Continuing our look at both disability in railway service and our forthcoming new dataset, this week our blog focuses on a case in which sight loss probably had a role to play. This is another case from next week’s data release: around 17,000 more cases, investigated by the railway inspectors between 1900-1910 and 1921-1939. Today […]
Archive | Blog
‘Slightly deaf’ at Forty Hill
By Mike Esbester on December 6, 2021 in Accident reports, Blog, Disability, Disability History Month
We’ve blogged in the past about disabled staff employed in railway service, including hearing loss, the subject of today’s post. Where it appears in the project database it relates almost exclusively to roles that involved working on the tracks or around moving trains. This might reflect what was investigated by the accident inspectors, or the […]
Major Keaton Kay 1871–1935
By Derek Walford on November 29, 2021 in Blog, Disability, Disability History Month, Family History, Guest contribution
This week’s blog post is another that came about via an enquiry received by the project. Derek, this week’s author, was researching his family history, including a railway staff accident. Whilst we weren’t able to help directly – the date was earlier than our current project coverage, though we are moving backwards deeper into the […]
On Track for Change – a visitor’s perspective
By Louise Bell on November 22, 2021 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Disability, Disability History Month, Guest contribution, Medical humanities
In this guest post, Louise Bell reflects on her visit to the ‘On Track for Change’ exhibition at Head of Steam, earlier this year. The exhibition took a look at how artificial limbs were made, used and understood on the railways, and included a creative response to the relationships between railways, prostheses and their owners […]
Robert Johnson – visualising disability
By Mike Esbester on December 14, 2020 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Disability, Disability History Month, Family History, Linking sources
Some months ago I was sent an intriguing image by Robert Kitching of the Bowes Railway (whose guest post will be appearing soon!). The image showed a railwayman, supported by crutches and lacking both legs below the knee. Robert knew we’d be interested, especially since images of the workers involved in accidents are often hard […]
Craig Shaw – an appreciation
In our past blog posts we’ve usually concentrated on the project subject matter, whether that be cases found in the records we’re working with, contributions about railway accidents, or project events and activities. However, this week we’re focusing on one of the project team, for an appreciation of his work: Craig Shaw. Craig was a […]
A Railway Accident at Strensall: The Case of George Hey
By Sally-Anne Shearn on October 25, 2021 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Disability, Family History, Guest contribution, Health, Linking sources, Medical humanities
In another one of those fortuitous encounters – in this case, virtually, on Twitter – we ended up in contact with the author of today’s guest blog post, Sally-Anne Shearn. We were invited in to hear a railway-related talk at the Family History Society of Cheshire (with thanks to Margaret Roberts); Sally-Anne made a comment […]
Project developments – railway company records
In this post, long-term volunteer Philip James thinks about some of the practical issues in project work, particularly under Covid. This helps us both appreciate what it is project volunteers are doing, and how they do it – important if we’re to be transparent about how the data is created and the choices made along […]
John Hurrell – rushing on a platform
This week our blog features a guest post, from Marc Treloar, a 2nd year student at the University of Portsmouth. It’s particularly nice for us to include, as he and fellow student Archie McDermott-Paintin worked with project co-lead Mike to use project data and insight. They did this as part of their work on the […]
July: the month of many multiples
We’ve already blogged about a couple of cases of multiple accidents: when our database has shown a worker had more than one accident. We’ve considered shunter Tom Oliver, who injured his ankles whilst working around York; and labourer Joseph Brown, unlucky enough to be hit by trains twice in 3 weeks (though he survived both […]
