2026 marks 100 years of Portsmouth’s city status – and as one of the Railway Work, Life & Death project co-leads, Mike Esbester, is based at the University of Portsmouth, it seemed like a good enough reason for a Portsmouth-focused blog post. Given that March is Women’s History Month, we thought we’d combine the two, and look at Portsmouth’s railwaywomen!
Usually in this blog we look at railway workers, their accidents, and their wider life stories. We find people from the Railway Work, Life & Death project database of accidents to British and Irish railway workers before 1939, and then research them. There are certainly plenty of Portsmouth railway staff who fall under this category – for example, Frederick Potter, about whom we’ve written here. This idea also formed the core of the Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts project, a micro-project focused on railway staff in the wider Portsmouth area.
Going beyond the Railway Work, Life & Death project
Sometimes we’ve gone off-piste, too, where there was an important connection or story to be told. This was the case with Chris Cornell’s life story of his grandfather, Charlie Cornell. So far as is known, Charlie didn’t have any accidents – but as a railwayman of colour, from Portsmouth, working on the railway throughout much of the twentieth century, his story was one that had never been told and would otherwise be missed. With that in mind, we wanted to find space for Chris to share Charlie’s story – which he wrote up, and is available here (with thanks to Chris!).
This is the case with Portsmouth’s railwaywomen, too. Railwaywomen tended to have fewer accidents at work – largely because there were relatively few female railway employees, and they were concentrated in roles less likely to incur accidents. As a result, at the moment there aren’t any Portsmouth railwaywomen found in the Railway Work, Life & Death database. But that’s not to say there weren’t any railwaywomen in Portsmouth – there absolutely were, as we soon found out. It’s also highly likely that some would have had accidents at work – but that the relevant records haven’t survived for us to demonstrate this.
Ideally we’d have looked at women’s railway service in Portsmouth in 1926 and beyond, to tie in with the city’s centenary. Unfortunately the surviving records don’t allow us to do this. However, we can have a look slightly before the 1920s, and show how railwaywomen contributed to railway service, particularly during a time of national crisis. At this point, Portsmouth was served by two railway companies: the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway (LBSCR) and the London & South Western Railway (LSWR). As they shared the tracks and station spaces, they combined to form a joint company – a pragmatic response to the constraints of space on an island.
Pre-war railwaywomen – in general and in Portsmouth
Women were directly employed by the railway companies from the start of the railway age. Whilst they were always in a minority, they were present – albeit in roles that meant they were often overlooked or minimised in the documentary record and by historians subsequently. Until the First World War, women’s employment was concentrated in roles deemed (by the companies and society) ‘appropriate’ – seamstresses, cleaners, kitchen work, and the like. Some worked in roles closer to moving trains, though – gatekeepers, opening and closing level crossing gates (discussed in this guest blog post, this blog post and this blog post). By 1914, around 13,000 women were employed on Britain’s railways – compared to around 625,000 men.
Unfortunately, tracing railway employees in general is often hard work. Records at the time were kept for as long as they were useful, but otherwise might be disposed of. There’s also the challenge of the survival of records after that point, with some records being kept for posterity and others binned as ‘not needed.’ Tracing railwaywomen can be even harder again, as they often were not officially recorded in anything like the same level of detail as their male counterparts.
In the case of Portsmouth, whilst we haven’t undertaken a systematic search, in the railway company employment registers we fairly quickly found evidence of women employees pre-dating 1914. This included LBSCR waiting room attendants Mrs J Fowler, Mrs M Parker, Mrs E Patterson and Mrs C Holden, employed at Portsmouth Town station (now known as Portsmouth and Southsea). Even compared to the male employees on the same page in the employment register, women had less detail recorded. This might have reflected the perception that they were short-term employees only. Emma Patterson joined the LBSCR in 1903, and was still working for it in 1911, for instance, though it looks like she had left by 1921. There would almost certainly have been other railwaywomen, too, in similar roles that were seen (by railway management and by many in society) as suitable for women.
First World War railwaywomen
The First World War vastly increased the numbers of women at work on Britain’s railways. It offered women new opportunities in terms of railway work – albeit usually only temporarily, until the end of the war or shortly afterwards. As men were released from railway work that was not considered essential for the war, women filled their places. Whilst some distinctions remained solid – women might clean locomotives, but they didn’t fire or drive them – other boundaries blurred, if only for a while. By 1921, many women had left railway service – but 56,777 women still remained employed.
Wartime railwaywomen still undertook ‘traditional’ roles – waiting room attendant, cleaner, and so on. But they also went into railway workshops/ factories, undertook heavier manual labouring roles (including on the docks, discussed here in relation to Wales), operated cranes (discussed in this guest blog post), were ticket collectors, porters, engine cleaners (discussed here) and more. Perhaps most surprisingly, we’ve recently found evidence of two women, including one from Southampton, who worked maintaining the railway tracks during the First World War – you can read more about them here.
Locating First World War railwaywomen: trades union records
Given the survival of employment records is patchy at best, and even more challenging in terms of finding railwaywomen, how might we track down women workers? Ironically, the First World War offers us some opportunities otherwise unavailable. On one level this is a numbers game – with more women employed (in absolute terms and as a percentage of the railway workforce), there’s a greater chance that their records will have survived.
But there’s also another advantage. From 1915 the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR; now the RMT Union) admitted women as members. It might only have been on a temporary basis – but women members were entered into the membership registers. Their expected short-term employment was denoted by the entry being made in red ink (very helpful for finding them on the page!). These membership registers are now preserved at the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick (one of the Railway Work, Life & Death project partners). They offer us at least a partial view of women’s work on the railways during and after the First World War.
For Portsmouth, the registers show 56 women joining the NUR. Not all women who joined the railway would have joined the Union. This means that the total number of railwaywomen in Portsmouth (as nationally) would actually have been higher than this. In addition, a very quick – not comprehensive! – look at the railway company employment records that survive identifies a further 17 women not found in the Union records. So, we have at least 73 railwaywomen in Portsmouth during the First World War.
Helpfully, the Union records show what roles the women were undertaking. There were:
27 porters (including ‘porter’, ‘goods porter’ and ‘parcel porter’)
12 carriage cleaners
7 checkers (someone who would check incoming and outgoing goods against their dockets)
4 ticket collectors
3 cleaners (this would have been office cleaners)
1 stewardess
1 waiting room attendant
1 temporary clerk
As can be seen, the roles women in Portsmouth occupied were reasonably varied. That variety reminds us how manual an environment the railway was – it needed a lot of people to keep it running.
Alice Mitchell’s railway service
Of the 56 railwaywomen who joined the NUR, Alice Mitchell caught the eye as she joined the Union in September 1915. This was nearly as soon as it was possible for her to do so – women were admitted as members from July 1915. Alice was one of the 12 carriage cleaners. Her NUR membership lapsed in December 1916, though this doesn’t necessarily mean she had left the railway. Unfortunately we don’t know much more about her railway service – there aren’t any further records that shed light on it.
Courtesy National Railway Museum.
Alice wasn’t the only Portsmouth railwaywoman to join the NUR in 1915. Lilian Smith, Edith Smith (who seem to be unrelated) and Ethel Robson also joined that year – and they were all carriage cleaners. Might there have been strength in numbers, and the women – who almost certainly worked together – joined together?
Alice Mitchell’s wider life
It looks like railway service was only a passing moment in Alice’s life. She was also someone who did a good job of hiding in the records. Some of this we managed to unpick, but other aspects have remained elusive. She didn’t appear on either the 1911 or 1921 census – usually a ‘go to’ source to find out more about First World War railwaywomen and contextualise their lives. So we were stuck …
However, Alice’s marriage unlocked the story. On 17 June 1916, she married Ralf Rattue (given on the record transcription as ‘Rattne’) at St Luke’s church in Southsea. Helpfully, the parish register gave her father’s name – Henry Allaway: not Mitchell. That suggested that she might have been married before 1916, but been widowed – and this proved to be the case.
In 1908, Alice Emma Allaway married George Bennett Mitchell, also at St Luke’s church. George was a shopkeeper, born in 1878, making him 30 at the time of the marriage. Alice, born in 1890, was 19. Both Alice and George had been born in Portsmouth. In 1911 Alice and George were living at 74 Lancaster Road in Southsea. By this time George was working as a wood planing machinist in Portsmouth dockyard; Alice had no occupation listed on the Census return. Though this does not necessarily mean she was not in paid employment, given they had two young sons – one born that year – it seems like she was caring for the family.
Providing for the family
Sadly George died in 1912, though what caused his death isn’t clear from the records. We therefore don’t know what impact this had on the family – either emotionally or economically. Perhaps this was the cue for Alice to join the railway industry, as soon as she was able?
Interesting, it looks as though her railway work provided another significant direction in Alice’s life. Ralf Rattue, who she married in 1916, also worked on the railway: might this be how they met? He was a carriage examiner – someone who checked railway carriages to ensure everything was in working order and ready to go out. He would have been in and around the same spaces as Alice. And he was a Union member, having joined the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS; which became the NUR) in 1912. Did he organise and recruit Alice and the other female carriage cleaners?
In 1921 Alice and Ralf (given as Ralph) were living at 6 Henrietta Street in Portsmouth. They had Alice’s sons from her first marriage, and three daughters from their marriage – joined by a fourth daughter in 1925. Ralf remained at work on the railway; he died in 1946. Alice lived until 1976, remaining in Portsmouth until the end.
Ethel Allaway on the railway & beyond
When we made the connections and found Alice’s maiden name, it sounded familiar. That was because we’d seen another female Allaway in the NUR member registers! So – this was turning out to be a railway family story in a number of ways … and that was to continue when we looked at Ethel’s life.
Ethel Maud Allaway was born in 1892, in Portsmouth. She joined the NUR in 1916 – as a carriage cleaner. She was following in her younger sister’s footsteps, as it turned out. She remained a member until June 1918. She would have been working alongside her sister and brother-in-law.
In 1917 she married William Munday – another railway worker. Clearly the workplace – and the railway workplace – was a good place to meet a future spouse. William worked as a porter, and was another NUR member, having joined in 1915. By 1921 they had a daughter, Irene, and were living at 3 Grosvenor Street in Southsea. Also living with them was Ethel’s mother, Sarah. By 1939 they had moved – but not far: to 5 Grosvenor Street. Ethel and William had two people living with them, currently redacted on the 1939 Register as they might still be alive – likely two further children. Ethel died in Portsmouth in 1969.
Interestingly, there were a number of railway employees in Portsmouth with the surname ‘Mundy’. That includes two First World War railwaywomen – Emily Mundy and ‘Mrs Mundy’ (though the two of them don’t appear to be related). Might one or both have been related to George, and hence indirectly to Ethel? These kinds of interrelationships, by blood and by marriage, as well as by occupation, were very typical of the railway industry, so it wouldn’t be at all surprising to find further connections.
Focusing by place and topic
Evidently, focusing on a particular place or topic can be revealing about work and life in the past. Bringing the two together provides an even sharper focus, but also allows wider connections to be drawn out. Hopefully this post – featuring no accidents! – has demonstrated what can be done and the potential it offers. That’s not least the case as there are plenty more Portsmouth railwaywomen to explore, something we’ve started doing. Watch this space!