Always remember "Safety First!" - Railway Employee Safety Campaigns from 1913

Safety for Britain’s railway employees before 1913 was governed by the rule books that each was obliged to carry. This had been the case since the railway’s beginnings. However, the rule book did not prevent accidents occurring, and between 1900 and 1913 the average number of railway employees killed per year was 485, with the number of injuries being 20,737. Thus, while the rule book was an established part of railway life, its instructions were failing to prevent accidents. Mike Esbester argued that this could be attributed to the formality and compulsory nature of such documents. ‘The reader was unlikely to read the solid mass of text except when compelled to do so.’[1] It wasn’t until the Great Western Railway (GWR) introduced the “Safety Campaign” in 1913, that things began to change.

The origins of the ‘Safety First’ campaign can be found in the United States. In the early 1900s, Ralph Richards, the Chicago and North Western Railroad’s (C&NWR) general claim agent, became concerned by the number of accidents within the company. As late as 1910 107 men were killed and another 9,000 were injured while at work for the company. Thus, in 1905 he published a number of articles on safety issues and in 1906 these were reproduced as a book. At the same time he attempted to get the C&NWR’s management interested a campaign, something that would become a fruitless endeavour until 1910.[2] By 1912, the ‘safety first’ campaign had become accepted amongst the management of many American railroad companies.

The GWR’s management first came interested in the ‘Safety First’ campaign in 1913 through articles in the Illinois Central Railroad Magazine, George Bradshaw’s book the Prevention of Railroad Accident and through other publications. However, the ‘safety first’ mantra was spreading within Britain’s railway administrators and commentators at the time, and the GWR’s management were simply the first to act on this interest. Thus, the GWR contacted some American railroads about their campaigns with a view to introducing something similar amongst its own employees in early 1913.

Esbester argued that the ‘Safety First’ campaign ‘reinvented safety education in Britain,’ using journalistic techniques to convey its messages. While the contents of the rule book were stuffy and unappealing, the messages provided by the campaign were attractive. Indeed, the GWR used its staff magazine, the Great Western Railway Magazine, to convey its messages as well as publications, competitions and posters. The contents focussed on such areas as safety in coupling together trains, crossing the line, dealing with electric lines (in later years), loading carts, riding on the top of carriages and not standing too close to a steam train’s exhaust pipe.

Articles were written with the employee in mind. They were straightforward for the individual to understand and used informal language that was very different from that found in the rule books. Furthermore, photography was utilised in all the material that was produced, usually showing ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ working behaviour (shown – an example from the 1920s). Additionally, capitalisation and bold text were used to highlight important points. Lastly, in 1916 the GWR introduced a pocket token about the size of a penny to be kept with loose change. This had the ‘Safety First’ motto, ‘IS IT SAFE?’ emblazoned all over it and every time an individual brought out their change it would be there to remind them of the value of safety.

Quickly after the GWR started to work on the campaign it was taken up by other British Railway companies. Indeed, the GWR shared its materials. The companies that introduced campaigns were the London and South Western, Great North of Scotland, Midland and Great North Joint, Wirral, Rhymney, Cambrian, Cardiff, and Isle of Wight Central, North Eastern and Hull and Barnsley Railways. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the diffusion of the campaign happened just as quickly in Britain as it did in America, with many of these companies adopting the campaign by 1915.

So why was the campaign introduced in 1913? Esbester concludes that a combination of two factors that precipitated its adoption. Firstly, this was a period in which the profitability of Britain’s railways was at an all-time low. Secondly, the railway companies were under intense pressure to improve the working conditions of their employees, both from government and the unions. Indeed, in 1911 there had been a national railway strike (which I wrote about here). Thus, the campaign was an attempt by the railway companies to prevent interference from the government in labour relations, placate the unions, while at the same time trying to avoid spending money on costly new safety devices.[3]

If you would like to read Mike Esbester’s article in full, it can be found HERE.

[1] Esbester, Mike, ‘Reinvention, Renewal, or Repetition? The Great Western Railway and Occupational Safety on Britain’s Railways, c.1900-c1920,’ Economic History Online, Vol.3 (2005)
[2] Aldrich, Mark, Safety First: Technology, Labour, and Business in the Building of American Work Safety, 1870-1939, (New York, 1997), p.188
[3] Esbester, ‘Reinvention, Renewal, or Repetition?’ (2005)

The Emergence of Company Loyalty Amongst Victorian Railway Workers

Company loyalty on the Victorian railways was something that outsiders took for granted. Indeed, railway workers were perceived to be the most loyal employees within British industry. Frank McKenna argued that within the early railway companies ‘a specific loyalty was born, flourished and was difficult to irradiate.’[1]

Two notable studies touched on the origins of company loyalty, focussing on what the railway workers’ jobs were and the space in which they worked. George Revill, in his thesis on the Midland Railway’s Derby headquarters, argued that railway workers’ loyalty was the result of two main factors. On the one hand, railway workers perceived themselves as being important to the ‘growth and stability of the state.’ They were servants of the railway company, which in turn was serving the nation and the public.[2]

On the other hand, because railway employees worked at a distance from headquarters and had to gather information and take decisions themselves, this resulted in employees engaging in what Revill called ‘space management.’ Firstly, railway employment meant that the average railway worker had unique opportunities for promotion and social climbing compared with non-railway employees, and thus, his ‘concept of respectability’ rested with such prospects. Therefore, within his space in the company the individual had the chance to give ‘meaning to his life’ through the creation of a career. This instigated loyalty into him.[3] I would, however, suggest that because different groups of railway employees had better chance than others to advance up the promotional ladder, for example the clerks’ unique opportunities to become managers, that this was a variable factor in workers’ loyalty.

Also, Revill argued that as railway employees had clear limits of their own responsibility, within which they had to manage the work and their physical actions, this gave them a heightened sense of skill and a ‘distinct sense’ of the role they were playing as an important cog in the company machine.[4] This subsequently gave further ‘meaning to their lives.’

Yet, because of this, employees’ began to feel that they owned their particular working area or workplace, which re-enforced loyalty. Indeed, McKenna stated that railway workers could stamp their own mark over a certain ‘area or stretch of ground,’ resulting in what he called the ‘railway bailiwick.’ Railway employees became very protective over ‘my engine,’ ‘my signal box’ or ‘my yard,’ which fostered loyalty to a workplace. Furthermore, both Revill and McKenna argued that once immersed in railway work, the employees also became loyal to social networks within the company. McKenna concluded that what was created was ‘a new form of industrial anthropology, a tribalistic grouping of men based on an elaborate division of labour.’[5] This fostered loyalties to emerge amongst the different classes of employees, for example platelayers, clerks or drivers, but which again were perceived by them collectively as being vital to the working of the whole company.

Further Revill’s argued that the loyalty to the railway company was re-enforced by the interaction with the public. Firstly, because entry into railway work was restricted, through exams and entry qualifications, railway workers came to think of themselves as the ‘chosen few’ with special status'. Secondly, they were providing a service to the public who were dependent on them, whether they were customers or shareholders, and this was perceived as something to be proud of. Lastly, like many railway workers came to see their company as a vital to state's well-being, they also saw the railway company as a microsomal nation in its own right, in which they identified that their department was special to its working.[6]

Thus, these two Historians have developed theories as to factors that played a role in company loyalty in the Victorian period. The space in which railway workers operated and how they came to think about their role within the company, re-enforced company loyalty.

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[1] McKenna, Frank, The Railway Workers, 1840-1970, (London, 1980) p.41

[2] Revill, George Edwin, ‘Paternalism, Community and Corporate Culture: A Study of the derby Headquarters of the Midland Railway Company and its Workforce, 1840-1900,’ (Unpublished PhD Thesis. Loughborough University, 1989), pp.344

[3] Revill, ‘Paternalism, Community and Corporate Culture, pp.344

[4] Revill, ‘Paternalism, Community and Corporate Culture, pp.344

[5] McKenna, The Railway Workers, p.40-41

[6] Revill, ‘Paternalism, Community and Corporate Culture, pp.344-5

An Important Piece of Railway Stationary - The Guard's Journal

The stationary of Britain’s railways is not the most fascinating subject in isolation. Yet, every piece of paper that the Victorian railway companies did have a purpose and relating stationary to its purpose is, therefore, more interesting. The guards journal was probably one of the most unchanging pieces of stationary in British Railway history, being developed in the industry’s formative years and surviving right through until (at least) the 1960. By virtue of its long life it suggests that they were crucial to the efficient management and operation of Britain’s railways.

The journals were simply pre-printed notebooks in which the guard of a train recorded the details of the journey. The 1853 London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) rule book specified that goods guards were required to note the following details:-

1.The number of Waggons in a Train (loaded and empty) at the beginning of the journey. 
2.The number picked up and left at intermediary stations
3.The supposed and actual times of arrival and departure from stations 
4.Any remarks relating to the journey.

The only variation on this in the Passenger Guards journal was that there was no requirement to record the number of carriages a train.[1]

There is no indication that the basic information recorded in the journals changed up to the 1910s on the L&SWR. A blank version of a Passenger Guard’s Journal from the period (it having inside 191_) required the same information to be recorded as in previous years, but with many additional pieces of evidence. The full list of what had to be entered by gaurds can be found below.

1.Day, Date and Time of Journey
2.Time at which train arrived and departed ‘stations, junctions or signal boxes.’
3.The lateness of the train at each scheduled place.
4.Formation of the train
       a.Description of the Vehicle
       b.Painted Number
       c.Number of Wheels
       d.Block or Set Train Number
5.Vehicles taken on or off the train
6.Engine Number
7.Weather Conditions
8.Driver Name
9.Number of Inches of Vacuum Maintained
10.Name of the Assistant Guard.
11.Service Book Number
12.Special Notice Number
13.Service Number
14.Explanation of Delays, remarks &c[2]

Once again, the only difference with the goods guards’ journals was that the guards still had to record the number of wagons in a train and where wagons were picked up and dropped off.

The importance of the journals came after the journey had been finished. On arrival at the trains destination, the guard would deposit the journal in the office of a senior Traffic Department manager (either the Superintendent of the Line[3], or District Superintendent[4]). The clerks of the office would set to work on them, extrapolating the data contained within.

Senior managers would subsequently receive reports on how efficiently the trains were running, how overloaded with wagons they trains were, how to time the trains were operating, where wagons were dropped and taken on the train, and any occurrences of note that was occurring on particular parts of the network. Subsequently, decisions could be made by them, for example to increase the number of goods trains on a certain line to reduce train loading, build new types of locomotive to increase pulling power, schedule more trains on a particular line, increase or decrease the number staff at stations or yards dependent on the level of traffic coming from them, or notify other departments that repairs to the trains, rolling stock or the line were required.

But the value of the guards’ journals went beyond just aiding the efficiency of the Traffic Department. In 1857 the Locomotive Committee of the L&SWR asked the Traffic Committee (that had charge of the running of the trains through the Traffic Department) if the Locomotive Department could have access to them. They required use of them to ascertain the mileage of all the company’s rolling stock, and subsequently monitor how much it cost the department to maintain carriages and wagons for each mile that they travelled.[5] This was allowed, and the journals were subsequently viewed by Locomotive Department clerks in the Superintendent of the Line’s Office.[6] From the returns that have been seen within other companies, it is suspected that this was a universal industry practice. This enabled senior Locomotive Department managers to see whether it was prudent to replace, rather than renovate, rolling stock, whether to increase the repairs schedule, or attempt to make cost savings in the repairs procedure.

It is, therefore, understandable that the guards’ journal remained central to railway operations for well over 100 years, as they was central to shaping decision makers policies on how the line was operated and its efficiency.

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[1] London School of Economics Library [LSE], HE 3020.L L84, Rules and Regulations for the Guidance of Officers and Servants of the London and South Western Railway Company, 28^th April 1853, Rule 24, p.77

[2] Author’s Collection, Blank Passenger Guard’s Journal, 191?

[3] TNA, RAIL 411/178, Locomotive, Carriage and Stores and Locomotive committees, Minute No. 321, 5^th November 1857

[4] SWC, London and South Western Railway Appendix to the Book of Rules and Regulations, 1^st January 1911, p.140

[5] TNA, RAIL 411/178, Locomotive, Carriage and Stores and Locomotive committees, Minute No. 303, 8^th October 1857

[6] TNA, RAIL 411/178, Locomotive, Carriage and Stores and Locomotive committees, Minute No. 321, 5^th November 1857

Commerce and Finance in Railway Promotion - To Bristol and Southampton we go!

The individuals behind the establishment of Britain’s railway companies have been inadequately studied. What we do know is that they came from a range of different backgrounds, for example traders, landowners, industrialists and gentry. However, which of these groups of individuals played the most important role in the new railway companies has always been vague. Usually, historians have always ascribing the most prominent roles to interested parties such as ‘businessmen’ or ‘merchants,’ without exploring in much more detail the ‘nuts and bolts’ of their involvement.

However, my recent research on the London and Southampton Railway (L&SR) (later to become the London and South Western Railway) and Geoffrey Channon’s on the Great Western Railway (GWR), has given more detail as to who the promoters and early directors of these railway companies were. Subsequently, as my research came after Channon’s, I have established a more nuanced story behind the promotion of Britain’s early railways.

The promoters of the GWR in 1835 were all related to the fact that Bristol, one of its termini, had been a trading port for centuries. Subsequently, Channon showed that 16 of the 30 directors that were involved in its promotion between 1833 and 1835, came from ‘commerce and finance.’ This reflected the high number of merchants that were based in London and Bristol that served to gain from the promotion of a railway through the expansion of trade.[1] Some of the notable individuals included William Tothill, a manufacturing chemist, Thomas Guppy, owner with his brother of Friars Sugar Refinery, and Nicholas Roach, Chairman of the Bristol Dock company, who was also an oil and leather manufacturer.

Further, many of Bristol’s commercial bodies, such as the Corporation, the Society of Merchant Ventures, the Bristol Dock Company and the Bristol Chamber of Commerce, also backed the plan.[2] Therefore, the established merchants and trade organisations of the city came together to promote the new railway and further increase their wealth and prosperity.

However, when I looked at the L&SR, I found a different story. This story principally hinged on the fact that the company’s destination town, Southampton, was not an established trading port like Bristol. G.A. Sekton, a biographer of the L&SWR, wrote that in Southampton before 1834 ‘there were no manufacturers… requiring access to the great mart [London] for their consumption; there was no trade, no commerce there.’[3] Indeed, the port could only charitably be described as a small fishing village. Thus, this meant that the individuals involved in the establishment of the L&SR’s project were different to those involved in the GWR.

Firstly, 10 of the 23 (43.47%) directors that joined the L&SWR board between 1834 and 1840 were categorised as being involved in ‘commerce and finance.’ Yet, unlike the case of GWR, further investigation shows that only three of these individuals were merchants. The seven remaining promoters and directors were actually working in banking and finance. These included Sir John Easthope, a former stockbroker, Edmund Jerningham, of the London Joint-stock bank and Robert Williams, of Williams, Williams & Williams bank, Bridehead.

The reason for the significant involvement of financial men seems to be because of the investment opportunities provided by developing a completely new port. While in the case of the GWR there was a pre-existing economy held in the grasp of merchants looking to expand Bristol’s trade, Southampton possibly could have been developed quickly, providing a lucrative investment opportunity for bankers to make large amounts of money quickly. Indeed, the L&S’s original name was the ‘London, Southampton, and Branch Railway and Dock Company,’evidencing the fact that its promoters saw the opportunities of developing a new railway with a new port at its terminus. Lastly, the involvement of bankers would have also allowed the embryonic company to access the capital on favourable terms, as large amounts would be required to develop the port. This said, the docks part of the plan was dropped early on.

Thus, comparing my research with Channon’s has shown that who the promoters and early directors of railway companies were, was dictated by where the lines were proposed to be built and the economies through which they passed.

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[1] Channon, Geoffrey, Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1840, (Aldershot, 2001), p.184

[2] Channon, Railways in Britain and the United States, p.56-58

[3] Sekton, G.A., The London & South Western Railway: Half a Century of Railway Progress to 1896, (London, 1896, reprint 1989), p.2

[4] Fay, Sam, A Royal Road, (Kingston, 1881) p.5

Some Rules for Station Masters

For much of British Railway history, the station master occupied a special place in the interweaving melee of railway company operations. They were responsible for the companies’ key units of operation, the station. It was to their stations that the traders came to send their wares, where holiday adventures began and to where people returned after an evening out, happy in the knowledge that they were near to home. Therefore, because they were central to the smooth operation of the railway industry, the activities that they were tasked with are worthy of study.

Of course, the duties of station masters changed through the years. What may have been of concern to station masters in 1840, may have been outside their remit in 1940. For this blog post I have decided to look at the duties of station masters in 1933, as in this year Britain’s railway companies produced a new rule book for the staff, the content of which all had agreed to through the Railway Clearing House. Therefore, the basic duties of a station master in Penzance on the Great Western Railway were very similar, if not identical, to those of his compatriot in Edinburgh on the London and North Eastern Railway. For this blog I will be using the London and North Eastern Railway’s rule book (although it wouldn’t really matter which one I used) to describe some of the key duties of the British station master in 1933. The numbers in brackets are the rule numbers from the book.

Naturally, station masters were to be responsible for everything that went on at the station. Interestingly, the first rule specifically directed at station masters specifies that the ‘security and protection of the buildings and property at the station’ were their concern (17i). Could it be that the authors of the rule book, buy putting this rule first, were subconsciously channelling their desire to protect the companies’ property and its revenue? Further, they were to undertake a daily inspection of the station to inspect its ‘cleanliness and neatness of all premises (including closets and urinals), signboards &c,’ such was the emphasis in this period on maintaining a good outwards appearance of the station (17vi).

But the property of the station wasn’t the only thing they had to look after, and the station master had to marshal all the employees at stations (18). Therefore, it was the station master’s duty to oversee that all operations, whether it be the sorting of wagons, the coupling of carriages, the painting the white line along the platform’s edge, or tending to the flower beds, were done in a safe and efficient manner by staff (17iii/19). Prevention of accidents was also achieved by making sure that all staff had the rule book on them at all times and that they were aware of any additional notices that may have altered its content (17iv). They were also responsible for curtailing wastage at the station, and all stores were to be ‘properly and economically used (17x). Lastly, the station masters were to ‘make himself acquainted’ with all the signal boxes and signalmen that he was in charge of, evidently to make sure they weren’t asleep (17v).

Safety was to be ensured in other ways. Because station masters must have seen a lot of rolling stock pass through their stations, they played a role in reporting any defects that they found within the trains. When a carriage or wagon examiner had to inspect a train for defects, the station master had to ensure that this work had been completed before the train was allowed to leave. (28a) However, if an examiner was not present, the station master, if his staff could not fix a defect, was to have the offending vehicle removed from a train, hopefully not with any passengers inside (28b). Further, if any signals, points or any other aspect of the line was found to be defective, these were to be reported as soon as was possible (61)

However, apart from these outdoor jobs, which could have been good or bad depending on the station at which he was posted, the station masters’ main duties were being chained to a desk doing paperwork. All new orders and instructions coming into the station, of which there were multitudes, were to be noted. Further, all books that recorded everything from passenger numbers, wages paid, wagons moved, gas consumption and most importantly, income, were to be written up and sent to the central headquarters (17vii). Indeed, a large part of the station master’s duties was not just ensuring the smooth flow of traffic, but also enduring the smooth flow of information up the organisation so that senior managers could analyse it.

Another large part of the station master’s day would be dealing the great unwashed. Naturally, they had to make sure that passengers were not unruly and that the Bylaws of the company were displayed clearly so that the customers knew what they could and couldn’t do. Further, they were to ensure that all the fares, notices, the Carrier’s Act and all other public declarations were clearly displayed (17viii). If, for whatever reason, the customers were unhappy, the station masters were to promptly send all complaints to head office (17ix).

Of course, these weren’t all the duties of the station masters on Britain’s railways in 1933, but it is the core selection. Clearly, this evidence shows that station masters had huge responsibilities and kept Britain’s railways running.

Early railway networking...can you recommend a good engineer?

Last night I gave a paper at the London School of Economics on the development of the London and South Western Railway's management structure between 1836 and 1881. Of course, after such an event, there were a number of questions that were posed regarding the paper. These continued at the pub, the natural home it seems of the business historian. Of course, many subjects flew around, but one of the most interesting was the idea that railway engineers, especially in the early days of operation and construction, formed a 'who-knows-who' network that placed their students in important managerial positions in the emergent industry. This was because we knew that such railway luminaries such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Joseph Locke, both railway engineers with great influence in companies, placed their men in senior positions in railways they built.

Indeed, Locke, who built the London and South Western Railway is a particularly good example to show you what I mean. Locke had a reputation for having unbounded energy. He apparently moved so fast that his assistants found it difficult to keep up with the man. It is these assistants that are of interest. Indeed, perhaps Locke moved so fast that the assistants were simply left behind on the railways that he had built.
The number of the South Western's early managers that were Locke employees at some point meant that Locke had a heavy influence on the early management of the company. Both the first and second Locomotive Superintendents, Joseph Woods and John Viret Gooch (shown), had been employed by Locke. We only know that Woods was an employee of Locke's however more information is available about Gooch. He had aided his master on the construction of the Grand Junction Railway and in 1837 became its Resident Engineer. Gooch also had a link to another railway notable, in that his brother, Daniel Gooch, was the Great Western Railway's Chief Mechanical Engineer from 1837 to 1864. But it didn't stop there. One of Woods' first assistants was Joseph Beattie, who had charge of all the wagons and carriages on the line from 1839. He also had been a pupil of Locke's, also serving on the construction of the Grand Junction Railway and on the South Western.

However Locke's influence could not just be found in the Locomotive department. In 1836 he had became the company's consulting engineer. On resigning this post in 1849 he left in his place John Edward Errington. He also had aided Locke on the construction of the Grand Junction Railway, and had cooperated with him on the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway and thus had been in his employ for some time.

The moral of the story is that Locke was simply dropping engineers the South Western regularly to manage aspects of the company. Indeed, it also seems he did the same on the Grand Junction, which makes me think just who did he leave there? Of course I am only aware of the staff he got appointed on these two railways, but it is quite possible that on his other projects he did the same. Further, it would be fascinating to know which other engineers, such as Brunel or Stephenson perhaps, also left staff on railway companies. Indeed the South Western's Resident Engineer from 1870 was William Jacomb, a student of Brunel's who had been appointed from the Great Western Railway...however being dead since 1859, I doubt that the great man had anything to do with this appointment. Although, come to think of it I think that one of the directors of the South Western was a spiritualist...so, you never know. But, the fact was that Jacomb had been left on the Great Western when Brunel had died. He like Woods, Gooch, Beattie and Galbraith was simply left there. The main point is that early railway managers, particularly the engineers, seem to have had a significant influence on who was a railway manager in the companies' early years.

But why did these networks operate so fervently in the early railway? While the senior engineers are better known for building railways, in reality a lot of their work involved organising them as well. Indeed, many early railways, including the South Western and Great Western, were dominated by engineers. Locke even wrestled control of the L&SWR, for a short time, from the Directors of the company. They had this influence because, in reality, railway managers in the true sense of the word, those who had their entire careers in the industry, didn't exist in the 1830s and 40s. Going back through my blogs you will find a piece that I wrote describing how early railway managers were from a range of industries, that had some loose association with what the companies were doing, i.e. moving traffic and engineering. You can find it Here. This, therefore, provides a possibility as to why exactly senior railway engineers placed their men in the new companies...there was possibly very few people who could undertake managerial responsibilities, and being in such a position of control these engineers simply put forward their own men.

Therefore it seems an interesting future research agenda is to assess what the influence of these networks had on shaping how Britain's railways came to be managed. Given the importance of management structure to company efficiency, operation procedures and profitability, could it be possible that the actions of only a few individuals in the early history of Britain's railways, came to shape their course over the next 180 years. Well this is an open ended question that at some point I hope to answer.

Railway Evolution

Well first off, I come bearing good news. My paper, loosely titled, 'Managing the 'Royal Road': The Development and Failings of Managerial Structure on the London and South Western Railway 1836-1900' will now be presented twice. Terry Gourvish at the London School of Economics has asked me to do a re-run of it in the Summer Term, so I am very excited and nervous about that!

In that vein I thought that I would give a little preview of part of the paper, namely the evolution of train control. One aspect that has interested me is the way that companies controlled the trains and those administrative structures that they put in place to do this. No of course this isn't the most interesting subject at first glance, but what I want to do is re-frame it in the context of idea replication within organisations and societies, something that has increasingly come to be referred to as a meme. The meme was the brainchild of the evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. He described the meme as a noun that, 'conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation' (Dawkins, p.192) and positions it as a natural extension of evolution. Therefore anything can be a meme such as idea, a concept or a system, and these can be passed on and replicated.

Now I won't be using memes in my PhD as there is no need. However I do think that memetics is an area of study that has the potential to become more prevalent in many academic fields. Therefore I want to apply it here (and no I won't be doing this in the paper) to something that I am working on, train control on the L&SWR.

Firstly on its opening in 1840 the L&SWR operated a system on its original main line between London and Southampton that placed train control in the hands of the Station Agents (at that time called Station Clerks). They were to control the trains through the monitoring of the signals and signalmen on their stretch of line, while at the same time informing engine drivers who stopped at the stations of the time of last train to leave and the next train due, to stop goods trains in a siding if a passenger train needed to pass, and lastly allowing the trains to leave at the correct time. This was a system that made sense for the early railway, especially as there was no telegraph and managers couldn't be in all places all the time to monitor train movements. The Station Clerks were therefore superintendents of their own particular patch. Most importantly they were under the charge of the Superintendent of the Line in all train control matters. This system of train control was easy to implement on the single route main line. The system is however the meme I will be dealing with.

In 1849 the company purchased the Southampton and Dorchester Railway company, which was being built with their support and which was known as Castleman's Corkscrew after the promoter, Charles Castleman, a Wimborne lawyer. On the line's opening, which came after its purchase, the company simply instituted the same system that they had on the Main Line under a separate superintendent, John Bass, the resident engineer, who was subservient to the Superintendent of the Line. Therefore they were replicating the meme of train control in a new place.

Further similar train control superintendencies were established on the company's various lines later on, especially when they where opened. In 1857 a Mr Madigan was made Superintendent of the Windsor line and then later in 1863 superintendent of the Stokes Bay line, in 1859 Mr Scott (the General Manager) suggested a superintendent be appointed between Basingstoke and Gillingham because of the single line working, in 1860 a Mr Williams was made superintendent of the Exeter, Yeovil and Salisbury lines and lastly in 1863 Mr Verrinder was made Superintendent of the North Devon Line. As far as can be extrapolated these superintendencies did not change the established pattern of how train control was conducted. Indeed even when the company revised its organisational structures in 1864, 1881, 1884, 1893, 1899 and 1912, the role of the station master in marshalling the trains did not change significantly (however some aspects of the system did evolve and change in small ways). This is of course despite the fact that the L&SWR was an early user of telegraph, despite technological advancements over the period and despite the increased workload of the railway company with the expansion of traffic. It wasn't until the 1930s that this basic principal of train movements were changed on the Southern Railway.

Now I'm not saying that I know that there were alternative systems available to the railway companies at the time for controlling the movement of trains, and I haven't looked into it. The main thrust of what I want to say is that once the meme had been established and replicated throughout the lines of the railway company, it became very difficult to dislodge (alternatively this is known as path-dependency) as it was the accepted way that trains were controlled. Therefore viewing elements of management history through the mimetic lense may be a further tool in the understanding of the way that elements within company systems became established.

Looking for Albinus

One of the joys of studying History is that sometimes I don't know something. The fact that I am ignorant of a topic or of an aspect of my work, is what spurs me on to shed light on the missing links. However, unfortunately for me I am one of those historians who does not like leave a stone unturned. OK you may say that that is what a historian is supposed to do, to search every archive or documentary source for information on a particular topic, yet most historians don't have the capacity to search everything. Yet while I accept the limitations on historical research, I do sometimes push it, holding the fervent belief that the information I'm, missing must be somewhere. Its like the time I went to the Dorset record office to look at three inconsequential files. They were mildly interesting, but even before I had bought the ticket to go to Dorchester, I knew that they probably wouldn't add much. You see it was that one little hope that one line may have been important. I was proved right, there was nothing, what a waste of time. The truth is I can spend inordinate amounts of time looking for information that in reality I may not, or do not, need, becuase I am petrified that I may miss something small. This leads me onto Albinus Martin.

In my research at the National Archives the general area of research is the London and South Western Railway's (L&SWR) management between 1864 and 1914. However on April 22nd (and yes book it in your diary) I present my first ever paper at History Lab, the Institute of Historical Research's Postgraduate Seminar. The title is 'Managing the 'Royal Road': The Development and Failings of Managerial Structure on the London and South Western Railway 1836-1900.' Therefore I have had to do more research on the early period of the company's history.

We are generally under the impression the General Manager or Chief Executive were mainly an invention of the later Victorian railway companies. Yet on the 8th August 1845 the L&SWR's Resident Engineer, Albinus Martin, was appointed by the Board to take charge of the 'whole concern' of the L&SWR. WHAT!!! This made him, if not in name, the first General Manager of the L&SWR, and probably one of the earliest examples in the industry. Special lad! On reading this my brain did its irritating little habit of thinking that there must be masses of files somewhere; correspondence, letters, diaries must have survived, he must of left SOMETHING. I'll get this out of the way now, he didn't. The man died and left literally nothing. He is a historical enigma. But before I knew this fact, my compulsion to look under every stone kicked in!

First of there was the problem of the name. In Williams' three volume history of the L&SWR he names Martin, frustratingly, Albino, rather than Albinus. Secondly the documents that I looked at, including the source above, only refer to him as simply as 'Mr Martin. So therefore I went looking for more information on him, and the only thing that came up was Wikipedia, which didn't say anything. Therefore frustrated by my lack of information I searched every combination of 'Martin' and 'London and south western' that I could in Google. Google is a sobering experience when having to trawl through all the tosh! How can an estate agent have a reference to the L&SWR on its website? Don't ask me, but there it is, extending my research! After 2, or was it 3 hours, and much pounding of the keyboard, I finally came up with a biography of an 'Albinus Martin' on archive.org, which had his obituary from the journal of the Institute of Civil Engineers. Huzzah, eureka!

Now the engine was running, I could act! Next I placed a notice in the South Western Circle newsletter for any information. I got a nice letter (and it is nice to recieve an actual written letter) from a Circle member detailing Martin's life before and after working for the L&SWR. Lovely as the letter was, it only embellished a little more that which was in the ICE's obituary. So I was still nowhere. I then went back to Google and searched the correct name...after surprisingly less tosh, I found something about some signals he invented, but nothing that would really help me. Then I used the 19th Century on-line newspaper and journal archives to see if there was anything. Again after a day of searching every combination of 'London and south western' and 'Albinus Martin,' no new information came to the fore. Therefore with no archive of letters, very little information and no new leads, I hit a dead end...I'm still here after wasting what must be at least two working days.

The problem, in 'looking for Albinus,' was that I spent so much time searching for information that I failed to realise that I had all the material I needed for my work from within the company files. Therefore if there is a lesson I should learn it is that I occasionally shouldn't get carried away with flights of fancy and letting my work be led by just my curiosity about a subject or personality.

Some months after, while out for a run, I was listening lecture about Richard Trevithick's demonstrations of the first steam train in 1808. In it the lecturer said that one of his sources of evidence was a book from the 1850s. In it one Albinus Martin gave a recollection of the event having been a witness. The lecturer then said, "now I can't find much information of Albinus Martin." 'Well,' I thought, 'you're not the only one,' and kept on running...