On 14 October 2022, King’s Cross station in London will be 170 years old. To mark this anniversary, this week’s blog post looks at accidents at King’s Cross and in the associated area. It gives an impression of how our project database can be used, to build a picture of the operation of a single […]
Tag Archives | 1914
July: the month of many multiples
We’ve already blogged about a couple of cases of multiple accidents: when our database has shown a worker had more than one accident. We’ve considered shunter Tom Oliver, who injured his ankles whilst working around York; and labourer Joseph Brown, unlucky enough to be hit by trains twice in 3 weeks (though he survived both […]
John Pratt (1869 – 1914)
By Sarah Maczugowska on October 11, 2021 in Accident reports, Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources, War
Earlier this year we were contacted by the author of this blog post, Sarah Maczugowska, seeking information about her Great Grandfather John Pratt’s role on the railway – in particular, the ‘special guard duty’ during the First World War that was to result in his death. Whilst we couldn’t help directly, when knew someone who […]
Did illiteracy kill James Coughlin?
We might tend to question the extent to which many of the working classes – for it is the working classes who are largely the subject of these accident reports – could read or write. For the railway industry the indications are actually that the workforce was highly literate, but the ability to read certainly […]
A Brynamman Accident
On 5 June 1914 Midland Railway fireman Iestyn Newman Nash, 27, was working his turn at Brynamman, Carmarthenshire. Moving some coaches to prepare his train, he appears to have leaned out of the engine in order to watch for any signals from the guard. Somewhat ominously, the state report, taken by JJ Hornby, noted that […]
The final July multiples
This month we’ve already highlighted a a number of cases in which workers had 2 accidents (see here and here). Before the month is out, we have 2 more individuals from our database to add to this tally. The first person involved was Frederick Charles Cuff. A pilot guard for the Barry Railway company, he […]
New data release: Great Eastern Railway Benevolent Fund book, 1913-23
By Mike Esbester on November 26, 2018 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Disability, Disability History Month, Updates
We’re thrilled to release a new data set for you: details of Great Eastern Railway (GER) staff who had been injured at work and applied for assistance to the Company’s Benevolent Fund between 1913 and 1923. The information comes from a ledger book kept by the Company and now found at the National Railway Museum […]
Disability History Month: ‘very nervous and trembling a good deal’
Wednesday marks the start of 2020’s Disability History Month, something that our project speaks closely too, given the large numbers of railway staff who were made disabled in the course of their work. Over the years we’ve blogged about a number of cases involving disabled staff, detailed here, and over the coming month we’ll highlight […]
Family, anxiety & accident
Today we are fortunate in that the idea of work-life balance exists – if only as an ideal, in many cases. People interested in understanding how and why accidents happen are increasingly recognising that boundaries drawn between work and home life are false. But this isn’t new. A notable rail example is the 1892 Thirsk […]
Dying for a wee – 1
As travellers today (when we’re able to resume travelling) we may be less than enamoured of the toilets on trains – all too often cramped, unclean or even out-of-order. But at least they’ve been provided for us. That isn’t always the case for staff – and that’s a long-standing issue. Earlier this year I wrote […]
