This live talk was also given on Monday 9th January at 8pm UK Time.
We often start with the knowledge that “my ancestor worked on the railway” however Richard explained that, even in fairly recent times it is not as simple as that if we wish to find out more about their employment. Some places, not just big cities, had different Railway Companies serving the same place, even the same station.
British Railways was formed in 1948 and privatised in 1994-1997, however, grouping of different Railway Companies started in 1923 although earlier Companies (120 of them) had started to amalgamate from 1840. Many early Companies set up new ones purely to block others moving into the area. Some of the old lines were transferred to different Regions in the 1960s, this was due to Railway policy not political. Great Central Railway was run down at this time because it was a thorn in the side of the bigger companies.
British Railways was split into regions: Southern was mostly the former Southern Railway; Western was primarily the old Great Western Railway (GWR); London Midland was formerly London, Midland and Scottish; Eastern was the former London and North East Railway south of York; North Eastern was the same but north of York; Scottish region was all of Scotland
After 1970 British Rail was split into sectors, for instance British Transport Hotels ran all the hotels which had been inherited by British Rail nationwide. Rail Express Systems, founded 1982 was responsible for the Travelling Post Office trains and parcels. This was gradually phased out and RES was bought by Wisconsin Central Railways in 1996. Apart from train drivers the personnel records will be in the sectors archives.
British Rail Board (BRB) owns and runs everything now, initially it was under the control of the Department for the Environment! If your ancestor was in catering on board or in the station then Travellers Fare ran them, if in shipping they would have been Sealink, privatised in 1984. Hovercraft services merged with HoverLloyd in 1981 and now they are part owned by British Rail and SNCF (the French Railways). At one stage BRB even owned an airline.
Employment in the railways was very meritocratic. Richard gave the example of Joseph Wilkinson who started as an office boy and worked his way up the ladder (including 3 years in South America) and ended as General Manager of GWR, answerable only to the Chairman.
There were lots of grades within each career. For instance a cleaner , after some time could move up to become a Passed Cleaner and was able to act as a fireman (provided the Train Driver agreed) then he could work up to being a Fireman for local services. After that he could become a Passed Fireman and was then able to drive local services as well as being Fireman nationally. The next grade would be Driver on local and freight services, finally there was Top Link Driver who could drove the express services including the Flying Scotsman and similar. These Top Drivers became very well-known and people would “train spot” them.
Railway Police and Signallers
The Constabulary had to be invited onto Railway property, they had no jurisdiction. All railway Companies had their own Policemen. They were also signallers to start with having a flag system to allow drivers to pass. However they had no way of knowing what happened to the train once it was out of their sight and after a few minutes they would let the next train through. There were many accidents because of this. It was also known for the signaller to fall asleep so the system was soon upgraded.
Before 1963 Transport Police also covered some roads! All Transport Police were members of the Police Federation so their records could be there. Trade Union Records can also be useful
Miscellaneous Records.
Invoices are interesting, Richard showed one from Robert Stephenson who had invoiced for building an Engine for a Bavarian railway. They had a policy as well of sending an employee with each engine for a year so 1 employee went with it to Bavaria. This policy could result in men appearing far from home sometimes.
Travel savings cards: you could have a card and purchase stamps from the Post Office. Once you card was full it could be used towards a fare.
Brass Tags sometimes are found in ancestor’s cupboard or attics. The number on it is an employee number and as well as acting as a system to know who was on duty they were also used as proof of identity when collecting pay.
Timetables can be interesting as they would enable us to know where our ancestor worked and travelled.
Where to find records
This is very complicated, if they have survived they will be wherever to Companies records ended up, if there had been several amalgamations and takeovers they could be a long way from your Ancestors place of work! Kew has some AN174 is British railways Personnel records back to 1928. Some records are held in County Record Offices (beware the County Boundary changes of 1974). The National Railway Museum in York has some, mainly Timetables, Works Records and a photographic archive. STEAM – the Museum of the GWR has a large Archive.
This was a very interesting and comprehensive talk
Report by Sheila Harris