The modern Ishmaels? Navvy communities in the High Peak

Abstract

The railway navvy is an elusive and rather obscure figure for the family and community historian. He is traditionally regarded as a single, hard-working, hard-drinking, hardfighting Irishman who was a perpetual outsider, isolated from the communities in his working neighbourhood. This article examines these stereotypes through a study of the navvy community engaged in building the Dore and Chinley railway line, linking Sheffield and Manchester, between 1888 and 1894. In addition to reviewing the composition of the navvy workforce, the relationship between the navvies and the resident communities is also examined. The analysis rests primarily on data from the 1891 census but also uses evidence from several other sources, including newspaper reports, parish registers, school records and local authority records.

School Records, Family Migration and Community History: Insights from Sudbrook and the Construction of the Severn Tunnel

“…census-based studies have a!ready charted key changes in the community profi!e of this vi! !age (Gant 1983;2006). Through an emphasis on people, place and environment, this study extends that work and blends information derived from the Admission Register for Sudbrook (Mixed) School 1881-iH^)6 and Severn Tunnel School Log Book 188^-1^1^ with church records, civil register materials and other local sources to reconstitute case histories of family migration linked to the wider processes of economic change and labour migration (Mi!…”