There was an old woman / Tossed up in a basket / Nineteen times as high as the moon / Where she was going / I couldn't but ask it / For in her hand she carried a broom / "Old woman, old woman, old woman " quoth I / "Wither, oh wither, oh wither so high?" / "To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky." / "Can I go with thee ? " / "Aye, bye and bye". [tune of Lilibullero] One the nursery rhymes in my vast repertoire . However, this came to mind when we took the three elder grandchildren to the National Railway Museum in York. One of the attractions was the spacecraft in which the British astronaut Tim Peake travelled through space to the International Space Station. I was amazed ! it was so small. Not much bigger than a basket that would be attached to a hot air balloon. I can just see the old woman in it with her broom. The canopy of the parachute is massive. It is truly amazing to think that human beings travelled in this through space. The bravery, the danger, the quest for knowledge, the advancement of science and engineering. It can take your mind in so many directions. It really is inspiring. But so much of the National Railway Museum is inspiring as well. There is something there for everyone, all ages, from Grandparents through to tiny tots. Our three boys were from 9 to 16, and certainly enjoyed the whole day. We learned about the whole history of railways, and their application. At the moment they have an example of a hospital train and how trains were used to evacuate casualties from the front line in the First World War and then how hospital trains transported the wounded all over Britain where temporary hospitals had been set up. Up here in the north we lay claim to the earliest railway between Stockton and Darlington, and it made me start to think about how the railways changed lives. The obvious change was that people could travel faster than a horse. Robert Louis Stevenson's poem was a favourite when I was a child, and I read it to my children, but I think it will be lost on the present generation. From a Railway Carriage - Faster than fairies, faster than witches, / Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches; / And charging along like troops in a battle / All through the meadows the horses and cattle:/ All of the sights of the hill and the plain/ Fly as thick as driving rain;/ And ever again, in the wink of an eye / Painted stations whistle by. There is more, look it up to remind yourself. This is part of York Railway Station, Oh I know it so well. The Ladies facilities are still where it says "Ladies Room", the post box has moved to the area where the taxi rank is, and the tiled map of the railways of the north east is still in the same place. This painting is on the ArtUk website of publicly owned art and is by Bertram Augustus Curry 1884 - 1959. This is not very clear, but is from Bradshaw's 1907 Railway Map and does show that even small villages had railway stations. So what difference did the railways make to the lives of people in these parts ? One of the great advantages was selling fresh milk. Once the railway had got to Leyburn, farms that had hitherto made cheese and butter could increase milk production and sell fresh milk to the Express Dairy.The farm where I grew up sold both milk and eggs to the Express Dairy in Leyburn, and I used to write out the milk tickets that went on the churns with the amount of milk, and then stamp them with our name with a rubber stamp pressed into a purple ink pad. And on Monday mornings when the Express Dairy sent the Egg Van to collect the wooden boxes of eggs, the driver used to give me a lift to school. Can you imagine a wagon driver giving a child a lift to school now ? Another advantage with the coming of the railways was the opportunity for employment. There were some of my distant ancestors who took work on the railways. All had been "Ag Labs", agricultural labourers, and working for the railway offered a different type of employment, sometimes with opportunity to move to different places, and probably better housing. As the railway lines criss-crossed the country, so rows of railway workers' cottages sprung up at stations and level crossings. My great grandmother was from Marrick in Swaledale and two of her brothers began as Ag Labs, then got jobs on the railways. This is the 1861 census for Barnard Castle and shows her brother George Plews as a Railway Porter born Marrick. This also shows that one of his children had been born in Middlesbrough. This is another of her brothers in Darlington in 1871 , James Plews, a Railway Porter. My great grandfather had a sister who married William Swale(s). In some records it is Swale, in other records it is Swales, most confusing. Anyway, William was an Ag Lab, and the couple lived on different farms around East Witton, Spennithorne, Harmby, until William got a job on the railway. His wife, my great grandfather's sister, died in June 1864 and there was an inquest held at Leyburn where it was stated that she was found dead in bed at the Leyburn Railway Station. It gave an account of the evening before she died, when it had been a Sunday, and she had gone to chapel with her husband William, a plate layer, and some friends, then had a walk along the Shawl (a local walk in Leyburn) before having some supper and retiring to bed. She had suffered from a goitre. The interesting point being that William was a farm worker in 1861, but by 1864 was working for the railway and living at Leyburn railway station. After Alice died he remarried and is in the 1871 census above with his second wife in Leyburn. He remained a railway worker. This is another of my relations who changed from being an Ag Lab to a railway worker. He was Robert Gill, brother of my great grandfather. here he is in 1861 at Rosy Hill near Scorton working as a Plate Layer. Sadly he did not live very long after this. I sent for his death certificate. He died on the 12th January 1864, a most horrible and painful death, and left a wife and young family behind. He was aged 37 years. The Coroner's report is at the Record Office and reports what was said at the Inquest. There had been a coal delivery to Scorton railway station and he was helping the station master to move some coal wagons over the coal bunkers where they would be tipped. The coal wagons were disengaged from the engine and were manually moved with a "pinchbar" through the wheels. They had tipped two, and were working on the third wagon when Robert slipped and fell through the rails into the coal bunker below, several feet, and broke his back. He was moved (poor man) first to the waiting room, then he was moved again to the nearby pub. At last the doctor was summoned, Dr William Cockcroft, but little could be done. He sought another opinion and another doctor was summoned from Darlington. He was then moved for the third time to his own house, and handed over to the care of his wife ! The doctor visited him once more to give him relief with a catheter but he died the following morning. What an ordeal. And how sad. His wife had a small family, and she soon re-married, to another plate layer in Scorton and went on to have more children. Another inquest was held on View of the Body of John Helmsley in 1869 who died on the same branch line, just a few miles from Scorton, at a point where the railway crossed the road near Easby called "Broken Brae". The deceased took a short cut to Richmond by walking down the railway line. Thomas Markham, the crossing gate-keeper, had warned him several times not to walk on the railway line, but he insisted. Sadly for the engine driver, Robert Webster of Richmond, he could not avoid running him down. He told the inquest " Yesterday I was driving the 3.35 from Darlington to Richmond ... I came to Broken Brae Gate, when I got half way round the corner the deceased was on the line. I sounded my whistle and reversed the engine. He did not look back or take any notice. The distance from when I first saw him to when he was knocked down was 150 yards and about 70 yards further I brought my engine to a stand... we got the man in the van and brought him to Richmond station" . Poor engine driver. When you think about the railway map with all those lines criss-crossing the countryside, there were many compulsory purchase orders made to requisition the land needed for railway lines, embankments, bridges, stations, and this redesigned the landscape. But what about getting railway lines into towns and cities ? Infamously the line into Leeds railway station goes through what had been the churchyard of St Peter's Church with the gravestones relaid up the embankment. But this sort of thing happened all over the country. I am interested in people from this part of the north who went to London, and found two men in London, born up here, who lost out to the railway companies carving up the metropolis. This is Blackfriars Bridge in London from a map of 1884 [see www.oldmapsonline.org] . On the north side of the bridge is a road called New Bridge Street, and in 1861 John Birkbeck Simpson, born in Teesdale (his mother had been a Birkbeck of Crackpot in Swaledale), opened a hotel and called it Simpson's Hotel. It was going rather well until The London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company decided to build a railway line across the back of it. Immediately he had no customers, no one wanted to stay in a hotel with a railway line across the back. They offered him compensation but he held out for more, which went to court. The court heard great details of how he ran his hotel, who the customers were, mostly commercial travellers, and how many beds he had and what alcoholic drinks he served, then - wait for it - the court awarded him less compensation than the railway company had suggested in the first place and he had to pay his own costs ! London City Press 24 October 1863 Genuine Household Furniture, noble chimney glasses, pedestal sideboard, and effects of Simpson’s Hotel, 34 Bridge Street, Blackfriars (the premises being sold to the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company) will be sold by auction by J Heaps and Son on the premises on Thursday the 29th at Twelve by direction of the proprietor, without the slightest reserve, comprising numerous iron bed-steads, mattresses, feather beds and bedding, dressing glasses, chests of drawers, marble-top wash-stands and tables, carpets, mahogany and other chairs, couch, sets of extending dining tables, breakfast tables, Spanish mahogany sideboard, with plate glass, large chimney glasses, curtains, fine engravings, set of Raphael’s Cartoons, and a variety of useful effects. May be viewed on Wednesday and catalogue had on the premises; at No 46 Peckham Grove, Camberwell, and at the Auctioneer’s Offices, no 10, Basinghall Street, opposite the Bankrupts’ Court. The second case I stumbled upon was for a property on the corner of Tottenham Court Road and the Euston Road in London [this is from the same 1884 map]. This also involved a Teesdale man and was reported in the local Teesdale Mercury as well as the Marylebone Mercury in 1865. John Coates was a cheesemonger and poulterer and claimed compensation of £500 from the Metropolitan Railway Company for losses sustained in 1861. He had been offered £50 to remedy structural damage; the railway company blamed the builder. He did not get any more than the £50. So in conclusion, a visit to the National Railway Museum has taken my mind in many different directions, thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of the railways. There are always two sides to every coin. Railways stations are great places for people watching. As we are remembering the final year of the First World War here is a painting that shows the hustle, bustle and emotion of parting. It is called "Return to the Front, Victoria Railway Station" by Richard Jack 1866 - 1952, York Museum Trust. Going North, King's Cross Station London, by George Earl 1824 - 1908 Coming South, Perth Station, by George Earl 1824 - 1908, both at the National Railway Museum in York.
I hope that you too find time to do some People Watching.
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January 2024
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