The Quintinshill Disaster and Britain's Railways During the First World

The Quintinshill Disaster and Britain’s Railways During the First World War ROBERT WILKINSON A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the requirements for the degree of MA (by Research) at the University of Central Lancashire. February 2020 STUDENT DECLARATION FORM Type of Award: Masters by Research School: School of Humanities and Social Sciences 1. Concurrent registration for two or more academic awards I declare that while registered for the research degree, I was with the University’s specific permission, a *registered candidate/*enrolled student for the following award: Masters by Research 2. Material submitted for another award I declare that no material contained in the thesis has been used in any other submission for an academic award and is solely my own work. 3. Collaboration Where a candidate’s research programme is part of a collaborative project, the thesis must indicate in addition clearly the candidate’s individual contribution and the extent of the collaboration. Please state below: Not Applicable 4. Use of a Proof-reader No proof-reading service was used in the compilation of this thesis. Signature of Candidate: ______________________________________________________ Print name: Robert Luke Wilkinson 1 | P a g e Abstract Although the Home Front in Britain during the First World War has received a great deal more attention in recent years, the role of the railways has been largely overlooked. Yet the railways were crucial in maintaining the war effort and wartime economy, transporting not only weaponry and troops, but food items for both the domestic population and the forces; mail travelling to and from the front lines, and essential commodities such as coal for the nation’s navy. This dissertation considers the impact of the early stages of the war, through analysis of the worst disaster in British railway history at Quintinshill on the 22nd of May 1915. Five trains were in involved in a catastrophic collision leading to the loss of 226 military and civilian lives. By utilizing documents detailing the coordination of the railways by the Railway Executive Committee, and exploring the events at Quintinshill using the official report into the disaster, as well as newspaper reports and company documents, the operation of the railways under wartime conditions is examined. Using the Quintinshill disaster as a prism through which to analyse the issues, the extreme pressures faced by the railways and the people that operated them during this crucial period have been examined, showing how normal protocols dictating safe operations on the railways were being neglected during wartime. 2 | P a g e Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank Dr. Keith Vernon for all the assistance he has provided me throughout the course of completing this research project. The discussions we have had concerning the subject throughout the course of completing this project have proved invaluable and have really helped me to progress through each stage of researching this subject area. Secondly, I would like to thank Dr. Mairtín Ó Cathain for being my second supervisor, and although I have not had to ask for his help many times over the course of this project, it has been reassuring to know that I could approach him should I have needed to. Thirdly I would like to thank Dr. Philip Constable for accepting me onto the Masters’ by Research course. Without him, I would not have been able to research this subject area. Fourthly, I would like to thank the archivists at the National Archives in Kew, whose assistance proved very helpful whilst conducting the research process, and finally, I would like to thank my parents, sister, grandmother and friends who have been there for me throughout the course of completing this project, for always urging me to see this project through to the very end. I hope that the finished product can make you all proud. 3 | P a g e Contents - Introduction: The Importance of the Railways to Britain’s War Effort Page: 5 - Literature Review: “The Forgotten Aspect of Britain’s First World War?” Page: 9 - Chapter One: “Britain’s Railways During the First World War – The Role of the Railway Executive Committee” Page: 25 - Chapter Two: 22nd of May 1915 – The Quintinshill Rail Disaster Page: 47 - Chapter Three: “Aftermath and Significance – The Forgotten Disaster?” Page: 69 - Conclusions: The Importance of the Railways to Britain’s First World War Page: 87 - Bibliography Page: 92 4 | P a g e Introduction The Importance of the Railways to Britain’s War Effort The railways were crucial to enabling Britain to fulfil her First World War aims and maintain the war effort of the entire nation. The transport system, originating in the first decades of the previous century, had by the beginning of the Great War expanded to the extent that virtually every centre of population across the nation was serviced by a rail connection. Over the course of the previous decade there has been an upsurge in interest in the role of Britain’s Home Front during the First World War, and this is undoubtedly linked to the centenary commemorations of the war as a whole. This renewed focus however has centred on aspects of the war that directly influenced the course of hostilities, be that the politics behind the British war machine, the increase in munitions production, and the changing role of workers. Although it is widely accepted that the railways were a vital part of Britain’s war effort, little focus has been placed on the role they played during the conflict and how it was the railways that allowed Britain to wage a truly mechanized war. Any focus that has been placed on the railways appears to fall into one of two tendencies. The first being passing reference to the role the railways played in wider histories about First World War which, although interesting, inevitably focus on the home front during the war, or the military campaigns of the front. The second line of focus comes from the more specialized ‘Railway History’ sphere of enquiry. Whilst this line of research is much more detailed than the first line of focus, specialized railway histories prefer to investigate either the staff who operated the railways, or the place of the railways on the front lines with the War Department Light Railways sector of the Royal Engineers. This leaves 5 | P a g e the railways of mainland Britain vastly underrepresented in the histories of the railways at war, being relegated to only a handful of texts and the occasional few pages of information written in the last five decades. Furthermore, texts which do contain reference to the railways rarely acknowledge operations on the network beyond the establishment of the Railway Executive Committee as a subcommittee of general wartime governance, meaning that an entire element of Britain’s wartime story has been severely underrepresented. Invariably when investigating the role of the railways during the First World War, the term ‘Quintinshill’ is going to arise. To a non-rail enthusiast, this term can seem quite obscure, but to individuals whom hold an interest in the history of the railways, this term is the shorthand for Britain’s worst rail disaster in the long history of the transport network. Yet this disaster, the only near comparison of which being the Harrow and Wealdstone disaster of 1952 in terms of fatalities; and the Hawes junction disaster of 1910 in terms of overall damage to rolling stock, is by and large forgotten by members of the general public. Yet this disaster provides an interesting angle in which to examine the operations of the railways, both in general terms surrounding railway practices of that period, and in the more specific sphere of the railways during the First World War. In recent years, there have been a small selection of texts written focusing on the disaster itself and the significance that it plays to the story of 1915, but these texts have not used the disaster as a means of exploring and investigating operations on the railways during the First World War, and the complexities that operating a network designed in peacetime had when the wartime conditions took full precedent. Given the period of 1915 in which the Quintinshill disaster occurred, it is perhaps easy to see why general histories of the First World War may overlook this event. Happening 6 | P a g e on the 22nd of May 1915, the disaster came at the height of the so called ‘shell crisis’, wherein British forces were suffering from a severe shortage of munitions at the front lines, as well as being only weeks after the torpedo attack and subsequent sinking of RMS Lusitannia off of the coast of Ireland, with the result being 1,198 deaths on board with only 761 survivors. As well as this, the events that unfurled at Quintinshill came shortly before the collapse of the Asquith government and the establishment of the wartime coalition, as well as happening during the infamous Gallipoli and Dardanelles campaigns in Turkey. Evaluation of these other subject areas is far more prevalent in existing studies surrounding the First World War. Even within devoted texts however, the focus is more on the staff behind the disaster and the criminal trial of these men, the impact to the railway is not mentioned in any great detail, and this is something of an oversight on behalf of authors that have written before. This study will focus on the events of the Quintinshill rail disaster and examine the obvious questions that have been largely overlooked, what went wrong on the morning of the 22nd of May 1915, and was this disaster a byproduct of the wider wartime situation, with regard to pressure on the railways and the people that ran them? In order to achieve this however, it is first important to place the railways of Britain into the sphere of the wider war narrative.

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