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.
Born in Edmonton in London on 23 September 1887, George Frederick Brand joined the Training Ship Exmouth in 1899. He is rated VG (Very Good) at each assessment and his results for academic and physical activities are creditable. Following this initial assessment he then joined the Royal Navy on 11 February 1903 at HMS St Vincent in Gosport.
For a time in 1911 he was aboard HMS Waterwitch on the China Station where he is recorded as a single Able Seaman in the 1911 Census. He achieved the rank of Leading Seaman in 1913 aboard HMS Superb, where he served during the Battle of Jutland.
George’s post-Navy life
George was demobbed, joining the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) in January 1919 landing a full-time job almost immediately as a 3rd class under goods shunter. He worked for the London and South Western and London, Brighton and South Coast Joint Railway in Portsmouth.
During this period on 23 April 1920 he suffered an injury when he crushed his thumb between buffers. In April 1921 he was recalled to the Navy, serving until June 1921 when he returned to the railway. He stayed working with the railway as it changed name to the Southern Railway in 1923.
On 7 September 1928, George was a witness at the Inquest into the death of a head shunter at Portsmouth and Southsea station. This was the position he himself filled a couple of years later.
George’s 1929 accident
On 5 September 1929 at 13:45, whilst acting as a shunter at Portsmouth and Southsea station, George himself sustained contusion injuries to his back whilst shunting. It is reported that whilst directing operations on shunting neck track, George needed to step between the rails of the adjacent line to signal to his driver. He failed to see empty stock being propelled along that track and was knocked down by it, only avoiding more serious injury by lying still between the rails.
The Railway Inspectorate report noted that 1) George was preoccupied with work in hand; 2) there was an inherent danger at this location where there is insufficient clearance between the tracks concerned. Had the length of train being shunted been short enough for George to signal from beside the track, he would still have been in danger unless he laid down according to Rule 273(b).
To resolve these issues it was suggested that 1) an effective means of alerting staff to moves on the line adjacent to the shunting neck should be installed; 2) the number of wagons dealt with at one time on the shunting neck should be limited so that ground staff conducting moves will be kept clear, as far as possible, of the adjacent line. George had come on duty at 00:45 and hence had been working for 12 hours at the time of this incident.
A more serious incident
By 1931 George was head shunter at Portsmouth and Southsea station. Once again whilst shunting, he suffered an injury – at 20.15 on 6 March 1931. This time he sustained a fractured skull and injuries to his right hand and ribs. George wanted to gain the attention of the signalman in the yard signal box, about the necessary movement of a pair of points in their control. George stood on some boxing between the rails in the adjacent No. 1 siding, beneath the box. While in that position he was struck by an engine proceeding to Fratton. The Inspectorate reported that he could have taken up a position of safety between No. 1 siding and the adjacent main line where there is ample clearance, with equal effect. To his failure to adopt that course, the accident was attributed. George had come on duty at 07:30 and hence had been working for 15¼ hours at the time of this incident.
This incident was reported in The Portsmouth Evening News on Thursday 7 March 1931 and with identical wording in the Portsmouth Times on Friday 13 March 1931.
By 1939 George is recorded in the Union records as working as a passenger guard. His status rose with the railway as did his salary, increasing from Scale A to Scale D in March 1926. He received a superannuation payment from the NUR of £30 in November 1952 and an additional £5 in March 1963.
George died on 5 March 1963 with his final union payment, doubtless to his widow, on 18 October 1964, with his only son as his executor.
George’s family life
George married Annie Louisa Porter, a Sussex girl, in Portsmouth in 1913. She had been working as a corset factory machinist, a common Portsmouth employment. They had two children, George Leonard Earnest Brand born in June 1918 and Lilian Joan Brand born on 18 June 1921, a busy month for the young family! At that time they lived at 25 Jersey Road, Buckland, Portsmouth, moving by 1939 into 16 Cardigan Road, Portsmouth. This was a cul de sac off Fratton Road that was damaged by bombing in the Second World War and then virtually demolished in post-war development. Annie died on 13 January 1969, still in the same house they had moved into before World War Two.
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
Royal Navy Service Documents for 224726 Brand, G.F. Leading Seaman
Railway Records for 25459 George Frederick Brand Goods Shunter Portsmouth
Hampshire Telegraph Friday 7th September 1928
Portsmouth News Thursday March 7th 1931
Portsmouth Times Friday March 13th 1931
1891 Census RG12 1089
1911 Census RG14 34/974-0168
1921 Census RG15 90/1/8
1939 England and Wales Index 90/2 for Cardigan Road Portsmouth
GRO Civil Registration of Birth for Qtr 4 1887
GRO Civil Registration of Death for Qtr 1 1963
Portsmouth Encyclopædia