This page is one of a series introducing railway staff who worked on the south coast of England before 1939. They’ve been researched as part of the ‘Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts’ project – which you can read more about here, including accessing details of the other railway workers featured.
Research was undertaken from November 2024-July 2025, by a small group of volunteers from the Havant Local History Group, working with the University of Portsmouth’s History team. The work was funded by the University of Portsmouth’s Centre of Excellence for Heritage Innovation.
The workers featured were selected from staff who appear in the Railway Work, Life & Death project database of accidents to pre-1939 British and Irish railway workers.
*** This page is under development – the full life story will be updated as soon as possible.
The railway’s story is always one of movement – most significantly of people. That included Alfred Howse, born in Wales and ending up in Portsmouth.
Age 18, he joined the London & South Western and London, Brighton & South Coast Joint Railway in 1908, as a locomotive cleaner. On 24 September 1911 he was cleaning steam engines in the Fratton engine shed – long since demolished.
As he did so, he was ‘slightly crushed’ between two steam engines. Why was this possible? How did this affect his life and railway career?
*** Further details will be added as soon as possible.