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.
Charles Austin was a signal porter at Emsworth station, working for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway from 1898 until at least 1939. He started work in Steyning in December 1898, when he was 20, and was moved to Emsworth in July 1901, where he spent the remainder of his career.
Charles was born in East Dean in Sussex on 14 January 1879. The son of Charles Austin, a blacksmith, and his wife Fanny, he was baptised on 16 February 1879 at All Saints, East Dean.
It is possible that his mother returned to her home in Petworth often, for as early as the 1881 Census Charles is shown living with his uncle, Henry, also a blacksmith, and his aunt, Louisa. His father, a widower, is living three cottages further east in the same village alone. Charles remains with his uncle in the 1891 Census, whilst his younger brother Frederick, is living with an aunt Ann.
Charles home and work life
In 1901 he was lodging at 10 Hillside Terrace, Steyning, Sussex. In August 1901 he married Emily Munday at St James Church in Emsworth. Emily was originally from Aldinbourne but living in Brighton. Following their marriage Charles and Emily settled in North Street, Emsworth, close to Emsworth station.
His progress around Sussex is summarised:
1881 Cottages 2 & 5 East Dean, Sussex
1891 Village and Butcher Lane, East Dean
1898 at Steyning, working as a porter
1901 lodging at 10 Hillside Terrace, Steyning, Sussex; now a signal porter
1911 Rosedale, North Street, Emsworth
1921 Rosedale, Station Cottage, North Street, Emsworth
1939 102 North Street Emsworth; a signal porter
It was at Emsworth that, at 17:45 on 5 August 1905, Charles suffered an injury to his left ankle. The accident report states that during shunting, wagons were propelled towards some stationary ones. To stop the stationary ones moving, Charles tried to brake them by putting a sprag in one of the wheels. A sprag was a stout stick or bar, inserted between the spokes of a wheel, to slow or stop it moving. However, the sprag rebounded and struck him. The accident was attributed to Silversen, the goods guard, not following the rules, notably rule 184(a). Had he done so, there would have been no need for Charles to sprag the wagons. The company was instructed to withdraw the use of sprags at Emsworth.
This does not seem to have seriously injured Charles, as he does not appear in any compensation or other records. After this, Charles and Emily continued to create their family and seem to have been living a relatively uneventful life.
Charles’ wider family connections
Charles and Emily had six children, all of whom were born in Emsworth. The family lived in the Station Cottage in North Street, Emsworth. At least one of the daughters worked in the WH Smith Bookstall in the station forecourt. They appear in the 1911 & 1921 Censuses and the 1939 Register without any really significant changes. Their eldest son, named after his father, married a Gosport girl and it is likely that, after Charles retired, he moved in with them. Charles died in Gosport in the spring of 1959, aged 80.
Frederick Munday, Charles’ brother-in-law, worked as a porter and later a signalman, at Emsworth railway station, from 1919 following First World War Army service, until at least 1939. He also settled in Emsworth, married and had a family.
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.