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 account is under preparation – coming soon!
Women worked on Britain’s railways from the outset – in roles that were deemed ‘appropriate’. This included in laundries, as seamstresses in railway workshops, and as kitchen and hotel maids.
Women also worked as level crossing keepers, typically in rural locations with relatively limited traffic. Very often the women’s husbands would work for the railway, maintaining the tracks. This was the case with Georgina Lovegrove, featured here in our look at Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire railway staff.
The First World War expanded the roles and opportunities available to women – including in Stoke-on-Trent. Records are incomplete, but we know at least six women joined the North Staffordshire Railway as porters. They also joined the National Union of Railwaymen, now the RMT Union, when it allowed women to become members after 1915.
They were Florence Holway, Jenny Navin, Alice Pope, Elizabeth Riley, Myra Smallwood and Elsie Walker. We will be finding out more about them and adding details here.