Please note, this blog post quotes language of the 1920s/1930s which is now understood to be outdated and potentially offensive. We believe it is both necessary and important to retain this – necessary, as it forms some of the limited evidence surrounding one railway worker which helps us to know his Black heritage; and important, as it shows us something of how life was in Britain 100 years ago for people of colour, including some of the prejudices they had to overcome. Use of the original language is intended to inform, but not to suggest agreement with the ideas expressed at the time.
Three years ago, for Black History Month, we posed a question: where are the railway workers of colour? We noted that in understanding Britain’s railway pasts before 1939, ethnicity remained virtually absent – except in an unspoken presumption that whiteness was the default. So far as the Railway Work, Life & Death project went, there was precious little in the records that shed light on the experiences of railway workers of colour in relation to safety or accidents. So how much has changed in the last three years?
Black railway history in Britain: limited progress
Overall, there’s been a bit of progress in raising the visibility and understanding of Black experiences of the railway in the past. The National Railway Museum’s 2025 revamped Station Hall gallery has, as part of its permanent interpretation, included images taken by Howard Grey of Commonwealth immigrants arriving at Waterloo station in 1962. In 2026, the Mixed Museum produced a series of podcasts and accompanying virtual exhibition, titled ‘Echoes of the Line’, focused on Britain’s multi-racial rail history from 1825-2026. In discussion with the Museum’s Director, it was great to see that our 2023 blog post had informed their work. Much of their work of necessity focused either on passenger experiences or post-1948 railway staff.
The challenges of uncovering past Black railway staff stories, voices and lives that we observed in our 2023 blog post remain just as true three years’ later. In 2025 it was possible to share the story of Charlie Cornell, a railway worker of mixed ethnicity in Portsmouth from the time of the First World War, as told by his grandson Chris. The initial collaboration came about by chance, but we’re proud the Railway Work, Life & Death project could help. Whilst our project database of accidents to British and Irish railway workers before 1939 gives some insight into some international experience, it seems that there is relatively little on Black stories. As in 2023, more remains to be done.
A chance (re)discovery: ‘Joe (a native of the West Indies)’
Recently we have been working with colleagues at the National Railway Museum and MuseumAnd, The National Caribbean Heritage Museum. In the course of some wider collaboration on Black railway history, we had a look through some records for Black railway workers. Imagine the surprise, then, when the worlds of Black railway history and staff safety intersected very directly …
For it turned out that we’d already seen evidence of 1920s Black railway workers in Britain – in research started nearly 25 years ago. Edward Hadley, the Editor of the Great Western Railway Magazine, spear-headed the Great Western Railway (GWR)’s staff safety campaign, starting in 1913. In May 1928 he spent time working in some manual railway roles, to get a sense of their dangers – including time with a permanent way (railway track) gang. Amongst that gang was ‘Joe (a native of the West Indies)’.
Hadley didn’t give Joe’s ethnicity much more attention that this and four follow-up sentences. In keeping with all of the men in the gang except the ‘ganger’ (foreman), first names only were used. Each man was given a brief character portrait in the Magazine article. Of Joe, it was said:
‘Joe – the man of colour – is a real good sort. “Jumbo” [one of the other gang members] described him as having a black skin but a white heart. To me, Joe was all kindness. “I’ll look after you, Dick,” he said, on my first day with the gang, and he was as good as his word.’
Managerial knowledge of the dangers of track work
The article described Hadley’s week working with the permanent way gang. This means we have a small insight into the nature of railway work in the 1920s – including for a railway employee of colour. Clearly this was a rather sanitised account, produced by a mid-management GWR man, so it can only tell us so much. Nevertheless, it has value.
The gang Hadley joined worked a length of mainline track in the London division. Hadley describes the discussion with the GWR’s Chief Engineer where he outlined his desire to work as a platelayer. In a revealing question, Hadley was asked: ‘And where do you wish to work – on the main line, or on a branch line where it would be safer?’ Clearly it was known that track work was dangerous and this was simply accepted as the nature of the job.
Courtesy Great Western Trust.
Hadley’s response was that he wanted ‘to see and to know the actual risks and dangers of a platelayer’s job, and for this reason the place where these were “thickest” would suit me best.’ After a medical examination, Hadley met the London divisional inspector. He gave an ‘emphatic but kindly warning, “Be extremely careful and vigilant; keep your wits about you every moment. We don’t want to lose you.”’ Clearly the understanding that track work was dangerous was pervasive. Hadley was duly put to work with a gang based in the Paddington area.
Courtesy Great Western Trust.
‘conscious of his grade being generally looked down upon’
Over the course of the week he spent with Joe and the other eight men in the gang, Hadley undertook the range of work a platelayer (track worker) might encounter. They started at 7am, had breakfast from 8.30-9, dinner (lunch) from 1-1.45 and finished at 5pm. Each man brought to work constituents of tea to be made up, and food to be cooked for meals. Hadley described what was to follow as ‘the hardest week’s work of my life.’
The first day started with one man tidying a yard. Another oiled points by himself – a task which, in an active yard, was dangerous, as it meant keeping out of the way of moving trains. The remaining seven men walked the length of tracks for which they were responsible, looking out for repairs and routine maintenance. ‘Fishplates’ (pieces of metal which connected joints between sections of track) were oiled with a thick, grease-like mixture. Just before 8am, ‘Jumbo’ went to cook breakfast for the gang. The men ate together at meal times, in a specific trackside hut, set aside for track workers to use, equipped with a stove.
Courtesy Great Western Trust.
Apart from the camaraderie that was described, the work continued: tightening nuts and bolts on trackwork, replacing broken metalwork, packing ballast (stone chippings) under the trackwork, moving track. Hadley observed ‘Never before had days seemed so long to me.’ Interesting, Hadley also noted the track workers lowly position in the railway hierarchy:
‘the platelayer is conscious of his grade being generally looked down upon and his work being held in small esteem. There was no grumbling, but plainly a feeling that, perhaps because of his hob-nailed boots, and dust-laden and oil-soaked clothes, he receives sparse consideration and scant respect.’
Nonetheless, Hadley concluded (somewhat loftily) ‘as I found him, the platelayer is a good sort, an excellent worker, and a splendid mate.’ Invoking ideas of the ‘big “family” of Great Western workers’, he left the gang as ‘a little circle of special friends, united by ties that will not easily be broken […] consisting of a Ted, two Jims, two Joes, a Sam, a George, a “Jumbo,” and a “Dick.”’ (Great Western Railway Magazine, June 1928.)
Picturing Joe
The focus of Hadley’s article was on permanent way work, and establishing his claims to first-hand experience. However, it had the incidental effect of shining something of a light on this gang – which, by chance, happened to include a railway worker of colour. The accompanying photographs therefore give us something uncommon – not only a visual trace of named railway workers (itself unusual), but a fleeting glimpse of an early railway worker of colour.
Courtesy Great Western Trust.
Indeed, it looks like Hadley used that week to prepare the GWR’s subsequent safety booked, ‘Accident prevention for permanent-way men.’ Members of the same gang seem to appear in many of the illustrations to the 1928 booklet – potentially including Joe. Whilst potentially problematic to rely on visual appearances as indicators of ethnicity, we offer the additional images here in good faith, hoping that they help us to see Joe.
How to find Joe with little to go on
Having identified ‘Joe’ as a Black railway worker, it would be lovely to find out more about him. However, we had an immediate problem: with only a first name and approximate geographic area, the chances of finding more were surely low. Reflecting the perceived low status of track work, employment records for platelayers often don’t survive. That certainly seems to be the case for the GWR. Without a surname, we were going to be stuck.
Needless to say, we’d wondered if there might be anything in the Railway Work, Life & Death project records. Our recent release of railway company records included thousands from the GWR, up to 1929, so might we be able to find enough incidental information there to identify Joe? Fortunately for Joe, it appeared not – no accidents serious enough to warrant recording.
But then came something we’d not spotted before – despite having been through every issue of the GWR Magazine manually in the past. Thanks to the Great Western Trust at Didcot Railway Centre, the entire run of the Magazine (from the 19th century into BR days) has been digitised and made freely available. That includes full-text search – which in this gave us a fleeting reference, not spotted before – and a sad one. It proved vital to unlocking more of Joe’s life story.
‘a man of colour […] a good workman, and popular among his mates’
Sadly, the obituaries in the GWR Magazine for March 1931 gave us Joe’s surname: Armley. Joe Armley was killed at work on 18 December 1930. He was noted as ‘a man of colour […] a good workman, and popular among his mates.’
Typically accidents at work weren’t featured in the Magazine obituaries. No doubt they would have reminded staff across the Company of the high casualty rates suffered by railway workers. It also was less than conducive to building morale and esprit de corps, some of the objectives of the railway in-house magazines. Joe’s death was featured because he was a member of the gang that Hadley, Editor of the Magazine had worked with.
Might Joe and his accident have featured in any other industry-produced records? If he did, unfortunately they don’t survive. Very often it’s possible to find out about fatal accidents to railway staff through local newspapers of the time. That’s particularly so if there might be something unusual or ‘noteworthy’ (as seen at the time) about the incident or the person. We’d wondered if Joe’s coming from St Lucia might have meant his accident featured. So far, however, we haven’t found him – though it might just be that the relevant local newspapers haven’t yet been digitised.
Now having a surname, it became more possible to find out further detail – if the documentary records were in our favour. This would depend upon how long Joe had been in Britain, and how findable he was. It was also a salutary reminder of the challenges of finding Black railway workers. Just as we cannot simply rely on visual identifiers in photographs, it isn’t possible to pick out a ‘Black name’ from a list of people. Without contextual detail confirming someone’s Black heritage or identification as Black, being able to locate Black railway workers in the period before living memory poses significant difficulties.
Joe Armley in the Union
Fortunately, Joe did prove findable in some records. We don’t know when he arrived in Britain, but the earliest record we have is his membership of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) trade union.
JCA Armley joined the ASRS (now the RMT Union) on 22 April 1904, via its Paddington branch. His transcribed record appears as JCA Arnley, so he didn’t immediately appear upon searching in FindMyPast union membership records. Checking the original confirms this was a mistranscription, and the correct name is Armley. Joe was aged 27, and working as a platelayer for the GWR. Though there’s uncertainty over Joe’s age, and he has additional initials to those we were already aware of, further details confirm this is ‘our’ Joe. His ASRS membership record notes that he died in December 1930, in an accident. Enough of the details tally here to make us confident that we have the right man.
On his Union membership record, under the ‘Death’ details column, payments were noted in the ‘accidental’ heading. Someone received the standard Union death payment of £5 (around £1220 in 2026). We believe this was meant to cover immediate costs after the loss of a breadwinner. There was also a further payment of £10 (around £2445 in 2026) recorded. It’s unclear what this was for. We think it’s unlikely to have been compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Act for Joe’s death. That typically doesn’t seem to have been recorded on membership records; it also might range from £10 to £300 for a fatality. This discussion of money begs a question: who received the payments from the Union?
Joe’s family life to 1911
Fortunately we now had a critical mass of information which allowed us to uncover a bit more about Joe’s wider life in Britain. He appears on the 1911 Census as a packer (a type of track worker) for the GWR. It shows that he was born in St Lucia (then part of the British West Indies), in approximately 1873 (though his age varies across records).
Joe was living at 21 Caithness Road, Brook Green, in Hammersmith. There with him was his family. His wife, Sarah Cecelia, was born in around 1862, in Addlestone, Surrey. A salutary lesson in always looking at the original document and not just someone else’s transcription: the 1911 Census has more detail in the original than on the transcription. From it, we can see that Joe and Sarah had been married for 14 years. This means that Joe had been in Britain since at least 1897, and very probably earlier. We haven’t been able to find any trace of documentation relating to Joe and Sarah’s marriage.
Joe and Sarah were accompanied by their son, Leonard Hector, born in London in 1908. Tragically the 1911 Census form also shows that Joe and Sarah had had a further three children who had died. It doesn’t elaborate further on those childhood deaths, and we’ve been unable to find the records of births or deaths. Given by 1911 their 1911 household was completed by Mary Coombes, a domestic servant, it seems unlikely that immediate poverty was the direct cause of the children’s death. It might have been childhood illnesses, but without further evidence it’s impossible to know.
Armley family life from 1911
Frustratingly, try as we might, we haven’t been able to find Joe or Sarah on the 1901 Census, but we were able to move forwards to the 1921 Census. Further details emerge on Joe’s names – one of his middle names was Abel. The same four people from 1911 were still living together, though by this time at 21 Lena Gardens, Hammersmith. They were accompanied by a boarder, George William Baines, a plasterer by trade.
There was one further difference: Mary Coombes was now Mary (Magdalene Ceceilia) Armley. It looks rather like their domestic servant had been adopted by Joe and Sarah. The details tally – on both 1911 and 1921 censuses, Mary was given as born in 1892, in Dalston, London. On the 1901 Census Mary C Coombes was in the Metropolitan and City Police Orphanage, so having found service with the Armley’s by 1911, she very literally became part of the family. On the 1921 Census she was working as a saleswoman for an embroiderer.
In 1922, Mary married George Baines, and they were living together in Fulham in 1939. They might have had a child; but also living with them was Leonard Armley, Mary’s brother by adoption. He was working as a motor store keeper. It looks like Leonard died in 2002.
Sadly, Joe’s wife, Sarah, died in the first quarter of 1930. As we know, Joe died in December of that year. His probate took some time to resolve, so wasn’t entered until 1932. In his will he left his effects, to the tune of £50, to their son, Leonard (at that time listed as a motor car driver).
Unanswered questions
So runs what we’ve been able to piece together of Joe’s life story, from St Lucia to Hammersmith. There’s a surprising amount of detail, considering the silences in the historic usually left by ordinary people – and even more so by the marginalised and minorities. But there are also quite a few questions which we can’t yet answer – and may never be able to answer.
We don’t know why Joe left St Lucia. This would have been a big step for someone potentially in his early 20s. Did he ever return, or keep connections up with any family members who stayed there? What did he make of life in Britain? How did Joe and Sarah have enough money to firstly rent and later own property?
As a Black man, Joe was almost certainly in a minority at work and in the Union. What must working life have been like for him? Were there other Black railway employees working alongside him? How did he see his colleagues – and they, him? There was clearly space in the ASRS (from 1913, the National Union of Railwaymen) for him, emphasising that class consciousness was more important than ethnicity – but how did Joe engage with trades unionism, and the trades union movement with Black workers?
And in terms of making visible the lives and experiences of Black railway workers, how many such fragmentary mentions might exist about Black railway workers, spread across countless sources? How can we find them, systematically, and bring them together to form a more coherent understanding of Black railway history in Britain?
From the very surface level exploration of this topic and some likely sources, at the very least what is starting to emerge is a picture of empire and Commonwealth entanglements within railway work in Britain. The 19th and 20th century flow of white Britons to overseas territories claimed by Britain, to work on railways, is relatively well-known (if still under-researched). But it’s also clear that there were plenty of people born overseas in colonial holdings, and later in Commonwealth nations, who worked on Britain’s railways. How far we can say with certainty some of them were Black is vexed question – but one which demands our attention. For Joe Armley and the wider topic of Black railway history and Black railway labour, more research is needed: now is the time to do it!
As in the 2023 blog, I’d like to include the same note recognising my positionality. For those less familiar with this idea, it’s about where and how we locate ourselves in relation to social identities – gender, class, ethnicity, ability, geographical location in the world, sexuality and so on. All of these factors influence our experiences and opportunities, and how we view and engage with the world around us. It makes sense that I – as a white, middle-class, middle-aged, straight man, who is physically able, lives in Britain and doesn’t work in the rail industry – will have a different perspective to someone else whose position in some way differs. In relation to this blog in particular, therefore, I’ll clearly have very different experiences to a woman or man of colour. I’ve tried to approach the topic with regard to this and to make an honest attempt to think about some of the questions raised by issues of ethnicity in the past – and the present. It might well be, however, that I’ve not got some terms or ideas right. I’m open to that and am happy to engage meaningfully if I can improve – please get in touch! ^Mike
With grateful thanks to Catherine Ross and Lynda-Louise Burrell of MuseumAnd, for their support and comments on a draft of this blog.