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!
Thomas Birks was born in Longton, now a part of Stoke-on-Trent, in 1881. His father and uncle both worked for the North Staffordshire Railway as brakesmen – applying the brakes on goods wagons.
By 1900 Thomas was also working for the North Staffordshire Railway as a brakesman. On 4 October 1904 he had an accident at Pratt’s siding in Stoke. His leg was injured applying the brakes on a wagon. He was off work for four and a half weeks, receiving compensation of 12 shillings per week – around £83 now.
Thomas stayed with the railway, becoming a goods guard, and then a foreman. By 1939 he was a traffic inspector on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, a reasonably senior role.