James Welland, Rose Ayling-Ellis & ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’

It’s not often there’s the chance to tell the story of an ordinary railway worker’s accident on a national platform. James Welland’s 1898 injury offered that opportunity – and we were glad to be involved, via Railway Work, Life & Death project co-lead at the University of Portsmouth, Mike Esbester. James Welland was the Great Great Grandfather of actress Rose Ayling-Ellis, featured in this week’s episode of the BBC TV series ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’

 

The family story

James Welland was found on Rose Ayling-Ellis’ paternal line. In some ways it’s a familiar story, of an ancestor reasonably distant in the past. Precise details become lost in time, but some of the essence of the story remains. Rose and her family knew that James wore a glove on one hand, believed to be covering an artificial hand. They thought he’d been involved in a railway accident, and that he’d received compensation which helped his post-accident life. However, they didn’t have any concrete information. Thankfully it was possible to find out more about what happened, and to share that with Rose.

 

James Welland & his railway career

James was born in Culmstock, Devon, in 1881. He was the youngest of six children born to William and Ellen Welland. William was an agricultural labourer, and spent his working life in a variety of agricultural roles. For the area this would have been understandable – it was rural. Perhaps this was one of the reasons James came to work on the Great Western Railway (GWR) – the railways offered a different career route, with potentially better options for advancement or a life beyond the immediate area.

Usually the railways were exemplary record-keepers – the system depended upon it. There isn’t a staff record for James in the archives. That’s not uncommon, given the companies were working concerns and kept records for as long as they were relevant; plus only a fraction of records made it into preservation. However, in James’ case, there might be another reason why a railway staff record can’t be found. Given he was only employed by the GWR for a matter of days, it’s entirely possible that a record wasn’t generated.

 

Without a staff record, what we know about James’ time with the GWR comes from the newspaper accounts of his accident and its aftermath. He joined the railway at Tiverton Junction in Devon – about five miles from Culmstock, his birthplace. James started work in early May 1899, age 19; he might well have been living in the village of Willand, close to Tiverton Junction. He was employed as a supernumerary porter. As such he was complementing the permanent staff; he could have been called upon to do all sorts, beyond simply moving luggage and goods on the platforms.

 

James’ accident

On 10 May 1899, James was at work at Tiverton Junction, at the northern end of the station. He was replacing the signal lamps which had been burning during the night to keep the signals visible to train crews. At around 7.20am, James was working on a small ‘dummy’ signal, mounted at ground-level, between the two railway lines at the station. A train was due to leave on the ‘up’ line, towards Bristol. James stepped back from the signal – and into the path of a goods train from London, heading to Exeter.

 

Presumably James was making sure he was not hit by the train he was aware of – the north-bound service about to leave the station. However, in getting clear of that, he put himself in the way of the south-bound goods train. It was noted as being slow-moving, as it drew into the station. The Western Times provided a brief account: ‘Welland was caught in the back by the footplate of the engine and knocked down. He put out his hands instinctively, and one of them (the left) when on the metals [lines] with the result that the hand was completely crushed.’ In addition, the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette added shock, bruising to his right hand and dislocated fingers, and a cut to his head, to the tally of injuries.

 

Why didn’t James hear the train approaching? The goods train driver saw the danger James was in and sounded his whistle – to no avail. Steam engines can be remarkably silent, especially if ‘coasting’; they’re designed to minimise friction. With the confusion and noise of the departing train, and any possible distortion from the environment (e.g. wind blowing), it might not have been obvious there was another train coming.

 

No form of supervision was mentioned. Having been shown the work on an earlier day, it’s likely that James was left to get on with it alone on subsequent occasions – regardless of his age and relative lack of experience in a complicated and dangerous environment.

 

The immediate aftermath

James was fortunate not to have been killed. He might easily have been knocked entirely under the wheels of the goods engine – tragically something that’s seen all too frequently in the Railway Work, Life & Death project database. Whether death or injury, there was a procedure to follow – the right people needed to know.

In the first instance the station master, Mr Hunt, was told; no doubt first aid would also have been given at the spot. Railway staff were well-trained in first aid. This was sadly necessary, given how dangerous railway work was, and something seen in this blog post. There was a limit to what could be done at the scene, however. Given the severity of James’ injury, he needed more extensive and more professional treatment.

Mr Hunt ‘immediately sent the sufferer by special train to Tiverton.’ This was the location of the nearest hospital provision. We’ve seen special trains being put on to convey the injured to hospital in other cases, for example in Speyside in 1907. As Tiverton Junction had an engine shed, it would have been possible to find an engine to do this – presumably other traffic was stopped on the branch line to Tiverton to allow for it. At Tiverton Infirmary ‘it was found necessary to amputate the hand just above the wrist.’ This would certainly tally with Rose’s family recollections of the gloved hand.

 

James’ prosthesis

Given the family photograph and the memories of the gloved hand, it’s likely that James had a prosthesis. The larger railway companies were injuring staff at sufficient rate to warrant producing artificial body parts in-house – discussed in this blog post. The GWR was making prostheses at its Swindon works by the 1890s, and possibly earlier. So did the Company provide James with a prosthetic hand?

 

Unfortunately it’s impossible to know. There isn’t any record to suggest the GWR did; but it might have done. The railway companies do often seem to have felt some sense of moral responsibility to provide for injured staff. This could stretch years after the disabling accident, with former employees returning to their company for replacement prostheses as the original wore out. However, as James had only been employed, on a casual basis, for a few days, might the GWR have felt less obligation to James? Unless records have survived and are yet to emerge, we may never know who provided James’ prosthetic hand.

 

The 1897 Workmen’s Compensation Act

Whilst the Tiverton Junction station master would have been told immediately after the accident happened, there were other places the information would have been required. Accident report forms would have been completed, including witness statements, and sent to the accident office at Paddington. This was particularly pressing after the 1897 Workmen’s Compensation Act had come into force in 1898. Railway companies like the GWR needed to know who had been hurt and therefore who might be entitled to compensation.

Before the 1897 Act railway workers were unlikely to receive compensation following an accident. Had James had his accident a year earlier, he would probably have received nothing. The Act changed that, and made compensation virtually automatic, for railway workers and in a number of other industries – something discussed in this blog post.

A fatality could see up to £300 being provided by the employing company to dependents. Injuries warranted a payment of 50% of the employee’s regular wages – though it was payable only after two weeks’ off work. (How did the worker and their family cope during that two-week lag? The lived experience of injured workers and their families is unrecorded.)

After six months it was possible for the employer to provide a lump sum settlement, ending the regular payments. Sometimes they did this, but other times it took longer – on occasion, it was many years before a lump sum settlement was reached. We know from our trade union dataset, for example, that London and North Western Railway goods porter M Donhoe was injured in Dublin in 1901, receiving weekly compensation until a final settlement was reached in 1904.

 

James’ bid for compensation

However, as the 1897 Act was still so new at the time of James’ accident, the precise mechanics of its operation were being worked out – in practice and at law. Over the years following his accident, James tested the limits of the Act in a bid to secure what he clearly felt was a just settlement.

He was entitled to 50% of his wages – we know from the subsequent court case that his regular wage would have been 15 shillings per week (about £100). The GWR would have paid him 7/6 until he was either back at work or a final settlement agreed. James wanted the GWR to pay half wages for the rest of his life, or a lump sum of £250 (equivalent to around £33,000 today). The GWR disagreed.

Perhaps surprisingly for a rural 19-year old, James took the case further. He managed to engage a barrister to represent him. Quite how this came about isn’t clear. How would James have known about the Workmen’s Compensation Act, or that it might be possible to fight for more than he was offered? Did the barrister, Mr A Loosemore, seek James out, as an opportunity to make case law – and perhaps a name for himself, as well as the payment for services?

The case was brought on the basis that James would be partially disabled for life. The county court judge, according to the report in the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette for 24 August 1899, dismissed the case. Judge Beresford felt ‘the Company had behaved very fairly in the matter’. Certainly it had followed the letter of the 1897 Act. James took the case to the Court of Appeal in 1900 – not an inconsiderable step. Ultimately it seems he lost – though the law and decisions behind it were hard to follow. (‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ consulted with a specialist lawyer about this, and they couldn’t follow it!) This looks likely to have left James out of pocket financially, as he probably would have had to bear the court and legal costs. We also don’t know if James did receive some final financial settlement from the GWR – so we don’t know if the Ayling-Ellis family story was based in fact.

 

James’ life after the accident

This was a particularly trying time for the Welland family. Not only had James had his accident, but his father had recently died. As the Western Times noted ‘Sympathy is felt with Welland in the neighbourhood, and also with his mother, who recently lost her husband.’ There no doubt would have been worries about income.

We know from the 1901 Census that James was living at home in Willand, with his mother and eldest sister, Elizabeth. James was given as an insurance agent. Presumably he was selling insurance policies and collecting premiums in the area. Lodging in the house were six railway workers – four porters, a guard and a driver. Whilst a source of income, what must this have been like for James? Some of them may have been former colleagues; even though he was no longer associated with the GWR, was he reminded of his brief railway career – and accident – by their presence?

On the 1911 Census, James was married, to Ada Annie – they were married in 1904. They had five children by 1911, and were living in Exeter. James was working as a fish and fruit salesman. The family story had it that James used his compensation money to set himself up in this trade. However, by 1920 things had gone a bit wrong. James was faced with bankruptcy, and found himself in court in Exeter.

According to the Western Morning News report on 18 June 1920 James and Ada had 12 children under 16, only one of whom was working. He owed £92 (around £4,400), with living expenses of £4.10 per week. James also admitted to obtaining a £20 loan on false pretences.

On the 1921 Census, James appears with Ada and eight children. They’re still living in Exeter, with James working as a porter. This wasn’t with a railway company, however, but in the more general sense of moving goods around (for example, at a market). Interestingly James and Ada’s oldest child, William, appears as a London and South Western Railway (LSWR) oiler. Did William know of his father’s short railway career? Did James discourage his son from the railway? What did he think of William’s choice? William was certainly on the LSWR in 1925, when he joined the National Union of Railwaymen. Beyond that we don’t know how long he remained on the railway.

 

James Welland’s accident in context

James’ accident was 1 of 16,166 UK railway worker casualties in 1899. Of those, 584 were fatalities. The GWR would have undertaken some form of investigation into the accident at this time. The state Railway Inspectorate would also have investigated accidents. However they were only able to investigate 3% of all cases, as there were just too many for the inspectors to cover them all. Sadly for the accidents before 1900, the Railway Inspectorate reports don’t seem to have been published. So, even if James’ accident was investigated by the state, no records remain.

We also know that in 1899 the GWR paid out £20,772 in compensation to workers or their dependents, under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. That would be around £2.6million at today’s prices – a quite incredible amount for an organisation to be paying out. Compensation payments only went up, too, as the 1897 Act led to more and more pay outs as the Act became established.

 

Sadly James’ accident wasn’t the only one at Tiverton Junction. Within the Railway Work, Life & Death project’s database at the moment there are two accidents listed at this location. Many other accidents would have taken place there – some of which may come into the database in future updates planned for next year. For now, it’s worth mentioning a case with tragic parallels to James’ accident, separated by 30 years.

On 28 March 1929, casual supernumerary porter RG Dunn was working with a colleague – to change lamps on ground signals close to the main line. He was seen standing on the ends of the sleepers (the wooden ties that sit underneath the rails) as a fast train approached. His workmate shouted a warning but Dunn didn’t hear; he was hit and killed. The investigation blamed Dunn’s ‘singular lack of care’, noting that he might have been distracted by another train moving at the time.

 

Telling James’ story

As a project, we’ve previously worked with families on their ancestors’ railway accident stories. Usually this has been done remotely, via email, with families writing blog posts. We’re always keen to do this (and there’s more on how you can do this here).

Working with the production company and in person with Rose was a different experience. Seeing her reaction when she learned new details of her ancestor’s life and the context in which he lived and worked was special. Being able to do this on location at STEAM museum in Swindon was brilliant. We could point to and show Rose and the team the kinds of things that James would worked with. And of course, we’re grateful to Rose and her family, for sharing James’ story and their family knowledge.

Regardless of the mode of collaboration, what is common is the sense of exchange. Most of the details we can access are formal records, telling a formal story. Working with the descendants of those involved gives a more personal sense of the individuals. That’s something that can’t come from anywhere else, but is so important in understanding the workers as people. It’s also vital to seeing how these people aren’t forgotten, but are actively remembered and known to this today. And we can help by bringing those people and their lives and stories to an audience beyond the immediate family, ensuring that very ordinary railway workers in the past are made more visible.