THIS week in Down Memory Lane we visit Tilbury Town and look at its links to the London, Tilbury & Southend Railway.

With its stations, sidings and major works at the Triangle outside Tilbury Riverside Station, many local people worked for the railway companies including station masters, porters, ticket sales, engine drivers, boilerman, fireman, secondman, brakesman, guard, ticket inspector, signalman, plate layers and many more behind the scenes.

I recently received the kind gift to Thurrock Museum of a National Union of Railwayman regalia, originating from the Tilbury Branch. The NUR was an industrial union founded in 1913 by the merger of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (founded 1872), the United Pointsmen and Signalmen’s Society (founded 1880) and the General Railway Workers’ Union (founded 1889).

It represented the majority of railway workers, but not white-collar workers, who were members of the Railway Clerks’ Association (founded 1897, later the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association).

NUR membership was open to drivers and firemen but most chose to be members of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (founded 1880).

In 1914 the NUR joined forces with the National Transport Workers’ Federation and Mining Federation of Great Britain to form the Triple Alliance. In 1919 the NUR and ASLEF jointly organised a national railway strike, which prevented a proposed wage reduction and won an eight-hour maximum working day.

In 1990 the NUR merged with the National Union of Seamen to form the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) and ceased to exist as a separate union.

I can find little on the activities of the Tilbury Branch although the Tilbury Branch Brass Band was formed in 1919 and lives on in the current Tilbury Band.

Some aspects of this will be revealed in my lecture on the history of Tilbury Town, hosted by the Thurrock Local History Society, at Thameside Theatre on November 4 at 7.30pm, tickets from the box office.