Who were Frederick Fenney, Percy Masterman and George Way? Do the communities in which they lived and worked remember them, over 100 years after they left a fleeting impression in the documentary record?
Until recently, the answer to the latter question was probably ‘no’. However, thanks to a recent theatrical production, their names and stories were spoken again. It was a different means of telling their tales, but it brought them to light and put them back in their area.
One of the things the Railway Work, Life & Death project is keen to do is to reconnect people and place. The records we’re making available, including the free project database of accidents to railway staff before 1939, allow us to see who was working on the railways, what they were doing and where. We can then connect these railway-specific records and moments in time with the wider lives of the people involved, including their families and the communities to which they belonged. All of this builds up a big picture of how the railway and railway people, lived, worked and fitted into the world.
Railway 200 and Community Rail Partnerships
As a project, we’re only one part of the equation. We can focus on what the accident records at the heart of our project tell us, and the railway context we’ve been researching. For a select few of the cases, we can use documentary sources to reveal as much as possible about the people and the mark they left in the bureaucratic record. But to really put the people in the Railway Work, Life & Death database in context takes more than this.
We need family and community involvement to do the people justice. Family can share impressions of the individual as a person, giving very different and important insights. Community groups can provide local insight and help remember the individual in the places they once lived and worked. They can benefit via an improved understanding of the history of their area and connection with their local spaces. These are laudable objectives – but how to realise them?
One route to closer community working is via Community Rail Partnerships (CRPs). These are community-based organisations, working along railway routes to connect the communities on their line with the railway. They put on events and support community-based work, including around heritage. They work with the current industry, local authorities and other groups. Given 2025 is ‘Railway 200’, marking 200 years since the Stockton and Darlington Railway, there is enormous potential for communities to connect – or re-connect – to their local railway places and spaces.
Here the Railway Work, Life & Death project can support the wider aims of Railway 200 and CRPs. We provide access to and insight about past railway people across Britain and Ireland. What’s brilliant is when those past railway workers can reach new audiences, today.
Sharing railway history
Not everyone is thrilled by the idea of doing research. Nor do they have the inclination, time, access or ability to do research – or even to read about research findings. And not everyone will see those findings, no matter how widely we try to cast the net. Is it possible, then, to take railway history ‘off the page’ and back into the communities where it all started?
Of course! But that can be time-consuming and difficult to resource. Listening to a talk might make it available to some people – but again, not everyone likes that. So what about other methods?
Recently, the Railway Work, Life & Death project contributed to a performance that connected railway history with community present. ‘Stories from the Station’ was developed and put on by the ‘Unexpected Places’ theatre company in Southampton. Part of the Railway 200 initiative, their performance incorporated voices from the community in the suburb of Bitterne, about the area and about the railway and station. As part of the open call for stories, we submitted some details about people in the Southampton area found in the project database.
Three of those people were included in the performances, at the Bitterne station open day on 29 March 2025 – Frederick Fenney, Percy Masterman and George Way. They weren’t exceptional people, or cases, and almost certainly no-one who saw the performances would otherwise have heard of them. That makes it all the more important these three people were incorporated into the performance.
Performing railway history and community
The performance featured three actors – Ayla, Charlotte and David – and Merlin the dog. Hearing local voices talking about their area and their connection with the railway was fascinating. But particularly catching for us was the inclusion of the history. It was a different means of making the past accessible. The performance put Bitterne and its railway in the context of the national picture. For some people this would have been new, giving them a way into a topic previously unknown. It also remembered the local, not least via the people we’d helped with.
Courtesy National Library of Scotland Maps.
The three performances during the day were excellent, and were appreciated by the audiences. It was a thought-provoking way of sharing stories and voices. There was a lovely atmosphere, and it was clear that this community-based initiative, well supported by Hampshire Community Rail Partnership, had an impact. It was a great way of bringing history into the present. Rosanna Sloan, Unexpected Places’ Artistic Director, the cast and all involved (including – especially! – community contributors from Bitterne) deserve full credit.
The railway accidents – Frederick Fenney
One of the advantages of the Railway Work, Life & Death database is that it doesn’t ‘just’ include railway staff. It also includes people who had reason to be working on or around the railway – like Frederick Fenney. He was a labourer employed by Hoddom and Beavis coal merchants. On 27 February 1900, with a colleague he was unloading coal from a wagon at Southampton Town Quay, on the London and South Western Railway (LSWR). They were stood on the side door, which was propped up with a bar. When some wagons were shunted into their wagon, it was moved forward, the bar dislodged, and the men through to the ground. Fenney, 46, had his right arm injured and was off work for 3 days.
Courtesy Britain from Above.
The shunter responsible for the move didn’t give a warning and admitted he was at fault. The state accident investigation also noted that there was ‘considerable excuse’ for the lack of warning. The lines were on such a sharp curve that it was impossible to give a warning and give signals to the driver. Shunters were supposed to work in pairs, but LSWR Inspector William Fryer was censured for allowing them to work alone and ‘to drift into a most irregular and dangerous method of working’. Railway Inspector JH Hornby recommended that the LSWR enforce the rules about giving warnings when a shunt was about to take place (1900 Quarter 1, Appendix B).
Courtesy National Library of Scotland.
Frederick Fenney the person has proved rather more difficult to pin down. Perhaps because his injury was so slight, the incident itself – beyond the Railway Inspectorate report – hasn’t left any trace. He’s also elusive in civil registration documents. It was a relatively limited search, admittedly, but nothing turned up that we were confident linking to him. So – other than this brief moment in the record – we have little more to offer on Frederick Fenney at this point.
The railway accidents – Percy Masterman
On the other hand, Percy Masterman left a stronger impression in the documentary record – particularly for a 17-year old. No doubt this was due to the fact that this accident was fatal, and he was relatively more identifiable via his family connections. On the 1901 Census, Percy was living with his family on Bridge Road, Peartree Green – just down the road from Bitterne.
The Railway Inspectorate report, produced by Inspector JPS Main, gave a fair amount of detail about the accident. Overnight on 7 February 1902 Percy – given in the report as Maurice P Masterman – had been cleaning carriages of three trains at the LSWR’s Southampton Dock station. At work’s end, at 05.45, he was told to call some men for duty. He was found a few minutes later, crushed between carriage buffers; death was instant.
Courtesy National Library of Scotland Maps.
It was known that about the same time an engine was coupled to one of the sets of carriages. Main concluded ‘there can be no doubt that Masterman was killed when attempting to pass between the buffers […] just as the carriages were closed up’. The presumption was that he was crossing to get to a train at another platform, which he would ride to the siding near where he had to call one of the men.
Main saw ‘no need for Masterman to take such a course’. He had been warned about passing between vehicles like this, so Main was confident in asserting Percy’s death was ‘solely attributable to the deceased man’s own want of caution.’ Nevertheless, he also noted that there were no safety instructions for staff cleaning carriages at this location. As a result, ‘for the safety of the men so employed I suggest the advisability of issuing regulations’ about the matter. Main also had it that the LSWR were willing to do this ‘at once’ (1902 Quarter 1, Appendix B).
Percy Masterman’s inquest and wider life
Given Percy’s age and that he had been killed, there was an inquest and some press coverage of the ‘shocking accident’ (Hampshire Advertiser, 8 February 1902). Interestingly whilst most of the detail matched the official investigation, Percy’s role was given in all reports as a porter. Such differences aren’t uncommon. The inquest looked at matters around lighting at the spot concerned – noted as good – before determining Percy’s death to be accidental. The inquest jury was offered the chance to add a rider, which would be communicated to the Railway Inspectorate. They noted that ‘when an engine was being coupled to a train, care should be taken that all was clear behind’, but didn’t want that passed on the Inspectorate (Southampton Observer and Hampshire News, 15 February 1902).
What impact Percy’s death had upon his immediate workmates or family – including his 12-year old sister, Grace – we don’t know. This kind of detail all too often evades the documentary record. Being able to reconnect the community in Bitterne with someone who once lived so close by is a small step in terms of bringing the railway past into the present, but an important one.
The railway accidents – George Way
The final person featured in the ‘Stories from the Station’ performance was George Way. His life left even more of a footprint in the documentary record – including some of what happened to his family after his death in 1903.
George was a carpenter, employed by John Aird and Company, the contractors responsible for extending Southampton Docks. Again, we have someone not directly employed by a railway company, but who had reason to be on or about the railway. George is one of many such hundreds of people in the Railway Work, Life & Death project database. This is another demonstration of the breadth of our coverage, far beyond the apparently niche area of railway staff accidents. As with every case, when you look at the detail it taps into much bigger topics.
Courtesy Britain from Above.
On 24 April 1903 George left the dock extension work to get his dinner (lunch for some of us!). He returned at about 2pm, using one of the cartways that passed over a siding near Empress Dock. Unfortunately, he failed to spot six wagons being moved; they knocked him down, running him over and killing him. He was 51.
The Railway Inspectorate investigation, conducted by Amos Ford, showed that the wagons had (as was common practice) been uncoupled from the engine and set moving. A shunter would follow the wagons to apply the brakes at the relevant moment – itself a dangerous and skilled activity. The cartway that George Way had used was parallel to the siding, but neither of the shunters involved saw George until the wagons were too close.
Ford concluded that George ‘did not exercise the care he might have done’. At the same time, foreman shunter J Watts was censured. Had he ‘taken the precaution to see that the crossing was clear, the mishap probably would have been avoided.’ The LSWR, the railway operator for the lines, also came in for criticism, on the level of working practices. Ford noted that there were no formal instructions about safe working of traffic on the dock lines: ‘everything seems to be left to the discretion of the person in charge of the engine, which is certainly far from being satisfactory.’
Ford had been told that new rules had been drafted, including one which limited the speed at which movements could be made to 4mph. A shunter was also to walk in front on any such movements, to warn people/ watch out. Ford recommended that these rules be brought into operation as soon as possible (1903 Quarter 2, Appendix C).
The inquest
As George Way had been killed in uncertain circumstances, there was an inquest to determine the facts. It was reported in detail in the local press, and provides helpful detail. The Southern Echo noted that George’s wife, Harriet, identified the body. This was surely a terrible experience in any situation, but particularly so given the traumatic nature of George’s injuries. In response to questioning, she noted he was ‘quite sober when he left home’ after his lunch (Southern Echo, 25 April 1903). She was also asked if George was deaf or blind – he was neither.
We know more from the Hampshire Advertiser of 2 May 1903. The inquest jury visited the site of the accident, and heard testimony from witnesses. One, painter Thomas Whittam, heard the shouting immediately after the accident. He ‘went to see if he knew the deceased, and not knowing him, went on to his work.’ Rubber-necking is clearly nothing new!
Courtesy National Library of Scotland Maps.
Other testimony noted that the driver had sounded the engine’s whistle before the shunt, and shouted warnings were given. The area was, according to the LSWR’s representative, Mr C Lamport, ‘one of the most open spaces in the Docks, and about six yards away was one of the large notices cautioning people to beware of the trains.’ This is illustrative of the ‘look after yourself’ attitude so prevalent of the time, even in situations where the dangers weren’t immediately obvious or consistent. Lamport was fairly consistently critical of George’s ‘ordinary care’ – or lack of, no doubt attempting to exonerate the Company from criticism.
The Coroner came out with some fascinating questions. He asked if the number of flagman had been reduced in the docks. (A flagman was someone who would walk in front of moving trains to warn of their approach.) He was clearly getting at whether the LSWR was trying to save money at the cost of public safety. The foreman shunter, James Watts, answered diplomatically: ‘Not where I am working.’
Riding on wagons – safety for whom?
The Coroner also suggested that a shunter might have been riding on the moving wagons, to keep watch and warn people. This was a dangerous activity, which we see in the Railway Work, Life & Death project database as a frequent cause of accidents to staff. Foreman shunter Watts noted that this practice was against the rules to ride on wagon buffers in the manner suggested.
The Coroner kept going with the idea, though – ‘there is nothing to prevent a board being placed on the buffers so that a man could stand there to warn people.’ Not really a practical suggestion, as there’s still the liability to fall from the wagon if there is any jerk. If that happened, the shunter or flagman would then likely end up under the wagon. So: whose safety would be prioritised – the public, or the workers?
The LSWR’s representative, Lamport, made some responses to this issue which were revealing. He noted that ‘it would be against all regulations for a man to ride on the truck, and it would be a very dangerous practice.’ So far, so good. However, he went on to say ‘If men did it they did it at their own risk.’ This rather suggests that some workers did do this – and the Company was aware of it.
Eventually the jury returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’. They also drew the LSWR’s attention to the need, as they saw it, of having a worker precede wagons being shunted.
George Way’s family
George Way was born in Dorset in 1854. By 1881 he was living in Southampton, and married to Harriet (who had been born in Devon in 1858. By 1901, they had two daughters and two sons still living with them, and an elder daughter had left home. Also living with the family in York Road in 1901 were two lodgers – including seaman trimmer Andrew Olson, 24, who will become more significant shortly.
After George’s death, Harriet faced a familiar challenge for widows: what to do and how to support her family? We don’t know the answers to some parts of the family’s story – but we have some detail. In the final quarter of 1903 – under 9 months after George’s death – Harriet married Andrew Olson. Was this new love, found in loss? Or a pragmatic response to a difficult situation?
On the 1911 Census, Harriet and Andrew are living together in Southampton – but without any of George and Harriet’s children. The two youngest, George and Ernest, would have been 13 and 10 by this point. So what happened to them? Might they have been living with either their father or their mother’s family? We haven’t been able to find them in our (admittedly imperfect!) searching, but we’d love to know what happened to them.
Harriet and Andrew were together in Southampton in 1921. Harriet died in 1936. Andrew was still alive in 1939, working as a dock labourer in Southampton.
Creative responses to accidents
Clearly these life stories are difficult to tell, certainly in this level of detail, given the complexity and messiness of life in general, and some of the technical aspects involved. Within the wider context of the ‘Stories from the Station’ performances there wasn’t time or space to go into everything. The important thing was it was an excellent means of bringing history – and those affected by work on and around railways – to a different audience. The performances were engaging, and made people think.
Whilst the performances were ephemeral, Unexpected Places will be putting together a book, capturing the contents. This will be a one-off, living at Bitterne station, in its community hub. The stories of Frederick Fenney, Percy Masterman and George Way will be included.
Whilst it’s unusual that the people and stories from the Railway Work, Life & Death project are featured in creative ways, ‘Stories from the Station’ wasn’t the first time it’s happened. Stephen Foster wrote a short story, taking inspiration from a single case in the project database, which he discussed here. We’re currently working with Didcot Railway Centre to develop an alternative means of presenting the stories of workers and their accidents at Didcot, via a walking tour of the site.
More generally, artistic approaches to the railway past are well established. To give just one example, there’s a brilliant new initiative in Hastings, in the Platform Panel Project. It includes an installation which remembers the navvies who built the railway in the area.
We’d absolutely encourage more of these emotional, experiential and creative responses to railway history. In particular we’re keen to see this applied to the accidents and people the Railway Work, Life & Death project is uncovering and sharing. Done carefully – given these accidents affected real people – creative approaches can provide important new ways of seeing and understanding our railway pasts. The project database is freely available for you to explore and to make use of in your understanding and interpretation of the past, so do please use it!