Remembering the Old Hands Part the 1st. Adrian Vaughan* Railway Historian and Brunel Biographer My great-grandfather, Francis Cook, was a GWR engine driver. I never met him but I was told a lot about him by my Granny and the rest I learned from GWR Staff Registers. Francis was born in 1860 and started on the GWR as an engine cleaner at Chippenham on 15th March 1875. The mixed gauge had been installed the year before he joined and the Calne branch had been converted to standard gauge. His entry into service was recorded on the next page blank in the massive ledger Staff Register. That page number was 1976. Until page 1977 was written on, Francis was the most junior member of the Locomotive Department.
wait outside of the station and try to wrestle his wage packet off him. He became a ‘Second Class fireman at Bristol in February 1884 earning 4/3d a day. He would have worked the faster goods trains and local passenger trains. He went on a threeday binge in August 1884 and was written down as ‘Absent without leave’. When he did turn up at Bath Road depot he was not sufficiently recovered to be allowed to work; he was suspended for that day and fined £1. None of these misdemeanours affected his promotions. Men were not, as one old hand told me 60 years ago, ‘sacked yer soon as look at yer’.
From Cleaner to Fireman
Becoming a First Class Fireman
From September 1875, he was a ‘Pilot’ fireman, a ‘Passed Cleaner’ in more modern parlance: an ‘As required’ fireman. He would have been on the station shunter and the Dauntsey banker sometimes. His pay was three shillings a day. On 28th of February 1882 he became a fully-fledged ‘Third Class’ fireman at Chippenham earning three shillings and ninepence a day. He was lucky the vacancy was there and not miles away. A railwayman did not apply for promotion, he got it when he was senior enough to move up into the next grade. The older men, with families, sometimes did not want the promotion and appealed – unsuccessfully - against because of the considerable inconvenience and disruption a move would cause him and his family. Such cases can be seen in the GWR Staff Registers at the National Archives. Knowing of much later events I am sure Francis liked working with steam engines, but he had a problem: his liking for beer. My granny had told me of the hardship that caused his family. One month after becoming a goods train fireman he was suspended from duty for nine days for ‘not coming on duty to take his train.’ Nine days with no pay. Granny told me her mother, Katherine, used to *Adrian Vaughan was born in Reading in January 1941 and grew up closely in touch with the GWR and its nationalised successor. He was a volunteer porter at Challow station from 1953 to 1956, during which time he learned how to drive a steam engine and work a signal box. In 1960, after 4½ years in the army, he joined the staff of Challow and became a signalman at Uffington a few months later. He was a signalman for fourteen years and an amateur footplateman for six. He produced his first book on his beloved railway in 1971 and has produced over thirty books to date. 46
GREAT WESTERN STAR MAGAZINE
Spring 2021
In November 1888, he became a First-Class fireman at Taunton earning 4/9d a day. The mixed gauge had arrived at Taunton 12 years earlier on its way to Exeter. The Barnstaple, Yeovil and Minehead branches were standard gauge. The Broad Gauge was in use till May 1892 but by 1888, most trains were hauled by standard gauge engines. Only trains going west of Exeter were sure to be Broad Gauge. A year after arriving at Taunton his pay increased to five shillings a day. Three months later 17th March 1890, he went before the locomotive inspector at Swindon for his oral exam on the safety rules and on his knowledge of the mechanisms of the engine and the rules for safe working. He failed.
Becoming a Driver
On 13th April 1891 he was summoned to Swindon for the driver’s. He passed and was appointed a ‘3rd Class driver. That covered shunting and local goods work. He was ordered to Southall as an ‘Engine turner’ - moving locos within the depot. His wages were 5/6d a day. There is no record of him being paid for the costs of moving his household to Southall. Maybe moving engines around the engine shed yard made him bad tempered for on 14th September 1891 he was asked to release his fireman to go and relieve a fireman who had been on duty for over 12 hours. He refused and was fined two shillings. By June he had graduated to driving goods trains. On 28th he was approaching Southall and told his fireman they would stop at the water column at the London end of the Up Relief line platform to take water. The tender did not need water. He caused a passenger train to be delayed outside the station and was fined two shillings. The tender had no need for water, but I think he had
