HENRY WEST
1829-1880s
RAILWAY CARRIER & MESSENGER
Henry West, son of Henry West, was born in Speldhurst west of Tonbridge in 1829 and as a boy, certainly of
12 and into his 20s Henry was labouring on nearby Rusthall Farm. By 1861 Henry had found less strenuous
employment as the railway messenger and was living at Station Cottage at Chiddingstone Causeway by
Penshurst station with Harriet and their four children. Like an ad hoc postman he would’ve charged a small
fee per item, be it a note or package, usually within distance limits of the station. Perhaps to alert someone
that a parcel, or even a visitor, had arrived at the station.
In the 1870s-80s the family had moved to The Square in Penshurst and had taken in lodgers, a saddler and
two bricklayers. It was on the 1881 census that Henry, now 52, was described as having an infirmity, in his
case ‘deaf’. We’ll never know if this was recent or lifelong, caused by an accident or infection. It’s possible
that being a messenger was a safer occupation to someone with hearing impairment, as opposed to working
on railway lines or powdermills for example where danger calls needed to be heard.
Henry died in 1880s and his widow Harriet, now in her 60s, continued Henry’s messenger and carrier
services. She eventually moved to Beckenham to live with her widowed daughter Emily, where she died in
1908.
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