Last year the author of this guest post, Tom Hall, got in touch with us. Having found out about the project, he wanted to let us know about an accident that wouldn’t feature in our database as it was too early – the death of his Great Great Great Grandfather, Thomas Hall, in 1860. After […]
Tag Archives | Accident aftermath
John Preece, his bravery, and his terrible injuries
By Steve Jackson on February 22, 2021 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Disability, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources, Local History
We’re delighted to have received this timely guest post from long-time project friend and support Steve Jackson. It’s timely because, as Steve notes, it meshes nicely with this month’s focus on tragedies centred on a particular place. One of the virtues of our project is that it will increasingly allow us to take a place-based […]
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 […]
William Harwood’s missing leg
By Mike Esbester on December 3, 2018 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Disability, Disability History Month, Linking sources
Continuing our Disability History Month exploration of the new Great Eastern Railway (GER) data (see last week’s post, here), this week we’re focusing on a cross-over case between our two datasets. We’re fortunate we can trace the moment of the accident for William Harwood as well as a little about what happened to him afterwards, […]
Arthur Bott’s final walk
By Francis Howcutt on February 24, 2020 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources
In this guest post, Francis Howcutt recounts the accidental death of Arthur Bott, a brother of his great grandfather. Arthur’s history is an example of how the railways helped provide the children of agricultural labourers with opportunities beyond their ancestral villages, as well as the associated dangers. One of the particularly nice things about this […]
Disability History Month – how many disabled workers were on the books? The Great Eastern Railway’s Accident Benevolent Fund 1913-23
In our previous post we looked at a few of the details we’d found about how some employees were given prosthetics to aid their adaptation to post-accident life. They were only a few of the cases in any given year, and whilst they help us start to appreciate the individual impacts of accidents and changes […]
Trades union project extension
Hot off the press, we’re delighted to say that we’ve just had a favourable ethical opinion on the next project extension. It’s going to bring in trades union records, held at the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick (MRC). This is great news, and we’re really grateful to the MRC for their support. […]
Railway accidents and deaths: archives at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick
By Helen Ford on August 20, 2018 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Guest contribution, Linking sources, Updates
This week’s post comes from a guest contributor, Helen Ford, Manager of the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick – and a staunch supporter of our project. In the post Helen reflects upon the project, the topic of railway worker accidents and the sources at the Modern Records Centre, home to all sorts […]
Disability History Month – What happened to the workers after the accident?
So far our project has only focused on the accidents railway workers suffered: what happened after that, for them, their families and their communities has been largely left unspoken. That’s a product of the sources we’ve been using: the accident investigation reports cover the incident only and don’t go into the aftermath. But in other […]
Disability History Month – rehabilitating injured workers? The case of the one-legged engine driver
In our previous post we mentioned some of the immediate post-accident care that injured railway workers might have received – first aid at the scene and then hospital treatment. This time we want to say a little more about longer-term provision for disabled workers. Where and how disabled workers might receive treatment and after-care might […]
