Town in Berkshire, England
Slough
A murderer caught by telegraph, the first Mars bar and a poem begging bombs to fall: Slough's real story is stranger than its sitcom.
Key information
- County
- Berkshire
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 158,000 (2021 Census)
- Known for
- The Office, the Slough Trading Estate, the first Mars bar, Herschel's telescope
- What locals are called
- Sloughites
- Famous people
- William Herschel, Sir Noel Mobbs, John Betjeman (in verse), Ricky Gervais (in fiction)
- Football clubs
- Slough Town (The Rebels)
About Slough
The murderer who was caught by a wire
In January 1845, a man in a long Quaker-style coat stepped onto a train at Slough station and thought he had got away with murder. John Tawell had poisoned his mistress, Sarah Hart, at nearby Salt Hill. He hadn't reckoned on the electric telegraph. A message was tapped down the wire from Slough to Paddington describing the suspect. The telegraph had no letter Q, so the clerks had to spell out the word "Quaker" in a roundabout way. Police were waiting. Tawell is often called the first murderer caught with the help of the telegraph, and he was hanged at Aylesbury that same year.
Why a muddy name became a railway town
The name comes from an Old English word for a muddy place, and Slough was recorded as far back as 1195. For centuries it was a stopping point on the road west from London. Then Brunel's Great Western Railway arrived, and Slough station opened in 1840. It was the handiest stop for Windsor Castle and Eton, and in 1842 Queen Victoria took her first train ride from Slough to Paddington. The railway turned a coaching stop into a place with easy access to London, which set up everything that followed.
The astronomer who stretched the sky from a back garden
William Herschel moved to Slough in 1786, having already discovered Uranus in 1781. At his home, Observatory House, he built a telescope 40 feet long. For about 50 years it was the biggest in the world. With it he spotted two moons of Saturn, Mimas and Enceladus, in 1789. In 1800, while experimenting in Slough, he found infrared radiation by noticing that a thermometer placed beyond the red end of sunlight's spectrum still got warmer. Herschel's name is still all over town, on streets, a park and a school.
A scrapheap of army lorries that built an industrial giant
After the First World War, a huge depot of surplus army vehicles was left in fields west of the town, around Cippenham. In 1920 it was bought by a company run by Sir Noel Mobbs, who turned it into the Slough Trading Estate. It grew into one of the largest industrial estates in Europe, and in the 1930s it drew in workers from Wales and the north of England who had lost jobs in the Depression. Later, families from South Asia, especially Punjab, arrived too, giving Slough its famously mixed population today. Horlicks was made in Slough from 1908, and in 1932 Forrest Mars began producing the first Mars bars here. Mars is still a big name in town. More recently the estate has become a major home for data centres.
Bombs, sitcoms and a town that keeps answering back
In 1937 John Betjeman published his poem "Slough", opening with the line "Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!" It stuck to the town's reputation for the next seven decades. Then in 2001 Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant set The Office at the paper company Wernham Hogg in Slough. David Brent became one of British television's best-known bosses, and the town was once more shorthand for dull offices and business parks. Locals tend to shrug it off. The town has a long record of getting on with making things, from telescopes to chocolate bars.
Rebels on the pitch and Jets on the ice
Slough Town football club are nicknamed The Rebels and have played at Arbour Park since 2016, with their first competitive match there on 29 August 2016. They are the town's main football side, with a loyal following in the non-league game. On the ice, the Slough Jets play ice hockey and draw some of the most lively crowds in town. Both clubs show how much the town enjoys a spirited underdog.