A few years ago I was looking at the grave of Thomas and Susan Whatmore in Arley churchyard and on clearing away the grass from the base of the stone noticed that the memorial also recorded the death of their son Samuel, aged 20, in 1881. Samuel was the nephew of my great great grandmother Sarah Whatmore. I asked a descendant about Samuel and was told that according to family tradition he was killed in a railway accident. I tried to find details in the local newspapers and in ‘The Times’ but without success and eventually forgot about the matter. Then, some weeks ago Sheila Kirk, my distant cousin, sent me a photocopy of a letter written to the ‘Kidderminster Shuttle’ in 1881 which referred to an accident at Arley in 1881. Unfortunately the issue of the newspaper which would have reported the actual accident, was missing from the files, so what actually happened has to be reconstructed from the letter. The dates fitted the death of Samuel Whatmore so I sent for his death certificate which confirmed that on 17 July 1881 he had been run over by a locomotive at Arley in the county of Stafford.

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 The grave at Arley of Samuel Whatmore and his parents. Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

 Samuel Whatmore was born in  1861 and baptised on 11 August 1861 at Upper Arley church. His parents were Thomas Whatmore and Susan (nee Sheward). Thomas was born in 1831 at the Court House in Highley, the son of James Whatmore and Ann (nee Lowe). The Court House belonged to his mother’s brother Thomas Lowe. Thomas arrived in Arley sometime before 1861, and in that year was lodging with Hannah Sheward whose daughter Susan he married at Upper Arley on 21 May 1861. Thomas and Susan had eight children, the eldest being Samuel. Samuel was living at home at the time of the 1871 and 1881 censuses, and in the latter he is described as ‘Railway Porter’.

The letter, in the Kidderminster Shuttle’, from ‘One Many years in the Service’ is as follows:

‘Sir - I had your paper of the 23rd ult. put into my hand the other day, with an enquiry as to what I thought of the evidence given at the inquest held on the body of the young man killed at Arley station. Before going any further, let us see what the station master and Mr Wyatt testified the lad did not do, but what all the lads at the stations on this line do, and are put to do. They said that the lad had nothing whatever to do with working the signals. This is not the fact. The lad always worked the signals himself.  As a proof of this, go to Arley now. There is a novice there in plain clothes. The station master stands at the office door, and this lad works the signals. If this is not his work, why is Mr Pearson having him do it. Again, they said the lad had nothing to do with  the points. How they could stand before a jury and say so I cannot understand. The lad always attended to the points when goods trains were shunting, the station master seldom or never interfering. What else did this lad do? Why, he attended to the block instrument, kept the office clean, trimmed all the lamps, and took the signal lamps out and fetched them back. But on this day he was on duty nineteen hours. Yes! But these men said he could go home and have a rest at different times. Well, we will see what the rule says on this point. Rule 7, page 5, says: ‘No servant of the company must absent himself from duty, nor exchange duty with any other servant, without the special permission of his superior officer’. We have no evidence to tell us that this lad was told he might go home for an hour or two to rest himself. These lads also book passengers, assist to make out the returns - in fact they do most of the work at the station, and the head officials at Worcester know it, because I have seen them there when the lad was doing it. Rather than it should be shown on the returns that half a pint of common rape oil more was burnt this month, costing the company one penny, the lad’s life was sacrificed to fetch the lamp in, after nineteen hours’ duty’.

I have been unable to find an actual report of this accident, nor have I been able to see details of the inquest, so I cannot ascertain the truth of the matter and thus I make no comment.

Samuel was buried at Arley on 20 July 1881. The memorial, with a cross now missing, above where he is buried, was probaly errected when his mother died in 1904, the inscription to his memory being placed on the base stone at that time.

Rest in peace Samuel, you are not forgotten.

I am most grateful to Sheila Kirk for sending me the letter and details of Samuel’s baptism and burial.

On a happier note, the stretch of the Severn Valley Railway between Bridgnorth and Kidderminster has been restored and steam trains operated by volunteers now operate throughout the year. The stations have been  rennovated and made to look as they did some hundred years ago.

For pictures of Arley station as it was and as it is now follow this link: http://www.arleystation.org.uk/index.html

In 1980 the BBC screened a series of films about the Severn Valley Railway, filmed near Arley. The series was  called ‘ God’s Wonderful Railway’. The stories on which the films were based, written by Avril Rowlands were published by the BBC and  it might be possible to find second hand copies. ‘Permanent Way’ tells the story of the building of the line and is set in Arley. ‘Clear Ahead’ and ‘Fire on the Line’ continue the story.