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.
NB: Further details of James Pearce’s life story will be added shortly.
In one moment, James Pearce’s railway career ended. Since 1863 he had worked for the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway, as a porter. But from 1884, aged 45, he could no longer work.
Why not?
Early in 1884 he had an accident at Portsmouth Town goods station (the site next to the current Portsmouth and Southsea station). A case fell on him, breaking one leg and cutting his foot. He was taken to the hospital at Mile End.
According to his medical examination afterwards, he was suffering from leg ulcers and ‘nervous debility.’ As a result, he was ‘unable to follow any employment in the future.’
Luckily he’d joined the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) trade union in December 1873. He was an early member, as the Union was only set up in 1871. He received a £20 one-off grant from the ASRS – around £2700 today – to cover his immediate costs. But what next?
Mike Esbester