I was a Schoolboy, a Soldier, a Labourer. Recruitment in the Early Railway Industry - Part 2

In my last post I discussed research I have been doing on  professions that the earliest railway workers had before they joined the London and North Western Railway’s (L&NWR) Operating, Traffic and Coaching Department (to be hereon known as the Traffic Department) between 1837 and 1871. Previously, I looked at sixty-eight individuals (out of 400) who had been employed in the company’s Engineering Department before to coming to the Traffic Department. In this post I will start to focus on the remaining 332 men who, before coming to the L&NWR, were employed in jobs outside the company.

As stated, for ease of interpretation I have categorised the 400 workers into the following fourteen categories (Note, there is one slight modification from the table presented in the last post because an error was found.)

Firstly, only a very small proportion of the individuals, twenty-three out of the 400 (5.75%), had no prior employment before coming to the railway. This was reflected in their ages. The youngest of them were three boys of thirteen, two of which were appointed as Booking Clerks and another of which became an ‘assistant agent.’ The oldest individual in the sample was James Nicholson, the [Station] Agent at Bulkington, who was listed as being thirty-six.  Yet, because of his age and his position of responsibility it is highly implausible that he had done nothing before coming to the railway. Overall, apart from Nicholson and two other individuals, the rest were all under the age of eighteen.

However, more interesting conclusions can be made about changes in the L&NWR's recruitment processes. Only four of the individuals who had had no prior profession were recruited in the 1830s and 1840s (3.57% of the 121 individuals recruited in these years). Furthermore, only three of these men were engaged in the early 1850s (2.67% of 112 new employees). Thus, this leaves sixteen that were appointed between 1855 and 1860 (12.80% of 125 individuals). Clearly, in the railway's emergent years it was principally recruiting individuals who had experience of other industries. However, in the late-1850s did it start to recruit people straight out of school, and this is presumably when families’ decades-long associations with the railways began.

The positions that these individuals went into are also of interest. In this period only two went into the secondary labour market (with low weekly pay, low job security and few promotional prospects), becoming a policeman and pointsman. Indeed, the twenty remaining took up positions as agents, clerks and assistant agents (all clerical positions), and, thus, were in the primary labour market (with high job security, promotional prospects and good pay). Consequently, because only sixty-six of the individuals in the overall sample of 400 went into the primary labour market, the L&NWR’s Traffic Department evidently was recruiting a large number of school-leavers into clerical positions before 1860, possibly because of a skills shortage in the economy. But, importantly, this data also signals that by 1860 the distinction between the two labour markets, the jobs they encompassed and what sort of individuals went into them, were well-defined.

One of the most repeated stories about early railway managers was that their ranks were dominated by senior military men, as they were the only ones that had experience of administering large organisations. However, in four previous blogs (starting here) I have clearly showed the error of this assertion. Nevertheless, my interest in the transference of skills from the military to the early railways meant that I was on the look-out for soldiers and sailors when doing this study.

Of the 400 railway workers in my sample only twenty-eight (7.00%) had been in the military before being employed by the L&NWR. Six had been in the royal navy (two as Royal Marines), with twenty-two being ex-soldiers. All bar three of the individuals went into the secondary labour market. Indeed, it is no surprise that fourteen joined the railway police as presumably the discipline of military training made them suitable for this position. Additionally, eight others received manual positions where strength was required, three becoming porters and five taking up posts as pointsmen.

As for when the individuals were appointed, it seems that there was a consistent stream of soldiers and sailors moving from the military to the railway between 1837 and 1860. Indeed, of those employees who joined in the late-1830s, ex-military men made up 9.09% of these. This increased to 11.1% in the early-1840s, but decreased to 7.14% in the early 1850s. However, thereafter the proportion rose again to 9.80% in 1860. In the early-1840s there was seemingly an anomalous result as only 1.59% of the sixty-three new railway workers appointed in the period had been in the army or navy. The reason for this anomaly is unknown.

The profession that most of those in the sample were engaged in before coming to the Traffic Department was that of ‘labourer’ (apart from those who had worked in the Engineering Department). Anyone who has used the census’ will testify how ambiguous this job description is. Indeed, only in six cases out of the sixty-two ex-labourers was more information available (one carter, one collier, two quarraymen and two warehousemen). Unsurprisingly, all the ex-labourers went into the secondary labour market and the positions that they were appointed to in the greatest numbers were as porters (17), pointsmen (19) and policemen (8). Additionally, they also obtained positions as foremen, gatemen, greaser and shaklers (whatever they were) or signalmen. Therefore, the majority of ex-labourers went from strenuous positions to strenuous positions. However, it is quite possible that the railways paid better than their previous employers.

Of more interest is that the proportion of new Traffic Department staff that had been labourers declined over the period. Between 1837 and 1839 they constituted 27.2% of all those appointed. Yet, in the early-1840s this dropped to 18.5%, in the late-1840s the proportion was 15.8%, in the early 1850s it rose slightly to 16.1%, but declined again in the late-1850s to 14.4%. Lastly, in 1860 they constituted only 9.8% of all new staff.

This suggests that changes occurred in the national economy, as well as within the railway companies. Firstly, it would appear that the simple description of ‘labourer’ was becoming less common as time progressed, possibly as new trades were started, new inventions were created and the economy diversified in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Furthermore, and as will be shown in the next post, the reducing number of ex-labourers, who would have had only poor education at best, suggests that the L&NWR was increasing looking to recruit into secondary labour market men with better schooling or even better backgrounds. Only an investigation of the company's files have the potential to prove this.

Overall, this post has revealed that between 1837 and 1860 the L&NWR’s Traffic Department refined who it wished to recruit into its ranks. In the 1830s the new company was recruiting a far higher proportion of poorly educated individuals whose experiences were limited to labouring work. Indeed, school leavers did not feature highly.  Yet, by 1860 most positions that new railway workers were appointed to were highly dependent on their prior experiences and education, as well as being defined by the strict parameters of the company’s primary and secondary labour markets. Thus, it is clear that between 1837 and 1860 the norms of railway employment of the later nineteenth century were developed. In the last post of this series this will be demonstrated further.

Early Railway Administrators...The Good, the Bad and the Shiny

Early railways were run by people who nothing about them and were learning the ropes. Railway managers and directors faced a range of challenges that had never been taken on before...by anyone. There was no idea what form of signalling to adopt, who was the best man to promote into a position, or even what the best form of coke to burn was (and no I'm not talking diet or regular). Therefore without established ideas about how to manage large and complex organisations, and with few blueprints showing how to move Ethel the sheep or even Mrs Ethel Flaptyback, from point A to B, the railways employed a motley crew of individuals from many employment backgrounds. It is, therefore, not surprising that the concept of a 'railway-worker' cannot really be considered to have been firmly established until, at least the mid-1850s. In this Blog entry I will look at some of the early administrators of British railway companies and show that there were some interesting individuals that took positions as either 'managers' or 'superintendents.'

So lets start at the bottom. The best place to start if you ask me, just ask any builder. Firstly we have to ask a question, who was the early nineteenth century clerk? Anderson argued in the 1970s that clerks in this period were 'superior to most workers.'¹ Attwell agreed, saying that because of their skills in 'literacy, arithmetic up to vulgar and decimal fractions,' they 'stood above the manual worker,'² even if their skills by modern standards were pretty poor. Railway managers and directors therefore looked to this group to be some of the first railway administrators.

If you had gone to your local station in 1845 it would not be run by a station master. It would be managed by the 'Station Clerk.' London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) rule books throughout the 1840s consistently refer to the administrators of stations by this title. By the early 1850s the company had, however, phased the title out and replaced it with 'station agent.' This said, the move does not seem to have been universal. A search of nineteenth century newspapers shows that it may have still around as late as the 1860s. Generally, clerks were chosen to manage stations simply because there was no one else available in the labour market. However in some sense, while the clerks were of good standing, their clerical status held them back, in that they did not have the social status to be appointed as managers. Overall,what the title represents is the fact that the concept of to directors they were simply clerks, with some responsibilities, sited at stations. They were filling clerical roles akin to those in other industries that weren't unique to the railways.

Next I will look upwards at management. I tend to think that directors split their organisations along a distinct fault line. There were those 'bright sparks' who were engineers, that managed the technical parts of the organisation, such as the building of the lines and the running of trains. On the other hand there were the hotch-potch of individuals that ran companies' traffic departments, that did not have any technical experience or training, but that brought experience from other industries.

Firstly, I will look at the engineers who were involved in the management of early railways. On the London and South Western Railway (and what a surprise I am focussing on it again) the Way and Works Department was managed by two men between 1836 and 1850. These were Albinus, 'I'm bloody difficult to find information on,' Martin, and Joseph, 'I'm in history I'm like a supernova,' Locke (shown). Both men had their separate remits. Locke managed the line while under construction and Martin managed engineering work after everything was completed. Locke also managed the Locomotive department. He initially, in 1838, devolved control of the department to Joseph Woods, who was one of his employees. Woods was succeeded in 1841 by John Viret Gooch, also an employee of Locke. Gooch's assistant and successor in 1850, was William Beattie, who was, surprisingly, also an employee of Locke (yes, that is sarcasm – can you smell patronage?). What these appointments show is that engineers naturally had charge of engineering functions within railway companies. What, however, is different from the railway industry later on and is important to note, is that engineers were initially the most important managers within a company. This was because the building and operation of a railway line were the first concerns of the directors and this meant engineers had were amongst the company's first employees to be appointed.

Indeed, there is evidence that engineers status' were so high that some were considered better as superintendents of railway companies overall, being given charge of the whole of a company's operations. Indeed in 1845 Martin, who already had the position of Superintendent of the Line on the L&SWR, became General Superintendent taking control of the 'whole concern'. His tenure was short-lived, lasting until 1850 when he left. Further to this, in Bonavia's history of railway organisation from 1971 he states that in G.P. Neele's 1904 book, Railway Reminiscences, listed of the railway industry's top managers in September 1847. Engineers featured in the list were I.K. Brunel (what a surprise) and John Hawkshaw (who?).³ Overall I think that early railway company directors may have perceived that engineers' higher education automatically provided with them with the brain-power to manage a whole railway.

But then again it wasn't engineers who took up most of the high-ranking posts. In the 1830s and 40s, when the majority of businesses were small family firms, directors who had no blueprint of railway organisation would naturally look to employ individuals who had come from the only organisations that routinely administered vast numbers of resources and employees. That said, if you had been press-ganged, can you really be called an employee? Yes, I'm of course talking about the armed forces. Thus, a lot of Traffic and General Managers in the early railway industry had, at some point, worn uniform. Terry Gourvish studied Captain Mark Huish who was general manager of the L&NWR between 1846 and 1858 and who had served in India.⁴ Bonavia also noted Captain Eborall of the London and Birmingham Railway, Captain Laws and Binstead of Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and Captian Coddington of the Caledonian Railway.⁵ Military men were everywhere, filling the administrative ranks of railway companies. This said, there has been no study on how many were actually employed. Their influence is, however, plain to see. Why else would administrators, industry-wide and at all levels of company hierarchies, start to be called 'officers'? Why else would companies adopt draconian, military style rules and regulations? Military men clearly transferred many on the concepts that they learned in the forces to the railways.

Lastly, there were other managers, that Bonavia ignored, that came from 'like' industries such as stagecoaches or canals. I tend to think that they possibly made up a considerable portion of railways' early administrative staff, and they were potentially more numerous than military men. I suppose we know less about them as they were not very glamorous. After all, soldiers have swords, shiny bits and MASSIVE egos (well sometimes). One example of ex-manager from a 'like' industry working on an early British railway springs to mind. Let us go back to the South Western from which I will tell you a tale.

In 1852 Cornelius Stovin, the L&SWR's Traffic Manager, absconded to Canada with quite a bit of cash. I have always felt that the directors of the L&SWR must have been a little dim when appointing him. From a bit of detective work I think I have established Stovin's employment history which reveals that before he joined the L&SWR he had a shady past. On the 1851 census Stovin is listed as having been born in Birmingham. Stovin was appointed to the post of Traffic Manager on the 23^rd February 1839 accepting the post on the 28^th . Interestingly, his acceptance reached the company only days after a Cornelius Stovin, a stagecoach proprietor, was declared bankrupt in Birmingham. Given the unusual nature of the name and the geographical link, it is not unreasonable to presume this was the same person. Given that he got the job I also think it is not unreasonable to presume the L&SWR directors were a bit dim and should have done their homework. While this is an interesting tale, it shows that individuals who had worked in similar industries, that transported goods and people, did work in the early railway industry. This said, we know even less about them than the military men and it is again an area of research that needs further work.

Who was an early railway manager is something that I am keen to research further in my career. From this brief survey of the available evidence it is clear that directors employed individuals as managers who had worked in a mixed-bag of industries and came from many walks of life. No one knew how to manage a railway in the early days and this policy was the only option open to directors because there were no 'career railwaymen' in the labour market. It would take at least until the 1860 for the railway professional, who would spend their entire career in the railway industry, to really become established. But that is a topic for another post...

1Anderson, Geoffrey, Victorian Clerks, (Manchester, 1976), p.129

2Attwell, Paul, 'The Clerk Deskilled: A Study in False Nostalgia,' Journal of Historical Sociology (1989) Vol.2 No.4 pp.370

3Bonavia, Michael R., The Organisation of British Railways, (Shepperton, 1971) p.13

4Gourvish, T.R., Mark Huish and the London & North Western Railway: A Study of Management, (Leicester, 1972)

5Bonavia, Michael R., The Organisation of British Railways, (Shepperton, 1971) p.13