OldRailwayAccidents

Welcome to the 'Railway Work, Life & Death' project Bluesky account! Check our expanding database of British & Irish railway worker accidents, covering 1855-1939 - all free! Currently over 117,000 cases, with more to come. railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk

Kudos to UCU for securing a Westminster Hall debate on Higher Education funding, led by Sheffield Central MP Abtisam Mohamed, on the morning of the budget announcement. It's 28 October 9:30-11:00am.

Commuters want Severn Valley steam train trial to continue - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Apropos of current university redundancies and current interest in preserving freedom of speech at universities, it's worth asking whether staff at any English universities who are being made "voluntarily" redundant are also being required to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Signalman retires after 38 years controlling unique rail bridge - BBC News share.google/DzksWBeV3qRq...

Looking forward to this - tonight! 👇

Interesting story about workplace dangers in the shipping industry. 'Unsinkable' man's watch offers rare insight into four ship tragedies - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

🚨 Watch out!🚨 The blog's about to get busy ... In preparation for the opening (next week!) of our Railway Work, Life & Death exhibition at project partners @mrcwarwick.bsky.social, over the coming days we're going to be posting lots of life stories to the project blog! @rmtunion.bsky.social

IHR-RHS DC Thomson Applied History Fellowships launch today. Scheme for UK-based recent post-1500 British or Irish History PhDs, providing a 6-month bursary of £12,250 to expand their career opportunities while applying their historical skills in a workplace. #Skystorians

GRANTS FOR PUBLICATIONS ON LANCASHIRE OR CHESHIRE HISTORY Up to £500 for publications (inc electronic) on the history of anywhere within Lancs or Cheshire (original counties, i.e. inc. Wirral, Liverpool, Manchester, Lancashire Lakeland, etc.) Deadline: 31 October. www.hslc.org.uk/grants-prize...

Book history people! Please apply to come and work with @ies-sas.bsky.social! Tell your friends to apply! We are a lovely team and this is an exciting opportunity to join us! www.jobs.london.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

🚨 CLOSING THIS WEEKEND!🚨 Pop in and see it if you're in #Emsworth (or make a special visit!) - on until Sunday 18 October! #Hampshire #LocalHistory #RailwayHistory 👇 bsky.app/profile/rwld...

Yesterday @ihr.bsky.social launched a wide range of funding opportunities for historians. They include, with @royalhistsoc.org, calls for 2x Applied History Fellowships, 2027 and 2x PhD Fellowships for 2027-28. Full details of these and other current RHS calls: bit.ly/4Bfjsic #Skystorians

🚨 NEXT WEEK🚨 Pleased to be supporting Hampshire Community Rail Partnership's #BlackHistoryMonth event at #Portsmouth & #Southsea station on 23 October! 6-8pm - plenty going on, including @chris56cornell.bsky.social talking about his grandfather, Charlie! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/black-hist...

Exquisite

Display thinking's evolved a bit ... going up to @mrcwarwick.bsky.social today to do some in-person checking. The Railway Work, Life & Death project exhibition is getting closer to being a reality - focused on the @rmtunion.bsky.social's records. Opening later this month! bsky.app/profile/rwld...

Judging by the messages I received last night, it looks like Rose Ayling-Ellis's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? aired on repeat last night! Why message me? Well ... spoiler alert: it might have had a railway worker accident aspect. More here! www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk/james-wellan...

When the York and Scarborough #Railway reached the small village of #Rillington in 1845, it transformed far more than transport. @rwldproject.bsky.social #OnePlaceStudy sog.org.uk/gold-library...

Display thinking's evolved a bit ... going up to @mrcwarwick.bsky.social today to do some in-person checking. The Railway Work, Life & Death project exhibition is getting closer to being a reality - focused on the @rmtunion.bsky.social's records. Opening later this month! bsky.app/profile/rwld...

A haunted house where every room has several colleagues to whom you owe work, or email responses

Excited to share that my new book is available for preorder via @uncpress.bsky.social (coming out March 2027). Use code 01SOCIAL30 at checkout to save 30%! uncpress.org/979889088799...

The DfE line is particularly and bleakly consistent

Meet some of our Steering Group who are guiding our oral history project: Members of the African and Caribbean community - Marie, Julian, Sandra, Arlene, Eldica, and Leroy, Jo from the Royal Navy Museums and Jodi from @uophistory.bsky.social. Also Sarah, our Oral History manager.

Looking forward to a busy day today: - Masters dissertation marking discussion - undergrad dissertation supervision - catching up with friends from the @uophistory.bsky.social team - meeting a #RailwayHistory interested 1st year - running a School-wide #FamilyHistory session - a lecture. Phew.

Reminders that this is happening THIS FRIDAY! We'll be joined by the wonderful @harbottlestores.bsky.social and Victoria Cranna (LSHTM archives) and we'll talk about the toolkit, the project and what's next for The Ethics of Medical Photography network. Register here! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Always nice, when revisiting last year's notes from a lecture I'm giving again this year - tomorrow - to find a message to future me: 'rushed a bit at the end, but really enjoyed the lecture!' Looking forward to tomorrow ... now to get rid of the rush at the end!

‼️New blog post‼️ Interested in #Hampshire #RailwayHistory 🚂? Learn about the latest from @rwldproject.bsky.social & the Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts project! Collaborating with the Havant Local History Group, the team have brought more stories to light⬇️ hampshirearchivestrust.co.uk/stories/blog...

'Graduates post screenshots of student loan balances that never seem to go down, ministers spend every August reminding school leavers that there are other options, and the phrase “Mickey Mouse degrees” never quite dies.'

Good morning #Portsmouth Welcome to the new working week #MondayMotivation

Still two weekends to go - pop in and see it if you're in #Emsworth (or make a special visit!). On until Sunday 18 October! #Hampshire #LocalHistory #RailwayHistory 👇 bsky.app/profile/rwld...

Full-on analogue exhibition planning at Railway Work, Life & Death project base ... Destination: @mrcwarwick.bsky.social - coming soon! #RailwayHistory

Looking forward to this morning's meeting to discuss an exciting potential Black #RailwayHistory project, focusing on post-war Black railway workers ... fingers crossed! #BlackHistoryMonth

Registration link is now available for the 1st seminar of the 2026-27 season of the IHR's London Group of Historical Geographers. Join us to explore historical geographies of skill in the past. Free, hybrid in-person/online and open to the public. #Skystorians

Closing next Friday (16th): 'History and Archives in Practice' 2027. Calls for panels invited for our annual meeting of historians and archivists, with @ihr.bsky.social and TNA. HAP27 focuses on connecting past and future with sessions on advocacy & applied history bit.ly/3RGHbWy #Skystorians

Claxton was enormously affected by his experience of WW1, and then later WW2 veterans. He fully embraced the principle of "building a town fit for heroes" and was adamant that meant creating a town with safe roads/cycling. He specifically said he wanted no-one to survive a war then die on a road.

Eric Claxton's guiding principle when designing Stevenage was that separating bikes and cars was fine, if: - Their routes ran parallel - For every metre the bikes gave up in gradient, the cars should give up two - If necessary, you make the cars go further not the bikes Because cars have ENGINES

Colossal time sink alert! H/t @adamchapman.bsky.social! 👇

Got him! After on-&-off hunting, finally found the elusive Aldophus Beaver/Beever/Bevor & his family ... ... & his 19th-century international story, appearing in the Railway Work, Life & Death project database, turned out to be suitably interesting... so far! Watch this space ...