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OldRailwayAccidents

@rwldproject

Welcome to the 'Railway Work, Life & Death' project, collaboratively researching British & Irish railway staff accidents pre-1939. Posts by Mike Esbester. #RailwayHistory #TransportHistory #MobilityHistory #Railway200 www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk

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Tiny extract from a railway employment register, with a column headed 'Cause of leaving' and underneath the single word 'dead'.

The next column, 'time-keeping', has the entry 'Good.'

Tiny extract from a railway employment register, with a column headed 'Cause of leaving' and underneath the single word 'dead'. The next column, 'time-keeping', has the entry 'Good.'

A stark reminder of the bureaucratic logic of work & how we're all just so much productive efficiency ... until we're not.

Nice to know that he was good on his time-keeping though.

Presumably until he was dead.

From an LNWR employment record, 1920s.

10.03.2026 16:05 πŸ‘ 55 πŸ” 21 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 0

πŸ˜¬πŸ˜±πŸ™„πŸ€¦β€β™‚οΈ

10.03.2026 19:13 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

It's a fair point, and this is exactly what was going on. It just struck as one of those moments of absurd logic that had its own, perfect, rationality!

10.03.2026 19:13 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

πŸ˜‚

10.03.2026 16:25 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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BBC Charter Review - Public Consultation | Campaign for the Arts If the screen is blank, please scroll up!

There's still time to lend your support to the BBC, arms-length, politician-free appointments, and to the World Service:

10.03.2026 16:17 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

And just one more ... also incidental, but on the same page.

Under reason for leaving: 'Demanded his money'.

Where to even start with this, in the logic of capitalist economy?

10.03.2026 16:10 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

And to note, the person I was actually looking for has a similarly telling entry under the time-keeping head:

'Good except for accident' ...

10.03.2026 16:07 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
Tiny extract from a railway employment register, with a column headed 'Cause of leaving' and underneath the single word 'dead'.

The next column, 'time-keeping', has the entry 'Good.'

Tiny extract from a railway employment register, with a column headed 'Cause of leaving' and underneath the single word 'dead'. The next column, 'time-keeping', has the entry 'Good.'

A stark reminder of the bureaucratic logic of work & how we're all just so much productive efficiency ... until we're not.

Nice to know that he was good on his time-keeping though.

Presumably until he was dead.

From an LNWR employment record, 1920s.

10.03.2026 16:05 πŸ‘ 55 πŸ” 21 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 0
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Coin used as Leeds bus fare was 2,000‑year‑old currency The coin was handed down to Peter Edwards from his grandfather in the 1950s.

This is the sort of thing a cashless society robs us of, the opportunity to try to get away with paying the bus fare in Carthaginian currency www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

09.03.2026 12:52 πŸ‘ 2129 πŸ” 616 πŸ’¬ 26 πŸ“Œ 37

πŸ˜±πŸ˜‚

09.03.2026 18:15 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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OldRailwayAccidents (@rwldproject.bsky.social) This year #Portsmouth celebrates 100 years of city status! There's plenty going on - not least our 'Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts' exhibition! On at the Portsmouth History Centre, Central Library,…

Do head down to #Portsmouth Central Library & the Portsmouth History Centre to check out this exhibition!

On until 25 April!

#Portsmouth100 #Hampshire

πŸ‘‡

09.03.2026 11:45 πŸ‘ 10 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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Ministers could ban relatives of overseas students on some courses, adviser warns Steve Smith says restrictions may follow if enrolments to research masters programmes continue to rise

Case study in gratuitous distinction between 'the Russell Group' and 'outside of the Russell Group' in the stats presented here and the way in which the latter (large and very diverse) group is depicted as lacking research intensity or focus.

09.03.2026 10:01 πŸ‘ 11 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Susan Longman & Charlotte Atherton – Britain’s first female railway track workers? Learn more about the earliest known women to work maintaining Britain's railway lines.

#ICYMI yesterday, for #InternationalWomensDay & #WomensHistoryMonth, our new blog post looked at the earliest known women to work maintaining Britain's railway lines!

Only identified in the past year, Susan Longman & Charlotte Atherton were pioneers:

www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk/susan-longma...

09.03.2026 08:30 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Mademoiselle Adelaide Basset, a carte visite photograph of a young woman, dressed rather daringly in shorts and a long-sleeved top, with stockings. This picture was probably taken in 1894 or 1895.

Mademoiselle Adelaide Basset, a carte visite photograph of a young woman, dressed rather daringly in shorts and a long-sleeved top, with stockings. This picture was probably taken in 1894 or 1895.

For International Women's Day, I want to talk about this woman.

Despite the name on the photo, this woman was born Ann Amelia Chaplin in 1863, in Bromley.

08.03.2026 15:16 πŸ‘ 39 πŸ” 15 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1
a blurry photo of a smiling young woman, holding a pet dog on the dockside in happier times. The only known photo of Madeleine.

a blurry photo of a smiling young woman, holding a pet dog on the dockside in happier times. The only known photo of Madeleine.

black and white photo of a single stack, ex-merchant RN vessel

black and white photo of a single stack, ex-merchant RN vessel

To mark International Women's Day, meet Lt Cmdr. Madeleine Barclay. First Officer on HMS Fidelity.

To my knowledge, the first woman to officially serve as First Officer on a Royal Navy vessel deployed on combat duty. Achieving this involved a three-way war between Navy, SOE and the WRNS /1 🧡 #IWD

08.03.2026 17:09 πŸ‘ 172 πŸ” 78 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 11

Oh, as ever, a superb thread - thanks, and will be having a look at the memorial when next in Portsmouth, in a couple of weeks' time!

08.03.2026 22:23 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Thank you! πŸ˜ƒπŸ’ͺπŸ‘

08.03.2026 21:40 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Yes, yes and more yes!

Very much on for this - the 'unofficial narrative/s' can be at least as interesting & significant as the official one/s.

It would be wonderful to see some of them brought into public view, if the caretakers of those narratives were willing!

08.03.2026 19:13 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

So much this!

It absolutely can have a value - but we need to be critical about the purpose(s) to which that first is being put ...

08.03.2026 19:09 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

#ICYMI - for #InternationalWomensDay & #WomensHistoryMonth

πŸ‘‡

08.03.2026 19:08 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Have left the way open for a new 1st should they be found, though - always important to be open to revising thinking & research!

08.03.2026 14:41 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Think there's a reasonably strong case to be made here, however, so went for it!

Given the wider social context of women's employment & railway work of the time, would be surprised if there were earlier women trackworkers - but then didn't expect to find them in WW1!

08.03.2026 14:41 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

for good copy, of course, but all it takes is an earlier case to cast the whole thing in doubt. When the documentary record is so patchy, as of course it is the earlier you go back, it's just not possible to be definitive.

Of course, have here... so that rather goes against what I've just said πŸ˜¬πŸ™„

08.03.2026 14:41 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks Erin!

It was really interesting to research this, not least as both Susan & Charlotte were chance finds, whilst looking for other things.

Totally agree about the idea of 1sts... was pushed for some as part of Railway200, but resisted as in most cases it simply wasn't possible to say. Makes

08.03.2026 14:41 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Black and white photo of a woman with a newspaper.

Black and white photo of a woman with a newspaper.

Happy International Women’s Day!

Let's create a thread of women from history we think more people should know about.

We will start:

Una Marson (1905 – 1965) was a Jamaican feminist, activist and writer.

Image: WikiCommons
#WHM26 #InternationalWomensDay

08.03.2026 13:39 πŸ‘ 29 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3
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Where have all the women gone? To mark International Women’s Day I wanted to have a look at the key records that we use to research our English & Welsh family history, and to consider how those records routinely under-repres…

To mark #InternationalWomensDay2026 here's a blogpost I wrote five years ago about the under-representation of women in the key sources that we use for our family history research...

lifelinesresearch.co.uk/2021/03/08/w...

08.03.2026 13:10 πŸ‘ 24 πŸ” 13 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

Happy #InternationalWomensDay!

Women didn't work maintaining Britain's railways until World War 2, right?

WRONG!

Our ground-breaking new research has uncovered railwaywomen trackworkers of the First World War, for #WomensHistoryMonth.

Read more:

www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk/susan-longma...

08.03.2026 09:00 πŸ‘ 88 πŸ” 42 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 7

Hopefully of interest, today, this month & every month: pls share the word about Britain's first railwaywomen track workers, over 100yrs ago! #InternationalWomensDay

@garius.bsky.social @adamchapman.bsky.social @cathamclarke.bsky.social @eicathomefinn.bsky.social @chppc.bsky.social @ihr.bsky.social

08.03.2026 09:45 πŸ‘ 16 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

Hopefully of interest, today, this month & every month ... do share the word about Britain's first railwaywomen track workers, over 100yrs ago!

Not least, as Charlotte & Susan were members of their Union, the NUR - now @rmtunion.bsky.social!

@tuc.org.uk

#InternationalWomensDay #WomensHistoryMonth

08.03.2026 09:29 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Hopefully of interest, today, this month & every month ... do share the word about Britain's first railwaywomen track workers, showing the way over 100yrs ago!

#InternationalWomensDay #WomensHistoryMonth

@gregjenner.bsky.social @womenshistnet.bsky.social

08.03.2026 09:27 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0