Pages taken from "Coloured Views on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway"

Bradshaw & Blacklock was established in 1838 when George Bradshaw took on his apprentice William Blacklock as a partner in his printing and publishing business.

The company moved to Brown Street, Manchester in 1839, where they began production of Bradshaw's Railway Time Tables, followed in 1840 by a fuller edition under the new title of Bradshaw's Railway Companion, which included sectional maps. In December 1841, the company produced the first issue of Bradshaw's Monthly Railway Guide, which became famous worldwide. Other publications included Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide, known colloquially as ‘the foreign Bradshaw’, and Bradshaw's General Railway Directory and Shareholders' Guide.

The small format and small print of the Monthly Railway Guide led to ‘Bradshaw’ becoming a byword for incomprehensibility: the guide was mocked in Punch and Vanity Fair and was the subject of music-hall jokes. Actress Fanny Kemble was asked what she read to send her to sleep, and replied: ‘Why, the foreign Bradshaw, of course.’ The monthly Bradshaw was published until 1961 and played a large part in making the British time-conscious.

The architect and engraver Thomas Talbot Bury was born in London in 1809. He studied under Augustus Charles Pugin as an articled apprentice from 1824-1830. In 1830, he established his own studio at 7 Gerrard Street, Soho. From 1845-1849, Bury was in partnership with Charles Lee. Alongside his architectural practice, Bury produced engravings and lithographs of his own and other architects' drawings, notably those of Augustus Welby Pugin and Owen Jones. Bury worked with A W Pugin on designs for the details of the houses of parliament under Sir Charles Barry. Bury became an associate of the Institute of British Architects in 1839, and a fellow in 1843. He became a vice-president in 1876. In 1863, he was made a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and was also a member of the council of the Royal Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, a member of the Cambrian Archaeological Association, and an associate of the Society of Civil Engineers.

The first edition of his Coloured Views of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was published by Rudolph Ackermann in 1831. Bury’s prints are the finest of the various series of prints published to commemorate the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, on 15 September 1830. The prints include thirteen hand-coloured aquatint plates engraved by H. Pyall and S. G. Hughes from drawings made by Bury.

Bury died on 23 February 1877 at home at 50 Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, London, and is buried at Norwood cemetery.