The scene that confronted 18-year old Harry Hardy was gruesome. Five of his workmates had been hit by a passing train. There was nothing he could do for them directly, but he went to summon help. Hardy ran back along the line, to a track workers’ hut. ‘Breathlessly and as pale as death’ he told another colleague ‘My God, come at once; five of our men have been done in’ (Nottingham Advertiser, 22 September 1926).
Bridge repainting near Hucknall, Nottinghamshire
The accident took place on 22 September 1926. At 7.25am, a gang of 11 men assembled at Hucknall Central, Nottinghamshire, on the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). From here, they were sent to repaint a bridge at Linby, around two miles north of Hucknall Central. The men set off, carrying two buckets of tar between four men. This was to prove crucial to the incident.
The gang had been working in the area for the preceding 23 days. They followed the same route to get to the site – walking along and beside the track, at a similar time each day. For much of the distance, the line was in a cutting, with no safe walking path off the track. As a result, the men were forced to walk on the track. Given that necessity, they took the sensible precaution of walking facing oncoming traffic. Ordinarily there was sufficient view to enable them to move out of the way in good time if a train approached.
The train which was to kill five of the gang passed the spot at the same time on those preceding days. However, ‘apparently in no case was the approach of the train […] anticipated or even thought of’. On the 22nd, this was to end in tragedy. Around 300 yards away from the accident site there was space enough for a walking path alongside, but off, the track. Most of the gang moved over – but the men carrying the tar buckets couldn’t, so they remained walking along the line.
A bank of fog and an unseen oncoming train
At the same time, the atmospheric conditions changed. A dense fog came down, limiting the view to no more than 12 yards. The man in charge, under-foreman bridge painter James Cope, recognised the danger. He sent two of the gang forward to keep watch for trains – one of whom was Bertie Cecil Scotney. Shortly afterwards a goods train passed on the other line. Cope then ‘heard something in front and saw a man and a train close upon him.’ The man turned out to be the body of Scotney; before Cope could sound the alarm the train had passed – ‘running down four of the men with instantaneous fatal results.’
Five men died at that spot:
- Richard Eddacott, 45, single, of 69 Stanton Street, New Houghton
- Bertie Scotney, 25, single, of 44 Brownslow Road, Mansfield
- Thomas Rossiter, 27, single, of 20 Shaftesbury Cresent, Bull Farm, Mansfield
- Clifford Herring, 26, single, of 3 Sadler Street, Mansfield
- Cyril Hinsley, 28, married, of 89 Peel Crescent, Bull Farm, Mansfield
Investigating the accident
With an incident of such scale – most railway staff accidents involved a single person – the state accident investigators, the Railway Inspectorate, decided to hold an investigation. The report, by Inspector JPS Main, observed that on the 22nd the usual foreman was ill. As a result, Cope was in charge. He had worked on the railway for five years, four of them in his role as under-foreman. He was seen as a man of ‘considerable experience’. According to the post-incident interviews, Cope and the gang were aware of the rules and regulations about walking on the track. So how could things have gone so disastrously wrong?
Main was critical of Cope’s actions in particular. Given there was ‘no urgency with respect to the work’, and with the passing goods train and fog, all the men should have been called off the track. That included those with the tar buckets – though that would, no doubt, have been unpopular with them as it would have meant extra effort. Cope’s comment that he’d never seen fog there before was met with a sharp note: ‘the exercise of some common-sense was demanded, and I can only conclude that Cope was lacking in this respect.’
Social conventions and trauma
In his report, Main’s critical tone was moderated somewhat by the observation that Cope felt ‘very keenly’ that he was responsible (1926 Quarter 3, Appendix B). For its time, this was probably as close as it was possible to get to admission that seeing his workmates killed in front of him was traumatic for Cope.
This was also likely to have been difficult for the driver of the train that killed the men. There was nothing that the driver, BJ Drinkall of Sheffield, could have done – even if he had seen the men on the track. He knew nothing of the accident until he reached Nottingham just after 8am. He was told what had happened – but expected to carry on with his day’s service. Official attitudes towards traumatic experiences were clearly rather different in 1926 – there appears to have been no sense that Drinkall might have suffered psychologically from his part in the incident.
After he was informed about the incident, Drinkall went to turn the engine around for the return service to Sheffield. As he did so he saw the tell-tale signs of an accident – including blood and tissue, and the remains of one of the men’s lunch baskets. Drinkall worked the 9.05am departure to Sheffield – passing the site of the accident. He saw ‘the bodies of the men lying on a trolley covered with cloth’ (Nottingham Advertiser, 22 September 1926). This must have been doubly traumatic for Drinkall – but not something the LNER or any of the railway companies would have been concerned about.
Inspector Main’s report contained one final interesting observation. He noted that ‘this type of labour, [was] recruited locally, and in many cases without much knowledge of the risks to be guarded against in railway work’. It looks like, from other evidence, at least two of the men were only relatively recently employed in railway work – but possibly more. What was their training like? Instead, it was decided that they simply needed ‘highly efficient supervision to ensure every precaution is taken to guard against danger’. Sadly this was ‘a feature which in this instance was apparently not very evident’ (1926 Quarter 3, Appendix B).
Five funerals in a day
The five men were interred in Mansfield Cemetery on Saturday 25 September 1926. The local newspaper, the Mansfield Reporter, noted that the wet weather and lack of knowledge of the timing of the burials meant only a small attendance. However, as the corteges made their way through town, people realised. Five deaths in a relatively small area was clearly keenly felt, as residents ‘evoked silent demonstrations of regret and sympathy’. The seven men who survived all attended the funerals, alongside representatives of the LNER (Mansfield Reporter, 1 October 1926).
At this stage, we don’t know more about the men’s wider lives, or the impact that accident had on their families, colleagues and wider communities. We will try to find out more, and we’re always keen to hear more if you know it: feel free to get in touch, and to share the story of the men and their tragic accident.