Over the last 4 years a great deal of attention has been focused on the First World War and its devastating and wide-ranging impacts. We’ve thought – as nations, communities, families, and individuals – about what happened, and about how we remember and talk about the war and its aftermath. That has included people looking […]
Archive | Anniversary
A year in the life of the project
Today we reach a significant project milestone: it’s a year since we made the database of nearly 4,000 British & Irish railway worker accidents available to the public! That’s as good a time as any to take stock. It’s been a busy time. We’ve been promoting the project as widely as possible, to get people […]
A miscellany of Waterloos
In railway terms, Waterloo generally brings one thing to mind: the London mainline station, in our period the terminal point of the London & South Western Railway. It was of course named for the famous 1815 battle in which Napoleon was defeated, which took place 203 years ago today – and it wasn’t the only […]
Remembering the Dead, Fighting for the Living: Workers’ Memorial Day
28 April is Workers’ Memorial Day – an important occasion for us to stop and think about all those who have died, been injured or made unwell as a result of work over the years. For our project it is particularly pertinent, given we’re so closely focused on the ways in which work has had […]
Tonbridge, 1909 – snow, a crash, the king & a postcard
The recent snow has affected all of the UK’s transport modes to varying degrees, and the railways have been the subject of much discussion. We’ve already blogged about some of the ways in which wintery conditions were made manifest in accidents found in our database. Today it’s the turn of a single event that was […]
Extending the vote to workers, female & male
If you’re based in the United Kingdom, you’ll no doubt be aware that 6 February 2018 marks a significant anniversary: the centenary of the Representation of the People Act, 1918. This landmark piece of legislation gave the vote to some women if they met particular conditions, and to the majority of men over 21. This […]
