Always remember "Safety First!" - Railway Employee Safety Campaigns from 1913

Safety for Britain’s railway employees before 1913 was governed by the rule books that each was obliged to carry. This had been the case since the railway’s beginnings. However, the rule book did not prevent accidents occurring, and between 1900 and 1913 the average number of railway employees killed per year was 485, with the number of injuries being 20,737. Thus, while the rule book was an established part of railway life, its instructions were failing to prevent accidents. Mike Esbester argued that this could be attributed to the formality and compulsory nature of such documents. ‘The reader was unlikely to read the solid mass of text except when compelled to do so.’[1] It wasn’t until the Great Western Railway (GWR) introduced the “Safety Campaign” in 1913, that things began to change.

The origins of the ‘Safety First’ campaign can be found in the United States. In the early 1900s, Ralph Richards, the Chicago and North Western Railroad’s (C&NWR) general claim agent, became concerned by the number of accidents within the company. As late as 1910 107 men were killed and another 9,000 were injured while at work for the company. Thus, in 1905 he published a number of articles on safety issues and in 1906 these were reproduced as a book. At the same time he attempted to get the C&NWR’s management interested a campaign, something that would become a fruitless endeavour until 1910.[2] By 1912, the ‘safety first’ campaign had become accepted amongst the management of many American railroad companies.

The GWR’s management first came interested in the ‘Safety First’ campaign in 1913 through articles in the Illinois Central Railroad Magazine, George Bradshaw’s book the Prevention of Railroad Accident and through other publications. However, the ‘safety first’ mantra was spreading within Britain’s railway administrators and commentators at the time, and the GWR’s management were simply the first to act on this interest. Thus, the GWR contacted some American railroads about their campaigns with a view to introducing something similar amongst its own employees in early 1913.

Esbester argued that the ‘Safety First’ campaign ‘reinvented safety education in Britain,’ using journalistic techniques to convey its messages. While the contents of the rule book were stuffy and unappealing, the messages provided by the campaign were attractive. Indeed, the GWR used its staff magazine, the Great Western Railway Magazine, to convey its messages as well as publications, competitions and posters. The contents focussed on such areas as safety in coupling together trains, crossing the line, dealing with electric lines (in later years), loading carts, riding on the top of carriages and not standing too close to a steam train’s exhaust pipe.

Articles were written with the employee in mind. They were straightforward for the individual to understand and used informal language that was very different from that found in the rule books. Furthermore, photography was utilised in all the material that was produced, usually showing ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ working behaviour (shown – an example from the 1920s). Additionally, capitalisation and bold text were used to highlight important points. Lastly, in 1916 the GWR introduced a pocket token about the size of a penny to be kept with loose change. This had the ‘Safety First’ motto, ‘IS IT SAFE?’ emblazoned all over it and every time an individual brought out their change it would be there to remind them of the value of safety.

Quickly after the GWR started to work on the campaign it was taken up by other British Railway companies. Indeed, the GWR shared its materials. The companies that introduced campaigns were the London and South Western, Great North of Scotland, Midland and Great North Joint, Wirral, Rhymney, Cambrian, Cardiff, and Isle of Wight Central, North Eastern and Hull and Barnsley Railways. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the diffusion of the campaign happened just as quickly in Britain as it did in America, with many of these companies adopting the campaign by 1915.

So why was the campaign introduced in 1913? Esbester concludes that a combination of two factors that precipitated its adoption. Firstly, this was a period in which the profitability of Britain’s railways was at an all-time low. Secondly, the railway companies were under intense pressure to improve the working conditions of their employees, both from government and the unions. Indeed, in 1911 there had been a national railway strike (which I wrote about here). Thus, the campaign was an attempt by the railway companies to prevent interference from the government in labour relations, placate the unions, while at the same time trying to avoid spending money on costly new safety devices.[3]

If you would like to read Mike Esbester’s article in full, it can be found HERE.

[1] Esbester, Mike, ‘Reinvention, Renewal, or Repetition? The Great Western Railway and Occupational Safety on Britain’s Railways, c.1900-c1920,’ Economic History Online, Vol.3 (2005)
[2] Aldrich, Mark, Safety First: Technology, Labour, and Business in the Building of American Work Safety, 1870-1939, (New York, 1997), p.188
[3] Esbester, ‘Reinvention, Renewal, or Repetition?’ (2005)

The Values of Victorian Railway Company Staff Magazines

In my last blog post I talked about how the Great Western (GWR) and London and South Western Railway’s (L&SWR) staff magazines’ had different establishing agendas and how this may have reflected different cultures amongst the companies’ clerks who started and wrote them. In this post I will show where the content of the two company’s staff magazines’, the South Western Gazette (SWG) and the Great Western Railway Magazine and Temperance Union Record (GWRM), converged in one important respect. This will reveal that clerks within both companies had very similar, if not identical, perspectives on railway work that were the result of their career prospects.

One of the most important benefits of being a clerk within any Victorian railway company was the unique promotional opportunities. In the case of the L&SWR I have identified that of 70 Traffic Department senior managers appointed between 1850 and 1922, only 3 (4.3%) had started their careers in non-clerical grades (two porters and a ticket inspector). The remaining 67 all had started with the L&SWR as either junior (or apprentice) clerks or senior clerks.[1] Additionally, Goruvish has shown that of 88 Railway Company Chief Executive Managers appointed between 1850 and 1922, only 10% came from ‘Engineering’ departments.[2] The rest came from Administrative (30%) or Traffic Departments (60%). The only failing of this research, for my purposes, is that it doesn’t identify from what positions that CEMs from Traffic Departments came from. However, we can be almost certain that all those Chief Executive Managers from administrative departments were originally clerks. Overall, however, the evidence suggests that clerks could become managers and other employees rarely received such chances.

Therefore, the fact that the majority of senior L&SWR and GWR managers came from the ranks of the clerical staff, means that their employment outlooks were highly likely be aligned with the goals for the company that senior management had. These goals included profit maximisation, loyalty and efficiency. As a result, the clerk edited staff magazines from both companies reflected this informal association.

Firstly, in both magazines criticism of the policies of the companies was prohibited. In the first issue of the SWG the editorial warned potential contributors that they did not 'think it wise' to include articles which were 'tending to a criticism of the South Western Company's policy, or the action of the company's officials.'[3] [italics in original] Subsequently, in August 1881, a contributor named 'Uno' was reminded in print that his unspecified grievances against the management would not be published.[4] While the same sort of explicit statements were not found in the GWRM, in the first issue the editorial stated that the magazine would ‘not meddle with politics, or with subjects leading to excited controversy, for those can be found ad libitum elsewhere.’[5] Thus, while it did’ not explicitly that reporters could not send in criticism of the company, it implied that ‘controversy’ which this form of correspondence would come under, was not welcome. Therefore, by excluding from these magazines’ pages competing narratives of the companies’ performance and management, the alignment of the views of the clerks and senior management is plain to see.

Secondly, both publications prominently featured financial and traffic information within their pages. From the first issue of the SWG in June 1881, up to the January 1886 number, it printed monthly details of the company's revenue, any increases or decreases compared with the corresponding month of the previous year, and the amount of revenue earned per mile of track opened. Furthermore, these statistics were usually to be found in a position of prominence on page one of each edition.[6] Similarly, the GWRM published throughout its first year (and possibly beyond) information on the GWR’s Stock and Share capital and the traffic receipts of the company in the previous month compared with the corresponding month in the previous two years. While not on the first page of the publication, these figures were in a prominent position in the magazine taking up half of a page.[7] Further, both publications published details of their companies’ half-yearly reports and of the proprietors’ meetings. Thus, the inclusion and prominent position of the traffic and financial information betrayed the fact that both editorial teams, like management, saw the success of the company in financial terms and wished to express to the readership of the centrality of profit in company activities.

The last indicator that the clerks identified with the views of management can only be found in the SWG. In June 1882 the Gazette commented on the fact that the salaried (and predominately clerical) staff had been 'left out in the cold' with regard to pay rises, while the waged grades had received increases. Responding to this, the author stated that 'it is another incontestable proof of the vital importance to the staff of good traffic returns...we trust that for the future all will do their utmost to make the line popular so the present prosperity may long continue.' This implied that employees’ wages were dependent on individual productivity and efficient working. Additionally, it held up as an example the self-sacrificing clerical staff, positioning them within the as understanding the importance of the company's financial success to their employment.[8]As such, the article was projecting the views held by the clerical staff and, by default, the management, that profit was the key consideration of company operations. It is unknown whether a similar expression was made in the GWRM (I only have one year’s worth), but hopefully further research will reveal if this was so.

While I still have a lot to do on railway company magazines, from the evidence above I can tentatively say that the clerks of both the L&SWR and GWR expressed views in their publications which were aligned with their respective companies’ managements. However, the degree to which these were held by all the companies’ clerks is unknown and to determine this is also the aim of further research.

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[1] Data collected from: The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 411/491 to RAIL 411/497 and RAIL 411/499 to RAIL 411/502

[2] Gourvish, Terence .R., ‘A British Business Elite: The Chief Executive Managers of the Railway Industry, 1850-1922,’ Business History, Vol. XLVII, No.3 (Autumn, 1973), p.305

[3] TNA, ZPER 11/1, South Western Gazette, June 1881, pp.5

[4] TNA, ZPER 11/1, South Western Gazette, August 1881, pp.8

[5] TNA, ZPER 19/2, Great Western Railway Magazine and Temperance Union Record, November 1888, p.1

[6] TNA, ZPER 11/1, South Western Gazette, June 1881, pp.1

[7] TNA, ZPER 19/2, Great Western Railway Magazine and Temperance Union Record, November 1888, p.7

[8] TNA, ZPER 11/1, South Western Gazette, June 1882, pp.2

The Morals of Victorian Railway Company Staff Magazines

Very recently, I have become interested in railway company staff magazines from before 1923. Not only are they an excellent source of information on the late 19^th and early 20^th century railway companies, but they detail the business cultures that existed within them. Naturally, as part of my PhD I have heavily used the London and South Western Railway’s (L&SWR) staff magazine, the South Western Gazette (SWG). This was the first railway company staff magazine and was started in 1881. The second staff magazine to be published came from within the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1888 and was called the Great Western Magazine and Temperance Union Record (GWM). At the point of establishment the magazines shared two important things in common. Both were established voluntarily by clerks for ‘moral’ reasons, and both had clerks as reporters. Yet, the morality that drove the establishment of these publications was different in each case. Thus, I believe this possibly reflected the fact that amongst the two companies’ clerical staffs, different cultures had evolved up to the 1880s.

The different purpose of the two publications was evidenced by their first editorials. The GWM was established by the GWR’s Temperance Union to bind the union’s branches together. But also, its aim was to reinforce temperance amongst the union’s members. Thus, the first editorial stated that:

‘We anticipate marked results from the Great Western Magazine, not only in animating and linking together the existing branches of the Great Western Temperance Union, but in pressing on men’s minds the special claims which the cause of Temperance has upon railway men for their support an sympathy…'[1]

Contrastingly, the SWG was the result of three clerks working together to support the company’s Widows’ and Orphans’ fund, and as such did not have within its content a stated agenda.[2] Its first editorial stated that the SWG was:

‘Written by South Western men for South Western men, in the pecuniary interests of Widows’ and Orphans’ Fund, it deserves the support of all classes in the service, not on account of any literary merit –it has no pretention in that direction-but because it will assist a most deserving institution.'[3] [Italics in original]

From these statements it is evident that the individuals’ who started these publications had different moral purposes in mind. Subsequently, it potentially indicates differences in collective culture amongst the two companies' clerical staffs. The culture amongst the clerks of the GWR meant that the GWRM focussed on impressing on individuals the need for moral actions. Subsequently, they believed that these moral actions, invariably, would improve your life and lead to a better state of existence. Thus, the onus was on the individual to be moral and improve their own lives, but with guidance. Yet, the L&SWR clerks’ view of morality, as expressed through the Gazette, was one of altruism and of doing good deeds in the common interest. Thus, morality was not just a matter on individual action, although evidently individual morality was important, but collective morality was also necessary for the common good. In some sense, the GWRM was the conservative publication, whereas the Gazette was the socialist one.

To re-affirm my assessment, it is interesting to look at the coverage each publication gave to the other’s central focus. In 1881 the L&SWR employees already had a temperance society. While the Gazette gave it some coverage in its early years, overall they seemingly paid little heed to it compared their coverage of the work of the widows and orphans fund. Indeed, in December 1885 the Deputy Chairman of the L&SWR, Wyndam S. Portal, wrote to the Gazette complaining about the lack articles regarding the company’s temperance union.[4] Conversely, in 1888 a GWR widows’ and orphans’ fund did exist. Yet, it only received a small piece of coverage in early issues,[5] and the activities of the Temperance Union’s branches filled approximately half the publication's pages. Thus, while each publication did concern itself with the other’s central issue, it was not their top priority.

While the origin of this difference in culture would be hard to determine without further study, it is easy to see why they may have become established within the clerical staffs both companies given the nature of clerks’ employment conditions and their lives. By the 1880s clerks in all railway companies were selected by examinations. However, passing these would afford new clerks unique career prospects (up to management), good pay and high job security compared with other railway workers. Yet, what this did was insulate them from the other employees, and their view of what was important in railway work was naturally aligned with those of their managers. Further, once an individual had become a junior or apprentice clerk they would be trained by other clerks and ex-clerks, such as station masters, and would ordinarily socialise with them also (as evidenced by Sam Fay’s Diary).[6]Lastly, once an individual became a clerk on one Railway Company it was incredibly rare for him to move to another. Thus, by the 1880s clerical staffs within companies were isolated groups of employees, where ideas would not circulate far or interact with others from outside.

Subsequently, with clerical employment structures being developed up to the 1860, and having become fully established by the 1880s, it is highly likely that the different purposes of the SWG and the GWM were the result of two different employment cultures that had evolved separately within the two companies’ clerical staffs. Of course, this is open to further investigation, and I realise that I have made some sweeping assumptions, but overall it cannot be denied differences of culture must have existed to some extent. In my next post, I will take a different look at the two magazines to discover what L&SWR and GWR clerks had in common.

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[1] TNA, ZPER 19/2, Great Western Railway Magazine and Temperance Union Record, November 1888, p.1

[2] TNA, ZPER 12/9, Southern Railway Magazine, June 1931, pp.202

[3] TNA, ZPER 11/1, South Western Gazette, June 1881, p.5

[4] TNA, ZPER 11/5, South Western Gazette, December 1885, p.3

[5] TNA, ZPER 19/2, Great Western Railway Magazine and Temperance Union Record, December 1888, p.17

[6] Bill Fay Collection, Sam Fay’s Diary 1878-1881