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Monday 9 Dec 2024

Search is on for UK’s longest-serving railway family

Can you beat Mike, from Ely, and son Andrew, from Croydon, whose rail roots date from 1846? 

A nationwide heritage hunt launches today (9 December) to discover the person with the longest-serving railway family.  Is it you or a member of your clan? 

The search for the longest, continuous cross-generational railway family in the UK is part of the build-up to next year’s celebration of 200 years of the modern railway, inspired by the launch of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825, which changed the world forever. 

Called Railway 200, the year-long programme of anniversary activities and events in 2025 will celebrate railway people, their pride, passion and professionalism.  The youngest representative of the UK’s oldest rail family will be invited to some of the many celebratory events planned.

At the top of the UK rail family tree so far are father and son Mike and Andrew Lamport whose railway lineage dates to 1846, a boom time for railway towns like Swindon, Crewe and Doncaster, when William IV was on the throne and after train carriage roofs had been introduced for Third Class passengers.

Mike, 76, from Ely in Cambridgeshire, enjoyed a long and distinguished career in the railway, retiring in 2008.  Son Andrew, 27, from Croydon, followed in his father’s footsteps and now works as a guard for South Western Railway, based at London Waterloo. 

Mike has traced his uninterrupted railway roots back to April 1846 when his great, great grandfather Matthew Mathews joined the original South Western Railway as ‘Porter No.18’ at Richmond station in Surrey. 

Promotion saw him move to Waterloo station to become a passenger guard on the Waterloo to Portsmouth line, via Guildford, when it opened in 1859.  

Two years later, on the evening of 28 January 1861, Matthew was one of the heroes of a train crash at Epsom Junction, now known as Raynes Park. A grateful railway management soon appointed him to the role of District Inspector at Bishopstoke, later renamed Eastleigh, before offering him the relatively sinecure post as station master at the newly-opened Shawford station where he remained until his retirement in April 1896. He died in 1904.  

Following in Matthew’s footsteps, all four of his sons also went on to enjoy 50-year railway careers. They and their sons and grandsons continued the family tradition of railway service, one becoming a ‘Top Hat’ station master at Waterloo station. The last member of the Mathews railway family retired in 1964.  

Mike takes up his family’s story:

Meanwhile the Lamport branch of the family line joined the railway when my father, another Matthew, started at the Southern Railway in 1937 as a signal lad at Liphook, retiring from British Rail in 1986 as station master at Haslemere in Surrey. I joined BR in 1964, retiring from the railway 44 years later. I’ve since served continuously on several railway heritage bodies and am currently a member of the Railway Heritage Trust Advisory Panel and a voluntary adviser to Railway 200.  

The railway baton was passed to my son Andrew who is a passenger guard with South Western Railway based at Waterloo, just as Matthew had been 160 years before him. I hope Andrew will continue to fly the rail flag for many years to come and, who knows, he might still be on the rails in 2046, making it a 200-year record for our railway relatives.

Alan Hyde, on behalf of Railway 200, said:

The railway is like a family, and its 300,000 people are its beating heart.  There are many inter-generational railway families serving on the network today.  We’d love to hear from anyone who can beat the Lamports’ impressive rail pedigree, hopefully stretching back to 1825, the birth of the modern railway, or even earlier.

Rail staff claiming railway ancestry before April 1846 are invited to email railway200@gbrtt.co.uk with their contact details, and the Railway 200 team will get in touch. 

For more information about Railway 200 visit www.railway200.co.uk