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.
Henry Potter was born in the spring of 1841, probably in Rushall, a small village close to Upavon, in Wiltshire. His birth was registered in Pewsey in July, with his mother’s maiden name recorded as Bartlett.
The family, including Henry, appear in the slightly earlier census of 1841 simply under the address ‘Upavon’, indicating that he was probably born around April 1841. Henry later claimed to have been born in 1839, although no registration associated with such an early date exists. He was baptised on 19 May 1842 by Henry S. C. Crook, the Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin, Upavon.
From these records a simple family tree can be constructed.
The wider family remained at Rushall, with his father dying in 1872 and his mother in 1875. Henry, however, had moved. Currently untraceable in the 1861 Census – he might be the H Potter in Chatham Barracks as a soldier – he married a Havant girl, Amelia Jane Lee, on 28 Dec 1867 at St Faith Church, Havant.
They appear together in the 1871 Census at 42 East Street in Havant, where his employment is noted as a railway guard. By 1881 they have a considerable family as noted in the Census, where they are living in Portsmouth. All the children except the youngest have been born either in Havant or in Hayling as the family gradually moved around the area. The youngest, Mary, was born in Portsea, indicating a relatively recent move circa 1880.
The family remain in the Portsmouth area, gradually moving house. In 1891 the family are at 11 Plymouth Street, Portsea, with four more children. By 1901 they are at 6 Blackfriars Road, Portsmouth. Henry has ceased to be a guard, reporting his employment as an ‘outside porter’ on the railway. By this time his eldest son, Frederick, is also a railway porter.
By 1911, Henry is now aged 70 and living with another son, Charles, at 74 Wymering Road, Portsmouth. He reverts to railway guard as his profession on the Census.
Henry first appears on the books of the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway at Portsmouth in January 1872. In 1875 he was a guard at Hayling; on 18 December 1877 he is recorded as a passenger guard at South Hayling Station. By 1891 he is at Portsmouth as a passenger guard, but in 1897 he was reported ill (‘insane‘) in the Portsmouth guards ledger. On 22 October 1897 he was superannuated (retired) at an annual rate of £7.11.0 – around £1050 now.
Henry died on 14 June 1916; his wife Amelia died in the Autumn of 1918.
Neil Spurgeon
Neil Spurgeon, one of the researchers for the Railway Work, Life & Death, Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts project, 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.