This page is one of a series introducing railway staff who worked in and around Stoke-on-Trent before 1939. They’ve been researched as part of the ‘Tracks through Time’ initiative – which you can read more about here.
The workers featured were largely selected from staff who appear in the Railway Work, Life & Death project database of accidents to pre-1939 British and Irish railway workers.
Please note that a fuller life story is under preparation – coming soon!
Edward Lovegrove came from a railway family – his father, John, was a platelayer (someone who maintains the railway tracks). Edward was born in 1862 at Apedale railway cottage, Knutton – and his mother might have been the level crossing keeper there.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that by the 1880s Edward had followed his father and become a North Staffordshire Railway platelayer. In 1892 Edward married Georgina Goodall, in Knutton. By 1901 Georgina was employed as gate keeper at Apedale level crossing.
She remained in that role until at least 1917, when she joined the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR – now the RMT). Edward had worked as a platelayer until his death, from cancer, in 1915. As he, too, was a member of the NUR, the Union made a small payment to Georgina to help cover immediate costs at the time of death.