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.
Thomas Birks’ story was a Staffordshire one, through and through. He lived his entire life in the wider Stoke-on-Trent area. He might not have made a huge mark in the historical record – but he did leave a trace. For his family and friends, and the communities he was a part of, he would have been significant, of course. Whilst there may be few, or even none, alive today who remember Thomas, this account can help record his life and ensure he is known. Through it we can see some what day-to-day life looked like for one ordinary person in the later 19th century into the middle of the 20th century.
The Birks family
Thomas Herbert Birks was born on 14 May 1880, in Longton, Staffordshire – one of the six towns that merged in 1910 to form the borough of Stoke-on-Trent. His parents were Peter and Louisa. In 1881 the family lived at 10 Union Street.
Between 1880 and 1890 Peter and Louisa had five children, including Thomas, the eldest. It looks like the youngest of their children, Alice, might have died in infancy, as she appears only on the 1891 Census.
Sadly Thomas’ mother, Louisa, died in 1890 – possibly during childbirth, with Alice. Her death left Peter a widower and the five children under the age of 11 without their mother. On the 1891 Census the family was living at 116 Raglan Street, along with Peter’s parents, Thomas and Sarah, and his brother – also called Thomas.
Peter remarried in 1891, to Emily. Together they had a son, Reginald, in 1899. By 1901, Thomas’ three surviving full siblings were employed: his sisters working in potteries and his brother in an iron foundry. The family were living at 7 Stewart Street, Fenton.
Thomas’ railway connections
As was a common story, Thomas Birks had a number of connections to the rail industry. He would have heard railway talk and seen railway role models around him – no doubt making the railway seem ‘known’ and available as a career.
By 1891, the family home included a boarder – James Ratcliffe, a brakesman (someone who applied brakes on goods wagons, to slow them down as they were being moved in goods yards). More significantly, Thomas had railway workers in the family. His father and uncle were both brakesmen, for the North Staffordshire Railway (NSR).
At some point in the 1890s, Thomas also joined the NSR. In 1900 he joined the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) trade union’s Stoke-on-Trent branch, as a brakesman – following in the family line. On the 1901 Census, both Thomas and his father Peter were listed as guards, a step up from being a brakesman.
Railway work and railway dangers
Work as a brakesman or guard was dangerous. You were trackside, in amongst moving wagons, so at risk of slips, trips or falls and ending up being hit – or worse, run over. It was some of the most dangerous work on the railway at this time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, Thomas had an accident at work.
We don’t have precise details of the accident, as it wasn’t investigated formally. The state had, since 1893, had a number of inspectors who investigated accidents to railway staff – though in 1904 they only numbered five. Given there were 15,009 railway worker casualties in 1904 alone, clearly the railway inspectors couldn’t investigate every incident. As Thomas’ accident was relatively minor, his wasn’t selected for investigation.
Thomas’ 1904 accident
What we know about Thomas’ accident comes from the records kept by his union, the ASRS. It supported members, or their dependents, in the event of an accident. That might be financial support if someone couldn’t work, or via representation and legal support at inquiries.
Courtesy National Library of Scotland Maps.
On 4 October 1904 Thomas was at work on Pratt’s siding, to the south of Stoke station. He was fastening brakes down (applying the brakes), with a brakestick, on an incline, when he injured his leg. He was off work for four weeks and four days. Whilst he was off, he was compensated, amounting to around half of his usual wage – he received 12 shillings per week (around £83 in 2026).
We don’t have records of any other accidents that Thomas might have suffered. However, given the risks of his role, there’s every chance that over the course of his working life he had other accidents.
Thomas’ life after the accident
Thomas married Martha Elizabeth Wolliscroft in late 1904. In 1911 they were living with their two sons, Eric and Clifford, and Martha’s father, also called Thomas, at 79 Cornwallis Street. They all remained there in 1921. By this time Thomas Birks was a railway foreman – a position with some supervisory responsibility. Eric was working in the pottery industry; Clifford was still at school, though later went into work outside the railway industry.
Thomas had become part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) when it was formed in 1923 (by amalgamating a number of other companies, including the NSR). Martha died in 1934, and Thomas remarried in 1935, to Mary Ann Wainwright. In 1939 they were living at 16 Trent Vale Withies Road, in Stoke. Thomas had been promoted to a Traffic Inspector for the LMS. He died in 1957.
What we can see, then, in Thomas’ life story is a relatively minor railway accident punctuating his working career on the railways. With a wider perspective, we can see family life rooted in the potteries, with railway and pottery employment taking place in the wider Stoke area over several generations. Seeing these life courses like this – how ordinary people might fit into the region – gives us more of an understanding of typical lives in the past.