{"id":3458,"date":"2025-07-15T16:12:51","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T15:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=3458"},"modified":"2025-07-15T16:18:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T15:18:20","slug":"researching-the-life-stories-of-our-local-railway-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=3458","title":{"rendered":"Researching the life stories of our local railway workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>In a project sponsored by the university&#8217;s Heritage Hub, Dr Mike Esbester has been working collaboratively with members of the Havant Local History Group on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk\/portsmouth-area-railway-pasts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk\/portsmouth-area-railway-pasts\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752674675651000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0CQtDyUgXhmLlxx3Be_JRX\">Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts<\/a> project. This researches the life stories of ten local railway workers from the 1870s to 1939 and relates to the wider <a href=\"https:\/\/www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk\/\">Railway Work, Life &amp; Death project<\/a> database of accidents to railway workers, so this coproductive project has been about taking the accident or mention in the RWLD database as a starting point and going beyond it.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-en-masse-crop-scaled.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"3460\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?attachment_id=3460\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-en-masse-crop-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1449\" data-orig-size=\"2560,1449\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;1.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;SM-A145R&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1751384757&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;3.98&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;500&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.04&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Havant posters en masse, crop\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-en-masse-crop-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C580\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-3460 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-en-masse-crop.jpg?resize=1024%2C580\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"580\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-en-masse-crop-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C580 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-en-masse-crop-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C170 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-en-masse-crop-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C435 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-en-masse-crop-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C870 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-en-masse-crop-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1160 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In cooperation with The Community Rail Partnership (Hills to Harbour) and the community organisation Creating Chaos they have recently installed interpretation posters at Havant station.\u00a0 These posters will be changed regularly to focus on different individuals and share research with the travelling public; it is hoped to spread the initiative to other stations.\u00a0 A great way to celebrate this year&#8217;s two hundredth anniversary of the modern railway!<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div id=\"attachment_3461\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-in-situ-widest-angle-crop-low-res.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3461\" data-attachment-id=\"3461\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?attachment_id=3461\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-in-situ-widest-angle-crop-low-res.jpg?fit=2041%2C1057\" data-orig-size=\"2041,1057\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1751386169&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Havant posters in situ, widest angle, crop, low res\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-in-situ-widest-angle-crop-low-res.jpg?fit=1024%2C530\" class=\"wp-image-3461 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-in-situ-widest-angle-crop-low-res.jpg?resize=1024%2C530\" alt=\"Three posters in place at Havant Station\" width=\"1024\" height=\"530\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-in-situ-widest-angle-crop-low-res.jpg?resize=1024%2C530 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-in-situ-widest-angle-crop-low-res.jpg?resize=300%2C155 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-in-situ-widest-angle-crop-low-res.jpg?resize=768%2C398 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-in-situ-widest-angle-crop-low-res.jpg?resize=1536%2C795 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Havant-posters-in-situ-widest-angle-crop-low-res.jpg?w=2041 2041w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3461\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Three of the posters in place at Havant Station<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>There are some amazing stories in there. Take a look at the website to see the stories of Havant and Fishbourne signalmen William Bridger and George Abbott.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a project sponsored by the university&#8217;s Heritage Hub, Dr Mike Esbester has been working collaboratively with members of the Havant Local History Group on the Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts project. This researches the life stories of ten local railway workers from the 1870s to 1939 and relates to the wider Railway Work, Life &amp; Death project database of accidents to railway workers, so this coproductive project has been about taking the accident or mention in the RWLD database as a starting point and going beyond it. In cooperation with The Community Rail Partnership (Hills to Harbour) and the community organisation Creating Chaos they have recently installed interpretation posters at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,4,1],"tags":[858,859,467,17,32,21,336,98],"class_list":["post-3458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-history","category-research-in-focus","category-uncategorized","tag-havant","tag-havant-local-history-group","tag-heritage-hub","tag-nineteenth-century","tag-portsmouth","tag-public-history","tag-railway-workers","tag-twentieth-century"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p91PlX-TM","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3458"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3470,"href":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3458\/revisions\/3470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}