Until March 2025, we’d been quite confident in saying that in Britain, women didn’t work maintaining railway tracks until the Second World War. That’s certainly the story that’s been told and accepted – until now. Over the last year new evidence has come to light which casts this traditional narrative into doubt – and there might be more out there. It seems appropriate to be sharing this during Women’s History Month 2026 and on International Women’s Day.
This blog pushes the Railway Work, Life & Death project beyond its usual focus. Whilst we’re always interested in railway work in Britain and Ireland and the people who did it, at our core has been staff accidents before 1939. We’ve been exploring them through the records generated inside the rail industry. Volunteers have been transcribing the records and making them available through our free database – currently standing at around 115,000 cases, with more to come.
Women’s railway work
Of course, railwaywomen feature in the accident database – a few of them are explored in these blog posts. As we’ve said before, railwaywomen were a part of the industry from its start. By the First World War, around 13,000 women were working on the railways. But what did they do?
They tended to be concentrated into roles deemed that society deemed ‘appropriate’ for women – often meaning less physically strenuous tasks. These were roles which typically involved less exposure to danger or to risks of severe harm. They might be seamstresses, for example, or working in railway-run laundries, hotels and kitchens. Mostly, they were working away from moving railway vehicles.
Some women did work in the operational environment we might immediately think of in connection with the railway industry – on or near the railway tracks, around moving trains. Some women worked as carriage cleaners, some as level crossing keepers. Still others would have crossed railway lines taking messages around station and goods yard environments.
Women’s war work
The First and Second World Wars increased opportunities for women and the roles that they might undertake. It was felt this was borne of necessity. With railwaymen away from roles on active duty overseas, women replaced men as a temporary expedient. In the First World War, and then again in the Second World War, women became porters, ticket collectors, crane drivers, engine cleaners, and more. This often increased the dangers to which they were exposed.
One area remained off limits to women – engine firing and driving. And another – track maintenance work – is normally believed to have been the preserve of men until around 1941. That was because of the perception of the work as requiring great physical strength and being particularly onerous, and so being unsuitable for women. That idea was put to one side during the Second World War, as the number of photographs recording this seemingly new phenomenon demonstrate. However, previously unexplored records show that some women had already worked maintaining the tracks during the First World War.
Charlotte Atherton’s 1919 bravery
Whilst preparing the most recent Railway Work, Life & Death project data release, in 2025 (more on that here), we chanced upon details of Charlotte Atherton. Employed by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), she came to the attention of one of the managing committees. The cause, though, was nothing to do with her railway employment.
On 21 February 1919 Charlotte was at home in 8 Beswick Street in Warrington when she heard loud screams. She ran out into the street and found 10-year old Emily Butters, one of her neighbours, with her clothing on fire. Charlotte carried Emily into her home and put out the flames. As a result, Charlotte’s left hand and arm were burnt, and she was off work for several weeks. Emily was badly burnt, and later taken to Warrington Infirmary; fortunately – thanks to Charlotte’s quick actions – Emily survived. The LNWR gave Charlotte a reward of £2.2.0 – around £125 in 2026. This was probably to cover her income lost whilst off work.
Mrs C Atherton, Platelayer’s Labourer & union member
The only reason we know that Charlotte Atherton worked on the tracks is that the minute recording her actions was head ‘Mrs C Atherton, Platelayer’s Labourer’. That caught the eye, as it was so unexpected!
We don’t know much else about her railway service, as it was relatively short-lived. On the 1911 and 1921 census both she and her husband, Alfred, are recorded without any railway occupation. So – were it not for this LNWR record, and one other piece of evidence, there would be no remaining record of Charlotte having worked on the railway.
Charlotte joined the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR; now the RMT Union) in 1918. She was recorded as ‘L Atherton (Mrs)’, and might have been missed, had the 1911 Census not shown her as ‘Lottie Atherton.’ Content that we had the right woman, she had joined the Warrington No.1 branch on 7 September 1918, as a labourer. There was no direct indication from that record, therefore, that she was a track worker. Only because we can match her to the LNWR record do we know that her employment took her onto the track. Charlotte left the NUR in February 1919. This was the same time she was burnt saving Emily, so it might well be that this represented the end of her railway employment.
Charlotte’s family life
Charlotte Buttress was born on 24 April 1876, in Hanley, Staffordshire (part of what’s now Stoke-on-Trent). She married Alfred Atherton in 1897, and went on to have five children between 1898 and 1909. On both the 1901 and 1911 census she had no occupation recorded against her name, though by 1921 was shown as carrying out ‘home duties.’ Throughout she and the family were living at 8 Beswick Street.
Alfred Atherton was born in 1877 in Warrington. He worked as a general labourer, and in 1921 as a blacksmith. By 1939 Alfred had retired; Charlotte was still undertaking unpaid domestic duties. This was still in Warrington, but in the house of their youngest son, also called Alfred. Also living with in the house was Lottie, another of Charlotte and Alfred’s children, by now married to William Massey. After that detail about Charlotte and her family runs out.
Charlotte Atherton – the tip of the iceberg?
We don’t know how Charlotte came to work for the LNWR, or once she joined how she ended up as a permanent way labourer. Her NUR record offers up an intriguing thought, however. As was common for women joining the Union during the war, their entry in the membership register was recorded in red pen. This indicated a wartime role, expected to be temporary.
At the same time Charlotte joined the NUR’s Warrington No.1 branch, four other women did – Florrie Shave, Elizabeth Leigh, Winnie Slater, and Lily Whittle. Like Charlotte, they were shown as labourers. Might they also have worked on the tracks? And might women in other branches, also simply recorded as labourers, actually have been track workers?
It’s unlikely that vast numbers of women were maintaining railway tracks during the First World War. Had that been the case, they probably would have attracted interest, in the ways that they did during the Second World War. But perhaps more women than only Charlotte Atherton worked on the lines?
Susan Longman, 1917
It was in this context that we uncovered Susan Longman. Looking through the NUR membership registers for Southampton for railwaywomen Susan Longman jumped out. Her role was clearly recorded as ‘P.W. Labourer’ – ‘permanent way labourer’. Another track worker!
Like Charlotte Atherton, Susan’s time with the railway was limited, and left virtually no trace. In Susan’s case, it was only her NUR membership entry. She joined the Union on 16 November 1917, and remained a member until 1 January 1919. She was employed by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), though no Company employment record survives. On the 1911 and 1921 census Susan was shown without employment (1911) and undertaking ‘home duties’ (1921) – again, no sign of railway work.
Susan’s life
Susan’s early life has proven hard to track down. From her census entries we know that she was born on 10 May 1876 in Southampton. Often we’d be able to find more, including a woman’s maiden name, via a marriage register, and from that track down her origins. However, we’ve been unable to find a marriage entry for Susan. As a result, the first time we can find Susan, she appears as a married woman: Susan Longman. She appears with her husband, George, on the 1911 Census. They were lodging in the house of Thomas and Mary Sheath, at 128 Radcliffe Road in Southampton. George was working as a telephone lineman – likely for the LSWR. He had been born in 1884, in Freemantle, Hampshire.
By 1921 Susan and George – now given under his full name as William George Longman – were living at 57 Bevois Street in Southampton. They had a boarder living with them, Grace Darley. George was still shown as a telephone linesman, but this time recorded as working for the LSWR.
Joining the railway – and on
Given George’s railway employment, it seems probable he introduced Susan to the LSWR. George had joined the NUR in 1915, so again, might well have made union membership visible to his wife.
Unfortunately George died in 1925. Susan remarried in 1927, to John Rudd. John was born in 1891. Susan remained in the same property she’d lived in with George – 57 Bevois Street – in 1939. On the 1939 Register John was shown as a Southern Railway (the successor company to the LSWR) ‘electrical driver’ – might he and George have been colleagues? And John and Susan met through railway work, directly or indirectly? Susan probably died in 1954.
Railwaywomen on track, then and now
Having found Susan in the NUR membership register explicitly labelled as a permanent way labourer, we wondered if any other women might have been recorded like this. 697 people were recorded as permanent way labourers – but Susan was the only woman. However, as we’ve seen with Charlotte Atherton, it’s entirely possible that other women were working on the railway lines, but not shown clearly in the documentary record. Whilst Charlotte and Susan are the earliest railwaywomen track workers we’ve yet found, there may still have been women maintaining the lines before them.
Being able to identify railwaywomen like Charlotte and Susan is important in different ways. It’s significant in its own right, as it helps us to understand our railway pasts in new ways. It also demonstrates how women have been a part of virtually all areas of railway industry for over 100 years. This is significant today, in terms of representation and ensuring that women now see themselves as having long had a place in all areas of the industry. The past has a tremendous power to shape not only the present, but also the future.