There is a widely held belief, that Thomas Cook invented the railway excursion, Susan Major has carried out much in depth research and discovered that this is not true.
Thomas Cook was responsible for encouraging middle-class people to go on more expensive excursions.
The railway excursion is almost as old as the railway itself, dating back to the 1830s, when hordes of people from one town, would descend on another for a Sunday day trip.
The Millions go Forth, takes the story of the early railway excursions from the late 1840s to the 1860s and covers a very colourful period of railway and social change in British history.
The early excursionists had those who opposed them, in the form of the Church of England and the non conformist movement, who hated the idea of people enjoying themselves on a Sunday.
There were also journalists and politicians, who also hated the idea of the masses moving around the country and tried to stop such capers.
This book for the first time covers this interesting period of social history and destroys a lot of myths attached to early railway travel.
