""Fortnightly"" in April 1937, describes the book as ""beautiful"" and ""disturbing"", and like Miles highly recommends that both conservatives and socialists read it. In ""Tribune"" on 12 March 1937, Walter Greenwood calls Part I ""authentic"
"English Journey English Journey is an account by J. B. Priestley of his travels in England which was published in 1934. Commissioned by publisher Victor Gollancz to write a study of contemporary England, Priestley recounts his travels around England in 1933. He shares his observations on the social problems he witnesses, and appeals for democratic socialist change. ""English Journey"" was an influential work, inspiring George Orwell's ""The Road to Wigan Pier"", and ""has even been credited with winning the 1945 election for the Labour Party"". In the work, Priestley also expresses racism towards Irish immigrants in England: ""A great many"
"George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, Imperial police officer, and critic whose work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism and outspoken support of democratic socialism. Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is best known for the allegorical novella ""Animal Farm"" (1945) and the dystopian novel ""Nineteen Eighty-Four"" (1949). His non-fiction works, including ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" (1937), documenting his experience of working class life in the north of England,"
"associated with specific regions of England; these include Charles Dickens (London), Thomas Hardy (Wessex), A. E. Housman (Shropshire), and the Lake Poets (the Lake District). In the lighter vein, Agatha Christie's mystery novels are outsold only by Shakespeare and The Bible. Described as ""perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture"", the non-fiction works of George Orwell include ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" (1937), documenting his experience of working class life in the north of England. Orwell's eleven rules for making tea appear in his essay ""A Nice Cup of Tea"", which was published in the ""London Evening Standard"""
"this period. At the same time, Gollancz, as a member of the Labour Party, was concerned to keep the club at a formal distance from campaigns of which the Labour Party disapproved. Gollancz was a notoriously interventionist editor. He published Orwell's ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" but insisted on prefacing its account of working-class life in the north of England with an introduction disowning the book's criticisms of middle-class socialists who, Orwell said, had little understanding of working class life. Later Gollancz republished the book leaving out the second part of which he disapproved. By early 1940, however, Gollancz had"
"retraces Priestley's steps to capture the changes that half a century has brought to their shared native land. English Journey English Journey is an account by J. B. Priestley of his travels in England which was published in 1934. Commissioned by publisher Victor Gollancz to write a study of contemporary England, Priestley recounts his travels around England in 1933. He shares his observations on the social problems he witnesses, and appeals for democratic socialist change. ""English Journey"" was an influential work, inspiring George Orwell's ""The Road to Wigan Pier"", and ""has even been credited with winning the 1945 election for"
"the living conditions in the Rosehall area of Coatbridge: George Orwell's book ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" was illustrated by a photograph of homes in the Rosehall area of Coatbridge. In 1934 there was an exodus to Corby in England when the local Union Plant relocated. This had the effect of a hammer blow impact on the town's iron industry and ushered in the end of serious iron production. The decline of the Clydeside shipbuilding industry in the 1950s meant the demand for iron finally collapsed. A legacy of 'devastating' unemployment, appalling housing conditions and some of the worst overcrowding"
"question which Mosley finds it difficult to answer."" He also made visits to his sister at Headingley, during which he visited the Brontë Parsonage at Haworth, where he was ""chiefly impressed by a pair of Charlotte Brontë's cloth-topped boots, very small, with square toes and lacing up at the sides."" The result of his journeys through the north was ""The Road to Wigan Pier"", published by Gollancz for the Left Book Club in 1937. The first half of the book documents his social investigations of Lancashire and Yorkshire, including an evocative description of working life in the coal mines. The"
"Orion/Cassell group turned Gollancz into its science fiction/fantasy imprint. Gollancz was left-inclined in politics and a supporter of socialist movements. This is reflected in some of the books he published. Victor Gollancz commissioned George Orwell to write about the urban working class in the North of England; the result was ""The Road to Wigan Pier"". His break with Orwell came when he declined to publish Orwell's account of the Spanish Civil War, ""Homage to Catalonia"", the pair having drifted apart on political grounds. He did publish ""The Red Army Moves"" by Geoffrey Cox on the Winter War, which was critical"
"was provided by Aunt Nellie, who was living at Wallington, Hertfordshire in a very small 16th-century cottage called the ""Stores"". Wallington was a tiny village 35 miles north of London, and the cottage had almost no modern facilities. Orwell took over the tenancy and moved in on 2 April 1936. He started work on ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" by the end of April, but also spent hours working on the garden and testing the possibility of reopening the Stores as a village shop. ""Keep the Aspidistra Flying"" was published by Gollancz on 20 April 1936. On 4 August, Orwell"
"the trip, and but for Gollancz's support Orwell would never have gone. Recent biographers, however, do not repeat this account. On 1 April 1936, Orwell rented a cottage in the remote village of Wallington, Hertfordshire, where he wrote up ""The Road to Wigan Pier"". Biographer Michael Shelden points out that the rental for the cottage was less than £2 a month. Orwell, as well as living off the land, supplemented his income by running the cottage as the village store. Yet, writing to Jack Common in April 1936 about setting up shop, ""Orwell sounds hard put to find £20 in"
"contains material from the former FCO Library. The collection was a working tool used by the British government to inform and influence foreign and colonial policy. Transferred to King’s in 2007, the FCO Historical Collection contains over 80,000 items including books, pamphlets, manuscript, and photographic material. The Medical Collection include the historical library collections of the constituent medical schools and institutes of King's. The Rare Books Collection holds 12,000 printed books, including a 1483 Venice printing of Silius Italicus’s ""Punica"", first editions of Charles Dickens' novels, and the 1937 (first) edition of George Orwell's ""The Road to Wigan Pier"". King’s"
"T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence. But I believe the modern writer who has influenced me most is W. Somerset Maugham, whom I admire immensely for his power of telling a story straightforwardly and without frills."" Elsewhere, Orwell strongly praised the works of Jack London, especially his book ""The Road"". Orwell's investigation of poverty in ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" strongly resembles that of Jack London's ""The People of the Abyss"", in which the American journalist disguises himself as an out-of-work sailor to investigate the lives of the poor in London. In his essay ""Politics vs. Literature: An Examination"
"five shafts and employed 400 workers underground and 150 above ground. The colliery was managed by Peter Gorton, and his undermanagers were T Pownall, John Grundy and P Bullough. George Orwell visited the colliery in 1936 when he was gathering material for his book ""The Road to Wigan Pier"". Today the colliery site is a privately owned and consists of agricultural land, housing and a water ski lake, to the north east of the Three Sisters Recreation Area. On 19 August 1870 an explosion ripped through the colliery, killing 20 workers. On 2 June 1873 there were more explosions in"
"the North of England collecting material for ""The Road to Wigan Pier"". The novel was published by Victor Gollancz Ltd on 20 April 1936. The aspidistra is a hardy, long-living plant that is used as a house plant in England, and which can grow to an impressive, even unwieldy size. It was especially popular in the Victorian era, in large part because it could tolerate not only weak sunlight but also the poor indoor air quality that resulted from the use of oil lamps and, later, coal gas lamps. They had fallen out of favour by the 20th century, following"
"his best-selling works, having sold almost fifty million copies in sixty-two languages by 2007—more than any other pair of books by a twentieth-century author. Orwell wrote non-fiction—including book reviews, editorials, and investigative journalism—for a variety of British periodicals. In his lifetime he published hundreds of articles including several regular columns in British newsweeklies related to literary and cultural criticism as well as his explicitly political writing. In addition he wrote book-length investigations of poverty in Britain in the form of ""Down and Out in Paris and London"" and ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" and one of the first retrospectives on"
"a study of poverty and also an anti-socialist critique of ""English Journey"" by J. B. Priestley and ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" by George Orwell. ""Ordeal In England"" was later republished by the conservative Right Book Club. The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 brought Gibbs a renewed appointment as a war correspondent, this time for the ""Daily Sketch"". This proved a brief stint however and he spent part of the war employed by the Ministry of Information, the department responsible for publicity and propaganda, which the British government re-established in September 1939. In 1946 he published a"
"the George Orwell book The Road to Wigan Pier in which the author documents 1930's poverty in the north of England and argues his case for Socialism. The Road to Wakefield Pier includes live footage and interviews shot in Wakefield when the band played there at Warehouse23. They also completed a five-city UK tour with Spear of Destiny as well as a double headline St Valentine show with Department S and a repeat appearance at the Undercover Punk Festival. 2015 also saw headline shows in London, Munich and Augsburg, as well as five UK cities with Theatre of Hate and"
"The New Road The New Road is a historical novel by the Scottish writer Neil Munro, which was adapted as a television serial by the BBC. Munro is now mainly remembered as the creator of the comic character Para Handy, but this is regarded as the best of his serious novels. The novel was written in 1914 and set in 1733. The title refers to General Wade's military road through the central Highlands from Dunkeld to Inverness, symbolic of changes taking place to the Highlands at that time. The central character is Aeneas Macmaster, a young man from Inveraray who"
"set off on a six-month journey around England and wrote a polemical critique of George Orwell's book ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" (1937) and what she saw as the myopia of sexist socialism. She investigated the Conservative Party's appeal to women. She also became associated politically and professionally with the emergence of radical municipalism, particularly in London, under the leadership of Labour's Ken Livingstone. In 1998 Campbell reported on a Newcastle City Council report into allegations of child abuse at the Shieldfield Nursery in the city in 1993. She claimed the council inquiry was ""stringent"" and had found ""persuasive evidence"
"his experiences tramping and teaching in those two cities. ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" is initially a study of poverty in the North of England, but ends with an extended autobiographical essay describing some of Orwell's experiences with poverty. ""Homage to Catalonia"" recounts his experiences as a volunteer fighting fascism with the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification in anarchist Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. Orwell wrote hundreds of essays, book reviews and editorials. His insights into linguistics, literature and politics—in particular anti-fascism, anti-communism, and democratic socialism—continued to be influential decades after his death. Over a dozen of these were"
"Labour Party and resulted in no government action. Unemployment remained high until the war absorbed all the job seekers. George Orwell's book ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" gives a bleak overview of the hardships of the time. The economic crisis of the early 1930s, and the response of the Labour and National governments to the depression, have generated much historical controversy. Apart from the major pockets of long-term high unemployment, Britain was generally prosperous. Historian Piers Brendon writes: ""Historians, however, have long since revised this grim picture, presenting the devil's decade as the cradle of the affluent society. Prices fell"
"his research for ""The Road to Wigan Pier"", Orwell wrote to Hilton asking for advice and lodging on his trip. Hilton was unable to provide him lodging, but suggested that he travel to Wigan, ""for there are the colliers and they’re good stuff."" Although he was partially responsible for Orwell's visit to Wigan, Hilton was not impressed by ""the Road to Wigan Pier."" In his unpublished autobiography ""Caliban Boswelling"", Hilton criticized the book, claiming that although Orwell “went to Wigan…he might well have stayed away” as he only “wasted money, energy and wrote piffle.” Hilton claimed that Orwell “wanted to"
"On the Wigan Boat Express ""On the Wigan Boat Express"" is a comic song written by George Formby, Harry Gifford and Frederick E. Cliffe. Formby recorded it on 4 August 1940 for Regal Zonophone Records. It tells the story of a boat train express heading for Formby's hometown of Wigan in Lancashire. Like several other of Formby's songs, it maintains a running joke that Wigan is a seaside town rather than an inland, industrial centre with a “pier” on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. It is filled with the sort of sexual innuendo that was a hallmark of Formby's songs."
"On the Wigan Boat Express ""On the Wigan Boat Express"" is a comic song written by George Formby, Harry Gifford and Frederick E. Cliffe. Formby recorded it on 4 August 1940 for Regal Zonophone Records. It tells the story of a boat train express heading for Formby's hometown of Wigan in Lancashire. Like several other of Formby's songs, it maintains a running joke that Wigan is a seaside town rather than an inland, industrial centre with a “pier” on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. It is filled with the sort of sexual innuendo that was a hallmark of Formby's songs."
"some modern editions of the book, though it was included, for instance, in Harcourt Brace Jovanovich's first American edition in the 1950s. At a later date Gollancz published part one on its own, against Orwell's wishes, and he refused to publish ""Homage to Catalonia"" at all. Orwell was asked about Wigan Pier in a radio programme in December 1943. He replied: ""Well, I am afraid I must tell you that Wigan Pier doesn't exist. I made a journey specially to see it in 1936 and I couldn't find it. It did exist once, however, and to judge from the photographs"
"the war absorbed all the job seekers. George Orwell's book ""The Road to Wigan Pier"" gives a bleak overview of the hardships of the time. Vivid memories of the horrors and deaths of the World War made Britain and its leaders strongly inclined to pacifism in the interwar era. The challenge came from dictators, first Benito Mussolini of Italy, then Adolf Hitler of a much more powerful Nazi Germany. The League of Nations proved disappointing to its supporters; it was unable to resolve any of the threats posed by the dictators. British policy was to ""appease"" them in the hopes"
"British writers in the 1940s and 1950s were novelist Graham Greene whose works span the 1930s to the 1980s and poet Dylan Thomas, while Evelyn Waugh, and W. H. Auden continued publishing significant work. In 1947 Malcolm Lowry published ""Under the Volcano"", while George Orwell's dystopia of totalitarianism, ""1984"", was published in 1949. One of the most influential novels of the immediate post-war period was William Cooper's naturalistic ""Scenes from Provincial Life"", a conscious rejection of the modernist tradition. Graham Greene was a convert to Catholicism and his novels explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world."
"Russian Trotskyist trials and from the start every kind of lie, including flagrant absurdities, has been circulated in the Communist press."" Orwell's experiences in the Spanish Civil War gave rise to ""Homage to Catalonia"" (1938). Orwell returned to England in June 1937, and stayed at the O'Shaughnessy home at Greenwich. He found his views on the Spanish Civil War out of favour. Kingsley Martin rejected two of his works and Gollancz was equally cautious. At the same time, the communist ""Daily Worker"" was running an attack on ""The Road to Wigan Pier"", taking out of context Orwell writing that ""the"
"in Douglas, Isle of Man on 13 September 1974 aged 70. Walter Greenwood Walter Greenwood (17 December 1903 – 13 September 1974) was an English novelist, best known for the socially influential novel ""Love on the Dole"" (1933). Greenwood was born at 56, Ellor Street, his father's house and hairdresser's shop in ""Hanky Park"", Pendleton, Salford, Lancashire. His parents belonged to the radical working classes. His father died when he was nine years old, and his mother provided for him by working as a waitress. Like many children he quit school at the age of 13 to work (as a"
"William Golding Sir William Gerald Golding, (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993) was a British novelist, playwright, and poet. Best known for his novel ""Lord of the Flies"", he won a Nobel Prize in Literature and was awarded the Booker Prize for fiction in 1980 for his novel ""Rites of Passage"", the first book in what became his sea trilogy, ""To the Ends of the Earth"". Golding was knighted in 1988. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2008, ""The Times"" ranked Golding third on their list of ""The 50 greatest British writers since 1945""."