The View from the Inside Track

If I were a historian of World War Two I could walk into any bookstore and choose from a plethora of books that recounted the personal wartime experiences of soldiers, sailors and airpersons. These multitudes of texts are in existence because the conflict was an event in the authors' lives that was never to occur again. Thus, they wrote about their wartime experiences to pass on their unique perspectives, on a unique set of events. Yet, for the rest of us historians, who deal with what occurred in the lives of individuals on a day to day basis, personal accounts of their activities are rare, principally because they presumably didn’t feel the need to write books on their work, sleep and play. Therefore, as a historian of the pre-1914 railway industry, when I do come across the personal accounts of railway workers it is a special thing. Four such texts spring to mind.

1. Memoirs of Station Master by Ernest J. Simmons (1879) – Great Western Railway (GWR)

Ernest Simmons was a Station Master on the Great Western Railway when, in 1879, he published his book detailing his employment as a clerk on that railway in the 1850s and 1860s. Published under the pseudonym Ernest Struggles, it is a lively, humorous and entertaining retelling of the life of the GWR clerk, all the while improved by the fact that the author could write well. Beginning with his first post at Oxford station and following him through reassignments to number of other locations from Aynho to the Black Country, it takes a cynical, and at times disrespectful view of management, criticising some of the company’s more illustrious figures such as Daniel Gooch. Yet to guard against libel, he used fictitious names for locations, individuals and the company itself. Thus, the book itself is truly an insight into the lives and opinions of the mid-Victorian railway clerk.

2. Sam Fay’s Diary (January 1878- July 1881) – London and South Western Railway (L&SWR)

Sam Fay was one of Britain’s most illustrious railwaymen, becoming General Manager of the beleaguered Great Central Railway in 1902 and serving on the Railway Executive Committee during World War One. Fay had started as a clerk on the London and South Western Railway in 1872 and was moved to Kingston in 1876. It is during his time at Kingston that he kept a diary in two small notebooks. In these books many aspects of Fay’s social life were recorded, from his early liaisons with his future wife, his rowing exploits and also being caught without a ticket coming back from Kew. Yet, what is most interesting (to me at least) are the insights the diary gives into railway employment on the L&SWR. In the diary Fay recounted inter-departmental disputes, his applications for vacancies, his relations with Kingston’s station master, and the moment he formed the railway industry’s first employee magazine, the South Western Gazette. Of course, I can’t recount everything the diary contains, but the document is a mine of information on the lives of railway clerks. Indeed, in some respects the information in Fay’s diary is better than those in Simmons’ book, as it is a direct recording of events, rather than the documentation of memories.

N.B. The diary is in the possession of Sam Fay’s grandson, Bill.

3. The Working and Management of the English Railway, by George Fidlay, (1891) – London and North Western Railway (L&NWR).

George Findlay in 1891 published this book after a lifetime as a railway employee. Initially he had worked as an engineer with Thomas Brassey, the great railway contractor. However, in 1853 Brassey recommended he be appointed manager of the Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway, and when this line was jointly leased by the L&NWR and the GWR he was appointed as a goods manager within the former company, eventually becoming its General Manager in 1880. It is from this vantage point that he produced this book as a guide to how the L&NWR operated. In it he touched on almost all aspects of railway operation, such as management, staff, the permanent way, signals, telegraph operation, the working of trains, shunting and marshalling, rolling stock and railway law. Presumably his broad career, moving from engineering to management, meant that he could comment on all aspects of railway operation with the weight of experience. Thus, he gave us an insider’s view of the railways that was technically astute and from a management perspective.

4. Railway Reminiscences by George Neele (1904) – London and North Western Railway

While Fidlay gave an account of the operating procedures within the L&NWR at one point in its history, George Neele, the companies’ former Superintendent of the Line, released this book in 1904 recounting his experiences from an entire career within the industry. Starting as a clerk in 1847, his book charted the many changes within the industry towards the standardisation of many aspects of operation, for example brakes, locomotive headlamp codes, telegraphic codes and the important role of the Railway Clearing House. It also contained highlights such as his trip to the United States, as well as the many characters that were involved in railway operation on the L&NWR and elsewhere. In some ways, this book is the best personal recollection of Victorian railway employment available, as it detailed the development of an industry from the view of a manager who could see a bigger picture than individuals lower down the promotional ladder.

All of these texts were unique, in that the authors were all writing from different perspectives within the industry. Indeed, they all recount these individuals’ experiences at different points in their careers. There is, however, one similarity between these texts, in that they were all recollections from individuals who were salaried employees. The porters, carriage cleaners, drivers and other weekly paid staff do not seem to have left accounts of their railway employment. This said, I may be wrong and their stories are waiting to be found.

Canada vs US Mortgages

It seems there is still a lot of misinformation going on in the general public regarding the sub prime mortgage meltdown in the us and how Canada compares. For the start if you default on a mortgage in Canada you need to pay that money back or declare bankruptcy. In the us you can give the keys back in the morning and buy another home in the afternoon. In the us mortgages were unregulated and basically a free for all for documentation. In Canada we our a highly regulated mortgage industry with strict guidelines. People actually need good credit, be working and qualify within guidelines to get a mortgage in Canada. That was not happening in certain sates in the us. So, what does this mean, we do not have the same problems here in candid as the us. This is why there is not a sub prime mortgage problem in Canada.

Commerce and Finance in Railway Promotion - To Bristol and Southampton we go!

The individuals behind the establishment of Britain’s railway companies have been inadequately studied. What we do know is that they came from a range of different backgrounds, for example traders, landowners, industrialists and gentry. However, which of these groups of individuals played the most important role in the new railway companies has always been vague. Usually, historians have always ascribing the most prominent roles to interested parties such as ‘businessmen’ or ‘merchants,’ without exploring in much more detail the ‘nuts and bolts’ of their involvement.

However, my recent research on the London and Southampton Railway (L&SR) (later to become the London and South Western Railway) and Geoffrey Channon’s on the Great Western Railway (GWR), has given more detail as to who the promoters and early directors of these railway companies were. Subsequently, as my research came after Channon’s, I have established a more nuanced story behind the promotion of Britain’s early railways.

The promoters of the GWR in 1835 were all related to the fact that Bristol, one of its termini, had been a trading port for centuries. Subsequently, Channon showed that 16 of the 30 directors that were involved in its promotion between 1833 and 1835, came from ‘commerce and finance.’ This reflected the high number of merchants that were based in London and Bristol that served to gain from the promotion of a railway through the expansion of trade.[1] Some of the notable individuals included William Tothill, a manufacturing chemist, Thomas Guppy, owner with his brother of Friars Sugar Refinery, and Nicholas Roach, Chairman of the Bristol Dock company, who was also an oil and leather manufacturer.

Further, many of Bristol’s commercial bodies, such as the Corporation, the Society of Merchant Ventures, the Bristol Dock Company and the Bristol Chamber of Commerce, also backed the plan.[2] Therefore, the established merchants and trade organisations of the city came together to promote the new railway and further increase their wealth and prosperity.

However, when I looked at the L&SR, I found a different story. This story principally hinged on the fact that the company’s destination town, Southampton, was not an established trading port like Bristol. G.A. Sekton, a biographer of the L&SWR, wrote that in Southampton before 1834 ‘there were no manufacturers… requiring access to the great mart [London] for their consumption; there was no trade, no commerce there.’[3] Indeed, the port could only charitably be described as a small fishing village. Thus, this meant that the individuals involved in the establishment of the L&SR’s project were different to those involved in the GWR.

Firstly, 10 of the 23 (43.47%) directors that joined the L&SWR board between 1834 and 1840 were categorised as being involved in ‘commerce and finance.’ Yet, unlike the case of GWR, further investigation shows that only three of these individuals were merchants. The seven remaining promoters and directors were actually working in banking and finance. These included Sir John Easthope, a former stockbroker, Edmund Jerningham, of the London Joint-stock bank and Robert Williams, of Williams, Williams & Williams bank, Bridehead.

The reason for the significant involvement of financial men seems to be because of the investment opportunities provided by developing a completely new port. While in the case of the GWR there was a pre-existing economy held in the grasp of merchants looking to expand Bristol’s trade, Southampton possibly could have been developed quickly, providing a lucrative investment opportunity for bankers to make large amounts of money quickly. Indeed, the L&S’s original name was the ‘London, Southampton, and Branch Railway and Dock Company,’evidencing the fact that its promoters saw the opportunities of developing a new railway with a new port at its terminus. Lastly, the involvement of bankers would have also allowed the embryonic company to access the capital on favourable terms, as large amounts would be required to develop the port. This said, the docks part of the plan was dropped early on.

Thus, comparing my research with Channon’s has shown that who the promoters and early directors of railway companies were, was dictated by where the lines were proposed to be built and the economies through which they passed.

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[1] Channon, Geoffrey, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1840, (Aldershot, 2001), p.184

[2] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, p.56-58

[3] Sekton, G.A., The London & South Western Railway: Half a Century of Railway Progress to 1896, (London, 1896, reprint 1989), p.2

[4] Fay, Sam, A Royal Road, (Kingston, 1881) p.5

Some Rules for Station Masters

For much of British Railway history, the station master occupied a special place in the interweaving melee of railway company operations. They were responsible for the companies’ key units of operation, the station. It was to their stations that the traders came to send their wares, where holiday adventures began and to where people returned after an evening out, happy in the knowledge that they were near to home. Therefore, because they were central to the smooth operation of the railway industry, the activities that they were tasked with are worthy of study.

Of course, the duties of station masters changed through the years. What may have been of concern to station masters in 1840, may have been outside their remit in 1940. For this blog post I have decided to look at the duties of station masters in 1933, as in this year Britain’s railway companies produced a new rule book for the staff, the content of which all had agreed to through the Railway Clearing House. Therefore, the basic duties of a station master in Penzance on the Great Western Railway were very similar, if not identical, to those of his compatriot in Edinburgh on the London and North Eastern Railway. For this blog I will be using the London and North Eastern Railway’s rule book (although it wouldn’t really matter which one I used) to describe some of the key duties of the British station master in 1933. The numbers in brackets are the rule numbers from the book.

Naturally, station masters were to be responsible for everything that went on at the station. Interestingly, the first rule specifically directed at station masters specifies that the ‘security and protection of the buildings and property at the station’ were their concern (17i). Could it be that the authors of the rule book, buy putting this rule first, were subconsciously channelling their desire to protect the companies’ property and its revenue? Further, they were to undertake a daily inspection of the station to inspect its ‘cleanliness and neatness of all premises (including closets and urinals), signboards &c,’ such was the emphasis in this period on maintaining a good outwards appearance of the station (17vi).

But the property of the station wasn’t the only thing they had to look after, and the station master had to marshal all the employees at stations (18). Therefore, it was the station master’s duty to oversee that all operations, whether it be the sorting of wagons, the coupling of carriages, the painting the white line along the platform’s edge, or tending to the flower beds, were done in a safe and efficient manner by staff (17iii/19). Prevention of accidents was also achieved by making sure that all staff had the rule book on them at all times and that they were aware of any additional notices that may have altered its content (17iv). They were also responsible for curtailing wastage at the station, and all stores were to be ‘properly and economically used (17x). Lastly, the station masters were to ‘make himself acquainted’ with all the signal boxes and signalmen that he was in charge of, evidently to make sure they weren’t asleep (17v).

Safety was to be ensured in other ways. Because station masters must have seen a lot of rolling stock pass through their stations, they played a role in reporting any defects that they found within the trains. When a carriage or wagon examiner had to inspect a train for defects, the station master had to ensure that this work had been completed before the train was allowed to leave. (28a) However, if an examiner was not present, the station master, if his staff could not fix a defect, was to have the offending vehicle removed from a train, hopefully not with any passengers inside (28b). Further, if any signals, points or any other aspect of the line was found to be defective, these were to be reported as soon as was possible (61)

However, apart from these outdoor jobs, which could have been good or bad depending on the station at which he was posted, the station masters’ main duties were being chained to a desk doing paperwork. All new orders and instructions coming into the station, of which there were multitudes, were to be noted. Further, all books that recorded everything from passenger numbers, wages paid, wagons moved, gas consumption and most importantly, income, were to be written up and sent to the central headquarters (17vii). Indeed, a large part of the station master’s duties was not just ensuring the smooth flow of traffic, but also enduring the smooth flow of information up the organisation so that senior managers could analyse it.

Another large part of the station master’s day would be dealing the great unwashed. Naturally, they had to make sure that passengers were not unruly and that the Bylaws of the company were displayed clearly so that the customers knew what they could and couldn’t do. Further, they were to ensure that all the fares, notices, the Carrier’s Act and all other public declarations were clearly displayed (17viii). If, for whatever reason, the customers were unhappy, the station masters were to promptly send all complaints to head office (17ix).

Of course, these weren’t all the duties of the station masters on Britain’s railways in 1933, but it is the core selection. Clearly, this evidence shows that station masters had huge responsibilities and kept Britain’s railways running.

When giving matters to housing

Thank you for making our event a huge success!

Hello, I hope this Thursday finds you well.

I want to say a special thank you to all of those that came to our event this past Monday. We were able to raise over $650.00 for children's homeless shelters as well as have great food and lively conversation with old and new friends.

From all of us at Dreyer Group Mortgages, we wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving.

Warm Regards, Jared Dreyer and Team.

Stuffies for Safe Housing
At our event, Partners were offered to purchase from a selection of cuddly stuffies as part of our fundraising effort for Dreyer Group Smiles, a charity started by Dreyer Group Mortgages in 2008 dedicated to helping children have safer homes in the Fraser Valley. Stuffies were sold for $10.00 to enthusiastic event goers. This program is something very close to my heart and our team is behind it 100% These shelters, safe and transitional homes work hard to give these kids a warm place to call home and an opportunity for a new start. I am so proud that a portion of every one of our mortgages goes towards these kids who desperately need our help.

If You Want to Buy a Stuffie:
If you would like to buy a stuffie, please visit our office at 308-15252 32nd Ave (Morgan Creek Corporate Centre) or phone 604 536-3802. From Oct 15-Nov 30, we will also be selling stuffies at many of our Partner Locations. More on that coming soon.


















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About Dreyer Group Smiles

Dreyer Group Smiles is a program dedicated to giving to facilities that provide safe and transitional housing to children and youth in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. By providing funds to these programs, Dreyer Group will make a meaningful difference to kids who otherwise may not have a roof over their heads, or hope for a bright future.
Dreyer Group hopes to expand this effort through their clients and business partners. In addition, they plan to raise additional funds through annual events and corporate fundraising initiatives. Dreyer Group is working closely with the Salvation Army to allocate these funds to the children and shelters.


About Dreyer Group Mortgages, A Member of the VERICO Brokers Network

As a senior mortgage consulting team with extensive experience in the financial services industry and thousands of happy clients throughout the Lower Mainland, we understand what it takes to build long-term relationships through service and expertise. As an independent brokerage, we are not restricted to one financial institutions mortgage options. We provide the best range of financing solutions by accessing over 40 lenders and hundreds of products coast-to-coast.

Each VERICO member is an independently owned and operated business.
Copywrite © 2008


Special thank you to our generous sponsors:
Aquamarine Catering
Brawn Karras & Sanderson
CGB Insurance Brokers
CIBC Wood Gundy
First National Financial
i-Finance
KNV Accountants
Liberty Wine
Magna Graphics
Spagnolo & Company
TD Canada Trust
Bernard Callabeat
Fratelli's Bakery
Corby Distibuters
Jamison Irish Whiskey
Thank you to Scott Allen and his team of amazing young athletes at Trinity Western University for coming out and helping making our event terriffic To find out when the TWU basketball team is playing, click here. Take the whole family. It's a really fun night out.
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Dreyer Group Smiles
When you do business with Dreyer Group, a portion of every mortgage funded goes towards providing safe housing for children and youth. Thank you for your support.

The Forgotten National Railway Strike, 1911 - Part 3

With the strike over, railway workers all over the country went back to work with the promise of a Royal Commission to look into the working of the conciliation boards and the whole process of collective bargaining. The Royal Commission met in September and received evidence from all sides of the debate. The Railway managers approached the matter in different ways, from acceptance of the union position in the industry, like the case of the Sir George Gibb of the North Eastern Railway, to the obstinacy and inflexibility of Lord Claud Hamilton, Chairman of the Great Eastern Railway. These two individuals were, however, unique and most railway managers took the middle ground of not wanting to recognise the unions and trying to maintain direct communication between them and the workers in matters of discipline. The commission also received evidence from railway workers, who naturally complained about the conciliation boards, and argued for their dissolution with a formal recognition of the unions.[1]

The result of the Royal Commission was only a slightly revised conciliation and arbitration scheme. Firstly, it widened the number of topics that could be discussed. Whereas before, possible discussions were limited to hours of work and wages, the new scheme also allowed for matters of employment conditions to be tabled at the sectional boards. However, with an eye to protecting the companies’ right to discipline its own staff, the commission explicitly excluded these matters being brought up. The commission also allowed that the members of each of the board could elect a secretary from any source, even if the individual was a union official or not working within the company. This allowed the union to be involved with negotiations, but without them being formally being acknowledged by the companies.

Yet naturally, these changes did not go far enough for unions and they approached the companies’ management about altering the scheme further. Not surprisingly, the railway managers refused to see them. [2] In response the unions balloted their members about their opinion of the new conciliation scheme and the possibility of further strike action. Overwhelmingly, the railway workers of Britain voted against the royal commission’s revised conciliation scheme, and for further strike action. Faced with such opposition, and the threat of the country grinding to a halt again, the companies met union representatives in December and agreed a slightly revised plan. [3]

On top of the commission’s changes, the format of the forum for discussion was slightly changed. The 1907 scheme introduced sectional boards which contained elected representatives of both the staff and management from the relevant department. If a matter could not be decided at that level, it would go up to a general board, made up of equal numbers of staff and management, and if that did not succeed at hammering out a deal, the matter would be referred to arbitration. The altered scheme removed the general boards and moved the ‘impartial’ chairman to the sectional board. If the board could not decide on a decision, his word would be final and binding. Overall, the scheme was a quicker one, but as Pollins argued, it meant that the grades were more isolated, which in turn separated the unions.[4]

Naturally, the railway companies felt that they had given up a lot of ground. Indeed, they continued to oppose the scheme. Further, official recognition of the unions was a long way off, and the most that could be said is that Union officials could assist the workers in the capacity of secretary if they were elected. Thus, the union’s gains were small, and railwaymen remained disgruntled by their lack of bargaining power within the industry. As a result in 1913 the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) was formed by the amalgamation of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, the main protagonists in the strike action, the General Railway Workers Union and the United Pointsmen and Signalmen’s Society.

The formation of the NUR was a landmark in the history of industrial relations as it was the first union that was formed to represent all grades of an industry. Thus, its remit to represent all railway workers, irrespective of grade, and its large size, gave it greater strength at the bargaining table.[5] Thus, the NUR’s first proclamation was that it was their aim to end the conciliation scheme.[6] However, the two other railway unions, ASLEF and the Railway Clerks Association, did not partake in the merger.

The outcome of the 1911 strike was that the unions now had a place in the British railway industry. The unions had demonstrated the power of collective militancy and had forced some changes in the conciliation scheme. Wartime cut off any more progress in changing wages and working conditions and it would only be in 1919, when there was another national strike, that further concessions from the companies would be secured. However, after 1911 the unions were never ignored again.

I have heavily used to write these posts two books. David Howell's, 'Respectable Radicals: Studies in the Politics of Railway Trade Unionism,' is simply wonderful and is the comprehensive history of the Railway Unions. Harold Pollins', 'Britain’s Railways: An Industrial History,' is also good, but gives a shortened version of railway trade unionism up to the 1960s.

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[1] Howell, David, Respectable Radicals: Studies in the Politics of Railway Trade Unionism, (Aldershot, 1999), p.14-21

[2] Pollins, Harold, Britain’s Railways: An Industrial History, (Newton Abbot, 1971), p. 138

[3] Howell, Respectable Radicals, p.124

[4] Pollins, Britain’s Railways: An Industrial History, p. 139

[5] Pollins, Britain’s Railways: An Industrial History, p. 139-140

[6] Howell, Respectable Radicals, p.217

The Forgotten National Railway Strike, 1911 - Part 2

In July and early August 1911, railway workers in various parts of the country, dissatisfied with the working of conciliation boards, unofficially went on strike. In the railway worker’s minds, the conciliation boards had been ineffective at raising wages and reducing hours, as the railway companies had found ways around the awards. Indeed, many of the railway workers had nicknamed them ‘confiscation boards.’ [1]Both Pollins and Howell argued that the root cause was because groups of railway employees, particularly in the North West, were inspired by two recent large and successful strikes that occurred amongst dock and shipping workers.[2] ‘As workers in other industries began to strike and to secure some advances, so railwaymen became even more impatient about the conciliation scheme.’[3]

Some of the first strikes were among Midland Railway workers who unofficially came out on in early August demanding increased pay and shorter hours. However, the action that had started in Liverpool soon spread to Manchester and other parts of the north and midlands, as well as other railway companies such as the London and North Western and Great Central railways. Indeed, Howell argued that the interaction between workers of different railway companies allowed these unofficial actions to spread.[4] Overall, while the precise number of workers who struck is unavailable, approximately 50,000 railway workers in Britain were on strike before union leaders got involved.[5]

On the 15^th August in Liverpool, around which the storm was now blowing, between 40 and 50 delegates from four of the five railway unions met. The delegates came from the Association of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF), The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS), the General Railway Workers Union (GRWU) and the United Pointsmen and Signalmen's Society (UPSS). Only missing, were representatives of the Railway Clerk’s Association (RCA). The first resolution they passed laid out their issues with the conciliation scheme: -

‘We hereby declare that this unfortunate condition of affairs has been created largely by the vexatious attitude of many of the railway companies towards the working of the scheme of conciliation and arbitration, agreed to in 1907 by the Board of Trade and the railway companies and this society (The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants).’

The delegates then issued an ultimatum, and agreed:

‘…to offer the railway companies twenty-four hours to decide whether they are prepared to immediately meet the representatives of these societies to negotiate a basis of settlement of the matters in dispute affecting the various grades.’[6]

Nervous about the country shutting down, and keen to avoid a strike, the government stepped in. Firstly, Asquith invited a number of railway managers to a meeting to discuss the issues, assuring them that they would be given all the support necessary to continue services as normal.[7] Indeed, Asquith declared that he would ‘use all the civil and military forces at his disposal’ to make this happen. [8] This was followed by a meeting between representatives of the Board of Trade and union officials, at which the latter laid out their grievances. Firstly, there was the long-standing complaint over the conciliation scheme, but they also demanded recognition by the railway companies. In essence, the unions had used the situation, which had not been created by them, to push this second agenda.[9]

The suggestion proffered by Asquith was the formation of a Royal Commission to investigate the workings of the conciliation scheme. The unions, worried about how long the commission would take to report and the fact that there was no guarantee that they would be recognised, rejected this offer. Thus, on the evening of the 17^th August 1911, the government and railway management’s worst fears were realised. The Times reported that ‘last evening the unions issued telegrams to all their branches ordering the men to cease work immediately. The thousands of men on strike were promptly joined by many thousands more.’[10] In response, and with a view to keeping its promise, the government deployed 58,000 troops across the network at key points, such as junctions, stations and signal boxes. In the concise words of Bagwell, ‘the strike was effective.’[11]

The strike didn’t last long, and only about 200,000 of the country’s 600,000 railway workers struck.[12] Indeed, on the London and South Western Railway only two members of the staff went on strike,[13] highlighting the fact that in many cases strike action was about localised disputes, rather than nation-wide injustices in employee pay and conditions. Further, it emphasised that union leadership had, not unreasonably, hijacked the unofficial strikes to make a bid for recognition in the eyes of the railway company managers.

Recognition came, in a non-official sense, on the 19^th August when for the first time the government brought together round the same table union officials and railway managers. Shortly after, the unions instructed their members and all others on strike, to return to work. The unions also accepted Asquith’s proposed Royal Commission to look at the conciliation scheme. In truth, nothing much had changed and the unions had basically accepted the scheme offered on the 17^th August. Thus, this suggests that they wished to show the government and railway companies what they were capable of.

Therefore, the strike of 1911 was only a minor ‘blip’ in the smooth running of Britain’s railway network. However, it was vital in the step towards railway companies acknowledging the existence and place of the unions within the industry. In truth, nothing much had changed, however, the unions had demonstrated their strength to act and the railway companies and government could no longer just fob them off with ad hoc arrangements and a lack of recognition.

In part 3, I will look at the immediate aftermath of the strike, the revised conciliation scheme, and the creation of Britain's first all-grades union.

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[1] McKenna, Frank, The Railway Workers 1840-1870, (London, 1980) p.58

[2] Pollins, Harold, Britain’s Railways: An Industrial History, (Newton Abbot, 1971), p. 137

[3] Howell, David, Respectable Radicals: Studies in the Politics of Railway Trade Unionism, (Aldershot, 1999), p.112

[4] Howell, Respectable Radicals, p.113

[5] Pollins, Britain’s Railways, p.137

[6] The Times, 16^th August 1911, p.7

[7] Pollins, Britain’s Railways, p.137

[8] Bagwell, Philip, ‘Strikes,’ The Oxford Companion to British Railway History, (Oxford, 1997), p.483

[9] Pollins, Britain’s Railways, p.137

[10] The Times, 18^th August 1911, p.6

[11] Bagwell, ‘Strikes,’ p.483

[12] Pollins, Britain’s Railways, p.137

[13] The National Archives [TNA], ZPER 11/28, The South Western Gazette 1^st September 1911, p.9