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Efforts to raise money to support the ASRS/ NUR Orphan Fund were diverse, including flag days, processions, and fetes. Raffles and prize draws were a firm favourite, with the pages of the Railway Review listing winners from competitions run by many different Union branches. Sometimes the money raised went to specific individuals, sometimes to local funds and sometimes to the central Orphan Fund.
The three postcards shown on this page, from 1906, 1908 and 1910 were all used as the ‘ticket’ in their respective raffles. Over 8700 cards were sold in the 1906 raffle.
In terms of the 1908 prize – you have to wonder where the winner would have kept the model engine, at nearly 6½ feet (nearly 2m) long and weighing 1 cwt (around 50 kg)?! And does it, and any of the others shown, still survive?
Building the models to be raffled and then running the raffles were no mean feats – and the men responsible were named on the cards. They were William Thrupp (a shunter; 1906); Robert Woolley (builder of the 1908 model, a machinist at Derby Works) and William Pentney (a porter, and responsible for the 1908 raffle); and Charles Green (a signalman; 1910).
This account is one of over 20 life stories featured in the Railway Work, Life & Death project’s ‘Lives on the Line: Railway Workers, Accidents & Union Action’ exhibition at project partner the Modern Records Centre, from October 2026 until mid-January 2027.