In the mid 1890s Swindon had settled down and New Swindon was at peace with itself.

The GWR was rebuilding its reputation after the bad name it had been given towards the end of the broad gauge era.

By now the Old Town and New Swindon had expanded towards each other, having virtually joined up.

In 1894 the local boards that managed each area had become Urban District Councils. Talks to get borough status had faltered but Swindon was still growing. In 1891 the New Town opened its own town hall and the following year the GWR Medical fund had opened a new surgery and dispensary in Milton Road.

There was already a large and small swimming baths there, but facilities there were added to in 1899 to cope with increasing demands.

The last development of the 19th century to meet the desperate need for housing was started, greatly assisted by the 57-acre development of Rolleston land that was bounded by Station Road, County Road, Fleming Way and Corporation Street.

More than 1,200 houses were constructed there around the new Broad Street and Manchester Road.

In 1896 George Jackson Churchward became locomotive works manager.

He was heavily involved in the UDC and was able to gain agreement from all parties that Swindon should apply for borough status.

He became Charter Mayor in November 1900, the first of many railway workers who would hold that office.

Churchward built the first part of A shop in the same year and, as Dean’s assistant, he had virtually taken over running the works.

What he did next was mastermind a resurgence of the GWR. Between 1902 and 1908 he designed new locomotives, the City, Star, and Saint classes.

Standardised parts were used and all locos were built to a high standard. More importantly, they ran with very little maintenance.

The payback for the Swindon workforce was redundancy. Many workers left for Scotland and Canada to work in the shipyards there. The backdrop to this was the miners’ strike. My grandfather and my great uncles never forgave Winston Churchill for turning armed police on them in 1909-10.

How true that is I do not know, but Metropolitan Police officers were sent from London in 1910 to strikebreak, or keep order (depending on your viewpoint) in South Wales.

In 1909 the Liberal Government, with Winston Churchill as the president of the Board Of Trade, championed Asquith’s People’s Budget – the first attempt at redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor.

The Lords fought it tooth and nail and there were two General Elections in 1910, one in January and one in December.

Swindon was now becoming a hotbed of radicalism.

In 1909 Swindon railwayman and borough councillor Jimmy Thomas, a radical Socialist who had defeated Coun WH Stanier in a hard-fought election, was asked to be a candidate for Labour in Derby.

He accepted and in 1910 delivered a shock defeat to the Conservatives, beating them by more than 2,000 votes.

Being an MP in those days meant that you had to have a real job too.

It is claimed he was driving steam locos and carrying out his union and welfare duties as well as being an MP.

He eventually became a full time official of the National Union Of Railwaymen.

While an MP in 1911 he led a strike and in 1917 was elected General Secretary.

Again, while still an MP, he led the 1919 strike, and later the 1926 General strike.

In 1929 Labour won the election and Jimmy became Lord Privy Seal.

Swindon became uneasy about its links with Welshman Thomas as he decided to join the MacDonald coalition Government, for which he, along with McDonald, was ignominiously expelled from the Labour Party.

In 1936 Jimmy was thrown out of Parliament, it is claimed for leaking budget secrets and receiving £15,000 from wealthy business man Alfred “Cosher “Bates. He wrote a book about his life and died in 1949.