The Railway Work, Life & Death project database is full of cases which we can usefully evaluate with modern eyes. This isn’t straightforward of course – we need to understand the past in its own terms. However, looking from the perspective of 2025 can help to draw out underlying assumptions which weren’t questioned at the time: it was simply ‘the way things are.’
That potential is only going to increase with the addition of this week’s new dataset. On Thursday, we’re adding around 69,000 new cases to the project database. They come from records kept by English and Welsh railway companies, between 1855 and 1929, and now cared for by The National Archives of the UK. There’s a bit more on this in this blog post – with more to come on Thursday!
For now, though, we wanted to pick out one case that caught our eye whilst preparing the dataset for release. It was unusual, in that it explicitly articulated some of the issues we have previously had to infer. It throws into relief the clash between worker safety and operational efficiency.
Frank Keates’ accident, Barry 1910
Frank Keates was a ‘mineral guard’ on the Barry Railway, in south Wales, in the early 20th century. He was a type of guard, working on mineral trains – including coal being moved to the docks. He would have been particularly experienced in handling long, heavy, relatively slow-moving trains.
His accident, on 1 June 1910, appears in the records of his employer, in a volume recording the outcome of compensation payments to staff. As ever, the fact that such a volume – or, rather, at least two volumes – was needed speaks to large numbers of employees hurt at work in just one company. Magnify that across the approximately 120 railway companies operating in the UK at this time and the scale of the dangers of railway work becomes apparent.
On 1 June 1910 Keates was bringing a train into a high level siding at Barry Docks. According to the record, he fell from a wagon when his coupling pole became caught in the wagon coupling. Ironically, coupling poles had been introduced from the 1870s as a safety precaution. They were intended to remove the need for workers to go between railway wagons to couple or uncouple them. Keates landed with his right foot on the rails. It was then run over by the moving wagon and crushed, later being amputated surgically.
Investigating the causes of Keates’ accident: safety vs efficiency
Keates’ accident was the subject of a Railway Inspectorate investigation – which we’ll return to. The Barry Railway record notes this investigation, including that it touched up Rule 24(a). This was a catch-all provision, standard across all railway company rule books, that said that employees should not expose themselves to danger. With the virtue of hindsight, it isn’t clear quite how that would work in an environment in which standard operating practices effectively routinely forced staff into dangerous positions.
Interestingly, however, the Barry Railway record includes one very significant observation not found anywhere else. It was recommended that the practice of alighting from a moving vehicle should be prohibited. However, none of the seventeen railway companies consulted about this proposal would endorse the change, due to it ‘impeding work efficiency.’
This comment was not included in the publicly distributed Railway Inspectorate report. We can speculate as to why that might be. If it were stated publicly that the railway companies were, effectively, prioritising operational efficiency over worker safety in this way, it was just possible there might have been public outcry. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) trade union might well have picked up on it. And so the only reference to it seems to have been in a private document, originally produced for internal company use only. Without this Barry Railway record this detail would simply not be known. It is rare to see such a clear statement that favoured cost over the lives and limbs of workers.
Post-accident provision for Barry Railway employees
The Barry Railway compensation record notes the people involved in the process. That included JJ Hornby, the state-appointed Railway Inspector, and the Barry Railway Company’s Inspector Butler. It also included Messers Gillingham and Sons, of Chard – artificial limb manufacturers.
This is the only time the firm producing prostheses for the Barry Railway was named in the Company’s records being brought into the Railway Work, Life & Death project. Some of the larger railway companies had sufficient need for prostheses that they produced them in house (discussed in this blog post and in this guest blog post). As a smaller company, it was presumably uneconomic for the Barry Railway to dedicate time and space to making prostheses. Instead, they outsourced, to Gillingham and Sons, a specialist prosthetic manufacturer – about whom, a little more is available here.
Within the same volume of compensation records, covering 1898-1915, only six other prostheses were recorded. Many more employees would have suffered life-changing injuries in this period, requiring prostheses, so why don’t they appear? Indeed, a great many more compensation payments would have been made than the 116 people covered in this volume. The volume only records those compensation cases which were paid by settlement or award – so, which involved some form of external arbitration, as set out in the Workmen’s Compensation Act.
For those cases recorded in the volume which involved limb loss, what did they actually get? Most of the six others in the volume were presented in the same way as that for Keates: half the cost of the prosthetic was covered by the Company. Presumably the other half had to be paid for by Keates and the individuals concerned: a stiff price to pay, on top of the occupationally-caused disability. Costs for prostheses would have depended on a range of factors, but in the records ranged between approximately £15-20.
The Barry Railway’s contribution towards Keates’ artificial leg was £7.7.0 (around £935 at 2025 prices). It also manufactured, in-house, a pair of crutches for Keates. And via the Workmen’s Compensation Act, he received £34.17.8 in compensation – around £4370 now. This seems a relatively small amount. For some who suffered life-changing injuries that rendered their previous role unviable, the volume notes they were found alternative employment with the Company. Keates’ record doesn’t show this, however.
Frank Keates’ wider life
From records such as census returns, we know that Frank Keates was born in Cullompton, Devon, in around 1882. His father, George, was a shepherd, and his mother, Emma, tended the home. He had an elder sister, Florence, born in 1880. By 1901 George had died, Florence had left home, and Frank was living with his widowed mother in Cardiff.
It looks like Frank might have joined the Great Western Railway in the late 1890s. An employment record suggests he was a member of the uniformed staff at Cardiff in 1899. On the 1901 Census he was recorded as a shunter. He joined the ASRS in 1906, by this time being employed by the Barry Railway, as a brakesman.
He married Mary Jane Chick in 1910 – but from the 1911 Census it looks like they already had two daughters at the point of marriage. They went on to have at least three more daughters and a son.
The 1911 Census also answers a question about Keates’ post-accident employment. He was shown as a signalman. So – the Barry Railway did keep him on, as was the case with others who were injured in similar ways. By 1921, however, he was not working on the railways. Still living in Barry, he was a store keeper for Goulds Foundry. The Barry Railway’s compensation record and the census records don’t explain why he came to leave the railway industry. On the 1939 Register he was unemployed; he died in 1942.
Frank Keates’ 1910 accident in the project data – Railway Inspectorate
One of the virtues of the Railway Work, Life & Death project is the ability to bring together multiple records about a single person. Together they give us a much fuller picture of an individual’s working life. This is very much the case for Frank Keates.
His 1910 accident appears in several places in the Railway Work, Life & Death project’s data. Within the existing dataset, he appears in the Railway Inspectorate records. It gives us a more detailed account of his accident. With a colleague, he was riding on the empty wagons of a 36 wagon train. Keates was inside the 29th wagon, at the point at which the train needed to be split. He tried to get down from the wagon, moving at around five miles per hour. As he did so, he placed his foot on a buffer casing, but slipped and fell to the track. No mention was made of the coupling pole in this account.
Inspector Hornby noted that getting down whilst wagons were in motion was general practice. Clearly this was a mode of working known about and at least tacitly approved by those above Keates. Hornby’s report concluded that ‘for safety it is desirable that if the Company require the guards and brakesmen to ride in the wagons they should be forbidden to alight until they are at rest.’ Hornby and the other Railway Inspectors could ask the railway companies nicely to make changes, but they couldn’t force them to, hence the implicit recognition that this dangerous practice would likely continue.
Indeed, on 29 November 1912, mineral guard Thomas Eddolls was injured at Barry Docks … when alighting from a moving wagon. He had previously been injured in 1909 in a similar way. Hornby investigated all three cases, and noted them in his 1912 report. However, he remained powerless to do anything other than reiterate that ‘if the Company require their guards and brakesmen to ride in the wagons, it is desirable for safety that they should be forbidden to alight until the vehicles are at rest.’
Frank Keates’ 1910 accident in the project data – new Barry Railway records
In addition to the Barry Railway’s compensation volume, Keates’ 1910 accident appears in the Company’s accident register, covering 1909-1910. This provides similar detail to the compensation volume. Crucially, it was updated as Keates’ case progressed over the years – because his case did continue.
The record reiterated the point about the coupling pole being tangled in the coupling as Keates tried to dismount the wagon. This demonstrates that the official state records of these incidents are only summaries and don’t always capture the full picture. It shows that Keates was off work for 323 days, being paid 4/9 per day via the Workmen’s Compensation Act.
It also provides an answer to why Keates left the Barry Railway before 1921. He was dismissed, for stealing coal, on 20 November 1915. His weekly compensation payments continued until 8 January 1916, and a lump sum settlement of £275 (c.£23,500 in 2025) was made on 9 February 1916.
Frank Keates’ other accidents
Keates role – mineral guard – exposed him to particular dangers. He was up and down from wagons, coupling and uncoupling them, working at track-level. This was risky work. It should therefore be unsurprising to find Keates elsewhere in the Barry Railway accident registers coming into the Railway Work, Life & Death project database.
In fact, Keates had three previous accidents which were recorded by the Barry Railway. The earliest was on 12 September 1903, when he was a brakesman. He slipped on grease and cut his knee severely on trackwork at Cadoxton, Barry. Keates was off duty for 50 days; normally paid 3/6 per day (around £23 in 2025), he received £2.12.6 in compensation (c.£345 today).
He wasn’t back at work long before he had his next accident: just 15 days. At Barry low level sidings on 16 November 1903 he tripped on a locomotive step as he attempted to board it – whilst it was moving. This time he was off duty for 27 days and received £1.1.0 compensation (c.£138 today).
So far as the records show, he kept out of harm’s way until 15 August 1908. By this time he was a guard (presumably a mineral guard), being paid 4/4 per day (c.£28 today). At Barry Dock no 1 tip road, he was applying a wagon brake. The lever flew up and bruised his left hand on the solebar of the wagon. He remained at work.
Putting the records together
Overall, then we can use the records in the Railway Work, Life & Death project to form multiple different pictures. We can see individual working careers, the conditions in which people worked, and their working practices on the ground. But we can also relate this to others in similar roles and doing similar things, to gain a much broader view of railway work. We can see how companies handled occupational disability, and something of what happened to individuals after a life-changing accident. Significantly, through comments made for company records, we can find rare evidence of how organisations prioritised work over employee safety. Certainly these records come to us through the rail industry, but they speak to much wider social, cultural, economic and political issues of their day. The Railway Work, Life & Death project offers far more than ‘just’ railway history.
I find it extremely misleading to place “impeding work efficiency” in quotes in the title as though it was a direct quote from the records, when in fact it appears to be a quote from this post summarising the records, which are not directly quoted.
Perfectly fair to come back to us with this observation! I’d not quoted directly in the body of the blog post, but from the record in the database: ‘It was recommended that the practice of alighting from a moving vehicle should be prohibited. An investigation discovered that none of the seventeen companies consulted would endorse this practice due to it impeding work efficiency.’
When I have a moment I shall log back in and amend the body text to show the quote marks, so thanks for helping us clarify this.