2-982-108 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Jubilee of the Railway Locomotive Factory Works at Crewe, 1876. '...Crewe has been created and is maintained wholly by the work of manufacturing and repairing locomotive engines for the [London and North-Western] railway company...a kind of railway jubilee took place there upon the completion of their two-thousandth engine. In honour of this event, the...Company gave the 6000 men in their employ a day's holiday, and liberally paid them for the day...A procession of the workmen was formed in four separate divisions, including those of the Bessemer steelworks, the forge, the rail-works, the engine-works, erecting and fitting, the boiler-making department, the joiners', wheelwrights', and moulders' shops, the carriage-building and fitting, painting, and repairing shops, each division with its band of music, preceded by the company's fire brigade, and followed by a volunteer fire brigade'. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.