Free Travel on the
St. Helens Canal & Railway Company's line

It has long been a tradition for those involved in transport industries to enjoy free travel to and from their places of work, be they bus drivers, train drivers or canal boatmen. This may have been an unofficial perk of the job for many, but it was a right for others.

Recent archives research uncovered a card wallet containing a parchment detailing the by-laws and rules of the St. Helens Canal & Railway Company. Having looked at this, your researcher tried to replace it in the wallet but couldn't. There was something in the way.

The something turned out to be a small piece of card, 2 ½" wide and 3 ¼ " deep, folded once across its middle. The outside was leather covered, and bore the words "ST.HELENS CANAL & RAILWAY 1859" on one half and "FREE PASS 1859" on the other. Inside was pasted a printed card which had been completed in handwriting with the details as shown below. Standard type indicates printing whilst the italics represent the hand written additions. Note the word "Engines" written up the left hand edge of the inner page.

The cardholder was C.E.Duffield Esq. of Prescot and its number was 47. In addition to the free travel on the company's trains a hand-written sentence showed that he was entitled "to walk along the line or ride on coal engines". This would seem to indicate that he held some position of responsibility in the Railway Company, but there is no indication of this on the card. As he is granted first class travel he would probably not have been a worker on the permanent way but was more likely to have played some supervisory role. The company signatory is a Mr. Arthur Sinclair. Again his position is not given. He could have been the company Secretary but until a list of Company Officials turns up this cannot be confirmed.

Perhaps we will never know who Mr. Duffield was or perhaps there is someone in the Prescot area who knows more about that name than we do. Mr Sinclair could live anywhere in the area, so there seems little chance of tracking him down, or is there? If anyone tracing their family tree comes across these names as employees of the Canal and Railway Company, we'd very much like to hear about them.

Peter Keen