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Articles by Mike Esbester
Collaborative working with challenging histories: the Railway Work, Life & Death project
Conclusions Long-term collaborative projects, where there are no fixed destinations, that flex and grow, responding to the needs of the collaborators and communities within its environments, can be a good fit for volunteers, museums, libraries, archives and universities, and the communities and stakeholders they work within, with and for. So often collaborations and human connections are short-lived and in response to a time-limited project.
How remembering railway accidents from 100 years ago can make the industry safer today
By Mike Esbester, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Portsmouth According to a recent report, the UK rail industry is a relatively safe environment for both passengers and workers. The findings, from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch, came from data on railway accidents for 2024. But it also showed that there remain areas of concern in the industry. Specifically, it found examples of “not learning” from accidents and incidents. And alarmingly,… Read complete article © The Conversation -
How remembering railway accidents from 100 years ago can make the industry safer today Original
According to a recent report, the UK rail industry is a relatively safe environment for both passengers and workers. The findings, from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch, came from data on railway accidents for 2024. But it also showed that there remain areas of concern in the industry. Specifically, it found examples of “not learning” from accidents and incidents. And alarmingly, there has also been a “lack or loss” of learning from historic tragedies.
A train crash 150 years ago is helping to bring the forgotten deaths of rail workers into the spotlight
By Mike Esbester, Principal Lecturer, Subject Area Lead in History, University of Portsmouth At 9.45pm on September 10 1874, two trains collided head-on at the village of Thorpe St Andrew, two miles east of Norwich. According to a of the time, a “ghastly pyramid formed of hissing locomotives, shattered carriages and moaning, in some cases dying, passengers”. Twenty-five people died and 75 were injured. The disaster was big news.
A train crash 150 years ago is helping to bring the forgotten deaths of rail workers into the spotlight
At 9.45pm on September 10 1874, two trains collided head-on at the village of Thorpe St Andrew, two miles east of Norwich. According to a of the time, a “ghastly pyramid formed of hissing locomotives, shattered carriages and moaning, in some cases dying, passengers”. Twenty-five people died and 75 were injured. The disaster was big news. There was huge public interest, and the press followed the rescue, the inquiry, the funerals, the manslaughter trial and the compensation awards made.
The UK’s Health and Safety at Work Act is 50. Here’s how it’s changed our lives Original
On 1 June 1974, a fireball rose over the village of Flixborough, Lincolnshire. A chemical plant exploded, killing 28 people and injuring 36. It brought into sharp focus debates taking place at the time about health and safety at work, and beyond. Making its way through parliament was the legislation that, on 31 July 1974, became the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA).
The UK’s Health and Safety at Work Act is 50. Here’s how it’s changed our lives
By Mike Esbester, Principal Lecturer, Subject Area Lead in History, University of Portsmouth On 1 June 1974, a fireball rose over the village of Flixborough, Lincolnshire. A chemical plant exploded, killing 28 people and injuring 36. It brought into sharp focus debates taking place at the time about health and safety at work, and beyond. Making its way through parliament was the legislation that, on 31 July 1974, became the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA).
‘His fatal time-saving expedient’
This was the pronouncement from the South Western Star newspaper, on the death of London and South Western Railway (LSWR) gas fitter Ernest Browning.[1] Browning died after an explosion on board the van he and others were working on, on 30 May 1904. Browning was working on one of two Post Office vans at Clapham Junction, London. At 9.30am, he was using compressed gas to clean the van’s lamps, blowing dirt out of the lamps.
Manton Tunnel: Marking the centenary
The previous four blog posts in this series, the most recent of which is here, have focused on the past. Today’s post links past and present, on the day of the centenary of the Manton tunnel accident. Yesterday there was an event at Manton signal box, the closest accessible point to the tunnel, to mark the centenary.
Manton Tunnel fatalities: John Cockerill & William Hibbert
In yesterday’s blog post, we explored what happened in the accident at Manton Tunnel, Rutland, on 24 May 1924, and the immediate aftermath. In today’s post, we start our look at the men involved and the impacts of the accident, including on their families. For the first of three posts, we look at the two men who died – John Cockerill and William Hibbert. John Thomas Cockerill (1861-1924) John Cockerill was born in Northamptonshire in 1861. In 1883 he married Emily Elizabeth.
Tom Rolt’s Red for Danger – but for staff accidents? - Railway Work, Life & Death
On the bookshelves of many in the rail industry and many more rail enthusiasts, you’ll probably find a copy of Tom Rolt’s Red for Danger. First published in 1955, it is a litany of railway disasters – Quintinshill (to which we’ll return next week), Abermule, Harrow and Wealdstone … and many more. Red for Danger is recognised as a classic text. Rightly so. Rolt managed to capture the tragic drama of the accidents and convey technical detail to an interested audience.
A year of trade union data
A year ago today we made public a huge new dataset – around 25,000 cases involving trade union members. They belonged to the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) – after a merger in 1913, the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR). There’s more detail on the release and what’s contained in the dataset here. The data is available in the Railway Work, Life & Death project database, free to access here.
Can you help a Rutland resident researching 1924 Manton railway accident?
A local man is researching an accident that took place in Manton in May 1924, and is hoping to find descendants of the men involved on the centenary of the event. Mike Esbester, the local gent who is researching the hundred-year-old incident, explained: "On 24 May 1924, a railway worker was filling lamps with oil near the Manton tunnel entrance when there was an explosion. Four colleagues working nearby rushed to help, but as they did so, a second explosion occured.
Elizabeth Trevelyan, signalwoman
e 1917 March is Women’s History Month, and once again is a good opportunity for our project to reflect on where women appear in our work. This is something we’ve done for previous Women’s History Months, with some blog posts here. More than that, we’ve also made sure we’ve blogged about railwaywomen outside Women’s History Month – women worked on the railway all year round, of course.
“Good God! He will be into the coal train!”
Whilst 29 February is a ‘rare’ date, sadly accidents to railway workers on past leap days weren’t rare. As we discussed in our previous blog post, the system kept operating – which meant the accidents kept happening. The accident at Woodhouse East Junction on 29 February 1908 was one of these. It appears in our project database, though is unusually well documented in other sources too.
One extra day – lots of extra accidents - Railway Work, Life & Death
A leap year and a leap day are always a bit unusual. Sadly for the railways they weren’t so unusual in terms of the accidents which occurred and which feature in our project database. It was very much just another day. Indeed, February 29th appears 48 times in our database, covering 1889-1939. Joining the Union Some of those instances are not accidents. They appear where trade union activity continued unabated: recruitment.
Heath & Safety in York – then & now - Railway Work, Life & Death
This week the RMT Union held its annual health and safety advisory conference in York. Focused on improving health and safety for those in all sectors the RMT covers – rail, maritime and bus – there were training sessions for health and safety representatives as well as more traditional sessions themed around particular issues. Given this year sees the 50th anniversary of the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act, there was a particular focus on the relatively recent past.
The network that never stopped
In a week’s time, on Christmas Day, the UK’s rail network will be a lot quieter than usual. There won’t be any passenger services running. However, plenty of work will be going on – some freight will remain moving and engineering works will take place. This will help keep the system operational the rest of the year. Whilst the network in 2023 doesn’t stop over Christmas, in the past it used to be even busier. The passenger service shut down began in the post-Second World War era (more here).
Union support for disabled railway workers
To conclude our posts for Disability History Month, this week we’re focusing on what one of the datasets in our trade union data release can tell us. We’ve done this already for the Disablement Fund of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants/ National Union of Railwaymen (ASRS/NUR; now the RMT union). This time it’s the turn of the records in our project database relating to compensation the Union secured for non-fatal accidents.
What did ‘disabled’ on the railways mean?
Continuing our Disability History Month blog posts, today we’re exploring one of the new runs of data from our trade union data release earlier this year: the Disablement Fund. This is really interesting in its own right, but it also gives us some insight into what was included as disability. The records included in the project database come from the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (1871-1913; ASRS)/ National Union of Railwaymen (1913-1990; NUR) – now the RMT Union.
Investigating Bromsgrove’s railway worker accidents
On 10 November 1840, a steam locomotive named ‘Surprise’ exploded in Bromsgrove. It killed its crew, Joseph Rutherford and Thomas Scaife. The incident might perhaps have been forgotten were it not for the spectacular gravestones later erected to remember the two men, by Rutherford’s wife and Scaife’s workmates. They were not the last railway workers to die or be injured in and around Bromsgrove, of course.
Recording union history: the MRC at 50
This year, the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick (MRC) celebrates its 50th anniversary. Established in 1973, it has specialised in records of trades unions and employers’ organisations, along with material relating to pressure groups and transport. For our project, this has meant that records relating to the railway trades unions are particularly important. We were therefore delighted that the MRC joined the project as a partner.
Second World War Archives
So far we’ve largely confined ourselves to the cases found in our database, to give you more detail on a small – but increasing –…
Ticket offices, closures, staff and accidents
Railway station ticket offices in the UK are in the news at the moment. Unfortunately, it’s not for good reasons. Under current proposals from the Department for Transport, over 1000 ticket offices at stations are being scheduled for closure. That includes all ticket offices on South Western Railway, in project co-lead Mike’s area, and those serving Leamington Spa and Warwick, close to the Modern Records Centre.
Britain’s railway workers | railway history | safety on the railways | Dr Mike Esbester
Over the last 66 years, the British Safety Council has advocated for workplace and other safety, trying to reduce harm and improve wellbeing. While the nature of hazards and needs have changed over the years, in 2023 the BSC’s role and mission is just as important as ever. There remains a lot to be done. It’s also worth remembering an era before the BSC, when things were a lot worse.
Britain’s railway workers | railway history | safety on the railways | Dr Mike Esbester
Over the last 66 years, the British Safety Council has advocated for workplace and other safety, trying to reduce harm and improve wellbeing. While the nature of hazards and needs have changed over the years, in 2023 the BSC’s role and mission is just as important as ever. There remains a lot to be done. It’s also worth remembering an era before the BSC, when things were a lot worse.
May Day – International Workers’ Day? - Railway Work, Life & Death
Internationally, for the last c.150 years May Day – May the 1st – has been linked with the labour movement and calls for better rights for working class people. In many nations, 1 May is a bank holiday and marked as ‘Labour Day’ or ‘International Workers’ Day’. However, this tradition is less well-established in the UK, where May Day remains more commonly understood as a celebration of spring.
International Workers’ Memorial Day 2023
The International Labour Organization estimates that – each year – around 2.3 million people around the world die as a result of workplace accidents or ill-health. That’s around 6000 people a day. That is shocking, and it’s clearly important we try to improve this. It’s also important that we recognise and remember those who’ve already been killed, disabled or made ill in the workplace.
Seeking current railway staff with ancestors in our database!
This week’s post is a one of two halves. We’re starting with a request – hopefully you can help! We’re really keen to hear from anyone currently working in the rail industry and who has an ancestor in our database. This is particularly the case if you’re a member of the RMT Union, given the recent update to our database came from records produced by the RMT’s predecessor unions, the ASRS and NUR.
‘Railwaymen’s Good Friday effort’: collecting for railway orphans
Last week we released our new dataset – 25,000 records of support offered by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS)/ National Union of Railwaymen (NUR; now the RMT Union) to its members in the event of accident, ill-health or old age. We’re delighted with the response so far, with people getting in touch to tell us about the people and details they’ve found in the database.
Major new record of railway accidents and how they were supported by trade unions made public
Volunteers from the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick (where the records are kept) and at the National Railway Museum transcribed records of around 25,000 reports. They’ve extracted the details found in the documents – things like names, ages, roles, companies and details of the Union’s support – and entered them into the database.
What happened after an accident? Our new trade union data release
So far most of the details in our database have focused on the accidents that British and Irish railway workers had before 1939. They’ve been really valuable in helping us understand railwaymen and railwaywomen’s experiences of work, of accidents and of their working practices on the ground. But they’ve shed less light on what happened next – until now.
Unity over seas: Irish trade unionist accidents
This week we continue our exploration of the next update to our project database – around 25,000 records of railway trade union members and their accidents and ill-health, between the 1880s and 1920. Last week we marked International Women’s Day by looking at a few of the ways women appear in the new data. This week we take another day as our prompt: St Patrick’s Day. For the period covered by our new data release, what is now Ireland was a part of the UK.
Women in our coming trade union data release
In three weeks’ time, on 27 March 2023, we’ll be releasing another update to our database of accidents to British and Irish railway staff before 1939. This time it’ll consist of around 25,000 records from the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) and National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) – the railway predecessor unions of what’s now the RMT Union.
New project data – 6 months on! - Railway Work, Life & Death
Six months ago, we added an extra 17,000 records to our project database. Since then we’ve been promoting the database and trying to ensure people are using it. We can see that lots of you have downloaded the data, and that the blogs are well read – which is excellent. We’ve been running an ‘On This Day’ thread on our Twitter account, highlighting just a few of the people and cases found in the new project data.
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 one such case. On 1 January 1909 – barely into the new year – Great Eastern Railway (GER) fireman AF Godfrey and driver Frederick Hubbard were injured at Ely.
From Egypt to Walthamstow
There are many unexpected stories in our project database. Indeed, that’s one of the many excellent things it brings: it allows us to see how remarkable everyday lives in the past were. But even amongst that, we find people and cases that were simply surprising. The case of Mohammed El Zoheiri was one of those people and accidents that we couldn’t imagine we’d find when we started out on the project.
Railway Work, Life and Death project releases 16,000 new records
Mike Esbester shares fantastic news from the Railway Work, Life and Death project, which has 16,000 new records.
Names still spoken – our new data release - Railway Work, Life & Death
Over the years, many people have toyed with the idea that we don’t fully die until we are forgotten. We hope that with our free new data release, detailing around 17,000 British and Irish railway worker accidents between 1900 and 1939, those individuals’ names will be spoken and the men, women and children remembered. Almost certainly they are all now dead. Likely few, if any, did the exceptional things that mean they are widely known. But each one of them had family and friends.
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 their deaths had on their families and communities. George Booker, in military uniform c.1915, with his wife Annie, and 3 of their children, Alfred, Norman and Edward.
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 Oakhill, taken from the Western Daily Press, 30 September 1921. (c) Mirrorpix Charles was born in 1870, to William and Mary Ann. He had 6 siblings, one of whom died in infancy.
Stapleton Road, 26 September 1921
By Mike Esbester on September 20, 2021 in Accident reports, Anniversary, Blog From the Western Daily Press of 30 September 1921. The first man, noted as C Francis, was actually Stephen Francis. Courtesy: Reach Licensing & Mirror Group Newspapers. 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).
More women – same accidents - Railway Work, Life & Death
Happy International Women’s Day 2021! This seems like a good moment to look forward to some of the data we’re working on behind the scenes, to see whether it’ll bring more women into the project records. We’ve written in the past about the seeming absence of women in accident records, as well as about some of those cases where women do feature.
Further July multiples
By Mike Esbester on July 16, 2018 in Accident reports, Blog We started our posts this month with another 2 cases of workers having 2 accidents each, with the promise (threat?) of more multiple accidents to come. It’s to this we return now, with another 2 cases of 2 accidents. We start on the south coast of England, at Brighton station appropriately on the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. Here on 1 February 1912 shunter Albert Leggatt was injured for the first time.
Dying for a wee – 1 - Railway Work, Life & Death
By Mike Esbester on April 20, 2020 in Accident reports, Blog As travellers today (when we’re able to resume travelling) we may be less than enamoured of the toilets on trains – all too often cramped, unclean or even out-of-order. But at least they’ve been provided for us. That isn’t always the case for staff – and that’s a long-standing issue.
2020 plans & possibilities …
By Mike Esbester on January 6, 2020 in Accident reports, Blog, Events, Linking sources … and a case from our new data release, for good measure! As we start 2020 it seems like a good time to look ahead to what’s to come this year – and the answer is: lots! Some of it is bespoke: unique events to which we’ve been invited to contribute. We’re always pleased to do these, as they bring the project to a variety of new audiences and hopefully encourage people to use our resources.
Easter Road, Edinburgh
By Mike Esbester on April 1, 2018 in Accident reports, Blog A short post this week, marking Easter, with the only case in our database with an Easter connection – however tenuous. Today it’s the case of J Rennie, a surfaceman (track worker) on the North British Railway, injured at Easter Road, in Edinburgh. However, one advantage of choosing a case like this, at random, is that it gives us access to a typical set of circumstances – and as chance would have it, in this case it is a common case.
We want your accidents!
By Mike Esbester on August 27, 2019 in Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources Well – hopefully not your own accidents, but we are interested in any cases of accidents to railway workers in the past about which you have information. Read on to find out more – including a request for your help! Followers on Twitter will have seen our call a few weeks’ ago for suggestions of things it would be useful for us to do to enhance the project.
A runaway engine, a dismissed driver & a no show
The lot of the Railway Inspector wasn’t always a happy one. Finding out what happened in an accident was never going to be an easy task: sometimes they were unwitnessed, sometimes those involved were uncooperative for fear of being implicated in rule-breaking, and sometimes they key players were unavailable. In a previous blog we’ve discussed how employees signing up to fight in the First World War meant that they could not provide evidence at state investigations.
Trap & Drag – 1914 style - Railway Work, Life & Death
By Mike Esbester on July 8, 2019 in Accident reports, Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Passenger In this guest post, project supporter Peter Munro looks at a passenger accident from 1914 – what would today be known as a ‘trap and drag’ incident, something that the Rail Accident Investigation Branch flagged as a real concern on our recent visit to its Farnborough office.
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