Peter Bloomfield and David Hanson
(Some thumbnail sketches based on David Hanson’s original idea)
General Notes and Acknowledgements
General Notes
The difference between officers and servants as used by the Railway Benevolent Institution was that salaried staff were officers and waged staff were servants.
Acknowledgements
With grateful thanks to Martin Bloomfield, who photographed many many pages of meeting minute ledgers so that they could be trawled through at leisure at home. He also provided an efficient on demand taxi service between West Sussex to Kew. Thank you also to Chris Heather of The National Archives who always managed to produce information when requested.
Grateful thanks are also due to the descendants and others who provided help and information. In order of appearance:
Caroline Willis in connexion with Harry Chubb;
Graham Bull in connexion with John Hyde;
Colin Mansell in connexion with Thomas Matthews;
Hugh Martin and Richard Rees in connexion with Ernest Trench;
Lt Cdr Geoffrey Hughes, RN, Lt Victoria Hughes, RN, and Ross Workman in connexion with Arthur Wood-Hill’s nursemaid;
Margaret Foote in connexion with George Ford and George Mainland;
Sue Chappell and Michael Rees in connexion with George Ford;
Jacqueline Burchett, great great granddaughter of Robert Andrews.
Finally, without Ancestry, FindMyPast, and Free BMD, there would be virtually no family details shown.
Secretaries and Managers
Harry Chubb
Appointed Secretary temporarily on 29th January 1846, and confirmed in the post 21st September 1846. From the commencement of services on 26th September 1850, in addition to being Secretary, he was also appointed Manager. He resigned in mid-1862, but was elected a director in February 1864.
Robert Stanley Mansell
Appointed 1st August 1862. From 13th May 1875, the posts of Manager and Secretary were divided, and he became Manager only, with Newton as Secretary. He resigned in August 1877.
George Bolland Newton
Appointed Secretary and Manager 14th August 1877, having been Secretary since 1875. On his doctor’s advice, he resigned in June 1901, and was rewarded with a seat on the Board. He died 5th November 1902.
Frederick John Dunn
Appointed 1st July 1901, as Manager vice Newton. He was given the title of General Manager from 20th November 1902, but displaced 31st January 1909, when the LNWR took over day-to-day management of the NLR. Died 13th November 1911.
John Hyde
Appointed 1st July 1901 as Secretary vice Newton. He was born in Guildford in 1849, and joined the LNWR in 1863. In 1866 he resigned and joined the NLR, and also was appointed secretary to the NSWJR Company, a post he held until the dissolution of that company at the grouping.
Secretary and Manager
Peter Bloomfield with help from Caroline Willis of Montréal in respect of Clara Chubb (née Leigh) and Chris Heather of The National Archives who resolved a knotty document problem
Harry Chubb was born in Bridgewater, Somerset, about 1819, give or take a couple of years. His parents were Morley, a Professor of Music, and Frances Chubb. By the time he was twenty his family had moved to St Mary’s Parish, Islington, and he had a job as a clerk in the City. On the 24th August 1841 he married Henrietta Perkins in St Pancras Parish Church. [1841 Census [HO 107/665, Book 4, Folio: 30; Page: 23; Line: 13. 1851 Census [HO 107/1498 Folio: 143 Page: 41. LMA, Saint Pancras Parish Church, Register of Marriages, P90/PAN1, Item 078.]
He was appointed temporary Secretary to the East and West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway Company in January 1846. It must have been a pretty ad hoc set up as his pay had not been agreed. In his first seven months he received two payments, one of £50 and one of £100, on account of salary. When the Company’s Act of Incorporation received the Royal Assent on 26th August 1846 he was confirmed in his post with a salary of £350. On the opening of the line in September 1850 he also took on the general management of the line with his salary rising to £500, plus a rented house adjoining the terminus of the NLR at Hampstead Road. The house was owned by the LNWR and let to the NLR for an annual rent of £45. [RAIL 529/9, 29 Jan 1846, Board Mtg Min 22, 27 Apr 1846, Board Mtg Min 40, 31 Aug 1846, Board Mtg Min 55, 21 Sep 1846, Board Mtg Min 63. RAIL 529/11, 18 Jul 1850, Board Mtg Mins 325 and 326, 13 May 1853, Board Mtg Min 488. East and West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway Act, 1846 (9&10 Vict cap cccxcvi).]
About a year after the opening he did a bit of sleuthing. He received the thanks of the Board for his zeal and good management in detecting fraud at Bow Station. The station clerk, Edwin Powell, who previously had a good record with the London and Blackwall Railway, and a porter, Basden Barnard were in collusion and resold tickets after collection. Both were dismissed from the service, as was the pointsman, one C Baker, as he was no doubt aware of what was going on. [RAIL 529/11, 16 Oct 1851, Board Mtg Mins 415/6.]
Towards the end of 1854 a “salary” committee recommended that a fixed sum be allowed to him in lieu of the Company renting a house. They also acknowledged the duties devolving upon him were onerous and very responsible, the crowded traffic of the railway requiring skilful management with the closest attention and watchfulness. As a result his salary was increased by £200, which included an element for rent, etc. [RAIL 529/13, 9 Nov 1854, Board Mtg Min 564.]
On the 17th June 1862 the Board of Directors were informed that he had tendered his resignation in order to become Secretary of the Imperial Gas Company (IGC). By this time his salary had been increased to £800. Mr Herapath obviously had no shares in the IGC as he regretted Chubb’s departure: the zeal and ability he displayed enabled the NLR to prosper so well under his management. [RAIL 529/17, 17 Jun 1862, Board Mtg Min 2377; RAIL 529/19, 8 Mar 1864, Board Mtg Min 562; Herepath’s Railway Journal, 21 Jun 1862, p.640.]
On Saturday the 26th July a farewell party was held in Bow Works. There were lots of speeches and Mr Chubb was presented with a silver épergne, tea and coffee service, and salver, bearing a suitable inscription, from the officers and servants of the company. [The Railway Times, 2 Aug 1862, p.1121.]
Within a year he was speaking to the NLR about a siding to the IGC works just to the west of King’s Cross station. It was to be carried over the GNR and through a tile works to the NLR just to the west of Caledonian Road station, a distance of 1056 yards. From the works the first 842 yards were to be carried on a viaduct. From the works to the NLR it was on a rising gradient of 1 in 153. It must have been a pretty expensive siding, in addition to the building of the viaduct the route took it through a heavily built up area. Perhaps that is why it was never built. [RAIL 529/19, 1 Dec 1862, Board Mtg Min 32. Parliamentary Archives HL/PO/PB/3/plan1863/N19.]
He returned to the NLR on 26th February 1864 when the Shareholders elected him to the Board in place Charles Sweetland who had retired the previous September. He remained a director until he died on the 25th October, 1887, although the last Board meeting he attended was on the 14th July. [RAIL 529/2, 26 Feb 1864; RAIL 529/29 17 Nov 1887, Board Min 4220.]
During his two stints with the NLR he also held appointments on the North and South-Western Junction Railway. He was offered the post of Secretary at a salary of £150 a year, “such sum to include the use of offices, etc, and clerk’s salary.” He wrote to the Company stating that he could not undertake the duties of Secretary on the terms proposed. He was than offered a salary of £150 with an additional £50 a year for office assistants, and with the expense of stationery, etc, being borne by the Company. He accepted the new arrangements and was appointed on 1st November 1853. He resigned at the same time as he left the NLR, by then his salary had increased to £200. [RAIL 521/1 21 Oct 1853, NSWJ Board Mins 229-231; RAIL 521/2: 18 Jul 1862, NSWJ Board Mins 733/4 and 10 Oct 1862, NSWJ Board Min 751.]
A year before he returned as a Director to the North London Company, he was confirmed as a director of the North and South-Western Junction Company at a proprietor’s meeting held on 25th February 1863. There was a legal requirement which stated that only the chairman of a company, or, in his absence the Deputy chairman, could sign the statement of account submitted half yearly to the Proprietors. As a result, at the Board meeting held on 15th February 1872 Chubb was appointed Deputy Chairman. On the 5th March 1874 he was elected Chairman and in October of the following year he was appointed as one of two representatives of the NLR on the Joint Committee when the NLR, LNWR and Midland Railway leased the NSWJR. He held both appointments until he died. [RAIL 521/4, 25 Feb 1863, NSWJ Prop Mtg; RAIL 521/7, 15 Feb 1872, NSWJ Board Min 1161; RAIL 521/7, 5 Mar 1874, NSWJ Board Min 1194; RAIL 529/25, Board Mtg 19 Oct 1875, min 1550. The Regulations of Railways Act, 1868, clause 4.]
Photograph: Oliver Bloomfield
As mentioned above, Harry Chubb married Henrietta Perkins in 1841. Ten years his senior, she was born in the United States and her father was an engineer. They had two sons, one became a civil engineer and the other a lawyer, and two daughters in that order. Henrietta died aged 66 in mid-1872 and was buried in All Souls’ Cemetery in Kensal Green on 9 July. His widowerhood had lasted nearly eight years when he married Clara Leigh, some twenty-eight years his junior, on 3rd April 1880 in St Luke’s Church, Chelsea. Shortly afterwards they moved to Hove in Sussex. They do not appear to have had any children. He died at his home in Hove on 25th October 1887, his second marriage lasting a couple of months less than his widowerhood. His body was taken to London and he was buried in Kensal Green cemetery on Saturday 29th October. [LMA, Saint Pancras Parish Church, Register of Marriages, P90/PAN1, Item 078; LMA, All Souls Cemetery, Kensal Green, 1872 Jan-1872 Dec, DL/t Item, 041/040; LMA, Saint Luke, Chelsea, Register of marriages, P74/LUK, Item 232.][Jun qtr 1880. Chelsea, 1a, 487; The Times, 27 Oct 1887, p1, col a; Probate 28 Nov 1877.]
Clara continued to live at 21 Lansdowne Place, Hove, into the 20th Century before moving back to London. She died on 29th June 1918 in Marylebone and her burial was on 5th July 1918, in Saint Mary the Virgin’s Cemetery, Twickenham. Probate was granted to William Frederick Barber, millinery material agent. Effects £2927 15s. Barber was Clara Chubb’s nephew. [LMA, Saint Mary the Virgin, Richmond Upon Thames, Parish Registers, Burial, DRO/174/A/04/004.]
It would be fascinating to know, did Harry Chubb leave instructions as to where he was to be buried; did the children of his first marriage insist he was to be buried with his first wife, their mother; and what did Clara have to say or think? Probate was granted to his sons Charles John Chubb, 212 Cornwall Road, Notting Hill, engineer, and Edward Moreley Chubb, of 11 Pancras Lane, City of London, solicitor. Personal estate £22321 7s 4d.
Similarly, on Harry Chubb’s death, his younger son, the solicitor, Edward Morley, followed him into the NSWJR. He offered his services as an auditor and was accepted at the Proprietors’ Meeting on 10th January 1888. He resigned as an auditor on the 19th March 1895, having sold ten pounds worth of his stock and, as an executor, the remainder of of his father’s stock. This is where the author’s cynicism creeps in. When Edward’s father died in October 1887 he was replaced as chairman by Philip Tuckett, who had to retire through ill-health in January 1894. His place as a director was taken by his son, Philip Tuckett Junior, a barrister-at-law. Was Ed peeved at Phil junior getting a directorship, whilst he only had an auditorship, and/or did the solicitor/barrister relationship have anything to do with it? It could, of course, just have been a co-incidence of dates, perhaps tied
in with the sale of stock in the NSWJR. [RAIL 521/8 10 Jan 1888, NSWJ Board Min 1472; 25 Mar 1895, NSWJ Board Mins 1603/04; 22 Jan 1894, NSWJ Board Min 1584.]
Secretary and Manager
Peter Bloomfield
Robert’s first recorded job appears to have been the surveyor and secretary of the Liverpool and Southport Railway, which opened on the 21st July 1848. Two years later authority was obtained for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company to take it over, although that did not happen until 1855. [TNA Introduction to RAIL 372. The Times, 22 Jul 1848, p6.]
Meanwhile, perhaps Mansel had seen the writing on the wall as by 1853 he had moved to the Chester and Holyhead Railway, which in turn was bought by the LNWR in 1859. On the 16th January 1862 the LNWR made him Supervisor, Liverpool, on a salary of five hundred pounds. [TNA Introduction to RAIL 113. RAIL 372/3, L&SR Board Mtgs 13 Sep and 11 Oct 1853, ff 23 & 31. RAIL 410/1856 f17/18.]
When Harry Chubb informed the Chairman of the NLR that he intended to resign, the Chairman spoke to his opposite number in the LNWR concerning a replacement. Robert Mansel was suggested, the Chairman considered him suitable and Mansel was willing to move to London. And that is how, on the 1st August 1862, Robert Mansel became the Secretary and Manager of the NLR with a salary of six hundred pounds. [RAIL 529/17, 17 Jun 1862, Board Mtg Min 2377.]
In mid-1875, by which time he was on a thousand pounds a year, it was decided to split the job. He kept the managership and George Bolland Newton became secretary. During 1876 he was ill for some little while as the Secretary, Newton, received an additional payment for the extras duties undertaken during the period he was sick. The following year, after fifteen year’s service with the NLR he submitted his resignation to be effective after the half-yearly general meeting held on 22nd August 1877. By way of a thank you, the Board presented him with £1500. At the close of the meeting, “Mr Minton thought the meeting should not separate without expressing its acknowledgments to Mr Mansell (sic) on his retirement from the office of general manager, and accordingly moved a resolution to this effect, which was seconded by Mr Hammonds, and carried with acclamation.” [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 19 Jul 1877, min 2677; RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 17 Aug 1876, min 2512. Herepath’s Railway and Commercial Journal, Vol XXXIX, p894, 25 Aug 1877.]
As his predecessor before him, he also took on the job of Secretary of the North and South Western Junction Railway, which carried a salary of two hundred pounds. With the leasing of the NSWJR by the LNWR, NLR, and MR in December 1871, he was appointed as the first secretary to the Joint Committee, salary £200. He therefore had to resign from the Secretaryship of the NSWJR: in appreciation of of his service of nearly ten years the Board presented him with £500. Just over two years later, his connection with the NSWJR was renewed when, on the 5th March 1874, their Board elected him as a director; a position he held until he died. He held the appointment of secretary to the Joint Committee until August 1877, when he retired from the NLR. [RAIL 521/2 18 Jul 1862, NSWJ Board Mins 733/4. RAIL 521/9 13 Dec 71 Jt Cmttee Min 7. RAIL 521/7 15 Dec 1871, NSWJ Board Min 11142 RAIL 521/4 26 Feb 1872, NSWJ Prop Mtg. RAIL 521/7 5 Mar 1874, NSWJ Board Min 1193. RAIL 521/4 16 Jul 1874, NSWJ Prop Mtg. RAIL 521/9 15 Aug 77 Jt Cmttee Min 657.]
Robert Mansel was born in 1826 at Cosgrove where his father, the Reverend Henry Longueville Mansel, was the Rector. He was nine years old when his father died. He had at least one brother and one sister. The brother, Henry Longueville, six years his senior, followed in their father’s footsteps by taking holy orders and became Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. This was the position he was holding when he died in July 1871, aged 51. Co-incidentally, this sad event occurred at Cosgrove Hall where he had been born. Presumably he was visiting his mother who continued living in Cosgrove until she died in 1877. [The Times, 1 Aug 1871, p12. GRO Death Jun qtr 1877, Maria Margaret Mansel, aged 82, Potterspury, 3b, 17.]
In 1853 Robert married Anna Louisa Preston, whose father was also a clergyman. They had eleven children, seven girls and four boys. Three of the girls became trained nurses and one son studied medicine. When they moved from Liverpool they lived in Everley Lodge, in East Barnet, but around 1870 they moved to 33 Devonshire Place in Marylebone. [RG 9/2684 Folio: 8 Page: 9. RG 10/2545; Folio: 46; Pages: 25/26. Electoral Register 1857 Dist: Towcester Parish Cosgrove.]
On the night of the 1871 census, however, Robert Mansel was staying with his brother in the Deanery of St Pauls, whilst his wife and younger children were staying at the Vincents Rock Hotel in Clifton, Bristol. He showed himself as Secretary NLR, whilst his wife described herself as wife of landowner. [RG 10/427 folio 41 page 11. RG 10/2545; Folio: 46; Pages: 25/26.]
Robert Mansel died on 5th March 1881, the seventh anniversary of him being elected as a director of the NSWJR. His probate details showed him as of 33 Devonshire Place, Middlesex, and of Bebside, Northumberland, which presumably accounts for his wife’s description of herself. His estate was under six thousand pounds. His wife died on the 12th July 1902, aged 73. For the previous ten years or so she was recorded as being blind. She died at Ashcroft in Surrey and at the time she had her three elder daughters, all unmarried, living with her. She also employed a domestic staff of three. [This paragraph is based on census returns, GRO Birth Marriages and Death references, and probate records.]
Secretary and Manager
Peter Bloomfield
George Bolland Newton was born in Dulwich in 1838 and was educated at Charterhouse. He was destined for the bar but had to abandon a university career. [Illustrated Interviews, No 15 – Mr George Boland Newton, Railway Magazine, September 1898, and reproduced, with permission, in The Journal of the NLR Historical Society, Issue No 22, Spring 1998; Institute of Civil Engineers ICE on line.] Instead, in 1851 at the age of thirteen, he became a junior clerk in the Euston Station office of the NLR on a salary of forty pounds. He gradually worked his way up in the Secretary’s Office to Chief Clerk and then, in 1868, to Assistant Secretary.
In mid-1875 the Board decided that duties of the Manager were to be split. Robert Mansell to remain as Manager, whilst George Newton was appointed Secretary. The Secretary was also made responsible for the general supervision of the Estate and Advertisement Departments. A year later the sum of £100 was voted to the Secretary for extra duties undertaken by him during the illness of the Manager. This was a practice run for what was to happen a year later when he was made Secretary and Manager in August 1877, as a result of Mansel retiring. [RAIL 529/25, Board Mtg 13 May 1875, min 2278; RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 17 Aug 1876, min 2512; RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 14 Aug 1877, min 2690.]
One of his best achievements during his term as Secretary might well have been the amount of money he saved the Company in rates and charges. On the 7th April 1892 the Board granted him a gratuity of 500 guineas for the way in which the NLR Rates and Charges Provisional Order bill had been arranged with the Board of Trade. [RAIL 529/29 7 Apr 1892, Board Min 4839.]
The strain of the job began to affect his health. On his doctor’s orders he reluctantly retired from the position of Manager and Secretary with Company in June 1901. Because of his length of service with the Company, fifty years, his superannuation was supplemented by a grant of £800 per annum. The Board invited him to a seat on the Board, the shareholders at their meeting on the 9th August duly electing him. He remained a director until he died the following year. [RAIL 529/30 20 Jun 1901, Board Min 5990; RAIL 529/30, 9 Aug 1901 Board Min 6018; RAIL 529/31, 20 Nov 1902 Board Min 6172.]
Like his predecessors, he also held appointments with NSWJR. He started on 1st January 1863 as the registrar looking after share transfers, for which he received a salary of £10 per annum. As with the NLR, he worked his way up through chief clerk to the secretary, assistant secretary and eventually to secretary in December 1871. In August of that year he had been made Assistant Secretary, salary £50, to the Joint Committee of Lessee Companies. When he was appointed Secretary to the Joint Committee of Lessee Companies in August 1877 he had to retire as Secretary of the NSWJR. In appreciation of his services he was presented with a complimentary donation of £100. His connection with the NSWJR was renewed when, on 18th July 1884, he was elected as a director. In December 1887 he was appointed their delegate to the RCH Committee. Nine and a half years later, on 22nd January 1894 he was elected Chairman of the Company. Another post in which he remained until he died. [RAIL 521/2: 9 Jan 1863, NSWJ Board Min 788; 8 May 1863, NSWJ Board Min 828. RAIL 521/5 8 Jan 1864, NSWJ Board Min 37. RAIL 521/5 21 Aug 1868, NSWJ Board Min 686. RAIL 521/7 15 Dec 1871, NSWJ Board Min 11142. RAIL 521/4 26 Feb 1872, NSWJ Prop Mtg. RAIL 521/9 15 Aug 77 Jt Cmttee Min 657. RAIL 521/4 22 Jan 1878, RAIL 521/7 18 Jul 1884, NSWJ Board Min 1389, NSWJ Prop Mtg. RAIL 521/7, 6 Dec 1887 NSWJ Board Min 1466. RAIL 521/8 22 Jan 1894, NSWJ Board Min 1585. RAIL 521/8 6 Jan 1903, NSWJ Board Min 1724.]
In addition to the two railway companies aforementioned he held a myriad of other appointments: a delegate to and auditor of the Railway Clearing House; a member of the Board of the Railway Benevolent Institution; auditor of the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada; auditor of the National Provident Institution, Justice of the Peace for the County of London; Lieutenant-Colonel of the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps. He was elected an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers on the 5th March, 1878, and also took a great interest in St. John’s Ambulance Brigade. Several attempts were made to tempt him away from the North London and to accept appointments with larger railway companies, but he preferred to remain with the North London rather than dissociate himself from an undertaking with which he had been identified from boyhood. On more than one occasion it was suggested he stood as a Conservative Party candidate in a metropolitan constituency in which there was a reasonable probability of success. He declined such invitations, because he believed that the busy life of a railway manager afforded neither time nor opportunities for Parliamentary duties. [Illustrated Interviews, No 15 – Mr George Boland Newton, Railway Magazine, September 1898, and reproduced, with permission, in The Journal of the NLR Historical Society, Issue No 22, Spring 1998]
Shortly after his birth, on the 21st August 1838, George Boland Newton was baptised in St Luke’s Church, West Norwood. His father, George, was an officer with the East & West India Dock Company. Apparently this was sufficient for him to show himself in his son’s baptismal records as a Gentleman. George the younger was the eldest of seven children, his siblings were evenly split, three sisters and three brothers, with the births of all seven being spread over about seventeen years. As previously mentioned, he was educated at Charterhouse and then joined the NLR as a clerk. Perhaps a railway clerk was not good enough for him, or maybe his father if he completed the details for the 1861 Census, as there his employment is shown as a merchant’s clerk.
He married twice. Had he married the first time one hundred years later he would have been the envy of all men the world over, for on the 26th October 1864 in the Parish Church of St Marylebone he married Elizabeth Taylor. The length of this marriage has not been discovered. What is known is that George spent the night of the 1st/2nd April 1871 in his pad in Porchester Terrace, Paddington, and had a visitor, Mrs Emily Asbouin, a solicitor’s wife. Also there was his servant, Miss Mary Coe, some fifteen years his senior and who was with him for over twenty years. Three questions spring to mind: did she turn a blind eye; was she jealous; or did she act as chaperone? The marital status of both host and visitor was ‘married.’ On the 12th August 1873, however, both stated that they were widowed when they tied the knot in Christ Church, Paddington. They had no children. In an interview in 1898 he stated, “The few leisure hours I obtain are never so happily spent as when with my favourite horses and dogs.” So where did Emily fit into the scheme of things? He died on the 5th November 1902, with probate being granted to his widow and his estate being entered as £8706. Emily died in 1906. [LMA: Saint Marylebone, Register of marriages, P89/MRY1, Item 237; Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, Register of marriages, P87/CTC, Item 004. 1871 Census RG 10/26, folio 56, page 43. See footnote number 1. RAIL 529/31, 20 Nov 1902 Board Min 6172. Railway Times, Vol 83, 1903, page 15; 1902. RG Reference St George, Hannover Square, 1a, 265.]
Annex A
George Bolland Newton
NLR Career
Junior clerk. Joined NLR 1851. Salary £40. Salary increased to £60. [RAIL 529/13, 9 Nov 1854, Board Mtg Min 564.]
Clerk, Euston. Required to provide £200 security on appt. Increase in salary of £25 to £85 1 Jan 1857. [RAIL 529/13, 9 Dec 1856, Board Mtg Min 1013.]
Clerk, Euston Station Office. Requested increase of salary. Increased by £15 to £100. [RAIL 529/15, 16 Mar 1858, Board Mtg Min 1335.]
Clerk, Secretary’s Office. Salary increased from £120 to £140. [RAIL 529/17, 25 Mar 1862, Board Mtg Min 2334.]
Clerk, Secretary’s Office. Due to reduction of staff and increased duties, salary increased to £160 from 1 Jul 1863. [RAIL 529/19, 17 Mar 1863, Board Mtg Min 163.]
Chief clerk, Secretary’s Office. Requested review of salary. Salary increased by £15 from 1 Apr 1864. [RAIL 529/19, 22 Mar 1864, Board Mtg Min 582.]
Asst secretary. Pay £175 to £225. [RAIL 529/77 3 Jun 1868, FGP Com Min 381.]
Asst secretary. Pay £225 to £250. [RAIL 529/77 30 Jun 1869, FGP Com Min 483.]
Assistant Secretary. Pay £250 to £275. 1 Jan 1870. [RAIL 529/77 1 Dec 1869, FGP Com Min 521 (as Salaries Committee).]
Assistant Secretary. Salary £275 to £300. [RAIL 529/78 31 May 1871, FGW Com Min 708.]
Appt Secretary on salary of £500 [RAIL 529/25, Board Mtg 13 May 1875, min 2278.]
Appt Secretary and General Manager. Salary, including payment by NSWJ, £1000. [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 14 Aug 1877, min 2690.]
Pay £1000 to £1200. 1 Jul 1878. [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 22 Aug 1878, min 2867.]
Pay increased by £150. 1 Jan 1880. [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 11 Feb 1880, min 3076.]
Pay £1350 to £1500. 1 Jan 1881. [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 16 Dec 1880, min 3197.]
Salary increased to £1750. 1 Jul 1885. [RAIL 529/28 13 Aug 1885, Board Min 3932.]
Salary increased to £2250. [RAIL 529/30 13 Feb 1895, Board Min 5186.]
Traffic Superintendent and Manager (later General Manager)
Peter Bloomfield
Frederick Dunn was born on the 17th July 1853 in Chester, the eldest child of Patrick and Mary Dunn. His father was The Cashier in the General Manager’s Department in Chester of the LNWR, who, for some reason, was dismissed in July 1862 when young Frederick was eight years old. Perhaps this was the reason for the family to move from Chester to Bow.[RAIL 529/134 f196; GRO Birth Sep qtr 1853 Gt Boughton, 8a, 312. RAIL 410/1862 f4.]
He joined the NLR in August 1866 as a junior clerk in the Manager’s Office. He stayed in a clerical post sometimes in the Manager’s office (Broad Street) and some times in the Secretary’s office (Euston) until he was appointed Traffic Superintendent. Which office did not make a great difference as, apart for twenty-seven months between May 1875 and August 1877 the manager and secretary were one and the same person. As a clerk he would have started with an annual salary of £30 which rose by regular increases to £200 in 1883. [RAIL 1156/13/20.]
During the winter of 1878/79 his father died. His mother and four siblings had moved to 2 Caxton Street, later Caxton Grove, whilst he had moved out into lodging a couple of hundred yards away in Malmesbury Road. It was a confectioner’s shop run by a German couple who had two other lodgers as well as Frederick, both of whom were in clerical appointments. In the spring of 1881 he married Marian McCudden, a widow with a three year old daughter. Later that year they had a daughter, who, after her father was appointed Traffic Superintendent, was joined by two sisters and a brother.
On the 1st July 1884, sixteen days before his thirty-first birthday, he was appointed Traffic Superintendent at a salary of £300 a year. In 1898 Dunn was selected as Chairman of the Railway Clearing House Superintendents’ Conference. It was composed of superintendents from all the railways with the chairmanship rotating on annual basis: had the railway organisation remained unchanged the next time the NLR had the Chairmanship would have been about 2030. Details of his Chairmanship are given in Annex A. [RAIL 529/79 2 Jul 1884, FGW Com Min 1802.]
Regular pay increases took his salary to £700 on 1st July 1898 and that is where it remained until he was promoted to Manager on 1st July 1901 with a salary increase of £300. The post was redesignated General Manager in November the following year. As no replacement as Traffic Superintendent was nominated for him until 1st January 1903, presumably he continued to act in that capacity for the intervening eighteen months. [RAIL 529/30, 20 Jun 1901 Board Min 5991. RAIL 529/31, 20 Nov 1902 Board Min 6182.]
On 7th August 1901 he was given an extra-mural job as Secretary and Manager of the NSWJR Joint Committee, for which he given was a salary £200, “to include the expenses of office staff.” [RAIL 521/11, 7 Aug 1901, NSWJR Jt Cmtee Min 2694.]
In 1903 he was presented by the officers of the company with a gold watch on his 50th birthday, which also marked his completion of thirty-seven years service with the company. Later that year under his patronage and that of the Secretary, a smoking concert was given by the clerical staff of the company in the evening of Wednesday 9th December in the Hamilton Hall of the Great Eastern Hotel. James Smither, the company’s Audit Accountant, chaired the concert. [The Railway Times, vol LXXXIV, 1 Aug 1903, p 115; and 12 Dec 1903, p 590.] A good time was had by all and sundry!
During his tour as General Manager his biggest task was, most probably, doing himself out of a job. This was the overseeing of the transfer of power to the LNWR when they took over the running and managing of the railway on 1st February 1909. This resulted in his retirement the previous day. He was, however, granted an annual allowance of £1300 and a superannuation allowance of £700 until reaching 60, which would have been 17th July, 1913; up to then he was expected to render services as may be required. [RAIL 529/32, 4 Feb 1909 Board Min 6948.]
Unfortunately he died on 13th November, 1911, aged 58. His wife predeceased him, having died during the winter of 1902/3. Probate showed that he left a little over £8250. [RAIL 529/32, 16 Nov 1911, Board Minute 7604.]
Details of his salary throughout his career are shown in Annex B.
Postscript – Not Taking Care to Find Out Who a Passenger Was Before being Rude
The NLR had various charwomen’s and waiting room attendants’ positions which were mainly reserved for widows and wives of NLR railwaymen who had been killed or seriously injured in their line of duty. One such was Mrs Mary Clarke who was a Waiting Room Attendant at Broad Street station, from about 1880, and was the widow of David Clarke, who had worked for twenty years at Bow Works. Normally when staff were disciplined over complaints, only the word “passenger” was entered into the records. In Mrs Clarke’s case, however, a name was recorded. On the 26th September 1901 she was “cautioned re Miss Dunn’s complaint.” Mrs Clarke’s son Ernest was a train register boy at Poplar from November 1890 to March 1892, when he resigned. She died on 4th January 1908. [RAIL 529/133, folio 162; RAIL 529/135, folio 41; RAIL 529/50 2 Nov 1880, Loco Com Min 4222; RAIL 529/56 30 Mar 1892, Loco Com Min 8395; RAIL 529/64, 6 Feb 1908, Loco Com Min 13523.]
Annex A
Frederick John Dunn
1898 Chairmanship of the Railway Clearing House Superintendents’ Conference
[RAIL 1080/119, Mins 5810-5852.]
During his stint he chaired four meetings. Most matters discussed concerned through traffic: division of costs; and which type of traffic could terminate on a railway. Parcel traffic took up a great deal of time. At each meeting a list of changes to stations was minuted. It showed: opening and closures; changes in name; and what type of traffic it could/could not accept. Livestock, mainly horses, was mentioned frequently:
Minute 5817:
1. Horse and carriage traffic cannot be dealt with at Duirinish station (Highland Railway) as there is no siding accommodation.
2. Horses can now be dealt with at Marchington station (North Staffordshire Railway).
Minute 5830:
When expenses for the feeding and watering of livestock in transit are incurred, the intermediate station at which such expenses arise must invoice the amount thereof as a ‘Paid on to pay,’ and the invoice must accompany the wagon, and when similar expenses are incurred in respect of horses or other livestock conveyed by passenger train the amount must be similarly way-billed and the way-bill must accompany the vehicle.
The final decision in his Chairmanship was whether future meetings should be held on Tuesdays instead of Wednesdays: it was agreed that the existing arrangements were to be continued. There is, however, no doubt that the most serious item discussed was the final item of the April meeting which involved the waiving of Standing Orders on two counts: that the July meeting be held at Douglas, Isle of Man, instead of Scotland, and on Wednesday, 6th July instead of the 13th. The waiving of Standing Orders was agreed. The result, presumably, was that between about the 4th and 7th July 1898 quite a few RCH gravy trains ran to and from Lancashire ports.
He also chaired the Claims Arbitration Committee. Only two cases were referred to this Committee in 1898: one was in favour of the claimant who was awarded £40 against the Highland Railway Company for loss of a gun case; and the other was for law costs of £64 14s 8d in connection for alleged injury to a horse which went in favour of the Midland, London and North Western, and Caledonian Companies. The claimant promptly declared himself bankrupt.
Annex B
Frederick John Dunn
NLR Career
Clerical pay details
Salary on joining NLR as a junior clerk, General Managers Office, £30. Aug 1866. [RAIL 1156/13/20.]
Junior clerk, Secretary’s Dept. Pay £50 to £60. 1 Oct 1870. [RAIL 529/78 5 Oct 1870, FGW Com Min 621.]
Junior clerk, Secretary’s Office. Pay £60 to £70. 1 Dec 1872. [RAIL 529/78 30 Oct 1872, FGW Com Min 859.]
Clerk, Secretary’s Office. Pay £70 to £80. Increased duties and efficiency. [RAIL 529/78 7 Oct 1874, FGW Com Min 1029.]
Clerk, Euston station, Secretary’s Office. Pay £80 to £90. 1 Oct 1875. Increased duties and efficiency. [RAIL 529/78 6 Oct 1875, FGW Com Min 1110.]
Clerk, Secretary’s Office. Pay £90 to £100. 1 Oct 1876. Increased duties and efficiency. [RAIL 529/78 11 Oct 1876, FGW Com Min 1201.]
Clerk, Secretary’s Office, Euston Station, to Manager’s Office, Broad Street. Pay £100 to £110.[RAIL 529/79 30 Jan 1878, FGW Com Min 1309.]
Clerk to General Manager, Broad Street. Pay £110 to £130. [RAIL 529/79 5 Feb 1879, FGW Com Min 1381.]
Clerk, Broad Street. General Manager’s Office. Pay £130 to £150. 1 Feb 1880. [RAIL 529/79 3 Mar 1880, FGW Com Min 1462.]
Clerk, Broad Street. General Manager’s Office. Pay £150 to £175. [RAIL 529/79 30 Mar 1881, FGW Com Min 1537.]
General Manager’s clerk. Pay £175 to £200. [RAIL 529/79 2 May 1883, FGW Com Min 1702.]
Salary as Traffic Superintendent
Salary on appointment £300. 1 Jul 1884. [RAIL 529/79 2 Jul 1884, FGW Com Min 1802.]
Traffic Supt. Pay £300 to £350. 1 Jul 1885. [RAIL 529/80 1 Jul 1885, FGW Com Min 1905.]
Traffic Supt. Pay £350 to £400. 1 Jul 1886. [RAIL 529/80 30 Jun 1886, FGW Com Min 1987.]
Traffic Supt. Pay £400 to £450. 1 Jul 1888. [RAIL 529/80 4 Jul 1888, FGW Com Min 2127.]
Traffic Supt. Pay £450 to £500. 1 Jul 1890. [RAIL 529/80 2 Jul 1890, FGW Com Min 2242.]
Traffic Supt. Pay £500 to £550. 1 Jul 1892. [RAIL 529/80 29 Jun 1892, FGW Com Min 2364.]
Traffic Supt. Pay £550 to £600. 1 Jul 1892. [RAIL 529/80 3 Jul 1895, FGW Com Min 2523.]
Traffic Supt. Pay £600 to £700. 1 Jul 1898. [RAIL 529/81 29 Jun 1898, FGW Com Min 2671.]
Salary as Manager
Salary on appointment £1000. 1 Jul 1901. [RAIL 529/30, 20 Jun 1901 Board Min 5991.]
Appointment was changed to General Manager. [RAIL 529/31, 20 Nov 1902 Board Min 6182.]
General Manager. Salary £1000 to £1300. 1 Dec 1902. [RAIL 529/31 18 Dec 1902, Board Mtg Min 6193.]
Secretary
Peter Bloomfield with assistance from Graham Bull
courtesy of Graham Bull
John Hyde was born in Guildford, Surrey, in 1849. His father, John, was a tobacco pipe maker employing about a dozen people, and his mother, who was a widow when she married his father, had a father who was also a pipe maker. He was educated at Archbishop Abbot’s School, Guilford. [1861 Census RG 9/428, Folio 43, Page 32; Railway Ancestors NLR unsourced.]
John Hyde started with the LNWR on 13th July 1863 and worked as a clerk in the Accounts Department at Euston. On appointment his salary was £25 a year which had risen to £35 by the time he resigned at the end of April 1866. William Howard, one of John’s stepbrothers, was a senior clerk in the LNWR’s Secretary’s Office and was probably instrumental in getting Hyde a post in the LNWR. How else would a lad from Guildford get a job at Euston? As an aside, William had a good career with the LNWR and at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, aged 62 or 63, working in the LNWR’s Secretary’s Office, had a salary of £550, plus £50 for being secretary to the GNR & LNWR Joint Committee, a job he took on in 1889. [RAIL 410/1854 f30; RAIL 410/1873 f15; 1861 Census RG 9/428, Folio 43, Page 32.]
The day after leaving the LNWR John Hyde joined the NLR as a clerk in the Secretary’s Office with a salary of £50. He worked his way through the Secretary’s Office: becoming the Registrar on 1st December 1872 with his salary being £120; he took on the additional duties of Chief Clerk in mid-1877; additionally having charge of Estate and Advertising work at Euston; and on the 1st July 1898 his salary reached £450. His final promotion came on the 1st July 1901 when he was made Secretary of the Company on a salary of £650. He was the last secretary of the NLR and lost his job on the 28th February 1909 when the LNWR took over the management of the railway. He was kept on as a consultant for eleven months with an allowance equating to his former salary of £800. On 1st February 1910 he retired with his superannuation allowance made up to £500 a year by the Company. [For full details and sources see Annex A.]
Like many of his forebears, he held an appointment with the NSWJR. On the 16th April 1886 the Board appointed him Secretary, getting paid £158 a year, to include provision of stationery, etc, and all office expenses. He kept the appointment until the end, the 31st December, 1922, when he received a final payment of £59 5s. The following day, together with the LNWR and NLR, the company was consumed into the LMS, the largest of the “big four,” on the grouping together of about 120 of the railways in Great Britain. [RAIL 521/7 16 Apr 1886, NSWJ Board Mins 1424-45. RAIL 521/7 7 Jul 1886, NSWJ Board Min 1430. RAIL 521/8 11 Jan 1923, NSWJ Board Min 2021.]
John had a younger brother and two sisters, plus three step-brothers and a step sister. When he began work at Euston he went into digs in Hackney and was joined by his younger brother Thomas who joined the LNWR and was employed as a clerk in the General Manager’s Office. [HO 107/1045/6, folio 25, page 14, line 5. RG 9/428 Folio: 43 Page: 32. RG 10/ 323 Folio: 167 Page: 19. RAIL 410/1873 f15/16.]
On the 7th October 1878 John married Emily Thurley from Dalston. They had no children and she died in the winter of 1918/19, aged 66. About eighteen months later, in mid-1920, he married Flora Elizabeth Brain, who had been born in Newport, Monmouthshire, in May 1886. They had one son but not in that order. John Hyde Junior was born in Newport on 6th May 1911. John senior died on the 14th August 1929 in Bushey where they lived. He left just over £4700. One of the persons to whom probate was granted was Alexander Fordham who could well have been the canvasser of that name in the Advertising Department of the NLR during John’s time as Secretary. Flora died on 31st May 1977, aged 91. John Junior didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps, but instead worked in the retail sector (mostly connected with the area of photography). He lived until he was 96, passing away in January 2004. [RG 14/7694. RG Reference Dec 1878 Hackney, 1b, 859. GRO Mar 1919 Watford, 3a, 1189. RG Reference Sep 1920 Watford, 3a, 2329. Probate 1929, page 377.]
Acknowledgement. Grateful thanks to Graham Bull and his wife. The Hydes are part of his wife’s family. He provided information on John Hyde’s second wife, their son, and the photograph, which is reproduced with his permission.
Annex A
John Hyde
NLR Career
Clerk, Secretary’s Dept. Pay £50 to £60. 1 Jan 1867 [RAIL 529/77 2 Jan 1867, FGP Com Min 226.]
Secretary’s Dept. Pay £60 to £80. [RAIL 529/77 3 Jun 1868, FGP Com Min 381.]
Secretary’s clerk, Secretary’s Dept. Pay £80 to £90. 1 Jan 1870. [RAIL 529/77 1 Dec 1869, FGP Com Min 521 (As Salaries Committee).]
Clerk, Secretary’s Dept. Pay £90 to £100. [RAIL 529/78 4 Jan 1871, FGW Com Min 652.]
Registrar, Secretary’s Office. Pay £100 to £120, increased duties due to additional capital. 1 Dec 1872. [RAIL 529/78 30 Oct 1872, FGW Com Min 859.]
Registrar. Pay £120 to £135. Increased duties and efficiency. [RAIL 529/78 7 Oct 1874, FGW Com Min 1029.]
Registrar, Euston Station, Secretary’s Office. Pay £135 to £150. 1 Oct 1875. Increased duties and efficiency. [RAIL 529/78 6 Oct 1875, FGW Com Min 1110.]
Registrar, Secretary’s Office. Pay £150 to £160. 1 Oct 1876. Increased duties and efficiency. [RAIL 529/78 11 Oct 1876, FGW Com Min 1201.]
Chief clerk and Registrar, Secretary’s Office. Pay £160 to £200. [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 14 Aug 1877, min 2690.]
Registrar, Secretary’s Dept, to have charge of estate work at Euston. Pay £200 to £230. Increased duties.[RAIL 529/79 6 Aug 1879, FGW Com Min 1424.]
Registrar, and in charge of Estate and Advertising work at Euston, Secretary’s Dept. Pay £230 to £250. [RAIL 529/79 4 Aug 1880, FGW Com Min 1493.]
Chief clerk and registrar, Secretary’s Dept. Pay £250 to £275. [RAIL 529/79 2 May 1883, FGW Com Min 1702.]
Appt registrar and chief clerk, Secretary’s Dept. Pay £275 to £300. 1 Jan 1886. [RAIL 529/28 14 Dec 1885, Board Min 3970.]
Registrar and chief clerk, Secretary’s Dept. Pay £300 to £350. [RAIL 529/80 4 Dec 1889, FGW Com Min 2206.]
Registrar. Pay £350 to £375. 1 Jul 1892. [RAIL 529/80 29 Jun 1892, FGW Com Min 2364.]
Registrar. Pay £375 to £400. [RAIL 529/80 3 Jul 95 1895, FGW Com Min 2523.]
Registrar. Pay £400 to £450. 1 Jul 1898. [RAIL 529/81 29 Jun 1898, FGW Com Min 2671.]
Appt Secretary. Salary £650. 1 Jul 1901. Also appt Registered Officer of the Company to sign instruments under the provisions of “The Railway Companies’ Securities Act, 1866.” [RAIL 529/30, 20 Jun 1901 Board Mins 5991/92.]
Salary increased to £800 1 Dec 1902. [RAIL 529/31, 18 Dec 1902 Board Min 6193.]
Secretary. Vacated position 28 Feb 1909 due LNWR take-over of management of NLR. Granted annual allowance £800 from 1 Mar 1909 and superannuation allowance to be made up by the Company to £500 from 1 Feb 1910, until then expected to render such services as may be required. [RAIL 529/32, 4 Feb 1909 Board Min 6948; RAIL 410/1861 f4448/9.]
Henry Daniel Martin
He was Engineer to the Company from the outset and was also Locomotive Engineer (for details see Locomotive Superintendents).
Thomas Matthews
Appointed 21st May 1861 as Engineer, Way and Works when Henry Martin was in the throes of resigning. He had had worked as an assistant engineer since the company was formed and was noted as having completed 50 years service with the company on 9th November 1896. He was superannuated on 1st January 1903, but retained as a consultant. Died 8th May 1905.
Ernest F. Crosbie Trench
Appointed on 1st January 1903. Resigned 1st March 1906, upon being offered a post by the L&NWR. He was born in Ireland in August 1869 and began work on the L&NWR in 1893 for six years before moving to the Midland Railway. Upon his return to the L&NWR he quickly worked his way up to become Chief Engineer.He continued as Chief Engineer to the LMSR until his retirement on 31st March 1930. He died in Marlborough on 15th September 1960.
Arthur Wood Hill
Appointed 1st March 1906, at a salary of £400 and held the post when the L&NWR took over day-to-day management of the NLR on 1st February 1909. He remained on L&NWR as District Engineer at Camden Town, covering the North London lines, including the N&SWJR.
(Thumbnails for Matthews, Trench, Wood Hill to follow)
The lives of the four people who filled the post of what eventually became Locomotive Superintendent are very much entwined.
Henry Daniel Martin
He fulfilled the role of Locomotive Engineer within his role of Engineer to the Company from the outset until William Adams became the first locomotive Superintendent.
William Adams
He had acted as Martin’s assistant from about 1853, and entered the Company’s service in March 1854 as Locomotive Foreman. By 1857 he was referred to as Superintendent. He resigned 28th July 1873 having been offered the post of Locomotive Superintendent by the GER, although he did not actually leave until September.
John Carter Park
He was Adams’ brother-in-law and was appointed October 1873. He resigned because of ill-health in January 1893, although he had not worked for some months before.
Henry James Pryce
He was appointed Locomotive Superintendent on 19th January 1893 and remained in the appointment until the LNWR took over the day-to-day management of the NLR on 1st February 1909, and retired from that date.
David Hanson
(originally published in Journal 28, Summer 2000, of the NLR Historical Society)
[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 the engineers employed by the separate organisations. John Samuel Adams was Resident Engineer to the West India Dock, whilst Henry Daniel Martin held a similar post with the East India Dock Company. The new company allowed Adams, the older man by some years, to retain his job and title and appointed 27 years old Martin as its Surveyor. The two men seemed to have got on well and gradually their two departments merged, with Adams apparently looking after the buildings and Martin the docks and general engineering. It was certainly Martin, working under Robert Stephenson, who surveyed and laid out the railway line from the docks to the London and Birmingham Railway at Camden Town, and who presented the plans to the first meeting of the East and West India Docks and Birmingham Railway Company in 1845. When construction began, he assumed the role of Engineer to the railway. Presumably this suited both companies, as there was little construction work at the docks at this time.
John Adams had a son, William, who was born in Limehouse on 15th October 1823. John arranged for him to be educated privately at Margate, and in due course, and presumably using his contacts in the shipping fraternity, apprenticed him in 1840 to Messrs. Miller and Ravenhill, marine engineers in nearby Blackwall. After his apprenticeship, William continued his career in marine engineering, moving to work for Messrs. Philip Taylor, first in Marseilles and later in Genoa. In 1848 he Joined the Sardinian Navy and served afloat for 4 years as an engineering officer. During this time he met one Isabella Park, and they married in Genoa on 13th September 1852. Isabella was 22 and had moved from Aberdeen ten years previously with her parents, Charles and Catherine, and brother John Carter, who was two years younger, having been born on 2nd January 1832. Her father had set up in business in Leghorn, but the Italian revolution of 1848 had forced him to close down and eventually he and his family settled in Genoa.
In 1853, William returned to England with his young bride and settled in Bow, finding work as assistant to his father’s colleague, Henry Martin. No doubt Martin needed some help. He was still employed as Engineer to the railway (now known as the NLR) which was having severe problems with the engines it was hiring from the LNWR, and had determined to buy some of its own. Martin was asked to gather information and prepare drawings and specifications, and in June 1853 was ordered to supervise the construction of 10 engines by Messrs Stothert Slaughter & Co of Bristol. At the same time, he was still engineer to the dock Company which was pressing ahead with the Junction Dock, linking Blackwall Basin to the South West Dock and providing better access to the West India Dock. Martin’s early relationship with the NLR is not well documented. He was certainly responsible for keeping the track and structures in good order, for supervising the building of new stations and depots and for preparing specifications and possibly drawings for new engines. In June 1854, the directors formalised this arrangement by agreeing that he would receive “a salary of £250 a year to superintend the maintenance and repair of the way and works of the railway, a commission of 2½% on all new works executed by the company under his superintendence, and 1¼% commission for overlooking the construction of new locomotives, carriages or machinery”.l It is alleged, probably correctly, that Adams, under Martin’s Supervision, helped to design and build the engine shed and repair shop then being constructed at Bow to house the new engines.2 The NLR had initially expected the LNWR to rent them the space at Camden vacated by the engines they had been hiring. The contract for the new shed and shops was let in April 1854, so the dates would fit.
In July 1854 a Mr. Miller was engaged as foreman in the workshops to supervise repairs to the engines and carriages. He came from the LNWR, and reported to the General Manager not to Martin. Miller resigned in the following March following the debacle described in Journal No. 9, and it would seem Adams was appointed in his place. Certainly in January 1856 he was referred to as “principal locomotive foreman with the immediate supervision of the whole department, under the Manager.”3
From the mid 1850s, Martin must have played only a small personal role in the Company’s affairs, although he continued to oversee the design and building of their new locomotives, and much of the civil engineering was left to Thomas Matthews, who looked after the way and works. The Dock Company’s records reveal that they employed Martin as Engineer from 1854 until 1861, with his son Charles as assistant, whilst in his obituary, which he apparently wrote before his death, he claims to have been Consulting Engineer to the East India Company from 1855, through the mutiny, until the company was abolished in 1858. It must have been a busy but lucrative time for him. However his association with the area came to an abrupt end in 1861 when the Dock Company discovered he had been colluding with Messrs Hack & Co., the contractors, to the tune of £12,200, and dismissed him. They also told the NLR directors, who must have been horrified. Hacks had built the original engine shed and workshops and the 1860 extension, the carriage sheds at Bow, and Caledonian Road and Newington Green stations, whilst they had just asked Martin to engineer the city extension! Although it would seem they could not prove anything, they ended his commission for the City Extension, and in July 1861 he resigned. He seems to have laid low for a while before moving to the Isle of Wight, where he became involved with improvements to the river Medina and the construction of railways on the Island. He did have one small contact with Bow again in April 1880 when he bought engine No. 35A on behalf of the Ryde Newport and Cowes Railway. Martin died on the 25th September, 1898, at his residence, Halberry, Newport, in the Isle of Wight, at the age of 87.
![Henry James Pryce, MInstCE, MIME [TNA RAIL 1156/13, f57]](https://www.railwaymen-nlr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/3-1-Adams-W-picture.jpg)
His departure must have raised William Adams’ status and prompted him to apply for a rise, as in July 1861 it is recorded “Adams entered service in March 1855 at £200 a year, with the understanding that his position would be improved if the directors were satisfied. In March 1857 his salary was raised by £59, and again in March 1859 by £50, making his present salary £300. The Committee recommend he be paid £350 a year from the start of this year.”4 In January 1863, his duties were clearly defined as “in charge of Locomotives & Rolling Stock, Workshops & Machinery and Gas & Water”,5 whilst in February 1863 he was ordered to construct “in the Company’s workshops, six additional goods engines similar in character to those last laid down, as the opportunity may arise, without undue increase in staff.”6 His career was beginning to take off.
Meanwhile the career of his brother-in-law, John Park, was also progressing. He too had moved to join Philip Taylor, who was directing the erection of a large works at Sanpierdarena by the Italian Government. In 1853 he obtained the post of assistant locomotive superintendent of the Lucca, Pisa, and Pistoja Railway in Central Italy, which, however, he resigned in 1854 to enter the same Sardinian Navy as Adams had left two years before, in order to serve in the Crimean war. When peace came in 1856, he obtained his discharge and came to England with the intention of gaining experience in the works of Messrs. Sharp, Stewart & Company at Manchester before returning to Italy. However, an offer from Mr. John Ramsbottom, then locomotive engineer of the LNWR, to take him into the Company’s shops at Longsight, induced him to remain in England.
Park was at Longsight until 1859, when he was appointed locomotive superintendent of the Buffalo and Lake Huron Railway in Canada, a post he held until the line was taken over by the Grand Trunk Railway Company in 1864, when, his services being no longer required, he returned to England. In the following year he became Locomotive Works Manager of the Great Southern and Western Railway of Ireland, at Inchicore. Here, one of the principal assistants was an Englishman named Pryce who, in March 1869, arranged for his son Henry to serve his time in the company’s shops and drawing office. Henry James Pryce was born in Shrewsbury on 29th April 1852, and had been educated at Hereford.
On 28th July 1873 William Adams tendered his resignation to the directors of the NLR, as he had been offered the post of locomotive superintendent to the Great Eastern Railway. It is not recorded whether he recommended his brother-in-law for the vacant post, but certainly by October, John Carter Park was Locomotive Superintendent to the NLR He was joined in February 1874 by Henry Pryce, fresh from his apprenticeship, whom he had appointed to a post in the drawing office. In 1878 Pryce was made Signal Superintendent, and later, in October 1884 he became Signal and Telegraph Superintendent.
![Henry James Pryce, MInstCE, MIME [TNA RAIL 1156/13, f57]](https://www.railwaymen-nlr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/3-1-Pryce-RAIL-115613-f-57.jpg)
[TNA RAIL 1156/13, f57]
Whilst Adams is chiefly remembered as the inventor of the modern form of bogie, he was in fact a good planner, redeveloping Bow, Stratford and Nine Elms works, and an acknowledged expert in the field of wheel and rail interaction working with his namesake and near neighbour William Bridges Adams, who was surprisingly no relation! Park on the other hand was a practical designer, who from his time in the frozen wastes of Canada, had an abhorrence of inside crank axles. No doubt his experiences on the North London reinforced that view. Adams went on after only five years to become Locomotive Engineer to the London and South Western Railway, a post which he held for seventeen highly successful years. He retired because of health problems in 1895, and moved to Putney, where he died on 7th August 1904, aged 81.
Whilst Adams is chiefly remembered as the inventor of the modern form of bogie, he was in fact a good planner, redeveloping Bow, Stratford and Nine Elms works, and an acknowledged expert in the field of wheel and rail interaction working with his namesake and near neighbour William Bridges Adams, who was surprisingly no relation! Park on the other hand was a practical designer, who from his time in the frozen wastes of Canada, had an abhorrence of inside crank axles. No doubt his experiences on the North London reinforced that view. Adams went on after only five years to become Locomotive Engineer to the London and South Western Railway, a post which he held for seventeen highly successful years. He retired because of health problems in 1895, and moved to Putney, where he died on 7th August 1904, aged 81.
In late 1892 Park’s health began to fail and Pryce took over his duties. Park retired in January 1893 and went to live in Bournemouth. For a while he recovered but this was not to last, and he died on 28th October 1896 at the early age of 64. Henry Pryce was appointed Locomotive Superintendent in his stead on 19th January 1893, but retained his former positions in addition. Pryce like Adams seems to have been a genial family man (although not so prolific – he had only two children against Adams’ ten). He never designed an engine, preferring to perpetuate the designs of his predecessors, but he patented a number of improvements to block instruments. When the LNWR took over responsibility for the day to day running of the NLR at the end of 1908, Pryce retired at the early age of 56. He apparently enjoyed his retirement, but died on 13th August 1918 aged 66, the last of the chain of family and friends who were the NLR Locomotive Engineers.
Sources:
1. PRO RAIL 529/17 min 2165 30 July 1861
2. John Marshall A Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers pub. David and Charles Newton Abbot 1978
3. PRO RAIL 529/13 min 708 8 January 1856
4. PRO RAIL 529/17 min 2147 2 July 1861
5. PRO RAIL 529/19 min 98 27 January 1863
6. PRO RAIL 529/19 min 122 10 February 1863
Other information came from:
Adams’, Martin’s and Park’s obituaries in the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and Pryce’s in the Engineer August 23 1918. Reference was also made to Pryce’s papers at the Institution, and to the International Genealogical Index and to the registration records in Family Record Centre.
Details of Martin’s relations with the East and West India Dock Company are taken from The Survey of London Athlone Press for The Royal Commission for Historical Monuments of England 1994 Vol. 43 & 44.
The Dock Company’s papers are held by the Docklands Museum.[http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/docklands/ ]
It would appear that the duties of the Traffic Superintendent were undertaken by the Manager when the line was first opened. The first hint of this was when one of the Manager’s clerks was referred to as Assistant Traffic Superintendent on receiving a pay increase effective the 1st January 1857. The clerk was Edward King who was possibly being groomed to be the first Traffic Superintendent. Unfortunately he died unexpectedly on the 17th August 1860.
Edward Tanner King
Manager’s clerk, referred to Assistant Traffic Superintendent from 1st January 1857. Died in office on 17th August 1860 at the age of forty-nine.
James Latter Hitch
Filled Edward King’s office from his death on 17th August 1860. He was appointed the first Traffic Superintendent on 1st July 1862. He resigned through ill-health on 31st August 1877.
Charles Lupton Templeton
Appointed Traffic Superintendent on 1st September 1877. He died in office on 22nd June 1884, at the age of forty-one.
Frederick John Dunn
Appointed Traffic Superintendent on 1st July 1884. Appointed Manager on 1st July 1901. As no replacement was nominated for him until 1st January 1903, presumably he continued to act in that capacity for the intervening eighteen months. For his details see under Secretaries and Managers.
George Newton Ford
Appointed Traffic Superintendent on 1st January 1903 and stayed in the appointment until the LNWR took over the running of the NLR on 1st February 1909.
Assistant Traffic Superintendent
Peter Bloomfield
Edward King was born in Middlesex about 1811. His father, John King, was a wine merchant. At first he followed his father into the wine trade. When he was about 40 he joined the NLR as a station clerk, probably at the opening in September 1850, pay then being 25s/27s 6d per week, but he was definitely employed as a station clerk by the end of March 1851. In December 1851 he was promoted to assistant to the Manager/Secretary on two pounds a week.
In 1856 he was referred to as Assistant Traffic Superintendent and was required to provide £200 security on appointment. Since there was no previous requirement for him to provide a security, on 1st January 1857 his salary, which by then was £160, increased by £10.
From before he joined the NLR, he had a house keeper, a Miss Marianne Barnes who was born in Shaftesbury, Dorset, about 1821/22. Her father, Job Barnes, was a carpenter and builder. On 9th January 1858 Edward and Marianne were married in St John Horselydown’s church in Southwark. They had four sons, but not entirely in that order.
The eldest was Mark Ernest King Barnes, born during the winter of 1850/1851. A couple of years later came Arthur Barnes and another two years later along came David Barnes. Just a year after being married William King was born. That begs the question: was she a housekeeper, presumably paid a small amount in addition to board and lodging, as shown in the 1851 Census or were they, in modern day parlance, partners?
Unfortunately, the marriage did not last three years. On the the 17th August 1860 Edward died suddenly near Newington Road station. The total of his effects was under £100. Marianne was left with four young children without any means of subsistence. As an interim measure the NLR allowed her a pound a week “from the pay list.” An application was submitted to the Railway Benevolent Institution which resulted in her receiving an annuity.
By the time of the 1871 census only the two younger sons were living with their mother. Apart from David, information of what happened to the sons is under some unknown unturned stones. David became a junior timekeeper with the NLR at the age of thirteen and later, as a junior collector on the HJR at Hampstead Heath, he transferred to the LNWR.
That Edward had been a wine merchant in his younger days proved beneficial to Marianne at the other end of her life, as it qualified her for a place in the Vintners’ Company Almshouse in Mile End. It is believed that she would have received a weekly allowance of five shillings and coal. She was there for well over twenty years until she died in 1904, aged 83.
Annex A
Edward Tanner King
NLR Career
Pay on joining 25s/27s 6d per week. [RAIL 529/11, 18 Jul 1850, Board Mtg Min 325.]
Station clerk. Promoted to Manager/Secretary’s assistant. Pay 27s 6d to £2 a week. [RAIL 529/11, 11 Dec 1851, Board Mtg Min 422.]
Manager/Secretary’s assistant. Pay increased to £2 10s from 30 Jun 1852 a week. [RAIL 529/11, 11 Nov 1852, Board Mtg Min 465.]
Manager’s assistant. Salary raised from £2 10s to £3 a week [£125 to £150 per annum] from 30 Jun 1853. [RAIL 529/74 9 Aug 1853, Fin Com Min 567.]
Assistant to the Manager. Salary increased to £160. [RAIL 529/13, 9 Nov 1854, Board Mtg Min 564.]
Referred to as Assistant Traffic Supt. Required to provide £200 security on appt. As there was no previous requirement for him to provide security his salary was increased by £10 to £170 from 1 Jan 1857. [RAIL 529/13, 9 Dec 1856, Board Mtg Min 1013.]
Annex B
Vintners’ Company Almshouses, Mile End Road
In 1676, after their almshouses were burnt down in the Great Fire, the Vintners’ Company erected 12 almshouses in Mile End. They were: rebuilt in 1801; bombed in 1941; and replaced by new almshouses, “the Vintry”, at Nutley in Surrey in late 1950s. The almshouse, at Mile-end catered for twelve widows of deceased members of the Vintners’ Company.
(Copyright London Metropolitan Archives, City of London, and reproduced with permission.)
Sources:
Censuses:
1841 Census [HO 107/719 Book/Folio: 11/5 Pages: 40/41]
1851 Census [HO 107/1498; Folio: 59; Page: 33]
1861 Census [RG 9/135; Folio: 62; Page: 41]
1871 Census [RG 10/1337 Folio: 42 Page: 79]
1881 Census [RG 11/478, f , p 9]
1891 Census [RG 12/305; Folio: 7; Page: 6
1901 Census [RG 13/330, Folio: 171; Page: 9]
London Metropolitan Archives:
Saint John Horselydown, Register of marriages, P71/JN, Item 025
The National Archives:
RAIL 529/11, 18 Jul 1850, Board Mtg Min 325; 11 Dec 1851, Board Mtg Min 422; and 11 Nov 1852, Board Mtg Min 465
RAIL 529/74 9 Aug 1853, Fin Com Min 567
RAIL 529/13, 9 Nov 1854, Board Mtg Min 564; 9 Dec 1856, Board Mtg Min 1013
RAIL 529/17, 28 Aug 1860, Board Mtg Min 1958
RAIL 529/132/797 Folio 161
RAIL 410/1798 Hampstead Heath 1870-76
RAIL 1166/88 f34 Min 264 and f48 (RBI Mtgs 1860)
First Traffic Superintendent
Peter Bloomfield
James Hitch was born about 1824 in Hertford. In the 1841 census, aged 17, he is shown as a miller living in Staines. By the time of the next census, aged 27, he had married Agnes Skinner, had a year old daughter, was working as a coach-maker, and living in Shoreditch. [There is a record of a James Hitch being baptised in St Andrew’s Church, Hertford, on 15th August 1824, father’s forename William, the same as in the marriage register when he married Agnes Skinner. [Ancestry Archives, original source not known.]; HO 107/718, Book 14, Folio 29, Page 10.]
He started with the NLR on 23rd March 1854, presumably as a porter. By August 1860 he had been promoted to platform foreman at Hampstead Road station on a wage of thirty-five shillings a week. At this time Edward King, a railway clerk, was assistant to the Manager and was also referred to as the Assistant Traffic Superintendent. On 17th August 1860, King died suddenly near Newington Road station and Hitch was selected to fill “Mr King’s office” with a pay increase to two pounds a week. At the Board meeting on 1st July 1862, Mr Chubb, Secretary and General Manager, stated that Hitch had carried out the important duties of Traffic Superintendent to his entire satisfaction. The Board approved the appointment of with a salary of £150. James Hitch thus became the first Traffic Superintendent of the NLR. [RAIL 529/132/60 Folio 13; RG 9/123, Folio 19, Page 38; RAIL 529/17, 1 Jul 1862, Board Mtg Min 2390.]
He was in the post for four years before he received his first pay rise, £50 bringing his salary up to £200. This was followed by a further £25 on 1st July 1869 and in 1872 he had a re-adjustment of salary consequent upon the leasing of the NSWJR (£52 paid by NSWJR devolved on NLR) which brought his salary to £300. [RAIL 529/77 10 Jan 1866, FGP Com Min 90. RAIL 529/43, 1 Jun 1869, Loco Com Min 717. RAIL 529/78 30 Oct 1872, FGW Com Min 859.]
Despite being a traffic superintendent of a railway company, no mean achievement, at the 1871 census he described himself rather modestly as a railway clerk. [RG 10/ 253; Folio: 20; Page: 33.]
He did not enjoy good health and in mid 1875 his assistant, Charles Templeton had his salary increased from £185 to £250 and was appointed Outdoor Superintendent, owing to his indisposition. When this was approved, the Board requested the Locomotive and Traffic Committee to consider the position of Hitch. At the committee meeting it was referred to the Chairman. Unfortunately nothing has been found to show what the Chairman did. Nevertheless, Hitch soldiered on for another two years and then, on 31st August, 1877, he resigned through ill-health. As a parting gesture he was presented with £100 from the Company. [RAIL 529/47 3 Aug 1875, Loco Com Min 2402; RAIL 529/25, Board Mtg 11 Aug 1875, min 2320; RAIL 529/47 5 Oct 1875, Loco Com Min 2442. RAIL 529/132/60 Folio 13; RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 14 Aug 1877, min 2690.]
Although he had retired, he had made no arrangements for alternative accommodation. Luckily he was allowed to stay in his Company’s house at 15 Cambridge Terrace, Barnsbury, rent free, until Christmas 1877. In 1868, when the rebuilding of Bow station was in the planning stage, it was decided to provide, in addition to the normal station requirements, accommodation for letting. This included a refreshment bar and living rooms, which was expected to produce £200 a year in rent. It so happened that the tenants of the refreshment rooms decided to quit on Lady Day (25th March) following Hitch’s resignation. He applied to take the tenancy and was accepted. The rent was set on the basis of participation in the gross takings to the extent of 10%, with a minimum rental of £150 per annum, although later in the year there was a change and the 10% as calculated on the actual receipts. On several occasions previously applications for a spirit licence had been refused, however, in the October after taking over the refreshment rooms Hitch’s request for one was agreed. This was in addition to the wine and beer licences already held. [RAIL 529/68, 10 Oct 1877 PW, etc, Com Mins 1916; RAIL 529/65, 5 Feb 1868 PW, etc, Com Mins 321; RAIL 529/65, 29 Apr 1868 PW, etc, Com Mins 358; RAIL 529/68, 30 Jan 1878 PW, etc, Com Mins 1981/2; RAIL 529/69, 2 Aug 1878 PW, etc, Com Min 2258; RAIL 529/69, 30 Oct 1878 PW, etc, Com Min 2123.]
The 1881 Census shows him and his family living in the ‘railway station.’ The living accommodation that went with the refreshment room provided for the needs of a family of husband, wife, and five children, aged between thirty-one and thirteen. [RG 11/488; Folio: 16; Pages: 25/26.]
It seems strange that a person who retired as a Traffic Superintendent through ill-heath could take on the job of running a licensed refreshment bar which would require a great deal more physical exertion. The work began to take its toll, as by the autumn of 1881 the rent paid showed a considerable and continuous drop in takings and the Permanent Way and Estate Committee suggested the desirability of him relinquishing his interest which was due to expire Lady Day 1883. Twelve months later Hitch intimated his inability to continue and temporary arrangements pending reletting of the premises were made with Samuel Allsop, the Manager of the Dalston station Refreshment Rooms, to run the ones at Bow. [RAIL 529/69, 12 Oct 1881 PW, etc, Com Min 2464; RAIL 529/69, 11 Oct 1882 PW, etc, Com Min 2553; RAIL 529/69, 1 Nov 1882 PW, etc, Com Min 2558; RGO Reference Dec 1883, Poplar, vol 1c, p 403.]
A year after quitting, Hitch died on 17th October 1883, aged 59, the cause of death being effusion on brain and spinal cord. At the time the family were living in 35 Francis Terrace, Bow. He and his wife Agnes had five sons and two daughters, three of whom maintained the railway tradition. Two sons, Matthew and Edward, became railway clerks, sadly with the Great Northern and Great Eastern Companies respectively. In March 1885 their younger daughter, Clara, married Arthur Hamilton, a NLR booking clerk. The eldest was Maria, who, as was not uncommon at that time, remained single and looked after her mother until she died. Maria died a spinster during the winter of 1928/29, aged 78, in Romford, to where James Hitch’s widow and children who were still living at home moved after his death. [LMA Saint Mary, Stratford Bow, Register of marriages, P88/MRY1, Item 027; RG 12/1367, Folio 142 Page 31; RG Reference Romford, vol 4a, p791.]
Traffic Superintendent
Peter Bloomfield
He was born of Scottish parents, William and Janet, in Wales and was baptised on 13th February 1843, at Dolwyddelan, Caernarvonshire. [Page 33, Caernarvonshire Baptisms – Transcripts Data provider: Welsh Archive Services/Gwasanaethau Archifau Cymru.]
Templeton started with the Chester and Holyhead Railway (CHR) in March 1858, aged 15, as a junior clerk on a salary of £30 a year, presumably at Mold as that is where it is recorded by the LNWR when they took over the CHR a year later (for details of CHR see footnote.) His salary was increased to £35 at the same time. After a year he was sent to Bangor and shortly after received a pay rise to £40. On the 1st September 1860 he was posted to the District Superintendent’s Office at Lime Street, Liverpool, where he was employed as a corresponding clerk with his salary increasing by stages to £80. For his first two years there the Superintendent was Robert Mansell, who resigned at the end of July 1862 to join the NLR as Secretary and Manager. On the 11th March 1863 Templeton resigned from the LNWR to follow his former boss to the NLR. [RAIL 410/: 1871 f67; 1862 ff51 and 153; 1856 f18; 1844 f497.]
Obviously there was a little connivance between the two as Mansell was his referee. Templeton started with the NLR in the Traffic Superintendent’s Office at Chalk Farm on 23rd March 1863 with a salary of £100 (twenty-five per cent more than with the LNWR). That is where he stayed for the next twelve years, with his salary gradually creeping up to £160. From 1st January 1866 he also provided services to the NSWJR for which he was paid an annual sum of £25. The last change to salary was from, £160 to £185, which was consequent upon the leasing of NSWJR, the £25 paid by NSWJR then devolved on NLR. [RAIL 529/132/62 Folio 13, staff register; RAIL 521/5 19 Jan 1866, NSWJ Board Min 345; RAIL 529/78 30 Oct 1872, FGW Com Min 859.]
During this period Templeton married a farmer’s daughter from Saighton in Cheshire, Christiana Mary Whalley a year younger than himself. The marriage only lasted about eighteen months when Christiana died shortly after giving birth to a daughter, Christiana Mary. [RGO Reference Jun qtr 1867, Gt. Boughton, 8a, 553; RGO Reference Dec qtr 1868, Islington, 1b, 289; RGO Reference Dec qtr 1868, Islington, 1b, 202.]
The Traffic Superintendent at the time, James Hitch, became ill. On the 1st July 1875 Templeton was appointed Outdoor Superintendent to act in his place, with an enhanced salary of £250. A couple of years later Hitch retired and on the 1st September 1877 Templeton was appointed Traffic Superintendent on £350 a year. [RAIL 529/47 3 Aug 1875, Loco Com Min 2402; RAIL 529/132/62 Folio 13, staff register.]
In 1879 he married again, Jane Butlin, and had a son Charles Butlin Templeton.[RGO Reference Dec qtr 1854, Shoreditch, 1c, 130; RGO Reference Dec qtr 1880 Hackney, 1b, 541.]
On the 22nd June 1884 he died, his salary by then had risen to £450. His personal estate was £240 1s 5d. [RAIL 529/132/62 Folio 13, staff register; RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 16 Dec 1880, min 3197.]
As a postscript, two years after he died it was discovered that the accounts for privileged cab owners at Broad Street and Dalston stations showed a deficit of £32, due to “the failure of of the late Traffic Superintendent to keep a proper record of amounts received from cab proprietors.” [RAIL 529/53 Loco Com Min 6390 of 30 Nov 1886.]
Footnote: The Chester and Holyhead Railway Company was incorporated by act of 4th July 1844. By an agreement made in 1855, London and North Western Railway Company undertook to work the company. The agreement took effect as from 1st July 1856. By an act of 23rd July 1858, Chester and Holyhead Railway Company was authorised to be leased to or amalgamated with London and North Western Railway Company and though vested in latter company by an agreement made under that act, it continued as an undertaking with power to raise capital and issue stock. The Chester and Holyhead Railway Company was not legally dissolved until this was effected by the London and North Western Railway (Additional Powers) Act 21st July 1879. [RAIL 113.]
George Newton Ford, OBE, TD (almost)
Goods Superintendent and Traffic Superintendent
Peter Bloomfield with help from Margaret Foote, Sue Chappell, and Michael Rees
![[RAIL 1156/18/37 p 217]](https://www.railwaymen-nlr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/4-4-1-Ford-RAIL-11561837-p-217.jpg)
George Ford was born on 24th September 1874 to Ernest and Henriette Mary Murray Ford, of Ladbroke Grove Road, Notting Hill, the second of five children. Just over three weeks later he was baptised in the parish church of St Marks: in the register of baptisms his father’s status is shown as ‘Gentleman.’ By the time he reached school age the family had moved to 69 Oxford Gardens, Kensington, where he lived until he was married. For further details of this property see Annex A. [LMA Notting Hill St Mark, Register of Baptism, P84/MRK, Item 002. Censuses 1881-1901: RG 11/41, Folio: 50; Page 3; RG 12/25 Folio: 114 Page: 48; RG 13/26 Folio: 124 Page: 28.]
He joined the NLR as a clerk in the General Manager’s Department on 15th October 1889, age 15, with a salary of £30. In October 1892 he moved from the General Manager’s Office to that of the Traffic Superintendent, his salary at this point was £60 a year. [RAIL 529/135/53 Folio 27; RAIL 529/80 5 Oct 1892, FGW Com Min 2376; RAIL 529/56 5 Oct 1892, Loco Com Min 8596.]
His next change of job was on 1st July 1898 when he left the Traffic Department and transferred to the Goods Department as Assistant Goods Manager, when his salary more than doubled from £110 to £250. On transfer to the Goods Dept his post in the Traffic Supt’s Office was filled by his brother, Guy. After only six months he was promoted to Goods Manager, salary £350. At the same time he was also appointed Dock Master in connexion with the Company’s Docks, Poplar, as the officer to enforce the bye-laws made pursuant to the provisions of the Harbours, Piers and Dock Act, 1847. [RAIL 529/81 29 Jun 1898, FGW Com Min 2671; RAIL 529/59 3 Aug 1898, Loco Com Min 10570; RAIL 529/30, 15 Dec 1898, Board Min 5638.]
On the 1st January 1903 he was promoted to Traffic Superintendent at the same salary (£550). He held this post until the LNWR took over the running the NLR on 1st February 1909, when he became Assistant Traffic Superintendent, Euston, LNWR. A month later he also took on the job of Secretary, to the NSWJR Joint Committee, with a salary of £50: he held the appointment until the Grouping, with a break for his wartime service in the Army and when he returned his salary was upped to £65. He was promoted to District Superintendent, Euston, on 1st August 1911, which included the duties of “Traffic Superintendent NLR,” and kept it until the Grouping on the 1st January 1923, when he also relinquished the secretaryship of the North & South Western Junction Railway. [RAIL 529/31, 18 Dec 1902 Board Min 6193; RAIL 529/32, 19 Oct 1911 Board Min 7592. LMS Salary Card, RAIL 426/14/3.]
As a Captain in the 14th (County of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (London Scottish), a Territorial Reserve infantry regiment, he was embodied on 1st September 1914 and arrived in France on 23rd November. In 1915 he was wounded and returned to the UK. From October 1916 until the end of the war he was stationed in the North of England. On 1st February 1919 he returned to duty with the LNWR into his old post of District Superintendent, Euston. It was for his Army service he was made an OBE. Further details of his military history are given in Annex B. [RAIL 410/1891; WO 372/7/108907.]
On the 1st August 1924 he was made Divisional Superintendent Euston, a post which he continued to hold until 30th September 1931, when retired on an annuity of £900 a year. [RAIL 426/14/3.] See Annex C for details concerning his salary.
He did, however, renew his relationship with both Euston and the Army in 1940 when, as a lieutenant-colonel, he commanded the 37th County of London (LMS Euston) Battalion, Home Guard. In April 1941 he was a casualty of the blitz, when his home was blown up and everything inside burnt. [WO 374/24939.]
He married an American girl, Adelaide Dickinson Hillhouse, a spinster, in the summer of 1905 at St Mary’s Islington. Her father was an engineer and at retirement was chief engineer of the Southern Pacific Railway. Her mother was a member of the San Francisco Womens Athletic Club and also of the Sesame Club in Landon. They do not appear to have had any children. After 1911 little has been found. A Miss A D Hillhouse, single, left Liverpool for New York aboard the Ballarat on 4th November 1912, was this his wife travelling on her old US passport or a red herring? His Officer’s Protection Certificate on leaving the regular Army in February 1919 shows him as married. The Palo Alto, California, directories for 1959 and 1969 show her as “wid George N.” The auction of jewellery from the estate of Adelaide Dickinson Ford was advertised in the Oakland Tribune on 12th October 1969 (Oakland, California). Taking her age as given at the 1911 Census, she would have been 82 in 1969. [Married Sep qtr 1905. George Newton Ford and Adelaide D Hillhouse [RGO Reference Kensington, 1a, 268.]; 1911 Census RG 14/425 RD5 SD1 ED11 SN92. Oakland Tribune, Fri 12 Nov 1937, 21. Record set: Passenger Lists leaving UK 1890-1960.]
Probate notice shows his address as The Bath Club, 41/43 Brook Street, London, W.1, and care of the National Bank of Scotland, 18 Regent Street, London S.W.1. He died on the 22nd December 1952 at 13 Maxilla Gardens, Kensington. Probate was given on 16th March 1953 to the Public Trustee, and his effects were £39,118 9s 4d. Maxilla Gardens were to the west of Ladbroke Grove underground station and now lying under the A40. It was just a stone’s throw from the family home in Oxford Gardens.
He was born into a family of some wealth. His father was shown as being of independent means and the same time employing a cook, a maid and a nursemaid. Did George receive some of this wealth which would have enabled him from his marriage to live in a hotel or a London club? On the 2nd April 1911 (Census Day) he, his wife, and her mother were staying at the Grosvenor Hotel, Davies Street. It appears that his address from at least from 1919 when he was demobilised until his death was the Bath Club. His medal card for the Great War shows his address as the Bath Club, then at 34 Dover Street, W.1. In correspondence with the War Office in 1942 he stated that in April 1941 his “home” had been blown up by enemy action and all his records had been burnt. The Bath Club was almost completely destroyed by fire early on 31st March 1941. As noted above, his address at death is shown as the Bath Club. Additionally, the Club did have women members so could have accommodated Adelaide, his wife. On the other hand, membership lists of the Retired Railway Officers’s Society between the Wars show his address as 55 Jermyn Street, SW 1. Jermyn Street also suffered badly from bombs during the London blitz. [The Times, Wed, 1 Apr 1941, p1, col 5 & p2, col 2; RAIL 1156/4, p93.]
As mentioned in the preceding paragraph, Ford stated that his home had been blown up by “enemy action”: The Times stated the fire at the Bath Club “was not due to enemy action”. This could mean that: he was living in Jermyn Street and gave the Bath Club as a postal address (what better excuse for downing a quick drink or two whilst picking up the post on the way home); or, this phraseology was used on security grounds in WW2 instead of the gagging orders which banned newspapers reporting on Zeppelin raids in WW1.
Despite his career with the Railway and the Military he is a bit of a conundrum. There may have been more to his personal life or perhaps he was just content to live as it appeared he did and so was his wife.
The Bath Club was founded in 1894 when 34, Dover Street, the home of Lord Abergavenny, was acquired for the members. It contained a beautiful ballroom, on the site of which the bath was built, and some fine Adam ceilings, which were preserved when the building was modernized. It was the first London club to have a swimming bath. Turkish baths and a gymnasium were added later. It was at the Bath Club that Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret took part in swimming competitions and won prizes in children’s races in 1939. The Queen watched the contests and presented the prizes. The King and his brothers had swimming lessons at the club, and Oxford and Cambridge formerly held their annual swimming contest there. [The Times, Wed, 1 Apr 1941, p2, col 2.]
Annex A
George Newton Ford
During his childhood he lived in 69 Oxford Gardens. It is now in the St Quentin Conservation Area.
Annex B
George Newton Ford
Military Service
[Personal file (1919, 1921 and 1940-42 only), WO 374/24939. Medal Card, WO 372/7/108907. LNWR Gazette, ZPER 13: /1, 1914, pp309/10; /2, 1915, p15. OBE, LG 3 Jun 1919, p6987.]
![[ZPER 13/1, 1914, p309]](https://www.railwaymen-nlr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/4-4-4-Ford-ZPER-131-1914-p309.jpg)
During George Ford’s Territorial service, his regiment changed its name twice from the 7th Middlesex (London Scottish) Volunteer Rifle Corps; to the 14th (County of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (London Scottish) in 1908 on the creation of the Territorial Force; and subsequently it was shortened to 14th London Regiment (London Scottish).
He joined the London Scottish a Territorial Reserve infantry regiment, as a private, as had all members of this regiment, on 1st February 1896 when there was a recruiting boom because of heightening tensions concerning South Africa. The next year he passed his examination for sergeant, obtaining the Special Certificate, also passing in Tactics, a voluntary subject for sergeants. On 6th April 1898 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and posted to H Company. In 1899 he entered the Officers School of Instruction, passing out top. A year later he was promoted to lieutenant. He was promoted to captain to command H Company in 1903, having been in acting command for the previous twelve months, owing to the absence of the gazetted captain on sick leave.
In 1905 he resigned his commission but on the formation of the Territorial Force Reserve rejoined as a captain at the beginning of 1911. He was embodied on 1st September 1914 and initially was placed in command of E Company, 2nd Battalion, London Scottish. Shortly after he was placed in charge of the foreign service company, which was formed for the purpose of reinforcing the 1st Battalion fighting in France. It carried out its final field training around Watford. He took his company to France, arriving on the 23rd November.
Whilst resting some ten miles behind the front line in early December 1914 he took time to write a letter. His billet was the local priest’s house where he was “gloriously comfortable.” His hair had been cut short all over and that he “looked like a convict, felt like a king, ate well, and slept like a log.”
![[ZPER 13/2, 1915, p15.]](https://www.railwaymen-nlr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/4-4-5-Ford-ZPER-132-1915-p15.jpg)
On the 21st December 1914 he received a gun shot wound in the head at Givenchy, the bullet entering near his ear, grazing his jaw and emerging from his throat. This affected his hearing in one ear and he started to suffer from neuralgia. At a medical board held in April 1915 he was down graded to “Permanent Home Service.”
He was returned to the United Kingdom and from October 1916 until January 1919 he was the Brigade Major of the East Lancashire Brigade and Yorkshire Coast Defences. By the time he left full-time military service on the 1st February 1919 he was a substantive major.
![[WO 374/24939]](https://www.railwaymen-nlr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/4-4-6-Ford-WO-37424939.jpg)
For for valuable services rendered in connexion with the War, he was made an Officer of the Military Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. He was also awarded the 1915 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal. Unfortunately his Territorial service was 152 days short of the twenty years required for the Territorial Decoration. Service to count towards the decoration was:
| In the Ranks (half service) | 1 Feb 1896 – 5 Apr 1898 | 1 yr 32 days |
| Commissioned service | 6 Apr 1898 – 31 Oct 1905 | 7 yrs 209 days |
| Resigned his commission | 1 Nov 1905 | – |
| Territorial Force Reserve | 28 Jan 1911 – 31 Aug 1914 | – |
| Embodied service | 1 Sep 1914 – 2 Feb 1919 | 4 yrs 155 days |
| (counted as double) | 4 yrs 155 days | |
| Active List of Territorial Force | 3 Feb 1919 – 30 Sep 1921 | 2 yrs 27 days |
| Total | 19 yrs 213 days |
In September 1921, just prior to him ceasing to be on the Active List of the Territorial Force, he requested to transfer back to the Territorial Force Reserve, in which he was serving immediately prior to embodiment. This was not possible as by then he was overage.
He commanded the 37th County of London (LMS Euston) Battalion, Home Guard, for at least two years (1940 to 1942). As he was in the Home Guard, he had hoped that he could count the 152 days of service he was short of twenty years territorial service. Regrettably, the War Office would not allow this.
Two extra nuggets about his military side of life, one for each of the two wars.
The Great War
Army Officers’ Dress : Libel Action – Gilchrist v. Associated Newspapers (The Daily Mail) – June 1919.
The alleged libel was an anonymous letter published by the Daily Mail on 30th July 1917. The letter written by ‘An Aged Subaltern’ complained about the way an Assistant Provost Marshal (APM) had behaved towards him after just having returned from France on leave. The APM was Captain Gavin Knox Gilchrist. He had good reports from his immediate superior but that did not stop him being ordered by higher command to submit his resignation. Major G N Ford stated that from October 1916 to the end of the war he was Brigade Major in the East Lancashire Brigade. He knew Gilchrist very well as APM. As BM he came into close contact with Gilchrist, who performed his duties excellently. He had heard no whisper of complaint against him and found him most tactful and polite. He had great sympathy with APMs, because at that time officers went about very improperly dressed and it was the APM’s duty to stop that practice, and they had a very hard time.
Gilchrist won his case and the jury award him £650 damages. [The Times Law Reports for the 25 and 27 Jun 1919, published on 26 and 28 Jun respectively.]
The World War
Almost at the beginning of the London Blitz one of his volunteers won the George Medal for bravery at Hampstead Heath Station. To avoid any misunderstandings, the medal was named after King George VI, NOT Whitlock’s Commanding Officer, George Ford. At that time it is believed that the battalion was called LMS Railway Unit, Euston. The person was William Thomas Whitlock and his citation read: “On the night of 19th October, 1940, Hampstead Heath Station received two direct hits from high explosive bombs dropped by enemy aircraft. Volunteer Whitlock was on Home Guard duty and as a result of the explosions he sustained severe injuries to an arm, leg and side; his eyes were also injured by the blast. He was thrown across two lines of rails over the opposite platform and over a wall. Nevertheless he managed to pick himself up and ignoring his injuries, made his way back over the tracks to the Station Offices which had been wrecked and under the debris of which was his Section Leader. At great personal risk and almost at the stage of total collapse, Volunteer Whitlock managed to extract the Section Leader, thus saving his life. Volunteer Whitlock had to be taken to hospital.” [LG 29 Apr 1941, p2441; WO 373/66/937.]
Annex C
George Newton Ford
NLR Career
![George Ford’s LMS Salary Sheet. One interesting point was on 1st January 1918, whilst still in the Army, he had an increase of £100 a year. [RAIL 426/14/3]](https://www.railwaymen-nlr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/4-4-7-Ford-RAIL-426143.jpg)
Clerical pay details
Junior clerk, General Manager’s Office. Pay £30. [RAIL 529/80 9 Oct 1889, FGW Com Min 2196.]
Junior clerk, General Manager’s Dept. Pay £30 to £40. [RAIL 529/80 8 Oct 1890, FGW Com Min 2254.] Junior clerk, General Manager’s Dept. Pay £40 to £50. [RAIL 529/80 7 Oct 1891, FGW Com Min 2311.]
Junior clerk, General Manager’s Dept, transferred to traffic Dept. [RAIL 529/80 5 Oct 1892, FGW Com Min 2376.]
Junior clerk, General Manager’s Office, to Traffic Supt’s Office. Pay £50 to £60. [RAIL 529/56 5 Oct 1892, Loco Com Min 8596.]
Clerk, Traffic Supt’s Office. Pay £60 to £70. [RAIL 529/57, 4 Oct 1893, Loco Com Min 8976.]
Clerk, Traffic Supt’s Office. Pay £70 to £80. [RAIL 529/57, 10 Oct 1894, Loco Com Min 9327.]
Clerk, Traffic Supt’s Office. Pay £80 to £90. [RAIL 529/58, 9 Oct 1895, Loco Com Mtg Min 9663.]
Clerk, Traffic Supt’s Office. Pay £90 to £100. 1 Oct 1896. [RAIL 529/58, 4 Nov 1896, Loco Com Mtg Min 10008.]
Clerk, Traffic Supt’s Office. Pay £100 to £110. 1 Oct 1897. [RAIL 529/59 3 Nov 1897, Loco Com Min 10312.]
As Goods Manager
Transferred to Goods Dept as Assistant Goods Manager, Poplar. 1 Jul 1898. Salary £250, rising by £100 a year to £550 from 1 Jul 1901.
Assistant Goods Manager to Goods Manager. Pay £350. 1 Jan 1899. [RAIL 529/30, 15 Dec 1898, Board Min 5638.]
Goods Manager. Pay increased to £550 1 Jul 1901. [RAIL 529/30, 20 Jun 1901 Board Min 5991.]
As Traffic Superintendent
Transferred to Broad Street as Traffic Supt at same salary 1 Jan 1903. [RAIL 529/31, 18 Dec 1902 Board Min 6193.]
Salary raised to £600 1 Mar 1908. [RAIL 529/32, 19 Mar 1908 Board Min 6831.]
For further salary increases see LMS Salary Sheet.
At the beginning the NLR (then the East and West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway) ran no goods traffic and the coal was handled by the Northumberland and Durham Coal Company. The development of Poplar Dock allowed for goods, in addition to coal, and cattle traffic, which led to the appointment of supervisors. In 1852 it decided that there was a requirement for a station master at Poplar goods station, to: control and arrange the shipping; to give passes to those colliers the dues on which were payable by the Company; to take charge of the Company’s cranes and works; and generally to be answerable for the conduct of the station under the Manager. [RAIL 529/11, 12 Aug 1852, Board Mtg Min 454.]
Originally the appointment was Goods and Station Master, Poplar, which became Goods Manager. The last person to perform this task, William Davies, was appointed as Superintendent and referred to as such during his tenure. However, in the Board minute showing the disposal of staff on the LNWR taking over the running of the railway he was referred to as Goods Manager. [RAIL 529/32, 4 Feb 1909 Board Min 6950.]
John Boorman Atwood
He was an Assistant Engineer with responsibilities for the maintenance of way. In August 1852 he was also appointed Goods Station Master at Poplar to oversee shipping cranes and works. He resigned November 1855 due to ill health and died the following year.
John Henry Adams
Appointed by the E&WID&BJR in June 1848 as Assistant Engineer. Transferred March 1851 to the N&DCC as Coal Traffic Superintendent at Poplar. When Atwood died in June 1856, Adams took over his post of whilst also remaining in the employment of the N&DCC until 20th January 1858 when the NLR took over the coal traffic. He was then appointed Superintendent of Coal and Goods and remained until his death in August 1877.
Thomas Day
Appointed August 1877 vice Adams. He had previously been South Wales Goods and Mineral Manager for the L&NWR. He resigned due to ill health in December 1898.
George N Ford
Appointed 1st January 1899 vice Day. He also assumed the role of Dock Master, as required by recent legislation. In 1st January 1903 he was appointed Traffic Superintendent at Broad Street. For details see under Traffic Superintendents.
William Henry Davies
Appointed Goods Superintendent 1st January 1903, a post he held until the LNWR took over the running of the NLR.
Goods Station Master Poplar
Peter Bloomfield
John Atwood was born about 1816 in Kent in the area of Farningham/Eynsford. His middle name, Boorman, is believed to be his mother’s maiden name.
He joined the NLR sometime during the construction of the line (1848-1850) as an assistant engineer. When construction was completed Atwood remained and was Superintendent of Permanent Way.
From the opening of the railway the Northumberland and Durham Coal Company were responsible for handling all the coal traffic. No other goods traffic was carried and consequently there was no need for a person to oversee the carriage of freight. However, the development of Poplar Dock allowed for, in addition to coal, goods and cattle traffic. In 1852 it decided that there was a requirement for a station master at Poplar Goods Station to: control and arrange the shipping; to give passes to those colliers the dues on which were payable by the Company; to take charge of the Company’s cranes and works; and generally to be answerable for the conduct of the station under the Manager. [RAIL 529/11, 12 Aug 1852, Board Mtg Min 454.]
John Atwood was selected for this task in addition to his duties in connexion with the permanent way. As a result his salary was increased to £200. A year later he was granted a gratuity of £250 in consideration of the very efficient services he rendered to the Company during the construction of the railway. As superintendent of the maintenance of the permanent way and station master at Poplar Goods Station his salary was increased to £250 from 30th June 1853. [RAIL 529/11, 12 Aug 1852, Board Mtg Min 454; RAIL 529/74 9 Aug 1853, Fin Com Min 566.]
In the autumn of 1855 he was obliged to quit his duty and retire to some mild climate for the winter on account of his ill health. He was permitted to take six months leave of absence from 1st November 1855 and that a reduced salary of £100 per annum was granted for that period. He died in the parish St Mary in the Castle, Hastings, on 27th June 1856 from phthisis pulmonalis (tuberculosis), from which he had been suffering for two and a half years, without returning to work. [RAIL 529/13, 11 Dec 1855, Board Mtg Min 681; RAIL 529/13, 8 Jul 1856, Board Mtg Min 891; RGO Reference Hastings, vol 2b, page 22.]
from Goods Station Master Poplar, to
Superintendent of Merchandise and Mineral Departments
Peter Bloomfield
John Adams was the eldest son of John Samuel and Jane Adams born on the 16th January 1820 in Stepney. At his baptism in August of that year his father described himself as an architect. John had six brothers and a sister. The eldest of his brothers was William who became the Locomotive Superintendent of the NLR and celebrated inventor of the ‘swing link’ bogie (see under Locomotive Superintendents). [LMA Stepney St Dunstan and All Saints, Register of Baptism, P93/DUN, Item 011.]
John started his working life as a surveyor. He joined the NLR in June 1848 as an assistant engineer under Henry Martin. John’s referee was the Engineer of the East and West India Docks Company, who just happened to be his father. In March 1851 he became Superintendent for Coal with the Northumberland and Durham Coal Co (NDCC), who were contracted to manage and run the mineral traffic on the line. [LMA All Saints, Poplar, Register of marriages, P88/ALL1, Item 028. RAIL 529/132, f5.]
In the autumn of 1855 John Atwood, the then Goods Station Master Poplar, was granted six months sick leave for a change of air and he went to Hastings. He died there on 27th June 1856 without returning to duty. It appeared that whilst he was on sick leave John Adams stood in for him as Goods Station Master, Poplar, without any formal request being made to him by the NLR. When Atwood died, however, he was formally taken on as Goods Station Master, Poplar, whilst still working for the NDCC. In January 1858 the NLR took back the running and control of mineral traffic and John Adams returned to fold as Superintendent for Coal and Goods. For this he received a salary of £300, compared to the commission received when with the NDCC of £1 for every thousand tons of coal carried which gave him an average salary of £270. On the 1st January 1874 his salary was increased to £400 and his appointment shown as Superintendent, Goods Traffic. This was subsequently changed to Superintendent of Merchandise and Mineral Departments. [RAIL 529/13, 8 Jul 1856, Board Mtg Min 891. RAIL 529/15, 2 Feb 1858, Board Mtg Min 1306. RAIL 529/78 8 Apr 1874, FGW Com Min 985. RAIL 529/25, Board Mtg 16 Apr 1874, min 2034. RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 14 Aug 1877, min 2682.]
On the 5th November 1843, five years before joining the NLR, he married an undertaker’s daughter, Sarah Haynes. They had quite a few children, at least nine. He died in harness on 20th July 1877 and in view of “his long and faithful service” the Board presented Mrs Adams with an amount equal to half a year’s salary (£200). His estate was valued as “under £4,000.” [LMA All Saints, Poplar, Register of marriages, P88/ALL1, Item 028. RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 14 Aug 1877, min 2682. Probate Register 1877, p19.]
Goods Manager
Peter Bloomfield
Thomas Day was born in Chester in 1838, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Day. Thomas senior was a railway clerk and was presumably responsible in securing a job with the LNWR for his son. Thomas joined the LNWR on 25th January 1852 as an apprentice clerk at Chester station. His first appointments were in the General Manager’s Department. On the 1st May 1860 he moved to the Superintendent’s Office at Liverpool. He stayed there until the beginning of December the following year when he returned to Chester. This time he was in the Coaching Department as chief clerk on a salary of a hundred pounds. [RAIL 410/1844, p603. RAIL 410/1862, p3 (two entries). HO 107/2171 Folio: 633 Page: 36.]
Ten years to the day, 1st December 1871, he was moved to Abergavenny to the LNWR’s South Wales District Goods Manager office as Chief Clerk, by which time he was receiving a salary of £170. At the time, little did he know that it was the first step on his way to London. He had regular increases to his pay that when he left Abergavenny to go to the NLR on 31st July 1877 his salary was £250. [RAIL 410/1837, p993. RAIL 410/1844, p465.]
He started with the NLR the following day as Superintendent of Merchandise, Mineral and Livestock Department with a salary of £300. Thereafter he was referred to as Goods Superintendent or Goods Manager, which appears to have been according to the whims of the clerk taking the minutes. Also, it appears that he was not sure either: for the 1881 Census he declared himself a Railway Superintendent but in 1891 he was a Railway Manager. Nevertheless, he made good progress with his salary which reached £700 from the 1st July 1898. Then in December 1898, with over twenty-one years service with the NLR, he tendered his resignation on health grounds. He was entitled to superannuation of about £283, with the Company making an additional contribution to bring total to £450 a year from 1st January 1899. [See Annex A. RAIL 529/30, 15 Dec 1898, Board Min 5638. RG 11/1361 Folio: 18 Page: 30. RG 12/1042 Folio: 44 Page: 3.]
In the summer of 1870 he married Margaret Ann Bird, a Lancashire lass. They set up home in The Groves, Chester. They finally ended up, presumably via Abergavenny, in Church Road, Willesden. They do not appear to have had any children. He died on 23rd December 1899. [GRO Reference Sep qtr 1870: Thomas Day and Margaret Ann Bird: Nantwich, 8a, 460. RG 10/3721 Folio: 68 Page: 45. RG 11/1361 Folio: 18 Page: 30. RG 12/1042 Folio: 44 Page: 3. RAIL 529/81 31 Jan 1900, FGW Com Min 2743. GRO Reference Death Dec qtr 1899: Thomas Day, 61: Nantwich, 8a, 229.]
Annex A
Thomas Day
LNWR & NLR Careers
LNWR
Joined 25 Jan 1852.
General Manager Dept, Chester Station. [RAIL 410/1862, p3 (two entries).]
Apprentice. Pay: £60 1 Oct 1856; £70 1 Apr 1857. Pay £100. 1 Apr 1860.
To Supt Liverpool 1 May 1860.
From Supt Liverpool, 1 Dec 1861. Clerk.
Supt’s Office Coaching Dept Chester. [RAIL 410/1844, p603.]
Clerk to chief clerk. Pay: £120 1 Mar 1866; £150 1 Nov 1866; £170 1 Dec 1870.
To Abergavenny Goods 1 Dec 1871
District Goods Manager’s Office, Abergavenny 1 Dec 1871. [RAIL 410/1837, p993. RAIL 410/1844, p465.]
Chief clerk. Pay: £170 1 Jan 1870; £190 1 Sep 1872; £200 1 Feb 1874; £225 1 Apr 1875; £250 1 Jul 1877.
To NLR Goods Poplar 31 Aug 1877.
NLR
Chief clerk to Goods Manager, South Wales Dist of LNW, to Supt of Merchandise, Mineral and Livestock Dept. Salary £300. [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 14 Aug 1877, min 2690.]
Goods Supt. Pay £300 to £350. 1 Jan 1879. [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 12 Dec 1878, min 2910]
Goods Supt. Pay £350 to £400. 1 Jan 1881. [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 16 Dec 1880, min 3197.]
Goods Manager. Pay £450 to £500. 1 Jul 1888. [RAIL 529/80 4 Jul 1888, FGW Com Min 2127.]
Goods Supt. Pay £500 to £550. 1 Jul 1892. [RAIL 529/80 29 Jun 1892, FGW Com Min 2364.]
Goods Manager. Pay £600 to £700. 1 Jul 1898. [RAIL 529/81 29 Jun 1898, FGW Com Min 2671.]
Goods Manager. Resigned on grounds of impaired health. Over 21 years service. Entitled to superannuation of about £283, plus Company contribution to bring total to £450 a year from 1 Jan 1899. [RAIL 529/30, 15 Dec 1898, Board Min 5638]
Died 23 Dec 1899. [RAIL 529/81 31 Jan 1900, FGW Com Min 2743.]
Goods Superintendent
Peter Bloomfield
William Davies was born in the Clerkenwell area on 18th July 1860 to William and Eliza Davies. His father was in the clock making business. [RAIL 410/1861, p4384. RG 10/ 279, Folio: 66, Page: 2.]
At the age of 14½, young William joined the NLR on the 1st February 1875 as a junior clerk in the Goods Department as Poplar, on a salary of £30. There he remained for many a year climbing the clerical ladder up Rates and Accounts clerk on £195 a year. When George Ford was moved from Goods to Traffic Superintendent William became Goods Superintendent and Dock Master, Poplar, on the 1st January 1903 his pay rising to £250. On the take over of management by the LNWR on 1st February 1909 he was to be found a post at £500 for the first year but then his salary would drop to £350. The post that was found for him was Assistant Manager, Broad Street Goods. He started re-climbing the salary ladder on the 1st January 1914 when he had a pay rise of £50. [See Annex A.]
In 1860 he married Hannah Elizabeth Branch in Islington. They had three children. [GRO reference Marriage Sep qtr 1884, Davies, William Henry, and Branch, Hannah Elizabeth, Islington, 1b, 690. RG 14/14078, RG 78/839.]
Annex A
William Henry Davies
NLR Career
Junior clerk, Goods Dept, Poplar. New appt. Pay £30. 1 Feb 1875. [RAIL 529/46 2 Feb 1875, Loco Com Min 2223.]
Junior clerk, Goods Dept, Poplar. Pay £30 to £40. [RAIL 529/47 1 Feb 1876, Loco Com Min 2554.]
Clerk, Goods Dept, Poplar. Pay £40 to £50. [RAIL 529/48 30 Jan 1877, Loco Com Min 2885.]
Junior clerk, Goods Dept, Poplar. Pay £50 to £60. [RAIL 529/48 29 Jan 1878, Loco Com Min 3278.]
Junior clerk, Goods Dept, Poplar. Pay £60 to £70. [RAIL 529/49 4 Feb 1879, Loco Com Min 3633.]
Clerk, Goods Dept, Poplar. Pay £70 to £80. General efficiency, etc. [RAIL 529/49 2 Mar 1880, Loco Com Min 4003.]
Clerk, Poplar (Goods). Pay £90 to £100. [RAIL 529/51, 31 Jul 1883, Loco Com Min Min 5206.]
Clerk, Goods Dept, Poplar. Pay £100 to £110. [RAIL 529/53 11 Oct 1887, Loco Com Min 6682.]
Clerk, Goods Supt Office. Pay £110 to £120. [RAIL 529/55 5 Feb 1890, Loco Com Min 7573.]
Clerk, Goods Dept. Pay £120 to £135. [RAIL 529/57, 30 May 1894, Loco Com Min 9223.]
Clerk, Goods Supt’s Office. Pay ￡135 to ￡155. [RAIL 529/59 3 Nov 1897, Loco Com Min 10312.]
Clerk, Goods Manager’s Office. Pay ￡155 to ￡165. 1 Feb 1899. [RAIL 529/59 1 Feb 1899, Loco Com Min 10694.]
Clerk, Goods Dept. Pay £165 to £175. 1 Jun 1900. [RAIL 529/60 4 Jul 1900, Loco Com Min 11135.]
Clerk, Goods Dept. Pay £175 to £195. 1 Jun 1902.[RAIL 529/61, 3 Jul 1902, Loco Com Min 11762.]
Rates and Accounts Clerk, Goods Dept Salary £195. Appt Goods Superintendent salary £250 1 Jan 1903, vice G N Ford. [RAIL 529/31, 18 Dec 1902 Board Min 6193.][Noted in Railway Times, 3 Jan 1903, Vol LXXXIII, p15.]
Appt Dock Master, Poplar Docks, as officer to enforce bye laws under Harbours, Piers and Docks Act, 1847. [RAIL 529/31, 18 Dec 1902 Board Min 6194.]
Salary £400 1 Jan 1904. [RAIL 529/31, 18 Dec 1903 Board Min 6310.]
Goods Supt. Pay £400 to £500. 1 Jan 1907. [RAIL 529/63, 6 Feb 1907, Loco Com Min 13189.]
Goods Manager. Pay £500. On LNWR take-over of management of NLR, to be found a post on LNW at £500 for one year from 1 Feb 1909 and thereafter at £350. [RAIL 529/32, 4 Feb 1909 Board Min 6950.]
Asst Manager, Broad Street Goods. Pay £350 1 Feb 1910; pay £400 1 Jan 1914. Member R C Superannuation Fund. [RAIL 410/1838, p1181]
From the beginning the Accounts and Audit branches were the responsibility of the Accountant. After the problems with the Company’s Agent’s accounts in 1877 they were separated. [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 15 Nov 77, min 2732; RAIL 529/79 31 Oct 1877, FGW Com Min 1286.]
Charles Frederick Horncastle
He entered the service of company in 1850, and although there seems to be no record of his formal appointment, he was certainly the Company’s Accountant in 1854. There was some irregularity in late 1877, when it transpired that the accounts of Mr Bonny, the surveyor, had not been verified properly. He was allowed to resign in November 1877 with a year’s salary – rather implying that there may have been some extenuating circumstances!
George Edward Mainland
Appointed November 1877. He had previously been Book-keeper and chief Clerk in the Accounts Dept. Resigned February 1902, after 45 years service.
Robert Andrews
Appointed 6 February 1902 vice Mainland. He had previously been Chief Clerk.
Accountant
Peter Bloomfield
Charles Horncastle was born in 1825 to Charles and Julia Augusta Horncastle. His father was a merchant of some sort or the other. He joined the NLR in 1850, quite possibly as the Accountant on a salary of £200.
No reference to Charles Horncastle has been found in NLR records before the Board Meeting on 9th November 1854. The first reference to him being an ‘Accountant to a Railway’ was at the 1851 Census which was taken on the 30th March of that year. On reviews of salaries when a brief history of the person concerned is minuted, date of joining NLR, date of appointment to current post and present salary are usually shown. In this case nothing is mentioned to any previous appointment prior to Accountant. It does, however, give detailed information of the tasks he had been doing. In view of the foregoing it is believed that in Horncastle’s case it would be safe to say that he joined as the Accountant in 1850.
The report of a committee appointed to look into salaries in 1854 stated that in addition to accountancy duties he also conducted the audit of traffic receipts generally and because the Company was not member of the Railway Clearing House, all toll arrangements and division of fares between other companies had become very complicated. As a result he had a pay rise of £50. [HO 107/1505; Folio: 518; Page: 9, 1851 Census. RAIL 529/13, 9 Nov 1854, Board Mtg Min 564.]
He made at least six applications for increases in salary, they were seldom successful, although on one occasion he did get a gratuity of £25. From the 1st January 1857 he was required to provide a surety of £500. As there was no previous requirement for him to provide a surety his salary was increased by £25 to £275. On the 1st January 1860 he received £50 from the NSWJR for keeping their books and accounts. His final increase was on the 1st January 1873 when his salary was readjusted consequent upon the the leasing of the NSWJR it went from £300 to £450, which included an NSWJR element of £125. He did, however, have the good manners to write a letter of thanks to the Board. [See Annex A for fuller details and sources.]
Come the autumn of 1877 not only did the leaves fall but he fell too. It appeared that the accounts rendered by Mr Bonny, the Estate Agent, were accepted at face value. A committee consisting of the Chairman and the Chairmen of the committees was appointed to look into the matter. The Committee found that the amounts were entered in the Company’s books without examination or verification of details. Horncastle, in his defence, said that as he, Bonny, was an officer there was a long-term practice there was no need for them to be inspected. Additionally, he thought them to be departmental accounts. He could not produce any written document nor any specific verbal instructions to back up his statement. The Committee concluded that the continuance of Horncastle in his position was not conducive to the interests of the Company and recommended that he be allowed to resign and be granted a year’s salary in consideration of his long service. This was confirmed by the Board on the 15th November 1877. Another recommendation was that the Audit section was separated from the Accountant’s Department. The questions are, “Why did it take five years for this to come to light?” or was it, “That it was ‘from’ prior to 1872 to 1877?” In his NLR after-life he became a public accountant employing two clerks, whilst his wife no longer employed a domestic servant. [RAIL 529/27: Board Mtg 18 Oct 1877, min 2720; Board Mtg 15 Nov 1877, min 2732. 1881 Census RG 11/281; Folio 28; Page 49.]
On the 20th June 1849 he married Louisa Amanda Martin in St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, and they had six daughters and five sons, all in that order. Louise died in 1898, aged 71. Charles lived on until 29th November 1904 when he died, aged 79, leaving just over eighty-three pounds. [LMA: Guildhall, St Helen Bishopgate, Register of marriages, 1837 – 1870, P69/HEL/A/01/Ms 6834/5. 1861 Census – HO 107/795; Folio number 30; Page number 11. GRO References: Jun 1898 qtr, Hackney, 1b, 264; Dec qtr 1904, Epping, 4a, 244. Probate 1904, page 208.]
Annex A
Charles Frederick Horncastle
NLR Service
Accountant. Joined the NLR in 1850. Salary £200. Duties included audit of the traffic receipts generally and, the Coy not being in the Clearing House, all the toll arrangements and division of fares between other companies, which had become very complicated. As a result his salary was increased by £50 a year. [RAIL 529/13, 9 Nov 1854, Board Mtg Min 564.]
Accountant. Applied for an increase to his salary of £250, chiefly in consideration of the increased duties and responsibility resting upon him in keeping the accounts of the stores at Bow. Granted a gratuity of £25. [RAIL 529/13, 11 Dec 1855, Board Mtg Min 685.]
Accountant. Required to give a surety of £500. As there was no previous requirement for him to provide a surety his salary was increased by £25 to £275 from 1 Jan 1857. [RAIL 529/13, 9 Dec 1856, Board Mtg Min 1013.]
Accountant of NL to be paid ￡50 per annum by NSWJ for keeping their books and accounts from 1 Jan 1860. [RAIL 521/2 8 Jun 1860, NSWJ Board Min 640.]
Accountant. An application to the Board for an increase in salary was deferred. [RAIL 529/17, 16 Jul 1861, Board Mtg Min 2159.]
Again applied for an increase of salary together with with a letter from the auditors commending the manner in which the duties of Accountant were performed. Presented with £25 as a gift. [RAIL 529/17, 22 Oct 1861, Board Mtg Min 2212.]
An application for an increase in salary could not be acceded. [RAIL 529/17, 25 Mar 1862, Board Mtg Min 2334.]
Accountant. Applied for an increase in salary. The request was declined. [RAIL 529/19, 12 Jan 1864, Board Mtg Min 494.]
Accountant. An application for increase in salary was referred to the chairman for him to report at the next meeting. [RAIL 529/77 5 Sep 1866, FGP Com Min 175.]
The duties of the office and constitution of the staff having been fully considered the committee could not recommend a salary increase to the Board. [RAIL 529/77 3 Oct 1866, FGP Com Min 189.]
Accountant. A decision on his application for an increase in salary was deferred. [RAIL 529/77 5 Jan 1870, FGP Com Min 533.]
Accountant. Upon the leasing of the NSWJ on 1 Jan 1872, granted an amount equal to six months salary, £62 10s, as a mark of approval of his past services to the NSWJ. [RAIL 521/7 15 Dec 1871, NSWJ Board Min 1141.]
Appt Accountant to Joint Comttee, salary £125. [RAIL 521/9 13 Dec 71 Jt Cmttee Min 7.]
Accountant and Chief Audit Clerk. Pay £300 to £450. 1 Jan 1873. Re-adjustment of salary consequent on lease of NSWJ, £125 paid by NSWJ devolved on NLR. [RAIL 529/78 30 Oct 1872, FGW Com Min 859.]
Wrote letter 1 Jan 1873 conveying thanks for the increase in his salary. [RAIL 529/78 5 Feb 1873, FGW Com Min 874.]
Accountant. A committee convened by the Board reported that the accounts submitted by Mr Bonny, Advertising Agent, prior to 1872 had been carried to account in the Company’s books, without examination or verification of details. As a result the duties of the Accounts and Audit sections were separated into to discrete departments, Mr Horncastle was allowed to resign, and in consideration of his long service he was given a payment of a year’s salary. [RAIL 529/27: Board Mtg 18 Oct 1877, min 2720; Board Mtg 15 Nov 1877, min 2732.]
Accountant
Peter Bloomfield with the assistance of Margaret Foote
George Edward Mainland was born in Ratcliffe on the 19th October 1840 to George Thomas and Maria Jane Mainland, of 21 Lucas Street, Ratcliffe. At the age of sixteen, he joined the NLR as a clerk on a salary of about £30 to £35 a year in the Accountant’s Department. He stayed in this Department for the rest of his service. He worked his way up to Chief Clerk and Book keeper of both the accounts and audit sections of the Accountant’s Department with his salary rising to £200 in December 1872. There his pay stayed for five years. [LMA, Ratcliffe, Tower Hamlets, Register of baptisms, Apr 1840-Jul 1876, p93/js/001. RAIL 529/31, 6 Feb 1902 Board Min 6085. RAIL 529/78 30 Oct 1872, FGW Com Min 859.]
In the autumn of 1877 a committee of directors, including the Chairman, looked into some alleged lax accountancy practices of the Accountant, Charles Horncastle. The outcome of which was that: Horncastle resigned with a year’s salary; the Accounts and Audit Sections were separated with the Audit Section becoming independent of the Accountant; and George Mainland being made the Accountant with a salary of £300. He had held that appointment for over twenty-four years when he retired on 28th February 1902. By then he been with NLR for over forty-five years and his salary had risen to £650. His superannuation paid a little over £400 a year which the Company made up to £500. [RAIL 529/27: Board Mtg 18 Oct 1877, min 2720; Board Mtg 15 Nov 1877, min 2732. RAIL 529/31, 6 Feb 1902 Board Min 6085. See Annex A for detailed salary increases.]
His father was a Master Mariner who married Maria Jane Foster in July 1839 in Ratcliffe, Middlesex. At the time of the 1841 census there was just baby George and his mother, his father is not recorded so presumably he was at sea. Ten years later, on the 30th March, census day, he was staying with his wife in a lodging house in Liverpool. On the 30th April 1851 he was due to skipper the ship Constitution to Australia with passengers and freight. The children, by then George had two sisters and two brothers, were in the care of their aunt and a domestic servant. Another brother was to come a year later. Come the 1861 Census, Maria is shown as a Master Mariner’s widow and George, by then twenty years old, was living with her but there is no mention of any of his siblings. No trace has been found of the death of his father. [HO 107/697; Book: 1; Folio: 27; Page: 17; Line: 6 (1841). HO 107/1554, Folio 630, Page 19 (1851). HO 107/2181; Folio: 438; Pages: 3-4 (1851). RG 9/303; Folio: 59; Page: 6 (1861) RG 10/575, Folio 112. Page 10 (1871). The Times, 14 Apr 1851, page 1, col 2.]
On the 11th November 1871 he married Susanna Collingwood, an accountant’s daughter, in St Stephen’s, Bow. They had one daughter, Alice. They spent the first few years together living in Hackney, and later moved to Finchley. After retirement they moved to Tenby in Pembrokeshire where they spent the rest of their lives. During married life they employed two domestic servants, one, the cook, Mary Worthington, was with them for over twenty years. Susanna died on the 6th November 1910, leaving £3057 8s 2d. George died on 22nd December 1920 leaving £6598 18s 10d to his daughter Alice. She was in her late forties and still a spinster, something not uncommon at the time for eldest and only daughters. [LMA Saint Stephen, Tredegar Road, Register of marriages, P88/STE2, Item 013. 1881 Census RG 11/301, Folio 51, Page 36. 1891 Census RG 12/1057, Folio 50, Page 36. 1901 Census RG 13/1233, Folio 54, Page 41. 1911 Census RG 14/33143. Probate Annual Lists: 1910, page104; 1921, page 146.]
Annex A
George Edward Mainland
NLR Career
It was probably during the winter of 1856/7 that he joined the NLR. [RAIL 529/31, 6 Feb 1902 Board Min 6085.]
Clerk Accountant’s Office. Applied for a salary increase which was approved £91 to £100 from 1 Feb 1864. [RAIL 529/19, 12 Jan 1864, Board Mtg Min 495.]
Audit clerk. Promoted to bookkeeper at a salary of £120. [RAIL 529/19, 22 Mar 1864, Board Mtg Min 581.]
Chief clerk Accountant’s Office. Application for a pay increase deferred. [RAIL 529/21 19 Apr 1866, Board Min 416.]
Chief Accountant’s clerk, Accountant’s Dept. An application for increase in salary was referred to the chairman for him to report at the next meeting. [RAIL 529/77 5 Sep 1866, FGP Com Min 175.]
Salary increase from £120 to £140 from 1 Oct 1866. [RAIL 529/77 3 Oct 1866, FGP Com Min 190.]
Chief clerk, Accts Dept. Pay £140 to £150. [RAIL 529/23 16 Jan 1868, Board Min 782.]
Chief book-keeper in Accountant’s and Audit Depts. The comparative salaries of book-keepers in several depts salary increased from £150 to £175. [RAIL 529/78 5 Apr 1871, FGW Com Min 685.]
Accountant’s chief clerk and bookkeeper, Broad Street. £175 to £200. 1 Dec 1872. [RAIL 529/78 30 Oct 1872, FGW Com Min 859.]
Bookkeeper and chief clerk, Accountant’s Office, to Accountant on splitting of Accounts and Audit into separate departments. Pay £200 to £300. [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 15 Nov 1877, min 2732.]
Accountant. Pay £300 to £350. 1 Jan 1879. [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 12 Dec 1878, min 2910]
Accountant. Pay £350 to £400. 1 Jan 1881. [RAIL 529/27, Board Mtg 16 Dec 1880, min 3197.]
Accountant. Pay £450 to £500. 1 Jul 1888. [RAIL 529/80 4 Jul 1888, FGW Com Min 2127.]
Accountant. Pay £500 to £550. 1 Jul 1892. [RAIL 529/80 29 Jun 1892, FGW Com Min 2364.]
Accountant. Pay £550 to £600. [RAIL 529/80 3 Jul 95 1895, FGW Com Min 2523.] Accountant. Pay £600 to £650. 1 Jul 1898. [RAIL 529/81 29 Jun 1898, FGW Com Min 2671.]
Accountant. Service over 45 years, salary £650 pa. Resigned 28 Feb 1902. Superannuation about £401: NLR to make it up to £500 per year from 1 Mar 1902. [RAIL 529/31, 6 Feb 1902 Board Min 6085.]
Accountant
Peter Bloomfield with the assistance of Jacqueline Burchett, his great great granddaughter
Robert Andrews was born at Abbotts Ann in Hampshire on the 9th March 1853. By the time Robert was five the family had moved to London. [RAIL 1156/13/19. RG Mar qtr 1853, Andover, Vol 2c, p181. 1861 Census RG 9/123; Folio: 116; Page: 3.]
He joined the Traffic Branch in December 1865, about three months short of his thirteenth birthday. He would have received six shillings a week and probably have been employed as a train register boy. He was transferred to the Accountant’s Branch as a junior clerk in the Audit section in the autumn of 1868 with an annual salary of £35, and worked his way up in the Accountant’s Branch to Chief Clerk and Book Keeper. In the middle he spent a year from September 1876 as the book keeper in the Estate Department. When he was appointed the Accountant on 1st March 1902 his salary went from £290 to £400. He held the appointment until the 1st February 1909 when the LNWR took over the running of the railway, when he was granted an allowance equivalent to his salary, £500, for one year and was expected to render services as may have been required. From 1st February 1910, he also received a superannuation allowance £300. His final connection with the Company came in February 1911 when he became one of the Company’s auditors, a job he continued to do until he died. [RAIL 1156/13/19. RAIL 529/77 4 Nov 1868, FGP Com Min 418. RAIL 529/78 11 Oct 1876, FGW Com Min 1201. RAIL 529/31, 6 Feb 1902 Board Min 6085. RAIL 529/32, 4 Feb 1909 Board Min 6948. RAIL 529/34, 17 Jun 1920 Board Min 9177. Full salary details are contained in Annex A.]
Robert’s father, James, served just over twenty-one years with the Grenadier Guards, including four and half years spent in Canada, presumably it was quite different from when the author spent four and a half months there in 1972 whilst serving in the 4th Royal Tank Regiment. In 1848 James married Sarah Page. He left the Army in February 1850 with a pension and went back to the village of his birth, Abbots Ann. There he set up as Master Boot and Shoe Maker, employing one boy. They had three daughters, the eldest being born in Westminster whilst he was still in the Army, and two sons, the younger being Robert, being born in Abbots Ann. The other two daughters were born in Kentish Town, after the family had moved back to “The Smoke.” Initially, James again set himself up as a shoe maker but by the beginning of 1870 he was showing himself as a Sergeant in The Militia (once a a soldier always a soldier!). [Discharge Board for James Andrews, 25 Feb 1850. GRO Sep qtr 1848, London, 2, 99. 1861 Census, RG 9/123; Folio: 116; Page: 3. LMA All Saints, Camden Town, Register of marriages, P90/ALL1, Item 015.]
Robert married three times. The first was to Rosetta Caroline Hill, a grocer’s daughter, on 23rd January 1870. They had three sons and four daughters. The eldest son, Robert William (William presumably after Rosetta’s father), joined the NLR in 1885 as a clerk in the Locomotive Department at Bow but unfortunately died on 24th November 1904 when he was about thirty-three years old. Rosetta died in 1886. In the following summer Robert married Mary Ann Savory and they had two daughters followed by a son. The son, Stanley, was quite a famous musician in the 1930’s and he in turn had a son who became the actor Anthony Andrews who was in Brideshead Revisited. Mary’s date of death is a bit elusive but is between 1904 when Stanley was born and 1910 when Robert married wife number three. This time it was to Eleanor M Harveyson, a widow, on 30th August, 1910, in Finchley Parish Church. Robert died on 31st May 1920, leaving his widow over £1700. [RAIL 529/52 1 Dec 1885, Loco Com Min 6020. RAIL 529/62, 2 Feb 1905, Loco Com Mins 12543/5. RAIL 529/34, 17 Jun 1920 Board Min 9177. A descendent of Robert Andrews in a private communication of 18 Nov 2013. 1920 Probate List, p49. Also various census records, church registers and Registrar General Birth Marriage and Death references.]
Annex A
Robert Andrews
NLR Career
Joined Traffic Dept Dec 1865. [RAIL 1156/13/19.]
From Traffic Dept to junior clerk, Audit Branch. Pay 10s pw to £35 pa. (From train register boy?) [RAIL 529/77 4 Nov 1868, FGP Com Min 418.]
Junior clerk, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £40 to £50. [RAIL 529/78 2 Nov 1870, FGW Com Min 629.]
Audit clerk Camden Road. Pay £50 to £60. [RAIL 529/78 29 Nov 1871, FGW Com Min 763.]
Audit clerk. Camden Road to accounts clerk. Pay to £60. [RAIL 529/78 2 Oct 1872, FGW Com Min 851.]
Junior clerk, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £60 to £70.[RAIL 529/78 4 Dec 1872, FGW Com Min 867.]
Junior clerk to assistant bookkeeper, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £70 to £80. [RAIL 529/78 7 Oct 1874, FGW Com Min 1029.]
Assistant bookkeeper, Broad Street, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £80 to £85. [RAIL 529/78 6 Oct 1875, FGW Com Min 1110.]
Assistant bookkeeper, to bookkeeper, Estate Dept. Pay £85 to £100. 11 Sep 1876. [RAIL 529/78 11 Oct 1876, FGW Com Min 1201.]
Bookkeeper, Estate Accounts, to bookkeeper, Accounts Office. Pay £100 to £120. [RAIL 529/79 31 Oct 1877, FGW Com Min 1286.]
Chief clerk and bookkeeper, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £120 to £140. [RAIL 529/79 8 Oct 1879, FGW Com Min 1431.]
Chief accounts clerk, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £140 to £150. 1 Jan 1881. [RAIL 529/79 2 Feb 1881, FGW Com Min 1522.]
Chief clerk and bookkeeper, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £150 to £170. [RAIL 529/79 2 May 1883, FGW Com Min 1702.]
Chief bookkeeper, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £170 to £185. [RAIL 529/79 30 Apr 1884, FGW Com Min 1787.]
Chief clerk & bookkeeper, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £185 to £200. [RAIL 529/80 4 Aug 1886, FGW Com Min 1999.]
Chief clerk & bookkeeper, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £200 to £220. [RAIL 529/80 1 May 1889, FGW Com Min 2173.]
Chief clerk, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £220 to £240. [RAIL 529/80 1 Feb 1893, FGW Com Min 2395.]
Chief clerk, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £240 to £265. [RAIL 529/80 4 Mar 1896, FGW Com Min 2554.]
Chief clerk, Accountant’s Dept. Pay £265 to £290. [RAIL 529/81 2 Nov 1898, FGW Com Min 2686.]
Chief Clerk, Accts Dept. Salary £290. Appt Accountant (vice G E Mainland) 1 Mar 1902, salary £400. [RAIL 529/31, 6 Feb 1902 Board Min 6085.]
Accountant. Pay £400 to £450. 1 Mar 1903. [RAIL 529/81 5 Feb 1903, FGW Com Min 2876.]
Salary increase from £450 to £500 1 Mar 1908. [RAIL 529/32, 19 Mar 1908 Board Min 6831.]
Accountant. Vacated position 28 Feb 1909 due LNWR take-over of management of NLR. Granted allowance for one year of £500 from 1 Mar 1909 and superannuation allowance £300 from 1 Feb 1910 until reaching 60, until then expected to render services as may be required. [RAIL 529/32, 4 Feb 1909 Board Min 6948.]
Elected Auditor Feb 1911. [RAIL 1156/13/19.] Auditor. Died 31 May 1920. [RAIL 529/34, 17 Jun 1920 Board Min 9177.]