George Stead Henry Lawrence

(Lawrance – NLR staff register [RAIL 529/134]) Train register boy. Age 13. Appt 21 Dec 1886. Transferred to LNW 1 Feb 1909. Father was a LNWR checker at Broad Street. Joined straight from school (St Columba’s Boy’s School, Kingsland Road). [RAIL 529/134/258 Folio 82.] Train register boy. New appt. Pay 6s. [RAIL 529/53 1 Feb […]

Hirdle Family

The Hirdle Family Edward senior, wife Fanny, son Edward junior and daughter Caroline, All of whom had a job with the North London Railway Edward Hirdle Senior He was born in Apsley, Bedfordshire, the son of a carpenter, somewhere between 1825 (according to his death certificate, aged forty-four when he died in 1869) and 1831 […]

Signalman James Thackray

(who thrice showed quick witted promptitude) (Originally published in Journal 64, December 2015, of the NLRHS) by Peter Bloomfield with help from Margaret Foote James Thackray was born about 1830 to John and Elizabeth Thackray and christened on 26th March 1830 in Godmanchester, then in Huntingdonshire. By 1841 he was living with his parents and […]

The Skegness Disaster

(originally published in Journal 61, December 2014, of the NLRHS) On Saturday the 8th July, 1893, a party, numbering about eighty, of North London Railway men with their friends and relations went on an day excursion to Skegness, arriving at half past ten. It was a happy party that made their way along the road […]

Lapidge Ashlin Family Tree

Nepotism and Inter Breeding On The North London Railway

(originally published in Journals 57, August 2013, and 58, December 2013, of the North London Railway Historical Society)   [Including William Lapidge, John Lapidge , Elizabeth Jane née Lapidge, Joseph John Ashlin, Joseph William Ashlin, George Edward Ashlin, Albert E Ashlin, Henry Elsom, John Thomas Schmutter, Reuben Hart, Jane Crouch and Elizabeth Jones]   The […]

Police Raid Dalston Station Sunday, 24th July, 1904

(or The Tea Leaf Porters of Dalston) (originally published in Journal 53, March 2012, of the North London Railway Historical Society) [Charles Alfred Alldred, John Baker, George Samuel Belsham, James George Edwin Dorling, and Charles Joseph Green] Over quite a long period complaints had been received that passengers’ luggage consigned from long distances to the […]

William Adams

Friends And Family

(originally published in Journal 28, Summer 2000, of the NLRHS) [Henry Daniel Martin, William Adams, John Carter Park and Henry James Pryce]   When, in February 1838, the East India Dock Company merged with the West India Dock Company to become, not unnaturally the East and West India Dock Company, it caused some prob­lems for […]

Jim Connor Collection - Ivison Andrew - Homerton exterior NLR Railway

Andrew Ivison, Porter, Bigamist and General Enigma

(originally published in Journal 54, July 2012, of the NLRHS)   Andrew Ivison was born in 1833 in Brigstock, Northamptonshire. His parents were William Ivison, born circa 1799 in Kingsgrove, Cumberland, an accountant, and Elizabeth Parke, born circa 1813 in Cheapside, Middlesex. He was one of eight children. Andrew married Amy Puxley who was 23 […]

Collision at Bow Station on 7th November, 1883

(or carrying nepotism too far) (originally published in Journal 55, December 2012, of the NLRHS) [William Joyce, Edwin Joyce, Charles Jupp and William Patmore] The 7th November, 1883, saw the East End of London, and Bow in particular, suffering from a dense fog with visibility restricted between six and twenty yards. The driver of the […]