EXPLOSIONS, APPENDICITIS AND EXHAUSTION

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2023 :: RMTnews 24 The database of the recently launched ‘Railway Work, Life & Death’ project includes the records of nearly 25,000 members of RMT’s predecessor unions, the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS). Those records bring individuals, their families and their stories to light. The cover accident, ill-health and old age – sometimes it’s dramatic stuff, sometimes it’s fairly mundane but no less important. Put it all together and we learn a lot about the dangers of railway work before 1921 and how the union looked after its members. The project is seeking to regularly introduce these stories and show what the union did to help. At the more dramatic end of the spectrum, we have fireman H Hawks (28) and cleaner W Murphy (17), killed on the Rhymney Railway in Cardiff on April 21, 1909. They and another colleague were blown up in a boiler explosion. The union ensured their dependents each received compensation – though Hawks’ dependents received £300 and Murphy’s only £100. Most of the time the accidents weren’t so visible. They were fairly mundane things like slips, trips and falls, or crushed fingers. However, they still mattered to the individuals affected, and to their families and the union. The ASRS/NUR provided legal counsel and ensured as much compensation was possible was secured. For example, on January 10, 1900, Great Central Railway drayman SM Burdett was kicked by a horse at Leicester goods warehouse, breaking his leg. He was awarded £10.10 in compensation from the railway company. Without the original records and our project’s transcription, it would almost certainly be impossible to know the vast majority of women and men in the database had been hurt at work. A great many of the entries are for ‘old age’ – at least 2,700 of 3,400 cases listed under the union’s disablement fund, for example. This included platelayer J Tyrell of the Clapham Junction branch, making a claim on the fund in 1904 at the age of 83. Intriguingly, in some places cause of death is given as ‘exhaustion’. Rather than it meaning someone was worked so hard they collapsed and died, was it a substitute for ‘old age’? Gatekeeper John Taylor of the ASRS Sheffield branch died in 1889 of ‘primary decay and exhaustion’, which looks like it’s linking age and exhaustion. We see a full range of health conditions in the records – something we’d EXPLOSIONS, APPENDICITIS AND EXHAUSTION Mike Esbester explains the ‘Railway Work, Life & Death’ project which includes over 150 years of rail history 1915: Union members were killed in the Quintinshill disaster when for packed troop train, bound for Liverpool crashed killing over 220 people.