Was the Industrial Revolution a catastrophe? Clive's pilgrimage asks killer questions on Ironbridge visit

It's not the sort of blurb you see in the tourism leaflets, but it is another way to look at the Industrial Revolution, which has been highlighted by a performance artist from Barcelona.

Clive Booth, who is originally from Shrewsbury, staged a pilgrimage through the Ironbridge Gorge wearing a bowler hat with a notice fixed on top with twin questions. On one side It said: "The Industrial Revolution Was Sheer Hell For Workers?" and on the other: "The Industrial Revolution Was A Human Catastrophe?"

Clive, who is 67, said: "Histories of the Industrial Revolution centre on the incredible engineering achievements, forgetting the human aspect and, as I've gone through life the human aspect is the most important.

"I'm asking the question – Was the Industrial Revolution a real human achievement? Definitely not if you think of all the studies made of the living conditions in the mines, limestone quarries, mills and so on.

"There were organised protests, the Chartist Movement and things like that. Those running the industry had no interest in giving their workers any kind of nice things, with the odd exception like Robert Owen. In general, they didn't consider the workforce to be really human beings – they were a means to an end.

"Real progress didn't come directly through engineering achievements, but through rights that were fought for. The right to vote, free education, the welfare state – all that was fought for. It was not a present."

Clive, who returns to Shropshire in the summer to escape the Spanish heat and to see friends and family, started his walk from Leegomery, where he was staying with a friend, and it took him through Coalbrookdale, Ironbridge, and down to the Boat Inn, at Jackfield.

"It wasn't a protest. It was asking a question, hopefully to engage people in conversation or other comments."

And, although Clive didn't go out of his way to initiate conversations, as he sat eating his fish and chips in Ironbridge near the war memorial some folk took photographs and others chatted.

"A young mother came up and said: 'Excuse me, my children are curious as to what your question means.' I said: 'Ask them to come here and we'll talk about it'. We had a lovely conversation about what they had studied at school, about the Industrial Revolution and about great engineering achievements, and the human aspect of how hard this life was," he said. "They were very positive and very favourable, and very much in agreement with the question.

"Then a man came up who was very friendly, but not so much in tune with it, and we talked. I said: 'Where's the memorial to all the victims of the Industrial Revolution?' We have the war memorial, which is great, but if you think about it, how many people perished in the Industrial Revolution around the world? Maybe it was as many as who died in the war. I put that to him. He thought about it and said: 'The whole Ironbridge Gorge Museum is a monument to these people.' I said: 'It isn't really. It's a monument to the engineering achievements. Where's the memorial in memory of these people and what they went through?'"

Clive has now returned to Barcelona, where he has lived since 1980, and is an English teacher there, while also performing, mainly street theatre.

When he comes to Shropshire next summer he is toying with the idea of bringing his Spanish students with him to stage a pilgrimage march on September 10, a date deliberately close to the National Day of Catalonia.

"We should not forget those who suffered," he said. "They did not suffer and die in the comforting knowledge that they were defending humanity from barbarism – they lived in an industrial barbarism and probably died terrified of going to hell, all thanks to the Old Testament preachings of the non-comformist churches."