On 1 January 1923 a new era of British railway history began. Following state direction of the industry during and after the First World War, a rationalised structure was imposed upon the railways of England, Scotland and Wales. Around 120 railway companies were merged into four major concerns – the ‘Big Four’ of the […]
Archive | Anniversary
How did Grouping affect staff safety? Railway Grouping & accidents pt 2
In our last post, we used our database of accidents to British and Irish railway staff to look at a few cases occurring immediately around the time of Grouping, in January 1923. This is very much one of the strengths of our project – we can get to the individual level and see the people […]
King’s Cross accidents
On 14 October 2022, King’s Cross station in London will be 170 years old. To mark this anniversary, this week’s blog post looks at accidents at King’s Cross and in the associated area. It gives an impression of how our project database can be used, to build a picture of the operation of a single […]
Holywell Junction – the men, pt 2
In yesterday’s blog we outlined what we knew of two of the men involved in the Holywell Junction accident, Richard Jones and Alfred Jones. Today we look at the other two men. Josiah Jones Josiah Jones was born in Whitford, Flintshire, in 1881, to Owen, a carpenter, and Elizabeth. He had an elder brother, […]
Holywell Junction – the men, pt 1
By Mike Esbester on August 31, 2022 in Accident aftermath, Accident reports, Anniversary, Blog, Family History
Yesterday’s blog looked at the accident at Holywell Junction on 1 September 1922. The next blog posts will look at the men involved. To be honest, the heart sank a bit when we saw we had a case which involved 3 ‘Jones’ – but we’ve found at least a little information about each of the […]
Holywell Junction, 1 September 1922
Alfred Henry Jones. Josiah Jones. Richard Jones. Daniel Roberts. Once again we start a blog post with the names of multiple men killed at work on the railways. Once again, it’s a case of track workers, hit by a train whilst they were maintaining the lines. It comes nearly 6 months after we […]
An accident in the dark – Woodhead tunnel 1922
In today’s post, project volunteer and regular blog contributor Philip James looks at the (infamous?) Woodhead route, including the tunnels. He draws on an accident case he found when transcribing for our forthcoming data release, as well as providing us with a potted history of the Woodhead route. Our thanks as ever to Philip for […]
Wilmcote: George Booker & his family
By Mike Esbester on March 24, 2022 in Accident aftermath, Anniversary, Blog, Family History, Linking sources
On the day of the centenary of the Wilmcote accident, we turn to the fourth and final family to be affected: the Booker family. This follows on from our previous blog, which looked at Edward Sherwood and his family. Of all the families to be affected by the accident, George’s has probably been the […]
Wilmcote: Remembering those affected
Over the last six days we’ve been blogging about 1922 Wilmcote accident (see yesterday’s post here), in the lead up to the centenary on 24 March. We’ve also been writing for different audiences – including a piece for the Stratford Herald newspaper and a blog post for The National Archives of the UK. We’d also […]
Wilmcote: Edward Sherwood & his family
By Mike Esbester on March 23, 2022 in Accident aftermath, Anniversary, Blog, Family History, Linking sources
Yesterday we looked at William Bonehill and his family – another small family, though no less devasting an impact via the death of a husband and father. Today we see the other end of the scale: Edward Sherwood and his large family. Edward was the only of the Wilmcote men to have travelled some […]
