Witness to Change Author:Michael Vanns The collection includes original paintings and drawings, and high quality prints all with the common theme of the industrial and Transport Revolutions. There are 18th and early 19th century views of collieries, ironworks, quarries and a wealth of early railway scenes. There are some of the best views of the Great Exhibition of 1851 ever produced... more » as well as material related to Marc Brunel's Thames Tunnel. There are humourous prints giving viewers a good idea of what ordinary people really thought about steam power, progress and the railways, as well as pictorial sheet music covers with transport themes. The Collection also includes books, pamphlets and ephemera with the same common theme of industry and transport. Many books are rare 18th century accounts and Eiton also acquired a copy of the lavishly bound Commissioners' reports of the 1851 Great Exhibition. The ephemera embraces such strange objects as a pastel burner in the shape of an early 2-2-2 steam locomotive, as well as pottery decorated with railway scenes from the 1820s and 30s, and engraved glass depicting the cast-iron Sunderland Bridge of 1796.« less