This page relates to a very frail article that was posted in our family bible. The article was very damaged, so much so that the bottom paragraphs were actually unreadable. As you can see the article published in the January 1906 issue of the "RAILWAY REVIEW" (the railway review was a trade union magazine). Although we had the article I didn't really have much of a clue as to finding another copy of it, that's where a luck search on the internet found the library which had a copy of it. To read more info ojn the background of the article read the note at the foot of the page.
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A POPULAR SIGNALMAN
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MR. CHARLES NOBLE
Mr. Charles Noble, whose portrait we give in this issue, is the writer whose notes on technical questions for signalmen have been such a prominent feature in our columns. He was born at York on March 21st, 1858. In his early days he was a probationer at York Minster and was a candidate for a chorister’s position, but failed to reach the test note. He started work as an errand boy in 1869, when 11 years of age, but in 1871 he was bound apprentice to the art of woodcarving and served his time in |
the present time he has held the appointment as chargeman at the West Junction signal-box, Selby, one of the busiest and most important signal-boxes on the N.E. system, controlling the traffic from east to west and north to south, and vice versa. Mr. Noble has the enviable distinction of being able to say that during his career neither himself, not any of the many assistants working under his supervision, have caused the derailment of a single wheel, and when it is remembered that the number of movements at the West Junction signal-box annually approximates 3,000,000, it will been seen that this is indeed a splendid record. Mr. Noble has been for many years a consistent and loyal supporter |
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that capacity, becoming a journeyman carver in 1878. Owing to the bad state of trade in 1879 he was out of employment, and had to leave the trade which he had devoted so much time to acquire, and for a time he devoted himself to the duties of a sewing machine agent. In 1880 he entered the employ of the N.E. as a learner at Burton Lane Junction at 18s. a week, and from May of the following year he was engaged on relief duties at Brafferton, Nunnington, Earswick, Ganton, and York. In the latter year, and from thence onward to May, 1895, he held appointments as signalman at Temple Hirst, Bolton Percy, Naburn South, Sherburn, and Church Fenton. From May, 1895, up to |
of Trade Unionism. He was the first secretary of the Church Fenton Branch (now defunct), which under his supervision had a very successful career. He has taken an active part in B.F. work, and was a delegate at the A.G.M. at Plymouth in 1897. He was a member of the Selby workingmen’s committee to the Cottage Hospital, and altogether has led an active and strenuous life. In addition to his membership of the A.S.R.S. Mr. Noble belongs to the Ancient Order of Foresters and the North-Eastern Provident Society. Mr. Noble has a large family, blessed with nine children, seven boys and two girls. We have no doubt these particulars of a fruitful, sober, and steady life will be very interesting to our readers. |
This is a some notes on the details in the cutting above with there sources mentioned. Special thanks to the Warwick Modern records library for corresponding with me and supplying the transcript of the clipping above.
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/ead/127ascol.htm
Scope and Content
Minutes (various series), 1875-1913, including manifesto for the South Wales Joint Movement, 1900; branch balance sheets, 1875-1912, including some correspondence etc from Welsh branches; membership register, 1897-1912; subject files, including files relating to the Taff Vale, 1900-02, and Osborne cases; various publications and reports, 1875-1913; Railway Review, 1879-1912 (incomplete); Railwaymen's Parliamentary Representation Association minutes and miscellany, 1911-12; also includes papers relating to the national all-grades movement, with list of Welsh delegates, 1906-07, records of the Barry and Blyth Railway disputes, 1900-08, photographs of Barry Railway and its locomotives, 1910, and papers relating to Preece v Great Western Railway Company (workmen's compensation case in Monmouth County Court), 1911.
Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants Orphan Fund: annual reports, 1889-1912 (incomplete) (MSS.127/AS/4/3).
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUrailwaymen.htm
In the 19th century railwaymen found it difficult to organize into trade unions. In 1865 men working on the Great Western Railway attempted to form a Railway Working Men's Provident Benefit Society but it was quickly destroyed when its leaders were sacked by the company. In the next thirty five years there were ten new railway unions were started but many of these failed to survive more than a couple of years. The most successful of these was the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) that was established in 1871 and the Amalgamated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) in 1880.
By 1890 the total number of trade unionists on the railways was about 48,000 out of a total work force of 381,000. Numbers continued to grow and by 1910 it had increased to 116,000, two-thirds of whom were in the ASRS and about one-sixth in ASLEF. In 1913 the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) was formed by the amalgamation of the ASRS, the United Pointsmen and Signalmen's Society and the General Railway Workers Union.
The most important figure in these negotiations was Jimmy Thomas, the Labour MP for Derby. Although still a member of the House of Commons, Thomas was elected General Secretary of the NUR in 1917 and two years later led a successful railway strike. When Ramsay MacDonald became Prime Minister after the 1924 General Election, he appointed Thomas as Secretary of State for the Colonies. He was expelled from the Labour Party after he joined MacDonald's National Government in 1931.
Links!
© William Noble 2002, updated 2010
