Charles Henry Haynes was born in Shustoke on 9th March 1858. His parents were Henry Haynes and Emma Smith.
Henry started work as an agricultural labourer, but by the time of the 1871 census he was working as a platelayer on the railways and living in the railway cottages close by his work.
Charles’ mother, Emma, had a large family to look after and there is no evidence to suggest that she either worked, or undertook any in-house activities to supplement the famiy’s income.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the railways employed large proportions of the British population. To give some idea, by 1850 a quarter of a million workers had been involved in laying tracks for the new railway lines. As the railways developed, personnel were also employed in ancillary occupations and in the day to day operations of the rail service. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that Charles followed in his father’s footsteps and took up employment with the railways, being variously recorded as a railway labourer and a platelayer.
On 24th April 1877 Charles married Jane Maddock. Over the next few years Jane gave birth to three children, two sons and a daughter. Richard was the youngest born on the 2nd February 1882.
For those working on the railways hardship and danger were everyday encounters. Railway companies sometimes operated with a ruthlessness that cost the lives of thousands of workers, who were being killed at the rate of nearly 500 a year in the 1880s and 1890s. We should therefore not be surprised that a tragedy was about to befall the Haynes family.
Shortly after Richard’s birth Charles went to work as normal. It was dank and foggy as Charles set to work. We’re not sure of all the details but it is recorded that Charles “accidentally came into contact with a railway engine in a fog.” He suffered a fractured skull and lacerations to his right leg. He died immediately. The date was 4th March 1882. He was buried in Castle Bromwich graveyard on the 9th March.
Accidents to platelayers were common as the health and safety of workers was not given due consideration. Platelayers commonly lost their lives due to contact with trains in the fog. Concerns were raised in Parliament:
ACCIDENT TO PLATELAYERS (GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY)
HC Deb 30 April 1897 vol 48 c1350
(Northampton, E.) I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has received information as to the fatal accident to platelayers during fog on the Great Northern Railway, near Peterborough, on Wednesday; whether he can state what precautions were taken to protect the gang of platelayers, and especially whether a man was placed to watch for approaching trains; whether fog signals or any appliance for warning the men was employed; and whether one of the Inspectors of the Board of Trade will hold an inquiry into the accident?
Little was to improve over the coming decades. In 1913 nearly 30,000 railway employees suffered injuries at work, including over 460 deaths. This was the cost of keeping the railway system running, but the scale of the safety problem was largely unknown by the public – then, as now.
