It’s been a while since we blogged a case from our Great Eastern Railway benevolent fund dataset, so we thought we’d return to it to give it a bit more prominence in the project. In amongst the 500 or so individuals who applied to the fund for support we can find all sort of injuries, […]
Archive | Accident aftermath
Spidery scrawl and good eyesight
Back in November we released our second set of project data – details of around 500 Great Eastern Railway (GER) staff and former staff, between them making about 600 applications to the GER Benevolent Fund for support following an accident at work. The applications were made between 1913 and 1923, but as the data showed, […]
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread?
We’ve noted in the past how a great many accidents happened in mundane circumstances, to a single railway worker – and how this obscured the accidents, as they weren’t spectacular or newsworthy (by the standards of the day). Sometimes accidents affected more than one worker – as in this case, which injured two men at […]
Filling in the Gaps
By Gordon Dudman on February 11, 2019 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Guest contribution, Linking sources, Transcription Tuesday
Following up on the success of last week’s Transcription Tuesday event – for more on that, see here – this week we’re delighted to offer a guest contribution from one of our transcribers. In it, Gordon Dudman thinks about the process of transcription and goes into a bit more detail on just a few of […]
Transcription Tuesday: outcomes already!
By Mike Esbester on February 8, 2019 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Linking sources, Transcription Tuesday
We wanted to provide you with a quick update on this week’s Transcription Tuesday event, as it’s been a frenetic few days, with some real achievements – down to the goodwill and expertise of everyone who got involved. The first and most important thing is: a massive thank you to all. That counts whether behind […]
Transcription Tuesday: John James’ story
By Mike Esbester on February 4, 2019 in Accident aftermath, Accident reports, Disability, Linking sources, Transcription Tuesday
Ahead of tomorrow’s Transcription Tuesday, which we hope you’ll join in with, we’re posting one more case from the opening pages of the volume that is being transcribed. It’s another helpful example, as we’re able to combine sources to get a picture of what happened and its impact. This case was that of goods guard […]
Transcription Tuesday: William Travis’ story
By Mike Esbester on January 28, 2019 in Accident aftermath, Accident reports, Blog, Linking sources, Transcription Tuesday
Continuing the build up to next week’s Transcription Tuesday, we’ve selected another case from the volume we’ll be working on. This time it reveals what happened to W Travis, a member of the Oldham branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS). Travis worked for the London & North Western Railway, as a ‘porter […]
A SAD AND UNUSUAL DISCOVERY IN FAMILY RESEARCH
By Enid Rispin on December 31, 2018 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Disability, Family History, Guest contribution
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, […]
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, […]
