Six months ago, we added an extra 17,000 records to our project database. Since then we’ve been promoting the database and trying to ensure people are using it. We can see that lots of you have downloaded the data, and that the blogs are well read – which is excellent. We’ve been running an ‘On […]
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More women – same accidents
Happy International Women’s Day 2021! This seems like a good moment to look forward to some of the data we’re working on behind the scenes, to see whether it’ll bring more women into the project records. We’ve written in the past about the seeming absence of women in accident records, as well as about some […]
‘Never even blew me cap off!’: Railway Grouping & accidents pt 1
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 […]
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 […]
A project blog post: Goods guard Beaumont
By Mike Esbester on July 12, 2021 in Accident reports, Approaches to the past, Blog, Linking sources
This post is one of a series exploring how different types of historian might approach the same source in different ways, so we can better understand each other and work together more easily. There’s an introduction to this, and the associated posts, here. We know that the railways were complex, messy places – physically, […]
Arthur Bott’s final walk
By Francis Howcutt on February 24, 2020 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources
In this guest post, Francis Howcutt recounts the accidental death of Arthur Bott, a brother of his great grandfather. Arthur’s history is an example of how the railways helped provide the children of agricultural labourers with opportunities beyond their ancestral villages, as well as the associated dangers. One of the particularly nice things about this […]
Hezekiah Brett – ‘Cut in Two by an Express’
Francis Howcutt has looked at where his family history and railways met previously, in this blog post, so we’re delighted to welcome him back. In this post, Francis explores the story of Hezekiah Brett, a cousin of his 2x great grandfather. Sadly, Hezekiah committed suicide in 1895, but the reasons mentioned at the inquest may […]
Christmas pressures
The pressures of railway work come up in myriad ways in our project database. Perhaps most commonly they appear in relation to time and trying to get work done. Sometimes those pressures are seasonal – and in that light, the challenges of Christmas working make an appearance. On 22 December 1910, goods porter Sidney […]
Too deaf to work on the railway lines?
By Mike Esbester on December 5, 2022 in Accident reports, Blog, Disability, Disability History Month, Health
As part of Disability History Month, our recent blog posts (here and here) have focused on physical disabilities caused by railway work. But what about railway workers who might have had a life-long disability, or a condition which grew progressively worse over time? This might include hearing loss, a topic that’s been relevant in a […]
Seeing disability in our database
By Mike Esbester on December 12, 2022 in Accident aftermath, Accident reports, Blog, Disability, Disability History Month
In last week’s Disability History Month blog post, we looked at a case which showed staff with hearing loss were employed by the railway companies. Sometimes this was in roles we wouldn’t expect to find them – in which hearing might have had important implications for safety. In our final Disability History Month post for […]
