From Labourer to London Bridge Station Superintendent

London Bridge - 1856

I have got into the habit of looking at the social backgrounds of early railway managers.  Recently I came across Henry Anscombe, the superintendent at the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway's London Bridge station in 1864. Ascombe began his career with the LBSCR in March 1847 at the age of 37[1], and was listed in the 1851 census as being a porter[2]. However, he had come from quite a lowly background, and the 1841 census states that he and his father were labourers in his home town of Chailey in Sussex.[3] Early in his career he narrowly escaped death, and in 1848 he was knocked down by a train and had both legs broken. Yet, clearly this did not hinder his career, and at some point between 1851 and 1864 he rose through the ranks rapidly to command London Bridge Station. He was appointed the Brighton station Superintendent in 1876, and died while still in the company's service in March 1896.[4]

The social gulf between where Anscombe came from and where he ended up was huge. However, the rise he would have experienced was not have been uncommon for many early railway managers, and with formal hiring and promotional structures not yet established, the companies employed staff, at all levels, from a vast array of backgrounds. It is, therefore, unsurprising that for Anscombe such a rise was possible.

-----------


[1] The National Archives [TNA], RAIL 414/768, Register of salaried staff appointed 1836-1879, 1864 - 1879, p.1
[2] HO 107/1653/148, 1851 census, Sussex-Chichester St Bartholomew-District 1, p.16
[3] HO 107/1113/1, 1841 census, Sussex-Chailey-District 3, p.5
[4] The Standard, Monday, March 16, 1896, p. 3; Issue 22373.

'The Position of a Station-Master is not Arrived at in a Day.' - Promotion in 1889

The following short clipping is from an article entitled 'Station-Masters, by one of them', and was published in Chamber's Journal  in March 1889. Interestingly, it suggests that not only was advancement up the railway promotional tree more likley to be determined by who a railway worker knew, not on skill, but also that only a few were destined for the lofty position of General Manager. Personally, I find the latter point more plausible that the former, as while nepotism did go on, railway work by this time had become more professional than the author claims:

'The position of a station-master is not arrived at in a day. The average number of years for which a man has to work before he attains this post is about twelve. There are men, and many of them of great practical experience, who have been aiming at this position for twenty years or more, and have not reached it yet; and may never do so. It is the same on the railways as in the army, navy and the other professions : influence, to some extent, is almost indispensable; and though men of marked ability have risen in the railway service by virtue of their own merit, still these instances are few and far between. Soldiers and sailors cannot all be generals and admirals, neither can every railway servant become general manager. The French soldier is taught to believe he carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack; so might every railway man be taught that seal of a general manager is within his grasp. If honours are never attained, both services will profit by the energy displayed by the members in attempting to attain a position that is held by very few men within half a century.'