This blog is our final post in this series, ahead of the centenary tomorrow of the 1921 Stapleton Road accident. Yesterday we looked at the family connections between Arthur and Charles Hobbs. Today we focus on the final man who died, Stephen Francis. Stephen Albert Francis proved to be somewhat tricky to pin down – […]
Tag Archives | 1921
Stapleton Road, 26 September 1921
Charles Edmonds. Herbert George North. Charles Oakhill. Joseph Barrett. Arthur Hobbs. Stephen Albert Francis. On 26 September 1921, these six track workers died in a single incident near Stapleton Road station in Bristol, on the Great Western Railway (GWR). Another man – Charles Hobbs, Arthur’s uncle – was injured. As we reach the […]
Stapleton Road: the men, pt 3
By Mike Esbester on September 24, 2021 in Accident aftermath, Anniversary, Blog, Family History, Linking sources
Following yesterday’s look at Charles Oakhill, and the railway connections in his family, today we turn to another railway family caught up in the Stapleton Road accident: the Hobbs. Arthur Hobbs (1897-1921) Arthur was the youngest of the men to die at Stapleton Road, at only 24. He was a labourer, and the only one […]
Stapleton Road: the men, pt 1
By Mike Esbester on September 22, 2021 in Accident aftermath, Accident reports, Blog, Family History, Linking sources
Yesterday we discussed the institutional responses to the Stapleton Road accident; from this point onwards, we look more at the personal impacts, on the men involved and their the families. Sadly for most of the men and families involved, we don’t have too much information. We’d dearly like to know more – about the individual’s […]
Stapleton Road: the men, pt 2
By Mike Esbester on September 23, 2021 in Accident aftermath, Anniversary, Blog, Explore your Archives, Family History, Linking sources
Yesterday we started introducing the men involved in the Stapleton Road accident. Today we focus on just one man, for whom we have more information: Charles Oakhill. Charles was born in 1870, to William and Mary Ann. He had 6 siblings, one of whom died in infancy. They were all born in and around the […]
Stapleton Road: the aftermath
By Mike Esbester on September 21, 2021 in Accident aftermath, Accident reports, Anniversary, Blog, Linking sources
Yesterday’s blog post looked at what happened in the 1921 Stapleton Road accident on the Great Western Railway (GWR). Today we turn to the institutional aftermath – before considering the individuals over the coming days. We made reference to a report, produced by Railway Inspector JPS Main, for the Ministry of Transport (more on who […]
William Charles Lilley
By Archie McDermott-Paintin on June 21, 2021 in Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Local History
This week our blog features a guest post from Archie McDermott-Paintin, a 2nd year History student at the University of Portsmouth. Archie worked with fellow student Marc Treloar (whose post was featured a couple of weeks’ ago) and project co-lead Mike Esbester on project data, including early access to our data release planned for later […]
Gunshot wounds
Today’s post, from the project’s Helen Ford at the Modern Records Centre, looks at a particularly difficult part of Ireland’s past: the lead up to partition 100 years ago. Railways have long been political, but in this case, they were an active site of contest, involving attacks on infrastructure and people – with tragic results. […]
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 […]
Spidery scrawl and good eyesight
Back in November we released our second set of project data – details of around 500 Great Eastern Railway (GER) staff and former staff, between them making about 600 applications to the GER Benevolent Fund for support following an accident at work. The applications were made between 1913 and 1923, but as the data showed, […]
