Engines and Men/Chapter 7
Chapter VII
To grumble is the natural prerogative of human beings, and we are inclined to grumble sometimes about slow progress, and about old grievances which linger far too long with us. A member of five or six years standing, for example, has no conception of the long series of struggles and triumphs by those who have preceded him, and no idea of the vast debt he owes to the continuous efforts of the Society through all these years. Give me now a little of your time to examine conditions as they once were, to look at the record of bard endeavour and steady progress, and at the great distance which separates conditions which once prevailed from those conditions which prevail to-day.
Let us take first the state of affairs just before the A.S.L.E. & F, came into existence, In the year 1878 there was only the A.S.R.S., the all-grades movement, buoyed up by the money and encouragement of certain M.P.'s. Its six years of life had not been happy, not at all. There had been quarrels between executive officers, and the danger of collapse only saved by the timely help of Mr. Bass and others. On the night of Wednesday. January 30th, 1978, a public meeting of railwaymen was held in the Exeter Hall, London, to urge Parliament to pass a measure of compensation to railway servants for injuries. Mr. Thomas Brassey, M.P., presided, supported by many other M.P.'s, and even a duke sent a sympathetic letter expressing his regret for absence, as did several earls. Here is part of the statement made to the meeting by Mr. Fred Evens, General Secretary of the A.S.R.S.:—
"In the years 1874-5-6 there were 3,982 persons killed and 16,762 injured on the railways of the United Kingdom; 2,249 of those killed and 10,305 of the injured were railway servants who worked the traffic. The directors said the passengers were killed or injured by their own want of caution, but the public knew that if we had continuous footboards. then the number of injured would be greatly reduced The number of persons killed and injured at railway stations would have been saved if there were sub-ways and bridges. But continuous footboards, subways, and bridges cost money, and the companies were not responsible for such accidents; therefore there were no continuous footboards, subways, or bridges."
The long hours worked by railway servants were truly appalling at that time. Captain Tyler, in his evidence before the Royal Commission on Railway Accidents (1877), gave the case of a driver of a pilot engine who had been on duty forty hours, and his guard nineteen. A driver spoke of being on his engine "eighteen, twenty, or twenty-four hours," and finding "his faculties impaired and his energy abated towards the close of such a long day's work." Mr. Hargreaves, a stationmaster on the Manchester & Liverpool line, said "guards and drivers sometimes make ten hours overtime at a stretch, and four to five hours overtime is quite a regular thing," and this after a ten to twelve hours day, and often not a penny payment for the overtime.
Mr. Hanbury, inspector in the locomotive department of the Midland, was asked about drivers going to sleep on the engines owing to excessive exhaustion:—
"What is the longest time of a man being at work in any case that has come under your knowledge?—I have heard of cases this winter of men being on duty for thirty-five hours.
"Do you mean continuously on their engines ?—Yes.
"Would he not have been able in those 35 hours to have any sleep?—When shunting on a siding he has an opportunity of going to sleep on his engine, but of course it is not comfortable sleep."
Mr. Hanbury had known of eighteen or nineteen hours being worked in bad weather, frost and snow, yet he never found a man slack in his duty on account of overwork, which speaks volumes for the conscientious endurance of engine drivers. A witness from the Irish Midland deposed that during the winter he "worked thirty to forty hours without getting off his feet."
"Did that constant employment make you feel unfit to do your work? I am sure I fell off the box, where I stand, asleep. I could not see the signals." Cases were mentioned of drivers on the same line having only six hours sleep in a week. And yet Captain Tyler reported:—
"I should be very sorry to see any legislative interference, prescribing any particular hours for railway working. It must be left, I think, to the companies to work the men as they find it best and most convenient."
In other words, this ghastly state of slavery must continue, in the interests of railway capital. A Parliamentary Committee had reported in 1873 that "the companies have a direct pecuniary interest in keeping their lines safe," and we have seen the thousands of tragedies resulting because Parliamentary interference was considered unnecessary. At the close of 1872 the Board of Trade had issued a circular to the companies, stating that improved methods of working, of proved value, had been too slowly introduced, and sufficient provision had not been made for the safe working of increased traffic. This advice was of no effect. Indeed, the number of servants killed in 1873 was 148 more than in 1872, when they numbered 634, with 1,388 injured. Sir Henry Tyler advised automatic continuous brakes to be operated by drivers as well as guards; extension of the block and interlocking system, and a better and more developed permanent way. The servants of the companies were the victims of this neglect, and under the existing law they had no means of redress. Not a single case of accident, fatal or otherwise, was attributed to neglect by the companies, and there was no legal guarantee of compensation for injuries or death. Incomplete returns of accidents were regularly made to the Board of Trade to hide the true facts, and the companies simply gave doles to the men's Provident and Mutual Insurance Societies. These gifts, the best of them, totalled less than one half-penny per servant per week, while the traffic receipts of the richest company were £9,320,977. "Any alteration in the law," said Mr. Findlay, General Manager of the London & North Western, "would make it, of course, no longer the interest of the Company to assist in carrying on societies for times of sickness, accident, or death." The Great Western, in 1874, employed 1,650 engine-men and firemen, each engineman contributed £3 18s. per annum, and each fireman £2 12s. per annum, to an insurance society, while the company only contributed one thirteenth part as much, and for two years had contributed nothing at all, so that the committee of the Society had to give notice of reduced benefits, and the end of payments to widows and orphans.
The men were keenly feeling these conditions, and at a meeting of South Eastern enginemen and firemen, held at Sultan Tavern, Mercers' Crossing, Bermondsey, on Sunday, April 20th, 1878, a report was given of a deputation waiting upon the directors of that company. The directors had agreed to fix a week's work of sixty hours, and that all over sixty hours be paid at the rate of ten hours per day; that all work done between twelve o'clock midnight on Saturday and twelve o'clock midnight on Sunday be paid for at the rate of eight hours per day. That the following be the rates of wages for drivers:—First year, 5s. 6d. per day: second year, 6s. per day; third year, 6s. 6d. per day; fourth year, 7s. per day; after seven years, 7s. 6d. per day. The amount of wages to firemen to remain as at present, excepting that no fireman start at less than 3s. 6d. per day, and must be over 18 years of age. The Board had also promised to be accessible to the men, through the superintendent. It was therefore agreed to form a permanent committee, consisting of eleven drivers and eleven firemen, to present to the superintendent and directors any complaint existing amongst the men. These men were chosen from Bricklayers' Arms, Corwen Street, Deptford, Maidstone, Strood, Woolwich, Redhill, Reading, Tonbridge, Hastings, Dover and Folkestone, Ramsgate, Canterbury and Deal, and Ashford. It was resolved, also, to make a call of a shilling a year on the men on the line to finance the committee.
The record of that meeting is very interesting, not only for its victory, but for its proof of the urgent need of sectional action. Let us take a sweep from the South Eastern to Scotland, and allude to the evidence of Mr. Geo. Brittain, out-door locomotive superintendent on the Caledonian. He told the Royal Commission on Railway Accidents that drivers on his line were kept out as much as seventeen hours a day for a fortnight together. Hugh Riddock, a driver on the North British, was proved to have worked seventeen hours on Monday, seventeen on Tuesday, fourteen on Wednesday, and eighteen hours each on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. These terrible spells of duty were not obviously excessive" to his locomotive superintendent.
A driver on the North British, named Weston, complained to his foreman that he found great difficulty in keeping his eyes open.
"I have been on duty sixteen hours a day in succession, and on the third day I went on the engine at 7.30 in the morning and left it as a rule at 11 or 12 at night, if we were in to our time. I ran for 250 miles. In that time I was never allowed to leave the engine. I took my meals and everything on the engine. It was a passenger engine. I never left the engine. I complained to my fireman, and told him that I found difficulty in keeping my eyes open. Upon the third day I said to him that I could not hold myself responsible if anything occurred to the engine or the passengers, and that it was unfair to force us to do it. He reported this to the superintendent, Mr. Wheatley. He called me up, and said: "Weston, unless you retract those words I will dismiss you." I said: "Mr. Wheatley, you have the power to dismiss me, but I cannot retract what I said." I was compelled to do it, but I told him honestly that in coming home, running for 250 miles, when I came in at night I would find myself falling asleep."
What tragic testimony that is, and the result of the protest was that Weston had the option of being reduced to a branch line or being dismissed the service, and he left.
On the Highland Railway, a driver named Johnson "was on duty from 12.40 p.m. on the Friday till 1 p.m. on the following Monday afternoon." Murder? Yes, plenty of it in all trades to grind out dividends. On the Midland Great Western (Ireland) a witness named Carroll "fell off his box when asleep from exhaustion and want of rest." He had been on continuous duty 43 hours. It was no uncommon thing on that line, he said, for drivers to work 30 or 40 hours consecutively.
Remember, too, that the Companies remained absolutely callous and indifferent, and Capt. Tyler reported:—
"I do not think that the Board of Trade ought to interfere with the railway companies as to the hours of working their men."
Mr. Haswell, of the North Eastern, mentioned the case of a driver and fireman who had worked 17½ hours one day, 17 the next, 15 the next, 18¼ the next, and 12 the next, or 80¼ hours in five days. On the Brighton line, Mr. Woodhead gave the case of a driver who made 89 hours in six days without a Sunday," and another who worked for 16 hours, and 14 hours, and 20¼ hours, and 16¾ hours, and 23¼ hours, and 16½ hours, in his week."
Frederick Harcombe, a goods guard on the Taff Vale, gave some startling evidence as to long hours on that line, and was asked:—
"Have not the companies a sufficient number of men to work the traffic? They should have more men, but they work the ones they have. I have seen many young men come and stop a few days, and then go away as if they had had enough of it."
For saying that, Harcombe was dismissed from the service.
Following the design of this history, there now comes an interval of several years covered by other chapters, which trace the sounding of the first bugle call to arms by the men of Monmouth, Sheffield, and other centres, the formation of the Society, its early struggles and victories, its flattening out of two hypocritical verdicts upon railway accidents, first, that of manslaughter, a monstrous crime in itself by those who dared to attach it to drivers so terribly overworked, and secondly. "The Acts of God," which was a convenient cover for the neglect of companies. These are stories for other chapters, but in this I want to resume the subject of hours and conditions.
On January 23rd of 1891, Mr. Francis Channing moved in the House of Commons:—
"That in the opinion of this House the excessive hours of labour imposed on railwaymen by the existing arrangements of railway companies of the United Kingdom constitute a grave social injustice, and a constant source of danger to the men themselves and to the travelling public, and the Board of Trade should obtain powers by legislation to issue orders, where necessary, directing railway companies to limit the hours of work of a special class of their servants."
More than a decade had passed since the forgotten disclosures I have quoted, and still this awful scandal continued. A Select Committee was appointed to hear evidence, and painful facts were again revealed, but still Parliament merely sanctioned (in 1893) power for the Board of Trade to regulate hours, and another ten years of slave conditions passed by, not quite so awful in their intensity, but still very grave, and we find that in December, 1900, taking the facts relating to engine drivers and firemen on the twelve principal lines of England and Wales, there were 263,369 instances of men working more than twelve hours. A ten hours day was requested, and Sir Geo. Findlay, for the North Western, accepted that as a fair standard, and agreed that men should be relieved after twelve hours. A Board of Trade inspector quoted cases of fatal accidents through drivers and firemen having "lumbered" after working 16 and 18 hours at a stretch. The case of a poor fog signaller was given, cut up after working 23 hours continuously in a dense fog. Try to picture the mind of that poor man! A goods guard on the L. & N.W. was killed on a dark, stormy night after working 22 hours and 18 minutes consecutively. On eleven days out of 24 previous to his death he had averaged 19 hours and 11 minutes work per day. Five drivers on the L. & Y. showed an average during January, 1891, of 19 to 21 hours daily duty. Major Marinden commented that "Up to the present time, or nearly so, the companies have not been in earnest in trying to reduce working hours." It was found that a witness, John Hood, a stationmaster on the Cambrian line, had been reprimanded and discharged by his directors after giving evidence on overwork. Many previous witnesses had shared the same fate, but circumstances were forcing Parliament out of its old contempt for labour. There was an indignant protest over this intolerable action, and the result was that the General Manager and two of his directors had to appear at the Bar of the House as offenders, and to be admonished by the Speaker.
| 109,280 | men were on duty | 13 hours. |
| 58,062 | men were on duty„ | 14 hours.„ |
| 20,937 | men were on duty„ | 15 hours.„ |
| 13,296 | men were on duty„ | 16 hours.„ |
| 6,557 | men were on duty„ | 17 hours.„ |
| 8,087 | men were on duty„ | 18 hours„ or over. |
After a rest period ranging only from one to eight hours, 20,976 men had been called to resume work. In 1903 there were over 99,500 cases of overworked men on a single day. In 1907 there were numerous cases of men working 18 to 24 hours continuous duty. Still, the grim story was petering out under resistance and exposure.
Let us look at a twin subject, wages, for a moment, under 1907 conditions. There were then over 16,000 men getting no overtime pay whatever for their excessive hours, and 103,700 were getting ordinary time rates, while 85,000 rejoiced in time and a quarter. There were 14,276 cleaners on an average weekly wage of 14s. 8d.; 25,518 firemen on a weekly average of 24s., and 25,900 drivers, the best-paid men of the general service, averaged 38s. 10d. Joseph Thornhill, a L. & N.W. driver at Swansea, with 37 years experience, wrote that ten drivers and ten firemen were in his link, and the firemen received 3s. 6d, a day, and the drivers from 5s. 6d, to 7s. a day, for ten hours. Joseph Thornhill was discharged after making that statement.
Forty years earlier a "Daily Telegraph" representative sent a message which was still true in 1900:
"The reason why there are not ten accidents where we have one is the praiseworthy pluck and perseverance of thousands of poor fellows, who, with a noble sense of enormous trust imposed upon them, have not permitted either abuse, tyranny, or oppression to impoverish their integrity or honesty."
When a Leeds guard protested against being sent to London after 18 hours duty he was bluntly told "There are 24 hours in the day and they are all ours." But the most frightful case I have discovered is that of a disaster to a North Western train at Tamworth, when driver, fireman, and passengers went headlong into the river, and it transpired that the poor signalman had been on duty 68 hours consecutively!
There, let us turn from this heartbreaking stuff to something brighter. Let us see how a way was found out of this darkness of night.