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.
Alfred McBride was born in Portsea on 5 June 1882 and his birth was registered with the Registry Office at Portsea Island. Investigating this at the General Register Office informs us that his mother’s maiden name was Grover.
His baptism was at St Mary, Portsea, on 27 August 1882. His address was recorded as 27 Cressy Cottages, Landport, where his parents are recorded as George and Elfrida Eliza McBride.
The 1891 Census finds him at 13 Cuthbert Road, Kingston, Portsea, close to Kingston Park and the large cemetery, living with his parents and siblings. The Census tells that Alfred’s father George was a machinist employed in a stay factory. A skilled working-class man, he was originally from Romsey in Hampshire. This allows the generation of a family tree for the remainder of this growing Portsmouth family.
Alfred’s naval life
Alfred’s early life in Portsmouth was probably unremarkable. We know that he was born with a hare lip and with a scar on his right knee, but he was a good-looking lad with light brown hair, a fresh complexion and grey eyes. We know this as, after a spell as a factory hand, on 30 January 1900 aged just 18, he joined the Royal Navy as a boy seaman. His service record recorded these personal details. Within six months of entry had grown an inch to 5 foot 4½ inches. He signed for 12 years of service and served on 17 different ships, until leaving on 1 June 1912 with a Very Good Conduct Record and a Satisfactory Service report. As normal at the time he was recommended for and immediately transferred into the Royal Naval Reserve and, whilst free to undertake civilian work, he was liable to re-employment by the Navy at a time of need. This was implemented on 2 August 1914, with Alfred joining HMS Vindictive in Portsmouth then working in Vernon and finally seeing out the war on HMS Malaya. He was a member of Malaya‘s crew from 28 January 1916 until 28 September 1919, which included service at the Battle of Jutland.
He finally left Naval service on 4 June 1921, still holding his Very Good service record and having passed educationally for Petty Officer. During his service he was paid a gratuity of 10 shillings for an action onboard HMS Duke of Wellington in February 1900, just one month into his service. (Interestingly, his son’s father-in-law also received a gratuity for involvement in the same action.) Alfred was awarded a total of 3 good conduct & long service stripes, each representing 4 years’ service, and the standard war gratuity of £5. He was awarded a full set of war medals, representing his active service whilst his service record is a very interesting story of 19 years of a busy life.
Married life during Naval service
In 1911 Alfred appears in the Census aboard HMS Myrmidon, a member of the Fourth Destroyer Squadron based in Portsmouth. He was actually most probably asleep onboard the Depot Ship HMS Hecla alongside Gunwharf Quay on the Census night, as Myrmidon was in dry dock. He might even have been at home with his wife, for, on 29 March 1910, he had married Florence Emma Ayles at St Mary, Portsea. She lived in Netley Street, Portsmouth, although at the census she was boarding at 36 Emmanuel Street in Landport.
Florence Emma’s family were living locally. In 1901, her father and brother were employed as boot and shoe repairers. Her and her sister were employed, as so many others in these families, as corset machinists.
In 1891 they had lived at 24 Ridge Street in Portsea. Both her father, James, and his eldest son, William James Ayles, are recorded as boot and shoe travellers. James comes from Portchester, whilst his wife, Eliza, comes from Chatham. This indicates a family who have settled in Portsmouth rather than being native to the city.
Alfred’s life outside the Navy
Returning to Alfred, it is clear that on leaving the Navy initially he had become a railway worker. He was admitted as a member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) in 1913 as a carriage cleaner. He must have quickly gained experience and a better job, for in 1913 he is recorded as a porter. Here he had the accident which brought him to the attention of the Railway Work, Life and Death project. The ASRS records show that on 4 October 1913 his little finger was crushed during shunting operations. For this, two weeks later he was awarded compensation of nine shillings and sixpence per week, paid by his employer, the London and South Western and London, Brighton and South Coast Joint Railway.
As a Naval Reservist his job would have been kept for him to return to following the war. Following his war service Alfred returned to the railway and in the 1921 Census he is shown living at 9 Posbrook Road, Milton, Portsmouth. Also there was his wife and their son, also known as Alfred James, born on 9 June 1913. By this point Alfred senior is himself a shunter but still working for the Joint Railway.
We next find Alfred in the 1939 Register. He is still at the same address, with his wife and son, but now promoted to a goods guard. He was working for Southern Railway, the new company created in 1923.
His first wife, Florence, died in the spring of 1946. Alfred married Daisy Lottie Mary Sexton Neé King in 1947, a widowed lady who lived close to him in Milton. Through this marriage he gained three step children. Daisy died in 1968 having outlived her second husband by 13 years, as Alfred passed away in 1955.
Alfred’s wider family
Alfred’s older brother, Edwin George, lived in Buckland; he married Frances Matilda Laming in 1911. He had worked at the armament depot at Priddy’s Hard in Gosport since at least 1911 and this is where he died in 1922. He left a son, Edwin Charles, born on 20 November 1915. Edwin Charles McBride, Alfred’s nephew, had a very successful naval career, culminating in his being appointed a Warrant Officer Electrician on 3 March 1941. He married Rosina Kitty Brown in the summer of 1940.
Many of the family, including Alfred’s father, possibly Alfred himself prior to his naval service, his sisters, his wife and her sisters, and others in the local area feature on a number of the censuses attached to the corset industry. This industry was a very important Portsmouth employer, especially of women.
Neil Spurgeon
One of the researchers for the Railway Work, Life & Death, Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts project, Neil is now on his third career, but he doesn’t get paid for this one!
Following 30 years in the Royal Navy culminating as a Chief Communications Yeoman training Saudi Arabian Mine Countermeasures crews for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, he retired taking up posts in the teaching and training industries with lecturing roles in Further and Higher Education, as an Advisor on Electronic Government Development to West Sussex County Council and ended as IT Manager at Fareham College.
He is now Chairman of the Havant Local History Group which meets informally each month at The Spring Arts and Heritage Centre to investigate local history and through which research projects such as Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts are investigated. This has led, in turn, to an annual Havant Heritage Festival each September for which Neil leads a consortium of local interested groups to offer insight into local history and heritage.
References:
Ancestry uk, FindMyPast, GRO Births & Deaths Index, Google Maps, Zoopla, Wikipedia,The Portsmouth Encyclopaedia, Portsmouth Evening News, Hampshire Advertiser, The Star and Crescent