Whatmore Family History

The building of the railways in England in the nineteenth century was a hazardous occupation for the workers. With only the most  basic of health and safety rules in place there were many preventable fatalities and little if any compensation would have been paid to the widows left without an income. This is story of one of the victims of the ‘railway fever’.

James Whatmore  was baptised  on 3 June 1787 at Micheldever, Hampshire, the son of  John Watmore and his wife Ann Holland. The line cannot be traced back further with certainty, although there was a John who was baptised at Rotherwick, Hampshire on 17 December 1758.

James married Mary Locke  on 26 Dec 1812 at East Stratton, Hampshire. They had a large family of children, all baptised at Micheldever. These are shown on the chart below.

At the time of the 1841 census, James was living with his wife and family at Southbrook, Micheldever. James is described as an agricultural labourer, although he had perhaps worked at times on the construction of the Southampton line of the London and South Western Railway.

Construction of the Southampton line had started in 1834 but lack of resources meant that progress was slow. In 1837 Joseph Locke took over as engineer, using the firm of Thomas Brassey in place of a number of small contractors, and the rate of progress greatly increased with the final stretch of line between Basingstoke and Winchester being opened on 11 May 1840. This stretch had been one of the most difficult to engineer as it crossed the Lodden, Test and Itchen valleys. Four tunnels had been created in the descent of the line into Winchester.

Some four miles north of Winchester a tunnel about 300 yards long was cut at Wallers Ash. The following description appeared in the issue of ‘The Times’ for 4 April 1842:

 ‘The hill through which [the tunnel] passes is of a chalky character and the excavation being greater than necessary, a vacant space was left in some places between the cutting and the brickwork. Within 30 or 40 feet of the southern extremity of the tunnel a shaft had been sunk to serve as a ventilator for the excavators. This shaft which was intended to be merely temporary whilst the cutting was being made, had been left un-shored up since the completion of the tunnel and must have admitted great moisture to act on its own loose soil, which, on being detached, would, of course, fall upon the brick arch of the tunnel. At the bottom of the shaft was one of those intervals between the cutting and the brickwork which I have endeavoured to explain, and in consequence, it is supposed, of the continued wet weather, a considerable portion of the lower soil had fallen upon the brick arch which ultimately gave way under the great additional pressure’  

A few days earlier, it had been noticed that the brick arch was ‘complaining’; and steps had been taken at once to reduce the pressure of earth above it and  to construct a shield within the tunnel itself. A number of men had been employed at this work, including James Whatmore and two of his sons, and they had worked night and day at the task. James and his sons were part of the gang above the tunnel removing soil whilst another gang worked within the tunnel.

 Click to enlarge

The railway at Wallers Ash (in a cutting between the hedge stretching into the distance)   Photograph copyright: Peter Jordan  Source: Geograph website and reproduced here in accordance with the terms of the site licence which can be read at this link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Early on the Saturday morning on which the disaster occurred, whilst the men were at work, the arch beneath the shaft began to move. The watchman below was able to warn those above the tunnel, but it seems that they continued to work. About an hour later, about ten minutes to eight in the morning, there a slight rumbling noise followed by the collapse of the platforms on which the men were working and they fell some considerable distance with tons of chalk falling down on them. Those working in the tunnel luckily manage to run outside to safety.

The survivors started at once to dig for their comrades but it was not until some four hours later that the last one of the missing men was found, having fallen right down to the  rail track.

The casualties were reported as follows:

James Watmore aged 58, a married man with a family   -  dead

James Allert aged 23, single  - dead

James Batchelor aged 22, single  - dead

Charles Knight aged 24, married – much injured

Daniel Lawes aged 23, single – severely injured

John Gamble,aged 22, single – severely injured

John and Thomas Watmore, single – slightly bruised.

The report in ‘The Times’ got some of the men’s details wrong. James Watmore would have been aged about 55 and although he had a son called John he did not have a son called Thomas, His sons were John, Daniel, William, James, Henry and Francis.

It is not known whether James’ widow Mary received any compensation from the Railway Company. She did not long survive her husband, and probably died in 1846. The churchyard at Micheldever where they would have been buried has been ‘tidied’ and the gravestones stacked up against the walls, so it is longer possible to locate  their grave.