Phyllis Mary Peters – Railway Clerk

The first woman to be employed in the Great Western Railway Swindon Works’ offices is believed to have been Elsie May Calladine. Elsie started work in the Mileage Office on January 1, 1912 aged 14. She is pictured far right at the end of the second row in this fantastic photograph taken in 1916 and reproduced in The Great Western at Swindon Works by Alan S. Peck. New mechanised account systems introduced in January 1913 and an expansion of office space saw increasing numbers of women clerks employed in the GWR Swindon Works’ offices, numbers which escalated during the years of the First World War.

I have been able to trace all of the young women pictured here in 1916 wearing their ‘uniform’ of smart long dark skirt and white high necked blouse with tie strings and bows.

In the second row, third from the right, is Freda Dening, one of two talented sisters about whom I have previously written. In the front row, seated third from the left, is Miss Gladys Florence Alice Noble, supervisor in the Freight Statistics, Addressograph offices and pictured in the centre of the back row is Mabel E. Carpenter, who married her second husband in 1973 when she was 74 years old and he was 89. Her husband was Frederick William Hawksworth, the last Chief Mechanical Engineer at the Swindon Works, who was previously thought to have never married. The couple lived at 30 Tithe Barn Crescent where Frederick died in 1976 and Mabel in 1982.

Pictured at the left end of the third row is Phyllis Mary Peters. Phyllis was born on November 14, 1899, the youngest of four children. Her father John was an engine fitter and the birth place of his children indicate his movement across the railway factories of the north east. Edgar was born in Newcastle and Lucy in Gateshead while Winifred and Phyllis were born after the family arrived in Swindon. Phyllis began work in the GWR Swindon Works’ offices on December 13, 1915, just after her 16^th birthday.

At the time of the pre-war census in 1939 Phyllis was living with her widowed mother Lucy at 45 Goddard Avenue where she stated her occupation as that of Railway Clerk. As an unmarried woman Phyllis had been able to continue her career.

Phyllis died at St Margaret’s Hospital on April 14, 1957. She left effects valued at more than £10,000 (a legacy of her many years employed in the Works) to her two nephews, her sister Lucy’s sons.

Phyllis was buried in grave plot E7773, which she shares with her parents and her sister Lucy.

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