Introduction

Over many years and from many sources Peter Bloomfield collected the names of staff employed by the NLR.  It took a boost in 2009 when TNA listed in their catalogue all the names of those railwayman shown in the NLR Staff Registers, etc, RAIL 529/130-138.

Information is mainly from material in TNA: staff registers, board and committee meetings’ minutes, soldiers’, etc, documents and censuses, the latter two via Ancestry and Findmypast.  Other sources include Parliamentary Papers (including accidents), newspapers, online (Ancestry, Findmypast, FreeBMD) and, in a some cases, from records held by families.  Very few entries do not show a source and are often qualified by ‘possibly.’

National Union of Railwaymen’s members registers are held by the Modern Records Centre, Warwick University.  Care must be taken with the termination of membership dates as they appear to be when the information was recorded rather than the actual date of what happened.

Entries are scarce from 1909 when the running of the NLR was undertaken by the LNW.  Some staff may, however, be found in the RAIL 410 series (LNW). One such document is the LNWR Staff Register for Broad Street station for the period 1865-1920 [RAIL 410/1831].  This Register also includes NLR staff, not necessarily working at Broad Station, mostly from February 1909, although NLR signalmen have been included from the time they were promoted to watchmen or signalmen, some going back to the 1880’s.  Unfortunately, it shows neither with which railway the staff served, nor does it show the type of employment.  It appears to list station staff and including gate attendants from 1916 when the suburban services were electrified.

The staff of TNA, who always treated Peter with great patience, tolerance and good humour.   Especially the late Bruno Derrick, Sue South, Chris Heather of the Archives, Research and Knowledge and their Boss Roger Kershaw.

Notes

Pay shown in pounds is the annual amount for salaried staff, and in shillings and pence is the weekly amount for waged staff.  Some waged staff received a daily rate, eg footplatemen, and pay is so annotated.

Details in an individual’s entry may not be in chronological order.  This especially applies to the post shown in respect of staff registers, which are normally the first entries of an individual where that individual is shown in a staff register.

It is possible that details for staff with the same name have had their details incorrectly lumped together under one name. A further name or ====== divides entries which appear to be for the same person but some details are at variance.

Names are not in strict alphabetical order.

The spelling of names in registers and meeting minutes is variable:

in the case of Brown and Browne there are instances of the same person having both spellings: a problem for all names that are spelt with or without a final “e”;  as for Davis and Davies, they might as well be the same;  then there is Paine and Payne;  unfortunately the staff registers cannot be relied upon to have the correct spelling, William Lapidge’s entry in the staff register shows his name with two “p’s,” whereas it is correctly shown in minute books with only one;  because of style of writing, with initials it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between F, J and T;  initials I and J when written are the same.

 

To search the Database* – Firstly click on the data below then on your keyboard Press and hold ctrl+F (PC) or cmd⌘+F (Mac) – A Search bar will appear within your web browser.

*Unfortunately the search facility is currently unavailable through a mobile device.

 

Note: When searching for a person’s full name, ensure Surname is typed first, followed by a comma & space, then the Forename. Example: Whitman, John