SR Railway Service Badges

[sem34090]

Mornin' all!

 

I've spent the past few hours doing train simulator stuff and didn't realise the time, but meant to post this earlier.

 

I've just bought an SR issue Railway Service badge, as issued to railway company employees during the Second World War as part of their being in a reserved occupation to clearly mark that they were not actively avoiding military service, or so I gather.

I've bought this for use as part of my SR uniform that is worn whilst on duty at Medstead and Four Marks station on the Mid Hants Railway. Obviously for our wartime events it is suitable but I was wondering for how long after the war the badges were worn by staff? Medstead usually resides happily in 1948, so would the wearing of such a badge as this be appropriate then? 

 

Also, how were the badges worn? I'm assuming in the standard buttonhole position, given the fixing. Any help is very much appreciated!

 

- sem34090

[petethemole]

I thought they were supposed to be worn when not in company uniform, to show they weren't avoiding service, so it wouldn't be appropriate on a uniform jacket. I have my paternal grandfather's WW1 equivalent, the "ON WAR SERVICE" lapel badge; he was an engineer in the armaments industry and would have worn civilian clothes to work. They were introduced because the people who made the guns and other hardware were being given white feathers in the street.

[Steamport Southport]

I thought they were supposed to be worn when not in company uniform, to show they weren't avoiding service, so it wouldn't be appropriate on a uniform jacket. I have my paternal grandfather's WW1 equivalent, the "ON WAR SERVICE" lapel badge; he was an engineer in the armaments industry and would have worn civilian clothes to work. They were introduced because the people who made the guns and other hardware were being given white feathers in the street.

 

Yes. Also most railway office workers would have worn office clothes rather than uniforms so they would need one.

 

 

 

Jason

[sem34090]

Ah... I see...

 

My decision to purchase one was mostly dictated by a photograph of my Great-Grandfather on my maternal side. He was a guard out of Lovers Walk (Brighton) and the photo shows a badge of a similar size and shape on his uniform. He'd joined the LBSCR aged 14 in 1917, so could possibly have had a WWI badge as well, though this doesn't appear to be on the SR uniform (which makes sense). As such I thought that they must have been issued to uniformed staff (he is in uniform in the photo) and worn on uniforms even if that wasn't the official instruction. What puzzled me was how the badge was being worn much lower on the lapel than I would have imagined.

 

Unfortunately the only guidelines my Grandmother can give me is that it was taken at 268  Queens Park Road, Brighton sometime before (I think she said) 1951.

 

I am of course making the (what I believe to be fair) assumption that the Central Division was the same as the Western Division (of the Southern) when it came to these sorts of things. Would orders on the badges have been issued centrally from Waterloo or locally from Brighton in the case of my Great-Grandfather? If so then the advice may have been different to that which would have, theoretically, been issued to me at Medstead & Four Marks on the Western Division.

Edited November 25, 2018 by sem34090

[bécasse]

Such badges unquestionably existed for the Great War, not least because, until conscription was introduced in 1916, one could avoid going to war by just not signing up. In fact, many railwaymen did volunteer, which made it difficult for the railways to carry essential war traffic and so they introduced these badges so that those that the company's persuaded to stay could show that they, too, were on a form of essential war service.

 

However, I much more doubtful whether they existed during WWII, I have certainly never seen an authenticated one (and given that I was born just after the conflict I might reasonably have expected to have seen at least the odd one). Conscription existed from the start of WWII and hence, quite quickly, anyone who wasn't in the forces clearly had some good reason (including being in a protected occupation) for not being so. Hence there was little need for badges of this sort.

 

I suspect that this badge is no more than a trinket with no real railway link at all.

[sem34090]

They were most certainly produced - this I have checked. They were identically issued (save initials) to the SR, GWR, LMS, LNER and possibly LT (Though I'm not sure on that last one). Before purchasing I double checked that much! They were produced during the Second World War in the style that I have purchased. Although conscription was in force I think it was to discourage abuse towards railway employees, and (as mentioned above) especially those railway employees who weren't in uniform. To some people you were a shirker until you could prove otherwise.

This page offers the information shown below: http://www.ournewhaven.org.uk/page_id__2083.aspx

 

 

During WW2, railway employees were considered to be important enough to ensure that the transport would keep running that they were placed into the "Reserved Occupation" category which meant that they would not get called up for Military service. To identify this fact, they were each issued with a brass & enamel oval lapel badge similar to the one shown here. Each of the badges of the four Railway Companies were similar in shape, but each Company had their own initals underneath the blue enamel strip (Southern Railway in this case) and a different locomotive above. Each badge had a serial number stamped on the back which was registered at headquarters so that the owner could be identified.

So it seems the badges were also a form of identification which also makes sense - If a member of railway staff was killed and their body maimed beyond recognition there is a possibility they could be identified by their badge.

EDIT: This page offers more information - https://hatchfive.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/lms-railway-service-badge/comment-page-1/

Edited November 25, 2018 by sem34090

[Wickham Green]

They were most certainly produced - this I have checked. They were identically issued (save initials) to the SR, GWR, LMS, LNER and possibly LT (Though I'm not sure on that last one). Before purchasing I double checked that much! They were produced during the Second World War in the style that I have purchased. Although conscription was in force I think it was to discourage abuse towards railway employees, and (as mentioned above) especially those railway employees who weren't in uniform. To some people you were a shirker until you could prove otherwise.

This page offers the information shown below: http://www.ournewhaven.org.uk/page_id__2083.aspx

So it seems the badges were also a form of identification which also makes sense - If a member of railway staff was killed and their body maimed beyond recognition there is a possibility they could be identified by their badge.

EDIT: This page offers more information - https://hatchfive.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/lms-railway-service-badge/comment-page-1/

Odd that the second website DOESN'T list London Transport - but I suspect that a trawl of the L.T. Museum would find one.

 

( As for each type having '.... a different locomotive above.' ............. well, I can't read the numberplates but they all look very much like the same class of locomotive.)

[sem34090]

They're all Castles. The only known variation to that, as far as I know, are the ones marked MHR issued by the Mid Hants Railway for (I think) 25 years service which feature a rebuilt Merchant Navy.

[bécasse]

Odd that the second website DOESN'T list London Transport - but I suspect that a trawl of the L.T. Museum would find one.

 

( As for each type having '.... a different locomotive above.' ............. well, I can't read the numberplates but they all look very much like the same class of locomotive.)

 

My father was an LPTB bus driver throughout WWII (also a reserved occupation). The fact that no similar badge featured among his collection (although his National Fire Service badge did - he also drove fire engines in his "spare" time) was one of the things that made me doubt that the rail service badge was genuine because I find it very difficult to believe that if LPTB gave badges to their rail staff then the T&GWU didn't insist that similar badges were provided for bus (& tram) drivers. It may well be that LPTB didn't give them to rail staff in the same way that the main line rail companies apparently did.

[sem34090]

It is more than possible that LT didn't issue them, but outside of that it seems that most (all?) companies issued them.

[sem34090]

Image taken from here: https://preservation.watercressline.co.uk/blog/entry/women-on-the-railway-in-wwii

Well, I think this is as good enough evidence as I'm going to get. A photo of the Alresford station staff (so two stations down from Medstead and Four Marks) taken in May 1946 in which three of the staff are wearing the badges, at least two of them being porters, I reckon. It's Western Division and there is the possibility that, by this date, some of the staff shown would also have been responsible for some of the other stations in the vicinity.

[Dunsignalling]

They're all Castles. The only known variation to that, as far as I know, are the ones marked MHR issued by the Mid Hants Railway for (I think) 25 years service which feature a rebuilt Merchant Navy.

I'd think the presence of a GWR loco image on badges issued to employees of other railways suggests they might have originated at governmental level rather than the individual companies. 

 

If the SR, LMS, LNER had made or commissioned the badges individually, I'd expect them to incorporate a loco (or other appropriate symbol) of their own.

 

The presence of a GWR loco may be a hint, however, that they were the first to issue the WW2 version and the ministry took it up.

 

John

Edited November 30, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[Right Away]

I also have my late father's badge - he was firing on the Southern throughout the war years, passing the driving exam in the late Forties.

 

My question is, during the conflict, was it not only footplate, signalling and maintenance grades that were extended Reserved Occupation status?

Edited November 30, 2018 by Right Away

[sem34090]

Looking at the photo it would seem that is possible. Two of the staff have apparently been replaced by female employees, suggesting that the lower grades weren't reserved. A few of the other staff look to be too old to serve, and (being 1946) it is possible that the remainder of the male staff (the badge-less ones perhaps?) had served and returned. 

 

Although my 'occupation' (junior porter) would not have been reserved -I shouldn't think- but my age means that I wouldn't have been eligible for military service for two years yet. Given the number, it is possible that the badges were issued to all employees at the time as a form of identification.

 

At any rate, I like it and as far as I can currently tell it's authentic until proven otherwise!

[Dunsignalling]

There were plenty of rail staff who volunteered for military service in WW2 and they had to be replaced, hence the number of women evident in photos of the time.

 

I don't think grade had much to do with it and the work of a junior porter back then encompassed pretty much every unpleasant task anyone else was clever enough to get out of - as it probably always has.

 

My brother's ex-wife had a relative who was a wartime signalwoman on the GWR in South Devon and didn't want to give it up after hostilities ceased.

 

John

Edited November 30, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[sem34090]

By unpleasant tasks would that include:

• Lamp filling
• Toilet cleaning
• Platform sweeping
• Plant watering
• Tea making
• Fire making

 

If so then I'm glad I live up to the title!

[Dunsignalling]

By unpleasant tasks would that include:

• Lamp filling
• Toilet cleaning
• Platform sweeping
• Plant watering
• Tea making
• Fire making

 

If so then I'm glad I live up to the title!

And then some.

[sem34090]

I'm just mentioning the sanitised heritage railway equivalents that I'm allowed to do without a PTS certificate...

[Welchester]

Schedule of reserved occupations (1939) is here:

 

http://anguline.co.uk/Free/Reserved.pdf

 

It was posted on rmweb somewhere else. I can't remember by whom.

[sem34090]

So Porter was reserved over a certain age, but I'm too young to join up and am none too keen to be packed off to France to fight through lying about my age!

[Dunsignalling]

I'm just mentioning the sanitised heritage railway equivalents that I'm allowed to do without a PTS certificate...

Not just the case on heritage railways. I didn't hold a PTS card for my final several years with NR on the grounds that, as a signaller in a one-person box, I provided my own protection.

 

This saved on the cost of PTS courses and refreshers, but I was never entirely happy that it fulfilled the spirit of the rules in that I almost always had to work in the overlap of the home signal which, IMHO, meant I shouldn't accept a train from that direction until I had walked back to the box.

 

With the (then) mechanical points at maximum permissible distance from the box, that would, of course, have led to significant delays.

 

The procedure didn't go so far as to require me to give myself a line blockage, but I always suspected that it would have been only been a matter of time but for the cost of training us all in taking (as well as granting) line blockages.

 

John  

Edited November 30, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[sem34090]

Ah, see I need one before I'm permitted trackside unsupervised and currently I'm too young. That said, it's not as if I never go trackside - lamp lighting duty (signals) is fun. Personally I think it's a shame we're currently switching to electric lamps at Medstead.