We’re pleased to be able to feature another guest contribution, from family historian Enid Rispin looking back at the railway ancestors in her family – though with a tragic tale. It helps to illustrate the lasting damage of workplace accidents that stretched beyond the physical – something not generally revealed in the official accident reports, […]
Archive | Accident aftermath
Working after the accident
So far in our posts for Disability History Month and focusing on the Great Eastern Railway’s benevolent fund book (see here and here) we’ve looked at the accidents and some of the aids and ‘remedies’ that were put in place afterwards. But the book also gives us some clues about the staff who had an […]
William Harwood’s missing leg
Continuing our Disability History Month exploration of the new Great Eastern Railway (GER) data (see last week’s post, here), this week we’re focusing on a cross-over case between our two datasets. We’re fortunate we can trace the moment of the accident for William Harwood as well as a little about what happened to him afterwards, […]
New data release: Great Eastern Railway Benevolent Fund book, 1913-23
We’re thrilled to release a new data set for you: details of Great Eastern Railway (GER) staff who had been injured at work and applied for assistance to the Company’s Benevolent Fund between 1913 and 1923. The information comes from a ledger book kept by the Company and now found at the National Railway Museum […]
Trades union project extension
Hot off the press, we’re delighted to say that we’ve just had a favourable ethical opinion on the next project extension. It’s going to bring in trades union records, held at the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick (MRC). This is great news, and we’re really grateful to the MRC for their support. […]
What happened to James Chown?
By Steve Chown on November 12, 2018 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources
In this guest blog post, Steve Chown outlines the few details he has of his grandfather Jim’s accident on the railways around the time of the Second World War, including his convalescence. Unfortunately Jim’s accident appears not to have been investigated – possibly because of the war, or possibly because it was one of the […]
Railway accidents and deaths: archives at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick
By Helen Ford on August 20, 2018 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Guest contribution, Linking sources, Updates
This week’s post comes from a guest contributor, Helen Ford, Manager of the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick – and a staunch supporter of our project. In the post Helen reflects upon the project, the topic of railway worker accidents and the sources at the Modern Records Centre, home to all sorts […]
James Walsh, 2 July 1882 – 8 May 1911
By Fiona Forde on July 10, 2018 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources
We’re delighted to receive this guest post, contributed by Fiona Forde, one of the people who’ve used our database. Fiona saw our tweet (@RWLDproject) about the case of James Walsh and decided to explore it in more detail, using our database as a starting point and exploring the various other records that might be pieced […]
Histories of medical humanities and attitudes: Examining class and shock via the accident reports
The accidents and reports from which our database draws reveal much about all sorts of aspects of British and Irish society around the time of the First World War. Plenty of this relates directly to the lives – and sometimes deaths – of railway workers. But underlying this we might find other aspects that speak […]
Disability History Month – a guest post on the NRM’s blog
Just a quick post today – to say that we’re thrilled that as part of our collaborative work between the University of Portsmouth and the National Railway Museum, we’ve contributed a guest post to the NRM’s blog, for Disability History Month. We’ve only scratched the surface of industrial disability and the railways, so there’s great […]
