In this post, Chris Jolliffe, one of the project volunteers based at the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick and transcribing trade union records, picks up on one case that emerged from the ‘Transcription Tuesday’ event. In it, she delves deeper into the sources to pull together a much more complete picture of […]
Archive | Accident reports
Bartholomew Stephenson – from pub landlord to permanent way worker
By John Davison Cameron on April 1, 2019 in Accident reports, Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources
We’re pleased to be able to feature another guest post, from another person the project has been able to help. John contacted us via our feedback form to let us know that he’d made use of the project database and found it useful – something we always like to hear, so do get in touch […]
‘a question whether a man who suffers under this disability should occupy such a position’
Perhaps surprisingly, the question of literacy doesn’t seem to come up in the worker accident reports too frequently. It appears as though in most cases railway staff had at least a functional level of reading. Presumably their level was more than just functional, too, given the key document employees were reading, so far as the […]
Getting more than your fingers burnt
We’ve featured a burns case in the past – in that instance, it was electrical burns. But often lumped together with burns are scalds, something we’ve not discussed until now. As you might expect, working around steam locos exposed some staff to hot steam. There are relatively few of these cases in our database, though […]
From injury to fatality
In past blog posts we’ve discussed some of the cases of workers known to have had more than one accident – a theme to which we return today. Albert Robert Cox forms part of the group of 14 individuals who each had 2 accidents. His first documented accident took place on 25 November 1911, at […]
14, learning the craft – the hard way
From time to time we’ve commented on the young age of some of the people encountered in our database – for example, the case of 15-year old James Beck. Given the school leaving age was 14 at this time, it’s unsurprising – if sad – that Beck’s case wasn’t the youngest we have encountered. There […]
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 […]
Transcription Tuesday: William Mercer’s story
By Mike Esbester on January 21, 2019 in Accident reports, Blog, Linking sources, Transcription Tuesday
Although Transcription Tuesday is still a little way off, we’ve had a look at the first pages of the volume we’ll be working on, to test the transcription process and to get a sense of the stories it contains. Unsurprisingly, there are some serious, and sad, cases. Part of William Mercer’s entry in the ASRS […]
‘she was thrown violently down’
We’ve posted about accidents to women railway workers before (see here and here). Each time we’ve noted that there are relatively women in our data so far (here) – only 3 in our original data release of 3,928 cases, with a further 3 in our most recent release covering the Great Eastern Railway (GER) and […]
