In this week’s post, from guest author Gordon Dudman, some of the legal issues raised by railway accidents come to light. These weren’t, however, arcane points, but had a very real impact on the ability of one man’s wife to claim compensation for her husband’s death. They also had wider implications for all areas of […]
Tag Archives | guest post
The treatment of railway workers injured in accidents
By Arthur Moore on April 19, 2021 in Accident aftermath, Accident reports, Blog, Disability, Guest contribution
In this guest post, NRM project volunteer Arthur Moore returns to consider some of the cases he’s encountered when transcribing state accident investigations for the period up before 1911. He draws together some threads to think about what might have happened to injured staff after their accident – raising more questions we should be considering. […]
Light Railway Accident 17 January 1918 – The Death of Sapper Hay
By Sandra Gittins on January 13, 2020 in Accident reports, Blog, Guest contribution, Linking sources, War
In her research, Sandra Gittins has already turned up a couple of cases of accidents to railway staff serving overseas during World War One – and we’re very grateful that she’s blogged about them for us, here and here. In this post, she has uncovered the circumstances surrounding one further – dramatic – case. We […]
Railway and everyday risks of 1906
In today’s post, project volunteer and by-now regular blogger Philip James has a look at a number of accidents reported in a single issue of The Times newspaper in 1906. It helps us put railway staff issues, including accidents, into a wider perspective. He also draws some interesting connections with discussions in 2021 about the […]
The Case of the Monkey on the Railway
By Alexandra Foulds on March 15, 2021 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Guest contribution, Linking sources, Medical humanities
As guest author Alexandra Foulds notes, this post came about by a chance connection on Twitter – fortunately, though the subject matter is, perhaps needless to say, unfortunate. We’re really pleased to feature it, and look forward to working with St George’s University of London Archives again in the future. As this blog post makes […]
The Life & Death of Thomas Hall
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 […]
Data Analysis and Issues
In this week’s post, project volunter Philip James looks at some of the challenges of working with large quantites of data across a team of many people – and back to some of the potential problems with how the data was created in the first place. Philip is one of the team based with the […]
Use of Databases and Statistics in Historical Research
By Mike Esbester on January 11, 2021 in Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources, Local History
This post was contributed by one of our anonymous volunteers, who has been doing the fiddly but essential job of going over the data and trying to spot and correct issues. This means that they’ve seen pretty much all of the project data (including the 1000s of cases currently being prepared for public release). As […]
Allocating accident investigations
In this post, project volunteer Brian Grainger, with the NRM team, raises some questions about the practicalities of the Board of Trade accident inspectors’ work. His previous post, here, delved into who the inspectors were. It’s therefore nice to welcome Brian back to the blog. When Brian put this together he was working on the […]
A Sad and Unusual Discovery in Family Research
By Enid Rispin on December 31, 2018 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Disability, Family History, Guest contribution
We’re pleased to be able to feature another guest contribution, from family historian Enid Rispin looking back at the railway ancestors in her family – though with a tragic tale. It helps to illustrate the lasting damage of workplace accidents that stretched beyond the physical – something not generally revealed in the official accident reports, […]
