Where we've been... where we're going (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Where we've been... where we're going

For a town whose name once meant a pasture for pigs ('Swine town'), Swin-don's rise to economic prominence during the 1850s was one of that era's greatest success stories.

Yet the true test of the town's business acumen and commercial esprit is that, 150 years on, Swindon is still regarded as the entrepreneurial hub of the West.

Little wonder then that many of the world's top companies have chosen to settle here Honda, Motorola, Intel, Zurich and Nationwide, to name just a few.

As if that weren't enough, the town also boasts one of the most vibrant and innovative of small business sectors, with thousands of independent firms and individuals striving to become the next Branson, Dyson, Roddick or Harvey Jones.

During the century-and-a-half that has seen Swindon dominate the region's economic fortunes, companies have risen and fallen according to the economic heartbeat of national and global markets.

Vickers (aeronautical engineers), Wills (cigarettes), Nicholsons (raincoats), Garrard, Plessey and hundreds of others once all played their part in sculpting the economic landscape of the town.

However one company quite properly continues to be regarded as the founding architect of the town's fortunes.

When Swindon's railway workshops opened for business in January 1843, the story of the small market town on the hill changed dramatically.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his locomotive superintendent Daniel Gooch decided that the town was the ideal location for a locomotive repair facility for the newly constructed Great Western Railway. Within 50 years the fields surrounding the works had been covered in workshops and houses as the Great Western Railway Company's operation grew ever larger.

By 1914, the works covered more than 300 acres and employed almost 12,000 people, making it the largest employer in the area, a situation that persisted until well after the Second World War.

Following the nationalisation of the railways in 1948 the steady decline of the workshops began.

In 1960, Swindon built the last steam locomotive for British Railways, the Evening Star, and although it continued to build diesel locomotives, changes in the railway industry saw the number of people employed at the workshops dwindle.

The end came in March 1986 with the closure of the works.

The famous steam hooters that had summoned the men to work every day, sounded for the last time and railway engineering finally came to an end in Swindon.

Unlike Great Western two companies which have continued to trade over the last 150 years are Arkell's Brewery and Deacons the jewellers.

Arkell's is the oldest business in Swindon, established by John Arkell in 1843.

Chairman Peter Arkell, now 81, still works at the brewery, with his son James as managing director and James's son George as director.

But the Arkells aren't the only family to have worked at the brewery for generations some of the 55-strong staff also have fathers and grandfathers who have worked there too.

Deacon's jewellers, in Wood Street, Old Town, was founded just five years later in 1848.

The shop is still run by members of the family and is now into its sixth generation.

The firm supplied clocks to Great Western Railways, including pocket watches for the staff, station clocks and timers in the signal boxes and currently boasts shops in Wootton Bassett, Highworth, Faringdon and Tetbury.

Jeremy Smith