Our last 2 blog posts have taken an overview of the new project data (available here, free). This week we’re going to start looking at the individual level, taking a single case and seeing what we can find out. Or, more accurately, we’re taking two cases that occurred in the same incident: brothers Thomas and […]
Tag Archives | platelayer
Railway Accident at Ivybridge Devon 1917
We’re delighted to welcome Sandra Gittens back to the project blog this week. Sandra is known for her research on – amongst others – the railways of the First World War. In the course of that work she’s uncovered a number of accidents to railway staff on military duty overseas, many of which she’s already […]
James Spridgeon, Railway Platelayer: Accidentally Killed in 1880
This week’s blog post came about following a talk Mike gave at the U3A Family History Conference in Buxton in September 2019. Mike had a number of interesting conversations, including with this week’s guest author, Rosie Rowley. They discussed a case Rosie had found from her family history, also notable for the fact that the […]
Wilmcote: George Booker & his family
On the day of the centenary of the Wilmcote accident, we turn to the fourth and final family to be affected: the Booker family. This follows on from our previous blog, which looked at Edward Sherwood and his family. Of all the families to be affected by the accident, George’s has probably been the […]
Wilmcote: Edward Sherwood & his family
Yesterday we looked at William Bonehill and his family – another small family, though no less devasting an impact via the death of a husband and father. Today we see the other end of the scale: Edward Sherwood and his large family. Edward was the only of the Wilmcote men to have travelled some […]
Wilmcote: Lewis Washburn & his family
In yesterday’s post we looked at what happened in the days following the 1922 Wilmcote accident. This included some of the community impacts, seen through the response to the men’s funeral and the financial support given to the dependents left behind. Today we move the focus of our posts about the accident, to look more […]
Wilmcote, 24 March 1922
Edward Sherwood. George Booker. Lewis Washburn. William Bonehill. On 24 March 1922, these four Great Western Railway track workers were killed by a steam engine near Wilmcote station in Warwickshire. In the lead up to the centenary, on Thursday, we wanted to bring their stories to light and to remember the men and the impact […]
John Pratt (1869 – 1914)
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 […]
An accident at Highbury & Is
This week we have another guest post from Philip James, part of the NRM team and our most prolific blog contributor – read his other posts here. Philip starts by giving us a bit of insight into both the project work and a potential direction for the future, before exploring one of the accident cases […]
John Rigby of Long Buckby Wharf
In today’s guest blog post, Julie G takes us back to a place-based approach. She’s interested in Long Buckby Wharf, in Northants – a transport hub, of sorts, with road, rail and canal links. Needless to say, that involved accidents, and she’s blogged about several – rail and canal – on her One Place Study […]