What's the story?

The year is 1853, and Queen Victoria has been on the throne for sixteen years. Engineers and inventors are changing the way we live and the land we live in, building railways, iron bridges and steamships.



Now, a Yorkshire baronet called Sir George Cayley believes he has discovered the secret of flight. There is even a rumour that he has made his coachman climb aboard a machine made of wood and cloth and that the servant has been launched across the valley on the Cayley estate.

Who am I going to meet?

You'll meet Mr. Vick Sir George's carpenter and craftsman. For many years, Mr. Vick has been building machines invented by Sir George.

What's my role?

You could be local people:

• Domestic servants.
• Trades and craftspeople.
• Landowners like Sir George
• Tenant farmers and their farmworkers.
• Members of the professional class
  (eg: teacher, vicar or chapel minister, lawyer).
• Or you could be a manufacturer (factory owner)
  from a nearby town.

Useful to know about...

• The railway boom 1844-5.
• The Great Exhibition of 1851.
• Famous engineers such as the Brunels, the Stephensons and Joseph Paxton, designer of the crystal palace, home of the Great Exhibition.
• The experiments of Henson and Stringfellow, who have   been trying to build a steam-powered   flying machine.
• Henri Giffard's steam-powered balloon flights in   France.

Questions to ask:

If you were alive one hundred and fifty years ago, how would you react to the suggestion that a family might travel by air as easily as by railway?

How safe is rail travel at this time?