Yesterday we opened one of the key outputs of the Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts project – a public exhibition. It brings together the research undertaken in a collaborative way, in the community, and shares it publicly. We’re all really pleased to see it happening.
You can see the exhibition at The Spring Arts and Heritage Centre in Havant from now, until Thursday 9 October 2025. It then moves to the University of Portsmouth’s Park Building, in the exhibition space, from Monday 13 October until Wednesday 17 December 2025. It’s part of our contribution to Railway 200.
The south coast’s forgotten railway workers
The exhibition – ‘The south coast’s forgotten railway workers’ – looks at just a few of the staff who kept the railways running on the south coast of England. People like signalman Walter Bridger, number taker Robert Dalley, porter James Pearce, shunter Albert Darnell or fireman William Maynard. None of them led particularly remarkable lives, but they were still lives of significance – not least for them, their families and their communities. The purpose of exhibition and our wider project has been to remind us of these people, who would otherwise risk being overlooked in the historical narrative.
That’s particularly significant for Railway 200, as one of the key themes of the year is ‘celebrating railway people.’ Before we can celebrate past railway people, we have to know who they were. Researching the people about whom we have some passing information – via the accidents they had – is one way of finding out more. It all helps to build a picture of railway staff and railway work in the past.
Early feedback is positive, we’re pleased to say. A sample of the comments received so far:
Map of some of the accidents and people from which project research was chosen.
As well as being about the communities in our area, the Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts project was a project of the community. It was a collaboration between Railway Work, Life & Death project co-lead Mike Esbester (representing the University of Portsmouth’s History team) and members of the Havant Local History Group – Neil, Ann, Geoff and Alan. The project was made possible through funding from the University of Portsmouth Centre of Excellence for Heritage Innovation.
Collaboration in action
From November 2024 until July 2025, the Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts team met regularly. We started by establishing shared principles and direction, then worked out who we would look into. We selected names from the long list of workers in the area appearing in the Railway Work, Life & Death project database. From around 160 people, we researched nearly 40 individuals.
This was a time-consuming process, as we were trying to put together as complete life stories as possible for each person, including putting the individuals in their family and community contexts. We started with an initial sift, to see if there were any people who we had to rule out on the grounds that we couldn’t find out much about them. There were some – but surprisingly few. Thereafter it was much more difficult to decide who to research in detail.
However, we had to be selective, as we only had limited time available. In the end, we tried to look for a mix of people – by occupational role, place of employment, age, type of incident, ethnicity and sex. Only on the latter aspects did we fall down, as the records we were working with only included men, and so far as we could tell were solely white. For our period – up to 1939 – it’s likely that this make up in the records fairly accurately reflected the overall composition of the rail industry.
Sharing the research
We also had to work out how best to share the research – including trying approaches that none of us had taken before. That’s produced the exhibition, the web content (available here), public talks (details here), posters in local stations, and a leaflet (available here). Everything that’s been produced has been put together as a joint enterprise, reflecting our research and our experience of collaborating on the project.
A huge thanks to Alan, Geoff, Ann and Neil for all they’ve done – and congratulations, too, as this was a lot of work. We’re looking forward to seeing how all of these are received, as they’re all now being shared!
Posters in place at Havant station.
What’s been particularly gratifying has been working with descendants of some of the people we researched. We’ve definitely learned from working with them; hopefully they’ve also learned from us. Our thanks to Lynne and Tony, Graham, and Linda for their support and enthusiasm. Being able to meet those descendants at the exhibition opening yesterday was very important and a great honour. It was important for the project ethos that they should be there for the exhibition opening, alongside others in the community.
Future venues sought
We want to see the exhibition and the research reaching as many people as possible. To do that, we’re keen to see it go to as many venues in the community as possible. Obviously, the exhibition has a particular focus on the south-east Hampshire/ west Sussex area, so fits most naturally there. However, it could easily go wider, as it gives insight into the nature of railway work. If you have a suggestion for a venue or are interested in hosting, please get in touch with us!
For now – do please go along and see the exhibition whilst it’s on display in Havant or Portsmouth. Whilst you’re there, take a leaflet, and do complete either the hardcopy or digital survey to let us know what you thought of the exhibition. And afterwards, encourage your friends and family to find out more and visit!
“People like signalman Walter Bridger, number taker Robert Dalley, porter James Pearce, shunter Albert Darnell or fireman William Maynard”
All along the coastway line of Sussex and Hampshire, and since the 1840s, women have been in charge of level crossings, some of them for decades. And so I cannot help but feel disappointed that you didn’t acnowledge their existence by including even one female name in that list.
Point taken, though as we note later in the blog, we were working with the project records – and for this area, they didn’t include any women in accidents. This isn’t to say they wouldn’t have been at work on the railways or have had accidents – as you well know, both were true. We’ve tried to place women in the exhibition in other ways, as they played significant roles at work and beyond – so we’ve explicitly recognised the absence in the records we were using and that railwaywomen contributed to the working environment, included the railway service of the daughter of one of the people featured, and thought more widely about the impact of railway work on family and community life.