Arthur Churchill

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 is a story of one man’s life: Arthur Churchill. But it’s also a story of many people in Arthur’s family. And, unusually, it’s a story involving Arthur’s family – I was fortunate to be able to meet and work with Arthur’s son, Gordon. He’s shaped my knowledge and my understanding of Arthur as a father, a family man, a railwayman and a person.

 

Why Arthur Churchill?

I wanted to research Arthur as he’d spent time living at the London and South Western Railway Servants’ Orphanage at Woking. I knew this because a few years ago I’d bought a number of postcards sent to and from people at the Orphanage during the 1910s. Arthur was one of those people. The postcards were all moving in their own ways, but Arthur’s postcard to his mother was particularly striking and poignant.

 

What must life have been like for Arthur? How had he ended up in the Orphanage? What had happened to his father? What happened to Arthur when he left the Orphanage? I had a great many more questions, at least some of which I hoped we could answer.

 

One generation above Arthur

Arthur Lewis Churchill was born on 25 October 1905, in Ewell, Surrey. His parents were Arthur Emmanuel Churchill and Ada Churchill, nee Phillips. Arthur E had been born in Devon in 1873. Ada was born in 1878 in Petersfield, Hampshire – the location at the heart of Arthur’s life, and where this story is rooted. So how did Arthur E and Ada meet and marry?

In 1891 Arthur E was working as a gardener in Sidmouth, Devon. Ada was working as a domestic servant in Petersfield. They were still worlds apart. Yet they married, in Petersfield, in 1899. Might the railway have brought Ada and Arthur E together?

It is likely that Arthur E was working in the railway industry at the time of his marriage. Indeed, it might have been his ticket out of Devon. The line at Sidmouth was owned and operated by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) – as was the line at Petersfield. When railway staff sought promotion, they were often moved from one location to another – over the full range of their employing company’s network. Perhaps Arthur E had been moved from Devon to Hampshire, and ended up at Petersfield.

As I investigated further, my suspicion was that Ada’s family was part of the puzzle. Her brother, Arthur Phillips, was a railway employee, having joined the LSWR in Petersfield as a porter in 1894, age 15. Was it through her brother that Ada met her future husband, Arthur E? Or was there a longer-term connection between Ada and Arthur E’s families? Ada Phillips’ parents were both from Devon, albeit some distance from Sidmouth, and Ada’s father, Lewis, also worked for the railway.

 

Arthur Churchill’s early life

By 1901, Arthur E and Ada Churchill were living in Ewell. Arthur E was recorded on the Census as a railway signalman. They also had a daughter – Mabel Ada Churchill, born in 1901. As we know, Arthur was born in 1905.

Outside work, Arthur E remained connected with his gardening days. A 1909 press report noted that he was one of the committee organising a railwayman’s horticultural show at Clapham Junction. He also grew and exhibited, placing fruit and vegetables in 14 of 21 classes. Clearly he was a talented gardener!

However, by the 1911 Census, things had changed quite dramatically for the Churchill family. Ada, Mabel and Arthur were still in Ewell, but they were living with Ada’s brother, Arthur Phillips, and his family. Ada was recorded as a widow. Clearly Arthur E had died. As it turned out, he died in February 1911 of a health condition, only shortly before the Census was taken. The family were fortunate that Ada’s brother, Arthur Phillips, was living nearby and able to take them in, probably only on a temporary basis.

 

Moving from Ewell

Ada Churchill appears on electoral rolls in the Kingston upon Thames area from 1911 until 1913. By 1914 she had returned to her birth town of Petersfield, where she features on the electoral register, living at 4 Winchester Road. Her parents had been living at 2 Winchester Road – next door – in 1901 and 1911. No doubt they would have been a great support to Ada.

By the time of the move to Petersfield, Arthur E and Ada’s daughter Mabel would have been around 13 or 14 years old. She might not have made the move to Petersfield – the records don’t tell us. In 1921 she was working in domestic service in Wokingham, Surrey. In 1939 she was a domestic cook in Elsted, near Midhurst, Sussex.

At the time of his father’s death, Arthur was only six years old. I haven’t been able to discover from the records if he stayed with his mother (and sister) whilst in Surrey. I also don’t know if he spent any time at all in Petersfield after 1914, but I suspect not. Perhaps as part of the move to Petersfield, Ada had to place her son in the LSWR Orphanage.

 

Orphans, railway orphans and railway orphanages

At this time, in legal terms, an orphan was a fatherless child. This was now Mabel and Arthur’s lot, at least until they were 14 and could seek employment. What happened to children when their father died was entirely dependent upon the individual circumstances of the family. I’ve seen cases in which the father died at work on the railway and the children remained with the mother. Equally I’ve seen cases where the children or mother and children moved in with the wider family – grandparents or aunts and uncles. And sometimes families were split up, no doubt by necessity – including by placing children in an orphanage.

Though Arthur E died of ill-health, working for the railway could be dangerous. Hundreds were killed each year in the early twentieth century – a heavy toll, including on the families and dependents. The industry made some provision for dependent children, via railway orphanages. They would care for children, including school tuition, trips out and training for future employment, until the children were 14. During their stay, family members might visit on set occasions – though this might only be four times per year.

There were three railway orphanages: one at Derby, opened in 1875 and taking children from across the railway system. By 1887 it could accommodate up to 300 children. There was also a relatively small orphanage at Crewe. That was opened in 1911 by the London and North Western Railway for company use and housing up to 40 children at its height.

 

Arthur and the LSWR Orphanage

The LSWR opened an orphanage in Clapham in 1886, again for children of its own workforce. Spaces were, sadly, in demand, and in 1909 the orphanage moved to its Woking site, which could accommodate up to 150 children. It was to this orphanage that Arthur moved.

 

Arthur could only have stayed in the LSWR Orphanage until he was 14 – which would have been in 1919. I have three postcards sent to and from Arthur whilst he was in the Orphanage. One was sent to Arthur by his mother, Ada; one was sent by Arthur to Ada. A third – shared with me by Alison Hayes, for which I’m very grateful – was a Christmas postcard sent to Arthur by Steve Smith. From other evidence we know that Steve had spent some time in the Orphanage at the same time as Arthur. It looks like Steve was either home for Christmas, or had reached the age of 14 and had left the Orphanage, and was remembering his friend.

 

From these cards we get some sense of life inside the Orphanage, and can see people like Arthur who would otherwise be largely anonymous. Not only that, but with Arthur’s card, in particular, we can see something of the emotional life of the children.

 

Arthur after the Orphanage – the formal record

Arthur was living with his mother in Petersfield at the time of the 1921 Census. He was listed as an errand boy. In August 1921 Arthur followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the railway. His record shows he was five feet three inches tall, and the recommendation for railway employment came from the Orphanage. He joined the LSWR at Guildford, as a signal lad, paid seven shillings per week. He accrued experience, and was moved to Godalming in 1924 as a goods porter.

 

Arthur married Edna Jacob in 1935 in Petersfield. They appeared on the 1939 National Register, living with Arthur’s mother Ada at 4 Winchester Road. Arthur was by this time a signalman. In November 1939 Arthur and Edna had a son – Gordon.

 

Ada died in 1962. Arthur died in 1977, still living in the family home. Arthur’s sister Mabel died in 1990. And that’s where the formal record ends – but it’s not the end of the story.

 

Meeting Gordon Churchill

Through a series of chances, I was able to meet Arthur’s son, Gordon. I acquired the postcards several years ago, which sparked my interest. When the opportunity arose to include Arthur in our ‘Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts’ project, I wanted to make sure he and his story was known. I didn’t know about Gordon, however.

A visitor to the project exhibition, Doug, went on the day it opened at the University of Portsmouth. He spotted the account of Arthur Churchill and recognised the name from the work he had been doing on the history of Buriton as part of the Buriton Heritage Bank, including its railway (including this presentation they gave last year). Doug and his colleague Mike contacted us, and put me in touch with Gordon. For this collaboration – between the Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts team, with Doug and Mike, with Gordon – I am extraordinarily grateful. It has once again emphasised the significance of working together, and the meaning and value that results.

 

A potentially sensitive past

It’s worth adding a note about the process of making contact. Doug, Mike and I didn’t know how much Gordon knew about his father’s past, particularly the time in the Orphanage. Given I now knew there was a living descendant, in the area, it was really important to be sensitive and mindful of his feelings. I immediately removed the poster about Arthur Churchill from public display whilst we worked out how to approach Gordon.

If he already knew about his father’s time in the Orphanage, but hadn’t seen the postcards, my intention was to give them to Gordon. They were a piece of his family history, after all. But before that, I wanted to be sure that he did know about Arthur’s time in the Orphanage, and to be sure he was ok with sharing that part of his father’s life. For some there might be a stigma associated with having had a family member in the Orphanage – even if this is something I wouldn’t have felt, I would respect those views and not share Arthur’s story.

As you can tell by the fact you’re reading about Arthur, Gordon was more than comfortable with all of this – indeed, keen to help tell his father’s life story. Approached delicately, we were able to find out that Gordon was well aware of Arthur’s time in the Orphanage. Not only that, but he knew about the postcards – without any other direct family, Gordon had passed the postcards on, hoping they would find someone who appreciated and valued them. In me, they definitely did – and that connection eventually brought us full circle, to Gordon!

 

Gordon’s memories

In discussion with Gordon, he was able to share photographs of his family and fill in details of his family’s story that have otherwise escaped the formal record. Unsurprisingly his grandmother didn’t talk about her husband, Arthur E, but Gordon did recall his grandfather’s gardening prize certificates being displayed on the wall of Ada’s house. Similarly Arthur didn’t talk much about his time in the Orphanage, though Gordon did note it must have been hard for his father. He knew that on Sundays the children were taken to church, and said that some children were allowed to return to their families for short periods as a holiday.

Gordon noted that in the time in Petersfield before joining the railway, Arthur worked for a local plumbing and heating firm, and learned to drive on the job (no test then!). Arthur spent time working at Liss station in the late 1920s, and was a signalman at Buriton in the 1930s. He was part of his community in a number of ways, one of which was via the local Primitive Methodist Chapel, where Gordon thought his parents had probably met.

Arthur had been a keen motor cyclist, but when Gordon was born finances were such that the motor cycles were given up. Instead Arthur cycled to and from work at Buriton, in all weathers. During the Second World War, Arthur served with the Home Guard, including protecting the strategically important Buriton tunnel.

 

Gordon remembered going to Petersfield signal box as a child in the late 1940s and early 1950s, to see his father on duty. Arthur operated the levers at what was an extensive box, controlling the yard and worked the wheel that opened and closed the level crossing gates. Gordon also recalled hopping on the footplate of the local service on the Midhurst branch line and spending afternoons on the run out to Midhurst and back – a rather different world!

Interestingly, Gordon and Edna accompanied Arthur on reunion visits to the Orphanage. Despite the challenging circumstances in which children would have found themselves in the Orphanage, some at least seem to have forged life-long connections which they were willing to share with their families later in life.

Arthur retired in the early 1970s, and before that spent some time in charge of the station car park, selling tickets to authorise parking. Gordon remembered his father’s keen interest in gardening, and spending time on his allotment – a connection to Arthur’s father. This has been passed on – Gordon also enjoys gardening, and has just chalked up 50 years as an allotment holder; a lovely family connection over three generations.

 

Petersfield now

As part of the Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts project we’ve worked with our local Community Rail Partnership (CRP), Hills to Harbour, and our Train Operating Company, South Western Railway, to bring stories of former railway staff in our area to the stations they served. We’ve already done this at Havant, and now are doing this at Petersfield. Using the CRP display boards at the stations, we’ve installed posters about the people our project has researched. Currently on display in the up (London-bound) waiting room at Petersfield are posters about Arthur Churchill and William Howard. It was particularly fitting to be able to install them, with the help of local contact Jo, in time to show Gordon the poster about his father.

 

 

In railway terms, all of this comes at a really interesting time for Petersfield. The route between London Waterloo and Portsmouth is, as I write, closed between Petersfield and Haslemere, for the final part of the change in signalling. The final three signal boxes on the route – Petersfield, Farncombe and Haslemere – have been decommissioned. In future, signalling will be controlled from the Rail Operations Centre (ROC) at Basingstoke.

I knew this was coming, so got back in touch with a lovely Network Rail signalling contact, Kathy. Some time ago she’d really brilliantly set up a meeting and visit to the Basingstoke ROC, for which I was very grateful. I wondered if we could share Arthur Churchill’s story and connection to Petersfield, and bring Arthur’s postcards into Petersfield box before it closed. Time was tight – I only started that discussion about two weeks before Petersfield box was due to close, and accessing an operational railway environment understandably takes time. This was before I knew about Gordon, too. So, whilst Kathy was setting things up, the possibility arose that we might be able to do something really special – get Gordon up into the signal box.

 

 

Thanks to Kathy, the signaller on duty on the day of the visit (who wanted to remain anonymous), and colleagues at Network Rail, we were able to make the visit happen! So, just three days before the 141-year old Petersfield signal box closed, we went inside and observed operations. As Gordon noted, it was rather different to his experiences in the 1950s! The long lever frame was gone – a short version remained, with a number of levers not in use, and just three remaining operational to control a crossing between the lines. Needless to say, a cloth was laid over the operational levers, used when they were worked. This is something signallers had been doing since the earliest days of mechanical signalling, and a link back across the generations. The level crossing gates were now electronic, operated via push buttons. And the route signalling was controlled via a mix of 1970s and 2000s computer technology.

 

 

Gordon was very happy to have visited – as was I. He found a link to his childhood and to his father, Arthur. We were both able to witness a method of working which is now largely vanished from mainline railway operation in Britain. It won’t be entirely lost, however. Aware of the coming changes, in 2014, the Film Archive of Railway Signalling and People project started recording signallers and their working practices across the UK. Signallers I’ve spoken to at Petersfield over the years were sad about the change in their skill and craft, though understood why it was happening. Amongst the various notices on display in the box, it was indicative of the sense of occupational community that shortly after the closure a get-together was being hosted for anyone who had worked in the signal boxes that were being closed.

 

Thanks

As is clear, all of this is only possible thanks to the goodwill and help of a huge range of people and organisations. This story, in particular, has been one which was only possible through collaboration. So, I’d like to recognise and thank everyone involved:

• the Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts team: Neil, Ann, Geoff and Alan;
• our funders: the Centre of Excellence for Heritage Innovation at the University of Portsmouth;
• Hills to Harbour Community Railway Partnership, and our local officer, Charlene;
• our contact at Petersfield station, helping with the posters, Jo;
• South Western Railway;
• Network Rail: particularly Kathy and the Petersfield signallers;
• Buriton Heritage Bank: particularly Doug and Mike;
• Alison Hayes;
• perhaps most importantly of all, Gordon Churchill.

 

Mike Esbester

I’m Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Portsmouth, and one of the wider Railway Work, Life & Death project co-leads. I’ve greatly enjoyed the Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts project and have valued the chance to learn with and learn from Neil, Ann, Geoff and Alan – and to share what we’ve uncovered here.