AMBULANCE ASSISTANT AT RAILWAY WORKS
Working at the Brighton Works assisting medical staff, later Annie became a nurse at a mental
hospital
Annie was one of at least nine children born to Esther Philcox and her laundry carrier husband
Thomas residing at 9 Toronto Terrace, Brighton in the 1890s. In 1911, aged 24, she was working
as a parlour maid in Paddington, and then in 1921, in her 30s, Annie was describing herself as an
‘ambulance assistant at the Brighton Loco Works’ for LB&SC Railway.
Annie was likely attached to a Corps of first aiders trained by the St John’s Ambulance. In an
industry where so many thousands of accidents occurred, not only in urban shunting and goods
yards but in isolated rural locations too – so having a proportion of railway workers themselves
trained up in first aid and other medical procedures was a vital supply of immediate medical
assistance when an injury or accident took place. Railway Companies built up their own first aid
Ambulance Movements, offering regular training and awarding badges and medals at large civic
ceremonies for those who’d passed the annual refresher exams that had been introduced in 1905.
Staff deserving of special attention, who had perhaps saved a life, were nominated for the Order of
St John.
The teaching of first aid to industrial workforces was the reason the St John Ambulance Association
was founded in 1877.
