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!
‘One of the most respected guards on the line’ – so said a newspaper about North Staffordshire Railway guard William Ash. Unfortunately it was reporting his death in December 1883.
He had been working near Chatterley station (now closed; by Harecastle Tunnel, north-west of Stoke). He slipped on frost, falling under a train.
William’s widow, Betsy, managed to keep their youngest child, Alice (born 1882), living with her. However, their boys – William (born 1874), Albert (born 1878) and Harold (born 1880) – went to live in the Derby Railway Orphanage.
Separation was obviously difficult, and Betsy fought to bring her boys to live with her. By the end of 1890 the family was reunited in Uttoxeter.