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General => Armed Forces => Armed Forces Resources => Topic started by: youngtug on Wednesday 24 February 10 23:00 GMT (UK)

Title: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: youngtug on Wednesday 24 February 10 23:00 GMT (UK)
not sure if this is the right place for this, swindon library have put these photos from the gwr magazine [and others] on flikr. Icouldn't find who I was looking for but someone else may find someone.;-  http://www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal/sets/72157621922606653/
Title: Re: gwr men killed in ww1
Post by: Mark Abbott on Thursday 25 February 10 07:19 GMT (UK)
Excellent; thanks for posting.

Swindon Library are to be congratulated for making these photos available.

Mark
Title: Re: gwr men killed in ww1
Post by: Daffodilly on Thursday 25 February 10 10:31 GMT (UK)
Brillliant, I shall have a good look, thank you  :)
Title: Re: Great Western Railway/Swindon men killed in ww1
Post by: scrimnet on Thursday 25 February 10 12:05 GMT (UK)
Excellent find... ;D

I've stickied it and changed the title to make it easier to find on RC ;)

I may move it to resources laters...
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: Gaille on Saturday 27 February 10 02:04 GMT (UK)
WOW!

My 'Smith' family all worked 'on the Railways'

All started in Manchester but then some of them moved with ther jobs and went all over the county - Doncaster, Horwich, Crewe...........and Swindon.

I will be scouring these later to see if I can find any mention of any of them!

Gaille
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: Local Studies, Swindon Libraries on Thursday 04 March 10 16:35 GMT (UK)
Thank you for your positive feedback.

We are in the process of uploading all the pages of the GWR Magazine that show photographs of servicemen and are so far up to February 1918.  Due to the scale of the project, only ex Swindon staff are itemised by name. 

Its good to hear that this is of interest for family historians.

Regards
Swindon Library
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: youngtug on Thursday 25 March 10 22:23 GMT (UK)
Further to this posting, my cousin is building a searchable database of these photos.;-  http://www.flickr.com/people/gwr_casualties/
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: DeeBoneham on Tuesday 06 July 10 13:28 BST (UK)
Swindonlocal
Don't know whether you can help me but my grandfather worked for GWR in Birmingham.  He never joined the military as far as I can tell and I wondered if you had records of what he may have done.  I am not sure of his christian name will have to check back on my ancestry family tree but his surname was Taylor (not a rare one then!).
Dee
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: Local Studies, Swindon Libraries on Tuesday 06 July 10 13:45 BST (UK)
Dear DeeBoneham,

Well obviously without a full name we won't get anywhere. - also, there will be hundreds of Taylors - probably even just at Birmingham. :D

Have a read through this thread (on another Genealogy forum):
http://www.british-genealogy.com/forums/showthread.php?42860-GWR-Great-Western-Railway
This covers most of the ways of getting information.

However, there is a researcher, David Colcomb, who offers a wonderful service for those tracking down GWR staff. He uses information from the PRO and the WSRO and has several enormous private indexes he has created. He goes to truly titanic efforts for people and only asks that a small donation is made to a children's charity (details of which he will provide).
So any Staff enquiries about the GWR (and ONLY the GWR, not BRWR or other companies) can be sent direct to him:

Pse PM direct...Addrees and phone removed to prevent spamming!

Remember to include clear information and do as much as you can before getting in touch so he has a clear starting point with full name and dates etc.

Hope this helps but feel free to get back in touch if you get stuck.

Swindon Collection
Central Library
Regent Circus
Swindon SN1 1QG

As above ;)
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: Local Studies, Swindon Libraries on Thursday 08 July 10 16:12 BST (UK)
The details removed from our post by the moderator are our publicly available email address and phone number, present in 1000s of sites across the internet. We try and make this info as widely available as possible! :D
The contacts for David are also widely published online so we are unsure why either had to be removed. Seems a bit harsh - however, we would certainly agree that it is generally a bad idea to put your home/personal phone numbers or email address online without due care.

Anyway - our contact details can be found here:
Swindon Collection (http://www.swindon.gov.uk/swindoncollection)

While David's can be found here: GWR Staff Records on BerksFHS (http://www.berksfhs.org.uk/journal/Sep2003/Staff_records_of_the_GWR.htm)
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: DeeBoneham on Saturday 10 July 10 09:59 BST (UK)
Thanks for that Swindon.  Have emailed it.
Dee
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: teaurn on Wednesday 13 October 10 10:07 BST (UK)
What a fantastic resource

I have railway ancestors and although mine are not Swindon these shots certainly give an insight to the period. :D
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: psychonaut on Tuesday 30 November 10 19:08 GMT (UK)
I'm sure most of you already know this, but just in case you didn't, there are many documents relating to the privatised railway companies pre-1948 available at the National Archives.  Amongst them, and revealing by way of the fact that they list huge numbers of staff and the departments in which they worked, are the pay ledgers. 

British Rail used to have their own archive, somewhere in Ashford I think, but i have a feeling that those documents may have gone to the NA when BR was sold off.

Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: mshergold on Friday 21 December 12 22:49 GMT (UK)
This a sample of some of the fellas (including my kin) who lost their lives  in WW1 tht worked for Gods Wonderful Railway.........
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: mshergold on Friday 21 December 12 23:13 GMT (UK)
furthering the soldiers of GWR     I have a question  related to this topic.....

The memorial board of the GWR soldiers used to hang in the Swindon Railway Station... I have been told it has been removed....    Has it?      And,    if it has,  to where????????

thankyou to anyone local or otherwise who can answer this question.

Marty
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: psychonaut on Saturday 22 December 12 17:23 GMT (UK)
Marty - similar boards used to hang at all the principal former GWR stations - certainly I can recall during my time on the railway (1992 to the present) seeing them on display at Plymouth, Exeter, Taunton, Bristol, Swindon, London Paddington, and Cardiff - they may also be at other locations.  I was at Swindon a  few days ago and don't recall seeing the board on display there - I guess it is possible it was removed during the extensive rebuilding of Swindon station in the 1970s. 

As a general rule if thumb (but not always!!) the boards were displayed on, or very close, to platform 1 at the stations where they were displayed.  The only location where this may still hold true is Exeter St. Davids, although I have a suspicion that the board there now resides on platform 5.  That said, I don't get to Exeter St. Davids very often and I can't recall where it was the last time I was there.  At Paddington it may still be on Platform 1, but I have an idea it is now around the corner towards the taxi rank that leads up to Praed Street.

Cardiff Central is my local station - do you want me to try and get a photo of the board there for you?  :)
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: fastfusion on Saturday 22 December 12 18:33 GMT (UK)
Here is a picture of the "missing memorial board"... for those who have never seen it..
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: psychonaut on Saturday 22 December 12 21:32 GMT (UK)
Good work fastfusion!!  Is that the one at Swindon, and if so, whereabouts on the station is it?  I can see the frontage of WHSmith reflected in it, which would mean it is inside the building at platform level on the "island" platform.  I don't recall seeing it there, although in fairness I rarely pass through that part of the station - I'm normally on the through lines and so only see the platforms themselves.
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: fastfusion on Saturday 22 December 12 22:49 GMT (UK)
psychonaut...


i had a picture  of it on file    but  as to whether its still there I am as lost to the same mystery... :'(     because it would be nice to have a complete transcription of all the folk mentioned on it.....    as I am sure many are kin
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: fastfusion on Saturday 22 December 12 22:53 GMT (UK)
according to google  the WHSmith Stationer/Bookshop is still in Station Road Swindon  maybe someone local could ring the shop manager.....
Title: Re: Great Western Railwaymen KIA WW1
Post by: youngtug on Sunday 23 December 12 00:40 GMT (UK)
I think that if you PM'd SwindonLocal they might know or be able to find out what has happened to the board, if indeed it as been moved.  http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=80620 Because the initial point of this thread was to highlight the  posting from the GWR magazines of the photo's and details of men KIA who worked for the  GWR that the excellent team at Swindon Library have put on their Flkr site I am going to lock it before it gets to far off the original intent.