Last week’s blog looked at shunter Frederick Potter, and the way his railway work continued, in a different role, after his 1913 accident which led to the loss of a leg. This week for Disability History Month we look at another accident leading to disability – two accidents, in fact, as James Waring is one […]
Tag Archives | JPS Main
Too deaf to work on the railway lines?
By Mike Esbester on December 5, 2022 in Accident reports, Blog, Disability, Disability History Month, Health
As part of Disability History Month, our recent blog posts (here and here) have focused on physical disabilities caused by railway work. But what about railway workers who might have had a life-long disability, or a condition which grew progressively worse over time? This might include hearing loss, a topic that’s been relevant in a […]
Dual fuel steam loco – with a bang
We try to blog about fairly typical cases found in our project database – like our post two weeks’ ago, on a 1922 shunting accident and first aid. However, some of the cases found in the database are surprising and far from usual – and it’s hard not to focus on them. This week is […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
19 January 1911 – a bad day on the permanent way
Some days on the railways were worse than others – in total, and for particular grades of workers. The 19th of January was one which fell into the ‘worse’ camp. Across the database as a whole, fifteen individuals were involved in accidents between 1911 and 1915. Nine of these were in 1911 alone, including seven […]
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 […]
Working 9-5? Not in 1915 – Long hours 1
In the early 1890s a public scandal arose over the hours some railway employees worked. We might conclude that the press and MPs who took up the case were very public spirited and willing to campaign on behalf of others, particularly as it resulted in the 1893 Railway Regulation Act which (theoretically) restricted employees’ hours […]
A one-way problem
Railway working produced all sorts of odd terms, specific to the industry. Some of these are less obvious than others – but one which might more easily be understood from the title is ‘tow-roping.’ Not dissimilar from towing a vehicle on the roads, tow-roping involved using a rope to pull a wagon or wagons. It […]
