As an amateur historian who studies the role and lives of women in the UK in WW1, I was very interested to see if there are any women represented in the records recently digitised by the Project. On searching the database by gender, I was able to find several entries relating to women. I immediately noticed that there was a fatal accident in which a woman was killed on the tracks while exiting from a munitions factory in Plymouth. I was interested not only to find details of the accident, but what effect this tragedy would have had on her family. I was to discover a short life full of tragedy both for her and her family.
On the 20th February 1917, Sarah Elizabeth Wakeham,(nee Dingle) aged 35, was killed after leaving her work in a munitions factory in Plymouth. I have been unable to trace the factory but the GWR’s engineering works were making munitions and artillery pieces for the Army at various locations during the War. According to the company's records, Mrs Wakeham had been working overtime at the "munitions works" but while proceeding to the exit gate, was caught on a crossing between a stationary vehicle and one being shunted and was fatally injured. It was noted that before 7pm the crossing was usually protected by a "flag man". None of the staff noticed her prior to the accident. The verdict at the inquest was "misadventure" and it was stated that the Munitions Officer should in future issue a notice to staff warning them to take care and particularly to be aware of wagons that were being shunted. The Officer should also advise the rail company whenever overtime was being worked.
Sarah was born in Plymouth on 2nd October 1886. Her father appears to have had several labouring jobs. She married Thomas Henry Wakeham in 1910. I would seem that they had been together for many years before they married as the census for 1911 shows that they had a child, Catherine, born in 1904. The census also shows that they had three children, two of whom had died by 1911. They later had a boy, Frederick John who was born in 1914. They also had a daughter, Sarah Margaret in 1914 but tragically she died a year later. According to the 1911 census, Thomas was a hawker of fruit. In the 19th C social commentator Henry Mayhew wrote, "Among the more ancient of the trades, then carried on in England, is that of the hawker or pedlar" A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells inexpensive goods, handicrafts, or food items.
On researching Thomas I made a heartbreaking discovery. Sarah was a war widow.
Thomas had died on 3rd October 1914 - very early in the war (which started in August 1914). There was no conscription at this time so he must have volunteered - surely thinking that enlisting in the army would be a good way to boost the family income. Of course, at this time, no-one knew the terrible price that would be paid by tens of thousands of men and women and their families. Thomas died of wounds received in France, where he is buried. Interestingly, records on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, that sometimes show the next of kin as wives or parents, simply state "father of Kathleen". His other children were not mentioned, Nor his wife or parents who were still alive.
So, the story I discovered was one of a widow who had lost three children by the age of 35 and who had two young children still alive, one of whom was only 5 months old when her father died and 3 years old when she was orphaned on the death of her mother. Sarah was probably working in a munitions factory to add to the family's income following the loss of her husband. By the time of her death she had lost three children, her husband and her father, who died in 1915. According to army pension records, her mother, Margaret, became her children's legal guardian and indeed I have discovered Kathleen, who lived into her 70s living with her grandmother in 1921.
Such a tragic story. A woman who had been widowed and was working hard to keep her family together, only to die before she was 40. Another example of the sacrifices of thousands of women while serving on the Home Front in the Great War.
The Details of railway worker accidents have come from the ‘Railway Work, Life & Death’ project, run by the University of Portsmouth, National Railway Museum and Modern Records Centre: www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk.
Ancestry.co.uk; British Newspaper Arcive, Wikipedia
