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Some Special Interests => Occupation Interests => Topic started by: GrizzlyDad on Thursday 07 October 10 16:53 BST (UK)
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My ancestor, John Botterill, was listed as a railway gatekeeper in Driffield in the 1851, 1861 and 1871 censuses. What did that involve?
Was it just a manually operated level crossing? Did he just come out when the train was due and close the gate to traffic? What happened through the night? Presumably he couldn't leave home. What it seen as a good job?
I have no knowledge about this at all so any help is very welcome.
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Railway Gate Keepers usually had a house next to the level crossing, and was permanently based there, he opened and closed the gates as required.
See
http://www.flickr.com/photos/d9006/3475502367/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/d9006/3867650873/
Stan
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From "A Dictionary of Occupational Terms"
Crossing Keeper, level crossing keeper, gatekeeper, gateman, level crossing man; in charge of a level crossing on a railway line, opening and closing gates by hand worked mechanism, or by hand, for the passage of trains, or for passage of road vehicles and (sometimes) pedestrians; sometimes also lights, trims and cleans lamps on crossing gates; performs duties of crossing policeman, flag man, signal gateman, or of gatekeeper and pointsman.
Stan
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hi grizzlydad
cor those were the days i can just remember the old crossing keepers with there little huts near to the line with a coal stove for warmth they always looked so cosy , there,s no soul in automatic gates , sorry for this but nostalgia gets to me sometimes ;D
trevor
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Thanks for the replies. If he had a house like the ones in the photos he was doing well for himself.
Presumably he would have to close the gates based on a timetable. Trains must have been more reliable then otherwise I imagine you would get some irate members of the public asking why the gates were closed when there was no train.
Did they have a shift or were they expected to man the gates every time required, day or night? John had a family so he could rope in the wife and maybe adult children but if he was responsible for the safe operation of the gate he might be unwilling to that. Houses must have been tied so they were homeless if they lost their jobs.
As for warm cosy sheds I assume that's for places where there was no permanent cottage. It's interesting, I've never really thought how they managed before automated crossings.
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the job was often given to an established railwayman who had been injured
in the line of duty,so to speak, and could no longer do his previous job.
Yes they were on duty 24hrs 7 days but the gates were usually closed to the road normally and opened if someone wanted to cross the railway,it was often shared with their wife, and on a branch line with maybe four trains each way and one goods train a day was not very onerous.
All main lines and/or busy roads had gates controlled from a signal box alongside.---------hope this helps,
Mazi's oh
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My g-g-grandfather has "Gateman South London railway" as his occupation on the 1901 census but someone's crossed it out and just put "railway points" on it. He lived at 11 Riseolme St or Ruseholme, (which no longer exists) in Hackney. So I'm not sure if he was actually living in the little house by the side of the gate! He had the same address in 1891 when he worked as a railway carriage cleaner. By 1911, he's a "railway servant pensioner" (I have wondered if they have pension records available somewhere, like they do with the military... unlikely, I know).
(For some reason I took it to mean he stood at the gate taking people's tickets as they got off the train! Fool....)
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Okay, now it makes more sense knowing the gates were closed to traffic by default and only opened when traffic needed to cross the line. I'd assumes it was the other way round and I could imagine all sorts of delays and accidents if they were relying on the gatekeepers timekeeping/memory.
I guess it makes sense that not everyone had a cottage, perhaps that was especially true of London and other big cities where there was existing housing around the gate. I have had a look at whether there are staff and pension records, helvissa, and it apparently varies according to the railway. The Nartional Archives hold what there is. Driffield came under North Eastern Railways and there doesn't seem to be much in that line, unfortunately, but I'll try and get to Kew to see what there is.
I have also searched some newspaper databases hoping (is that the right word!) there'd been some newsworthy event that had involved John Botterill's gate but no luck.
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Ah good point - just did a quick search on the Archives' website and I'm not getting much apart from minutes from meetings!
Does make sense though that he wouldn't live right by the rails if he worked in London. It's good to know what his occupation actually meant though! I'm not sure what happened to the family though because they were not too badly off in Shoreditch with servants, running a hat shop, then he become a travelling hat salesman, a travelling drapery salesman then suddenly a railway carriage cleaner. ???
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I remember in a village just up the road from me they had a gatekeeper up until about the early 1990s when they replaced the gates with the modern electric ones. They had a little cottage at the side of the crossing and I remember you used to have to ring a bell for the gatekeeper to come and open the gates for you to cross. :)
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Yes Driffield did come under the North Eastern Railway, and the survival of its records is perhaps not the best. However, in 1923 the mainline railways were grouped into "The big 4" mainline railways, and the Northeastern along with the Great Northern became part of the London Northeastern Railway (LNER) At this time there was no sick pay for wages grade, and on the merger the Great Northern Railway Friendly Society was opened for membership to all staff of the new amalgamated railway who would have been eligible had they worked for the GN. This meant that virtually all eligible staff joined the society. Its records survive and are held at Doncaster Borough Archive, King Edward Road, Balby Doncaster.So this is well worth a try to find records of your relative.
A 24 hour residential crossing was usually one where the gates were normally closed to road traffic, and only opened on demand by travellers,they were one step uip from an occupation or farm crossing where the owner of the land controlled the gaters as required. Instruments were provided at these crossings so that the approach of trains could be detected before the gagtes were used. They existed into the 1990s in the general area involved.
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According to the 1881 census my great grandfather - age 65 - and his wife (not my g-grandmother) were both employed as gatekepers on the railway, resident Black Bull, Pickering. Looking at the previous correspondence it would look as if they worked shifts around the clock.
Ceeoh
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sorry for this but nostalgia gets to me sometimes
Uuummm ... we still have a couple of manual gated crossings in rural Lincolnshire complete with railway gatekeepers ... if you need a shot of nostalgia you ought to drive around the Fens! ;D ;D ;D
Rachel
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hi rachel
are you sure that they aren,t on lines that dr beeching cut way back in time and no ones told them !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
trevor
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That's entirely possible - but all credit to them, they're still working! ;D ;D ;D
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There are still a few "unmanned crossings" in Ireland also
It is only in the last ten years that a concerted effort was made to automate all the gates
* editted manned to read unmanned
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I thought all of the crossings in the Boston and Spalding areas were either automated or downgraded to occupation status* in the 1990s. Out of interest would you give details please?
It wasn't a question of working shifts about on these crossings. It was 24 hour cover, and the gates were only opened on demand. This meant that some crossing keepers were continously available at their crossing for up to seven days at a time. If they were ill or on leave, than a relief keeper was provided. They used the gateman's hut at the crossing.
Some crossings which had an intermediate where usage was heaviest during a specified time of day would be staffed by a crossing keeper, from the hut during that time, and handed over to the resident when the heavy period ended.
*occupation status where the owner of the road or track, usually a farmer or industrial site was responsible for opening and closing the gates.
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About half a mile from my house we have a level crossing where you have to operate the gates yourself. The gates open outwards from the track, so there is no danger of the gates being hit by trains. There are lights on the crossing to indicate when a train is coming, but you only get about 30 seconds warning :o
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No danger to the gates but unfortunately grave danger to railway users
It is amazing to think you may not hear a train travelling towards you i.e. a monster of an engine plus wagons and/or carriages
This article is from only last month
http://www.roscommonherald.ie/news/story/?trs=kfauidgboj
Many people are injured each year at both manned and unmanned crossings through total accident, sometmes ignorance and in some cases pure stupidity.
In some urban areas the unmanned crossings are nearly more lethal as people take chances running across because they feel the gates close too early, not to mention attempting to drive through although the gates are starting to lower.
In this I am not referring to incidents anywhere else along rail lines - just crossings.
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No danger to the gates but unfortunately grave danger to railway users
Oh, I'm aware of the danger, which is why I avoid this crossing like the plague. Fortunately, the road is in a loop, and where the track runs across the road further up the track there are automatic barriers, so most of the locals use the crossing with the barriers, even though it means a one mile detour.
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Whilst not being familiar with the specific area, it sounds very much as though when the railway wanted to divert the crossing and extinguish user rights on the former crossing, one of the residents, business or home objected, and was able to claim that his right of access via the crossing existed in perpetuity.
Most accidents on level crossings to vehicles and pedestrians are caused by the stupidity and risk taking of users, sometimes with serious consequences, over 20 years ago, there was an incident on a crossing at Lockington nr. Hull when a train was derailed causing the deaths of several passengers. Eventually the railway brought a successful case against the insurers of the vehicle driver, hopefully this precedent will concentrate a few minds in tghe insurance industry.
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Apparently, before the war, the road here didn't go beyond the railway line. When the war came, they extended the road to form a loop, and inside the loop they placed decoy trains and vehicles, to try to fool the Germans into thinking that the area was a marshalling yard, which in reality was not far away. When the war ended, the road stayed.
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I think your ancestor would have been a very busy man as Driffield connected sea ports to large inland markets and likewise the English hinterland had access to ships which could export their goods, (railway lines as shown on this webpage):
http://www.lner.info/co/NER/MDR/
There's another (genealogy) website which admittedly describes a later era but it shows just how important Driffield and the railway was:
<<Alf Limburn, an old relief signalman who still lives in Driffield, can remember recording as many as 125 train movements before lunch. >>
http://www.driffield.org.uk/Driffieldrailway.html
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Yes, Driffield does seem to have been a lot busier then than now as a railway hub. I'm grateful to everyone who's contributed to the discussion as I am much more knowledgable now than when I posted the topic.
I like to think I'll find more about John Botterill as I search through records and newspapers - please someone digitise the Driffield Times :) - but in a way it's harder to find out about someone who worked long and hard and didn't get into trouble. We'll see.
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Remember though that when Driffield was a busy junction he would have been very unlikely to have been employed as a crossing keeper on a busy main line. Any at grade crossings on a main line with the traffic density suggested by 125 train movements on the early shift would have had mechanically operated crossing gates controlled by signalmen from signal boxes. Crossing keepers were only practical where traffic density was light.
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I lived in the port of Hull and as a kid stood in a field and collected passing engine numbers of goods trains and passenger trains. I doubt if our group of youngsters would have hung around if there wasn't much action ;D
From 1955 I cycled to work and it wasn't until later in the 1950's that the busy level crossing gateman was relieved of manually closing and opening the two road gates and the four pedestrian gates.
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On further reflection it did also depend on the density of road traffic as to whether or not a crossing was mechanised; two I am very familiar with, London Road and West Street Boston were both mechanised in the 1940s and probably earlier, the rail traffic at London Road was considerably lighter than that at West Street, though the road traffic was arguably heavier. Even so, the total rail traffic would be considerably less than the 125 suggested on the day shift, so it is very surprising to me that this crossing at Driffield was not mechanised.
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Hello. In 1911 census my G G Granddad occupation is listed as O.Holder Mid Rwy. My mum said she thought he was a gate keeper for Midland Railway but I have no clue what the O.Holder means! Can anybody help please? Thanks Helen
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A guess. Office holder, ie gatekeeper.
Stretching things a bit, but till something better turns up.
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Thank you
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Is this James George William Stevens of Stapleford? If so the occupation code is shown as 515 which is "Pointsmen, Level Crossing Men"
Stan
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Wow, yes it is! On a census it detailed O. Holder but now I can see 515 in green. When looking at census I never realised what significance the writing was. Especially 3 red zeros! Brilliant thank you.
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On further reflection it did also depend on the density of road traffic as to whether or not a crossing was mechanised; two I am very familiar with, London Road and West Street Boston were both mechanised in the 1940s and probably earlier, the rail traffic at London Road was considerably lighter than that at West Street, though the road traffic was arguably heavier. Even so, the total rail traffic would be considerably less than the 125 suggested on the day shift, so it is very surprising to me that this crossing at Driffield was not mechanised.
You have to remember that the mechanisation would involve miles and miles of double cable, chains, pulleys and a huge hand wheel in the nearest signal box. If this signal box was too far away no means of mechanisation would be possible.
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Yes, I agree, the two cases I quoted at Boston were literally on site, with the controlling box at the end of the crossing.i don't know the location of the box at Driffield in relation to the crossing, but the supposition seems realistic.
Incidentally there were two further level crossings at Boston between the two mentioned,ie Locomotive Street and Broadfield St. Neither were manual, both under the control of a crossing keeper,and at both site rail operations were intensive, there being a dozen or more tracks involved, 2 main lines, a goods loop and access to and from the goods yard and motive power depot, plus 8 or ten sidings.Road traffic could wait hours at both. The habitations being otherwise cut off by road.