An absorbing and well researched work which paints a graphic picture of life in a Victorian manufacturing town. The book describes the dramatic and radical effects of the Industrial Revolution on a small rural area and examines its impact on the landscape and local society. In addition to the background of rapid industrial development, the subjects of immigration and urban population growth are explored in some depth. However, the main focus of the work centres on the activities of ordinary men and women whose lived experiences form the basis of this book. Numerous fragments of the past have been pieced together to provide an authentic and moving account of the intolerable social and economic pressures of those times. The book also offers a glimpse of some of the dark and disturbing deeds which occurred in Victorian Widnes and its hinterlands.