Railways and the mobilisation for war in 1914
The historian A.J.P Taylor, considering the events of 1914, once argued: ‘The First World War had begun – imposed on the statesmen of Europe by railway timetables. It was an unexpected climax to the...
View ArticleResearching Mr Briggs’ Hat: an account of Britain’s first railway murder
The 1864 murder of Thomas Briggs in his first-class railway carriage is investigated through documents in The National Archives, The US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), newspapers...
View ArticleTime travel: a journey through the timetables of the London, Brighton and...
This talk takes a look beyond the day-to-day purpose of railway timetables, to consider how they reveal changes in the pace, regularity and frequency of mobility in the 19th century. Dr Tony Wakeford...
View ArticleAdlestrop: railways, poetry and the myths of 1914
Adlestrop by Edward Thomas is one of the nation’s favourite poems. Written in the heat of battle by an officer who was doomed not to survive the war, Adlestrop idealises the stillness of a railway...
View ArticleThe truth about The Great Train Robbery of 1963
It was called the crime of the century. The Great Train Robbers planned their heist pretty much flawlessly. But getting away with it was another matter. Most of the robbers got caught. Most of them...
View ArticleLiving in a railway town
Di Drummond describes the experience of living in railway towns during the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly focussing on Crewe between 1840-1914. The records of the Grand Junction and London and...
View ArticleSelling the age of the train: British Rail passenger marketing and travel in...
By exploring a wide range of historical records, this talk aims to tell the story of how the railways changed peoples’ lives, as well as to show how people similarly took part in shaping rail travel in...
View ArticleEngineering office staff
Focusing on some of the drawing and engineering offices, Tim Procter’s talk examines the personal marks that staff have left on the official records and shows evidence of them humanising the impersonal...
View ArticleFrom Stephenson to Suburbia: the Socio-Economic Impacts of the Coming of the...
Using current PhD research, Rudi Newman’s talk demonstrates that for rural Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, railways had varying degrees of impact, acting mostly as a facilitating...
View ArticleTracing railway ancestors
The National Archives holds a vast collection of railway related material, a legacy passed down by hundreds of railway companies which operated in all corners of the UK from 1825 to 1947. Much of this...
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