Being employed on the Victorian railway would always mean
long hours, as with most other jobs of the period. Kingsford argued that ‘in
the early years [of the railways] hours of work were extremely long and left a
bare minimum for sleep. There was no regular provision for Sunday relief or for
holidays and the working week was normally a seven day one.’[1] Amongst the
railway staff records on Ancestry.com, I came across a file that provided insight
into clerks and station master’s working day on the London, Brighton and South
Coast Railway in 1856. This contained questionnaires where they were asked a
range of questions, including how long in each day they toiled.[2]
Kingsford commented on this file in passing (although he
said erroneously that all the returns were filled in by Station Masters), and
argued that the seventy-six individuals in it worked an average of fourteen
hours a day.[3] I have not sampled every man’s hours of work, and have only surveyed
the first twenty-five returns, but I can
confidently say that this is a generalisation that hides considerable nuance
and variance in each individual’s employment circumstances. Nevertheless, the
average number of hours worked by the men in my sample came out at thirteen
hours, thirty-five minutes; close to Kingsford’s calculation.
The individual who worked the shortest hours was Mr
Brabrook, a clerk at New Cross Station, who most days worked a mere eight and a
half hours. However, he did work for ten hours forty-five minutes some weeks.
The individual who had the longest working day was Mr Beacon, a clerk at
Bridlington Station, who reported that he was at the station for sixteen hours,
twenty-five minutes per day - from 7.30am to 11.55pm. Thus, if I estimate he daily
had thirty minutes off for lunch, this would mean his working week was 112 hours,
25 minutes long.
While Kingsford worked out the number of hours the men
were on duty was fourteen hours, it seems that the length of time people were
on duty varied considerably amongst the twenty-five men I looked at. The
results are as follows:
Clearly, the majority of those in the sample were working
between fourteen and fifteen hours. Yet, nine were working less than that
amount, while eight were working more. There are two possible explanations for
this variation. Firstly, it is quite conceivable that people worked more hours
because they were higher in the organisation, and, therefore, had greater
responsibility. Alternatively, because some individuals were at remote
locations, they may have had fewer colleagues to cover them and allow them time
off.
Firstly, I decided to examine the theory that those who
were higher in the organisation worked longer hours. Broadly speaking there
were three ‘ranks’ of employees represented amongst the twenty-five, junior
managers (superintendents), supervisory posts (Station Masters or Foremen) and
General Clerks (including one junior). The average number of hours worked for
each group of employees was as follows:-
While the sample size is
small, and we have to be wary about making any firm conclusions from these
figures, what this table would suggest is that individuals’ working hours were
on average shorter before they went into supervisory posts. Yet, on being
promoted to a junior managerial position their hours improved.
But what about the idea that
those individuals employed in the country worked longer days? Indeed, this was postulated
by Kingsford. The results were that the thirteen country workers in the sample were
on duty for an average of 14.01 hours per day, whereas for the twelve in the
town it was 12.96 hours. Therefore, this tentatively confirms the theory.
Lastly, I wanted to look at the two sets of statistics in combination, to see
whether all ranks worked more hours at country stations.
The results really show why I
need to expand the sample size to all seventy-six individuals in the file.
However, while no firm conclusions can be made regarding the supervisors or
Junior Managers, clearly, general clerks in the country worked more hours than
their counterparts in the town.
Overall, while there are
problems with this brief survey given my sample size, it has presented some
interesting questions to be tackled in the future.
------
[1] Kingsford, P.W., Victorian
Railwaymen, (London, 1970), p.115
[2] The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 414/767, Traffic
staff histories based on questionnaire and relating to staff appointed
1836-1854
[3] Kingsford, Victorian
Railwaymen, p.117
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